The Ascendance

Chapter 7 - The Training Begins

As the day passed by, the training of Joffiel began.

“Joffiel, during our training, you would notice that your tasks will be much harder than the other angels of your age,” Angel Zai spoke with Joffiel.

Joffiel does not even show any sign of discomfort, instead she has a big smile on her face.

“I really cannot understand you, Joffiel. But I’m very happy that you are that willing to train,” Angel Zai said.

Well, I understand the reason behind this. She’s not an ordinary angel, but she’s on the same level with us. Guess it’s the reason that I am her mentor. Angel Zai speaks her mind.

Joffiel does not know that Angel Zai is supposedly assigned as a mentor on the last stage of being a true angel.

“Throughout your five years of training, you needed to work out your emotions. That’s the biggest thing we needed you to master. I knew that our Creator has told you already about your emotions and this is my first time training someone over this kind of thing so I needed you to cooperate very seriously about this,” Angel Zai said.

“I understand, Angel Zai,” Joffiel replied.

“Through all of your tasks during this training, you need to notify me if you ever feel there’s something wrong with your emotions, we need to take note of every aspect that could change your emotions,” Angel Zai said.

“I will try to tell you everything that I feel, Angel Zai,” Joffiel politely said.

“First, you need to follow me,” Angel Zai instructed.

Both of them went to a certain part of Heaven where they could see a screen that displays what’s happening to a certain part of the human world.

Joffiel was amazed that they could see what’s happening on the earth.

“If we could see them here, why do we need to go down to the human world,” Joffiel asked.

“We go down to the human world, right? How can you compare being there and just watching through here?” Angel Zai answered through questions.

“Ohh, I feel that you could barely see the emotions displayed here and the atmosphere is kind of different. Being able to see the surroundings aside from this screen would give additional information for us to understand what’s happening there,” Joffiel answered.

“That’s right, you could understand something like that by yourself. That’s very good,” Angel Zai said.

Joffiel was happy about the praise given to her by Angel Zai.

Angel Zai points her finger to one of the human beings seen on the screen, “So, for your training, you needed to know about certain things about this person. By the end of one month, you needed to know his favorites, from basic things like colors and food up to complex things like his hobbies and his favorite person.”

Joffiel agreed and asked a question, “How often could I watch here?”

“Anytime you want, just approach me if you need something. You could also play with the other angels if you wanted just make sure you could finish your tasks,” Angel Zai answered.

“Thank you, Angel Zai. I’m very happy that you became my mentor,” Joffiel said.

“You’re welcome, Joffiel. Also, make sure you learn a thing from watching that human. As we will also train you to act like a human being for you to be able to finish your main tasks, easily,” Angel Zai replied.

Angel Zai added, “You could stay here, I’m pretty sure you already know how to get here and go to the other angels. I needed to go to a meeting with the Creator and other mentors. Good bye and take care, Joffiel.”

“Okay, Angel Zai. I will do my very best here. Thank you for everything,” Joffiel replied.

Angel Zai left Joffiel and proceeded to go to her meeting.

Joffiel just observed the human that was assigned to her. The human she’s observing is a male which is almost the same as her age. The appearance of the human appears to be on the same level as an angel which made Joffiel feel very familiar to him.

According to her old mentor, humans describe angels as almost a perfect being and Joffiel agreed with that since all of the angels she met is perfect in her eyes.

She learns that the human’s name is Jayden. Jayden is currently having a class which gives Joffiel a chance to also listen to Jayden’s teacher.

The topic is about geometry, she’s not familiar with what the teacher was talking about. Since she feels that she would not gain anything, she decided to go to the other angels.

“Joffiel, how’s the start of your training?” Anna asked as Joffiel went to them.

“I’m very excited about my tasks, I’d never thought that those kinds of things existed,” Joffiel answered as she sat next to the host*.

“Ohh, you’re talking about the screen that displays the human world, right? That’s really cool. The first task is a bit hard but if it’s you, I think that it would be easy,” Anna replied.

“You’re talking about the tasks that you needed to determine one’s favorite person? Doing those tasks is very exciting, I thought that I couldn’t do it in one year. But I’m glad that I did it,” one of the angels said.

“One year?” Joffiel replied.

“Yes, I finished mine in 11 months. I think you could do it in just six month,” Anna answered.

This is what Angel Zai was talking about, having my tasks to be harder than others. Joffiel lost in thought and snapped back in reality.

Joffiel just laughed at what Anna had said, “I just hope that I could finish it.”

The angels talked about how they finished their tasks and Joffiel takes note of everything that could be beneficial for her.

As the time went by, they finished talking to each other and decided to go back to their tasks. Some of the angels, including Anna, join Joffiel onto the place where they could see the human world. Many of them have tasks that involve the use of the screen so most of them are at one place.

Joffiel proceeds to watch the life of Jayden. What she needed to know includes favorite color, food, book, song, drinks, subject, shape, sports, season, experience, person and emotion.

One week had passed in the human world and Joffiel managed to determine six favorites of Jayven.

Angel Zai explained to her that every week, Joffiel has the chance to guess favorites of the human assigned to her. Joffiel also learned that the other angels have this chance every month. So for other angels, they have a total of 12 tries for that specific task but for her, it is only four.

During their guesses, they needed to answer all the 12 favorites and the mentor would only say how many did they get right and would not say which are those. They are allowed to skip guesses that would automatically count as wrong.

