The blackish-blue rat was in excellent condition. One of the others was not. It had been mauled nearly to shreds. The dead rat's skin was in tatters, bones covered in scratches and bite marks had been exposed on every portion of its carcass, and its entrails and effluvia were scattered across the cage. Judging from the blood-matted fur on the mutated rat, it had been the perpetrator.

Honestly, it was terrifying. The violence of it was nearly inconceivable, and it was abundantly clear that the assault had not been motivated by hunger or anything of the sort because very little, if any, of the white rat's corpse had been consumed. Was this an effect of the energy, or was it a natural instinct given extreme form by increased strength or other enhanced traits of Deep Blue? He named the rat. Sue him.

If that had been a human, the reporters who covered it would have been forced into euphemisms or statistics to shield the viewers from the true horror of it: of a person being torn apart for no more reason than for the brutal joy of it; the revelry of death.

What did this mean for Mitch? Would he have bouts of uncontrollable rage if he continued with this and used the formation on himself? Or was this a case of "the weak are meat, and the strong do eat"? Would that even be any better?

He had no way to tell.

He had to proceed. If he didn't find a way through this, he would die. Even if he survived the next Tolling; what about the following one? Or the one after that? It was forward, or doom.Survival or bust.

He started gathering the materials to create a new formation.

***

Due to the level of caution he employed to ensure that the arrangement matched the original as closely as possible, it took nearly three hours to set up the design. Once Mitch was as sure as he could be that he had everything precisely right, he stepped into the circle. Where he sat. He was hesitating. Was survival really worth it if nothing of himself was left? If all that was left was an uncontrollable rage would he actually have survived?

He sat there for a long time, cogitating, before finally lifting up his hands to prick his finger. The drop of blood pooled on his fingertip, just waiting for him to turn his hand over so it could fall. Which, eventually, he did.

Within a couple of moments of the blood drop hitting the salt, the diagram seemed to take on a form of life; it had an indisputable presence. It was strange, neither his first circle nor his test one had reacted in this way to "activation." The trial arrangement had no discernible effect upon activation, and the OG had only had that one, brief, giant bass guitar strumming sensation and a slight glow. This iteration felt like another person in the room. It was such a clear sensation he had to turn around and make sure no one had snuck in. He didn't see anything, so he shrugged and began meditating.

Mitch sat very still, waiting for the formation to do its thing. He paid very close attention to the sensations in his body as the formation worked to concentrate the ambient energies within the circle. After just a few minutes he began to feel a tingle all over the surface of his skin which was just barely short of being an itch.

Suddenly the not-itch vanished, and he felt a sensation like what he imagined an air bubble in water would get if it were popped. This sensation seemed to crash together behind his navel before rushing back out into the rest of his body.

In the beginning, the feeling was turbulent but cooling and relaxing which lasted for a few more minutes before his body felt full as though even his arms and legs had eaten just a little bit too much at dinner. Over time the feeling of fullness grew until it was toeing the line separating it from discomfort. His coach had always told him: discomfort is growth, pain is death. He would endure being uncomfortable for as long as he could or until he had to add an exclamation point to the word "ouch."

That point arrived about an hour later. Mitch had spent the time meditating; trying to feel how the energies were moving through and affecting his body but as soon as he felt the slightest true pain he immediately jumped out of the circle. He didn't break the lines this time, but the light mist that had formed within still spilled out. Most of it dissipated as soon as it left the primary circle, but even so, he went and opened his windows just on the off chance.

He felt as though he had just had a solid post-workout stretch. That kind of glowing feeling you got when you had gone particularly hard. This exercise had definitely had some sort of effect, but was it the one he wanted?

He would go back to that acupuncturist (ugh! needles.) in the morning then go redo his benchmark tests in the afternoon. He may have to do this a few more times before he could tell if there was, in fact, something happening to him.

***

Interesting. Very interesting.

As his soulwalker returned to his body acupuncturist's revived from the near catatonic state in which an observer would have found him a moment ago.

The acupuncturist had been keeping a distant eye on the boy the last few days as he did his experiments. Assuming he was using the same method as before, he had been much more careful about his approach the second time.

The compass the boy had used was something the acupuncturist had never seen before and appeared to have been developed after the isolation began. It certainly did not resemble anything from the native practices he had suppressed during his time here. It was crude, but indubitably effective.

The circle is the universal base of the compass; however, all it would do on its own is create a barrier to prevent the movement of energy.

This was useful for imbuing power with intent before releasing or absorbing it the latter of which is how one would develop any energy other than the four constituents. For instance, if one wished to build a sharp cutting force one would need to spend an immense amount of time meditating in a circle cycling power until it had become entirely saturated with one's concept of sharpness whereupon it would naturally settle into one's body.

The problem, of course, is that whatever power is inside of the circle at the time of formation is all that will ever exist in that area until the barrier is broken. However, free-flowing energies move to quickly to be imbued with any level of efficiency. Even the tiny amount of power contained within a circle was an order of magnitude more than one would be able to saturate with intent in an entire week of meditation without a circle.

The solution to this is compass formations. These were circles which had been expanded upon and modified with other elements. With the additional features, a practitioner could allow the energy that had settled within them to be replenished.

To his knowledge, no one had ever used a compass to shove energy into a circle at slowly increasing levels until it became unbearable.

It was dangerous. Stupidly dangerous. Insanely dangerous. If a meridian ruptured even the tiniest bit the uncontrolled power would rush out and wreak havoc on the organs of the fool resulting in death. The vessel that had burst in the boy's hand had been the most minuscule kind, and it had still nearly destroyed the entire appendage.

The boy had perhaps, if he were to be generous, a fifteen percent chance of surviving this method and it was too early to determine if it was even doing anything beneficial to offset the risk.