Daniel had ended up telling them about their situation, and what he hoped that Mash would do to help them. It was clear that he had been given so many things because they wanted his help on quite a few fronts. A few portals had released creatures that had been near impossible to handle, and that had been with a whole group of masters. Mash and his group were the strongest people in the world at the moment.

The items were a bribe, or at least an incentive to help, although Mash didn’t think that Daniel was the kind of person to do something like that. Plus, with his skills, he should’ve known that Mash would help regardless of receiving anything. As far as he was concerned, he just liked Daniel. Ever since their first meeting, Mash had gained a better impression of the man. Part of that was the healing item he had offered freely, but the bigger reason was his obvious honesty. Mash wasn’t the best at reading people, although his domain did help him with it a little. However, Daniel was a very straightforward person, and even Mash could see that.

A gentle breeze was carried into the room from a nearby window, and he glanced out to see the starry sky above him. He had been lying in bed for a while but hadn’t been able to keep his eyes shut. The bed was comfortable, and the pillows seemed to mold themselves to fit his head. Normally, he would’ve enjoyed the luxurious room. Mash hadn’t really expected the tower to have a room like this, but even the personal baths only distracted him for a few minutes.

[Priscilla, how many hours has it been?]

He had learned to trust her sense of time. She didn’t bother sending a proper message, and just gave him the information he needed. It had only been a little over an hour, but it had felt much longer. No, he wouldn’t be able to go to bed. Every time he had tried; he was swarmed by too many different nightmares. First, he would see that thing he had made when he learned of what paths he could take. That creature that had been a product of his magic. It had been an abomination, life given without any stable form. Simply an amalgamation of flesh. He thought of his own body, and how it was no longer human. It wasn’t really anything. He belonged to no race.

That wasn’t the only thing that prevented him from sleeping though. No, it was the combination of images he kept seeing. Only one thing managed to push aside the image of the creature. That was his thoughts on the stuff in Krall. Most of which was a mix of unsure guilt. However, the guilt was not because he had killed those people. After ruminating on his thoughts, he had come to realize that his guilt was for the people beyond those guards. Even had he known of Red’s actions he still would’ve saved her regardless of who died for it. No, he felt guilt for the people that whom the guards were connected to. When he killed people before, it had always been out of defense, a reaction to another person’s decision.

He wasn’t sure how to feel. He felt like the people who had died deserved it for what had happened to Red, but she had been the one to create that situation. In reality, she had been the one to take action. The guards even Ellis had been on the other side. They had reacted to her attack. In his mind, they would be in the right, but he just couldn’t see them that way. No matter how he thought about it, he felt nothing but anger. He remembered the state that Red was in and the collar, and he could feel any sympathy for them. All this worrying was pointless anyway. Even if he considered the families of the people he killed, it wasn’t like he could change anything. He would never go and say anything to those people. Never meet them.

He needed a distraction. Thinking about what he could do to distract himself, he found himself coming back to his new path. He pulled the glass bead out of one of his many pockets. He had gotten some extra of the Realm Signs, as they were called, and he felt comfortable just carrying it around. Apparently, it wasn’t very expensive. He had checked his realm several times. Not really because he was expecting anything to be different, rather it had just been a distraction. However, it did give him an idea about what he could work on, and he moved to a seated position.

Daniel had shown him how to fill his core and push it further to try and advance his realm. Mash didn’t know how close he was to advancing, or even how far along with his realm he was. Daniel told him that their every realm was split into an early, middle, and late stage. Only after progressing through all three would, he be able to advance into the next realm. That was also when his path would advance his technique.

Mash was actually wearing the bonded clothes, having not really seen a need to take them off. When the technique had said that the armor’s state would reflect his own, it meant more than just damage. So long as he kept his body mostly clean the outfit too would remain clean. He had done some tests, like cutting his own arm to see if it would reflect on the shirt. It had appeared as a scratch on the shirt, a slight fraying of the fabric there. He would probably need to take more significant damage for it to be noticeable. The nicer part of the bond was that the clothes repaired themselves when he healed.

However, he had learned something about the clothes that hadn’t been obvious from the description. He could use his wooden creations and other magic through the clothing as if it were just another layer of skin. That fact had made him certain that he had made the correct choice with his bond. He wondered if he would ever get the opportunity to try the other bonds though. The book didn’t have anything about removing the bond, but he wasn’t all that worried about it. He was satisfied with it, even if just to maintain his decency. As he thought about the bond, he decided to get started on some meditation or cultivation as Daniel referred to it.