“You’re very good at this task, you guess eight out of twelve. And you only write nine of twelve,” Angel Zai congratulates Joffiel from her achievement.

Joffiel planned to not write anything that she’s not very sure of.

That means that one of my guesses on his favorite season, shape and sports is wrong. I did not write the experience, person and emotion since I’m not sure about those. I needed to be more focused for this coming week so I only have three tries left. But I’m very happy that I managed to pull off those results. Joffiel makes a deep thought.

“I can see on your face that you’re joyful on the result. Actually, this is the first time that someone could guess more than six favorites on their first try. And you even did it in just one week, I’m really proud of you,” Angel Zai said.

“Thank you, Angel Zai. I managed to do that because your guide is very useful for me, I may not have done that if not for you,” Joffiel praised her mentor.

“Just continue on with what you are doing and you may even finish your task in this coming week,” Angel Zai replied.

Joffiel chuckled.

How do I even know his favorite experience? He does not even have a very close friend or as they call them, bestfriend. Ofcourse, he would not talk on his own. If only I could read his mind. Joffiel thought deeply.

“I don’t know if I have to say this, but if you somehow failed your task, you would get another chance. However, it would be on another person,” Angel Zai reminded Joffiel.

“Thank you, Angel Zai. But I think I could do this. No, I have to do this,” Joffiel proclaimed.

Time passed by and during the time Joffiel watched Jayden, she noticed something. Jayden is staring at a picture on his phone that shows a beautiful lake view.

As Joffiel realized that there was a pair of fishing rods that were displayed beautifully in Jayden's room, she knew that his favorite experience was fishing with his father on that lake in the picture.

Joffiel just needed to confirm four of his favorites. She’s unsure about the sports since Jayden is very athletic and he is very good at almost all kinds of sports, and every time he plays, he shows that he is enjoying the game. Joffiel's previous guess is swimming, as she remembers the lake thing, she immediately concluded that it was correct.

Joffiel's answer to his favorite shape and favorite season are circle and summer, respectively.

She grasped the technique on the tasks, some favorites are connected to each other. So she examined the picture of the lake and realized that it was summer.

As the week passed by, her mentor asked her about her guesses. Joffiel only submits three out of twelve favorites which includes the experience, season and sports.

“Hmm. You only submitted three guesses which is far less than your nine guesses last time. Well, I don’t know what you wanted to do but this is very genius as you got all of your three guesses correct,” Angel Zai declared.

Joffiel exploded with euphoria. Her line of thinking is correct, that means that she only needs to know three of Jayden’s favorites. After a little celebration on her head, Joffiel immediately watches the screen where Jayden can be seen to continue to analyze him.

Angel Zai smiled as she watched Joffiel earnestly doing her tasks. She leaves Joffiel as she knew that Joffiel could do it without further help from her.

Another week passed by and it's the third time for Joffiel to guess Jayden’s favorite. She only writes the three favorites that left for her to guess.

For favorite person, she chooses to guess that it was Jayden’s father. For emotions, she guesses that it was satisfaction. For the shape, she wrote star as the answer.

After Angel Zai examines Joffiel’s answer, she shook her head, “I’m sorry, Joffiel. But you didn’t get any right guesses for your try this time.

Joffiel just smiled and thanked Angel Zai. Just like the last time, she immediately goes back to the screen.

As the duration for her tasks was finished, Angel Zai called for her so she could write all of her final guesses.

Joffiel calmly wrote her answer in a piece of paper.

As Angel Zai looked into Joffiels answer, she put a big smile on her face.

“Congratulations, Joffiel. You got it all right! Wow, I’m very amazed. Could you tell me how you knew the last three left for you?” Angel Zai asked Joffiel in excitement.

“For the shape, I initially thought that it was a circle since he’s talking about moons and the night sky. Then as I’ve done my second guess, I knew that the only incorrect guess I wrote on my first try was the circle. So I decided to change my answer to ‘star’ on my third try, however, as I knew that it was wrong, I tried to analyze all the details in which I came up with my answer, ‘crescent’, since it was one of the phases of the moon and it is also a shape. And one of the situations that made me confident about this answer is when the human, Jayden, smiles when he looks at the crescent moon,” Joffiel explained.

“I’m so proud of you! When I saw what was the answer to that, I thought that you could not guess. So how about the other two?” Angel Zai continued to ask Joffiel.

“On favorite emotion, since the general emotions are not included, I tried to guess ‘satisfaction’ since he always does his best to finish his tasks like homework and housework. But then I realized that it's not about the satisfaction, it’s about being free after he had done his task. So I put ‘free’ as my answer,” Joffiel explained.

Angel Zai couldn’t believe Joffiel’s thought process and just continued to learn how she managed to do her tasks, “Then the last one?”

“The last one, for my favorite person, I actually thought that it was his father since I think that he misses him a lot and actually during the time I guessed that, his father is my only option. After thinking about that, I asked myself, who is my favorite, then it came to me that I don’t have any. Then I tried to think that he, as a human being, also doesn't have any favorite person. After observing him for another week, I realized that it was possible and I don’t have anything left to answer so I tried to guess that he didn't have a favorite,” Joffiel excitedly explained.

“Wow! This one was one of the hardest people to know what was his favorite and you pulled it off in just one month. With that we can proceed to your next task,” Angel Zai said.

*host - gathering of angels