[Priscilla, let's try the meditation method you came up with.]

After seeing Daniel’s method, Priscilla had actually come up with something else. She was still finishing up the details, but he thought it he could at least try it. If it ended up not working, then he would just do what Daniel did.

[I’m confident it will work. Start your meditation just focus on pushing your energy out.]

Mash nodded, knowing Priscilla would get the gesture. He started immediately, feeling like he had all those years ago. Back when he had first done this. That moment had set him on this path. He slowed his breathing, taking longer deeper breaths as he focused on the energy in his core. His domain gave him a rough idea of where the energy was focused in his body, and he could kind of keep track of his work using it. More than any other skill, his domain was probably his most useful ability. It simply had too much versatility, that even his transformations didn’t compare to.

The energy in his core slowly, flowed through his body, exiting as he let out a breath. He didn’t let himself draw any in with his breath and just focused on pushing it out faster than it could refill. Several of Priscilla’s bodies appear from Mash’s neck. They were still connected to him, but they stuck out of him, making him look truly like a monster. He watched as they drew in mana. The speed that they could manage was far greater than what Mash had been doing, and he was able to observe the mana’s movement as it entered his body.

Priscilla was more skilled at directly manipulating mana, and she figured that she could better gather the ambient mana. She could also improve its density while doing so. It was strange it felt like he was drinking something, though more than he could handle easily. That feeling of wanting to vomit but managing to resist the temptation and swallow. There was nothing in his mouth, but he still found himself swallowing deeply. It broke his breathing rhythm for a second, and he felt Priscilla’s annoyance.

He quickly fixed it and refocused on the mana in his body. Priscilla was pushing the mana further inward until it stopped pressing against something within him. He could feel it building up as if it were stuck against a wall. He received a message from Priscilla, her exertion somehow coming through it.

[There is something around your core preventing me from sending the mana in.]

[Keep going, you have to get through it. I did something similar before.]

Mash had felt Priscilla hesitate when the mana stopped, but he knew better than that. He remembered that it took some force to get his body to accept the mana. Priscilla was trying now, to force the mana bast the barrier but it wasn’t working. He was a lot stronger now than he had been as a kid, and it looked like that included the border of his core.

[Try thinking of it like an attack. I’ll warn you if it gets bad.]

That was another thing that had happened in the past. It had hurt to force the mana into his body, and he expected it to be the same now. Daniel’s method was supposed to be painless, but it was also supposed to be slow. Apparently, they would spend years at a realm, cultivating every night for minor improvements. Mash wasn’t planning on doing something that slowly. Plus, there were obviously ways to make it faster. Daniel’s own realm was proof of that. he had claimed that talent played a part in it, but Mash guessed that there was something more tangible behind the difference. If it was a matter of quantity or quality of the mana, then Priscilla’s method should circumvent that.

Priscilla changed the way she was pushing the mana, and he could tell that it had become more like an attack. The mana was being shaped as she drew it in. She formed it into a sharp edge, and he could feel her using her own energy to give it an extra push. He wondered if he could just use her energy, but Daniel said that it would probably be too similar. To cultivate properly Mash would need to apply stress to his core, and that would only come by using energy his body wasn’t familiar with. Ambient mana should work as it was a mixture of several different kinds already.

The sharp edge of Priscilla’s attack collided with the barrier, and Mash felt the first signs of pain. As she applied more pressure to it, the pain grew rapidly. Before long it had become a struggle to maintain his breathing. He contemplated stopping her. This might end up doing more damage than good, but he decided to let her keep going. He could heal any damage with Luke or his inhuman hibernation afterward.

The pain was different than he remembered. It started near his abdomen and spread through his body. It almost felt like someone had forced him to swallow nails, and now they were moving through his body. Occasionally they would stab or scratch something, and he would grit his teeth as the pain spiked. He could still see Priscilla trying to push, and Mash felt something in his body quiver. It was like his whole body was shaken by something, and he decided that it had probably gone too far. He was about to stop Priscilla but then felt her blade pass the barrier. The whole barrier seemed to shatter when she did that, and pain exploded in Mash’s chest.