Eric did his best to quell the anxious, desperate hope welling in his soul as he darted back inside the cavern, pausing only long enough to assure that the wards would hold. And maybe there was a wild look in his eyes, Eric would concede that, but the look Samuel gave him, an odd mixture of fear and wonder, was not what he had expected.

“Sam, the cultivation manual, where is it?”

“Eric, what’s wrong? You’re covered in… shit, shit, did you have a breakthrough? You had a breakthrough. I can tell!”

Eric couldn’t help laughing at that expression, before flashing a cheeky grin. “You know what? Maybe I did. The fire wand, yeah, I can use it. And later, maybe, well, we’ll form a party and we’ll see if you have a knack for it. But that’s not why I’m back. The peaches. That’s the key! I think I finally figured out what I was doing wrong!”

Sam’s eyes widened further, if that were possible. “Eric, what about the peaches? Did you find one on the forest floor? You can take it then, right? Did you?”

Eric gave a quick shake of his head. “No, no peaches fell. In fact, I came all too close to touching one, and that’s when it finally clicked! The cultivation manual, where is it?”

Solemnly, his young friend handed him the tome Eric eagerly grasped, his hands trembling with excitement as he rapidly flipped through the page. His heart was roaring in his ears, belly twisting with an odd mixture of desperate hope, excitement, and of course, dread that he might be darting about like a fool, and that absolutely nothing would come of this.

“Eric?” His friend’s voice was soft, hesitant. Eric gave a hard shake of his head as his feet made their way to the corner of the cave he had claimed as his own, knowing he needed to focus. To calm himself. He knew better than to dare hope or expect too much, as trembling fingers brought him at last to the exquisitely detailed chart depicting the twelve meridian channel configuration.

The Royal Path.

And how arrogant was it, for some half-breed kid to think himself possessing not just seven but a full twelve nodes, perfectly aligned?

Nodes in such pristine shape that they would perfectly match the chart that seemed to grow to life size in his mind’s eye as his fingertip traced the pattern?

Feeling how each node precisely echoed the twelve points of hot fire he had felt such pressure against for a single terrible moment while cartwheeling through the air.

Eric swallowed, blinking away the sting in his eyes as his fingers gently noted the clockwise flow of spiritual energy going from channels to nodes.

Sensing the massive blockages that were each of his meridian gateways.

Sensing as well the barest trickle of spiritual energy meandering through the tiniest of gaps between clogged blockages.

Spiritual energy that had become utterly stagnant. That he was now chillingly certain had been perilously close to freezing forever in place. He shuddered, suddenly comprehending so much in that moment of wonder and desperation as he sensed both his potential, and how close he had come to losing it forevermore… now struggling for all he was worth to get just the tiniest trickle of spiritual energy to flowing between each of the nearly completely clogged meridian gates and adjoining sludge-filled channels.

“Eric, Eric! Shit, are you actually cultivating?”

Eric gave an angry shake of his head, knowing he dare not let himself get distracted now. Sensing that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, communing as deeply with the chart in his hands as if an actual master was gripping his hands, gazing in his eyes, helping him to sense the barest trickle of Qi.

“You finally understand, do you not? The cost of your actions?”

Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, not sure if it was delusion or simple fancy, as he peered at what he thought a cultivator should look like. The echo of a man that perhaps never was, wearing undyed cultivator’s robes with a snow-white beard and eyebrows gazing down at him with gentle sympathy as Eric struggled to squeeze even the tiniest flow through his eleventh and twelfth channels. After spending what felt like countless minutes, hours, or days, squeezing a steady stream through the gunk-filled sewage that was his foundation.

“I do, master. Now, I do.” And no other words were said or needed to be said, his entire cultivation base wreaking of blood magic and twisted power. The System’s power. Flooding his body and mind with unparalleled potency, even as he dared to walk a forbidden path as a Vessel of Oblivion, able to devour the unlocked potency of entire territories.

System infused titles and the power of darkest consumption. Flooding him with potency no basic conscript could hope to match, with stats now well beyond the ken of most adventurers who manage to survive to level 30.

But there had been a price for his boldness, his daring.

A bitter cost to embracing dark powers that promised strength and survival.

Sacrificing potential he never even knew he had.

Not until now.

Now, on the very day he had unlocked at least a flicker of arcane potential.

The final nail in a coffin that would lock his potential firmly within the System’s Purview, denying him a path to power he hadn’t even sensed until this, the final hour.

Yet he refused to surrender the tiny flicker of hope drowning in filth. Desperately boring through the sludge filling his channels, and nearly clogging his gateways completely. Fighting on even when his breaths grew rapid and erratic, refusing to back down even when the weight of his daring became such a burden that he was crying tears of blood when he finally bored the tiniest of tunnel through his eleventh meridian blockage. The tiniest of trickles that was more about forging a conduit between his channels, being able to map out and sense his meridian network as a whole, than the flow of any significant amount of power.

A feat that earned a sad smile from the vision of an elder that never was.

“Most remarkable. Two days of effort to sense yourself, and only your inhuman Vitality has kept you from collapsing as you carry the illumination my writing has granted you as far as any mortal could hope to.”

The elder sighed and shook his head. “And so close to sensing your twelfth gate. Had you not dared forbidden arts, had you not burdened yourself with the excess waste that has compounded the flaws of countless incarnations that leaves all mortals born with muddy paths, you might have accomplished a feat in days that would take most with a dedicated teacher many seasons to achieve. A full sense of their Meridian network. Only then is the disciple is finally ready to embrace process of cleansing their gateways free of all waste. Multiple lifetime’s worth of waste and refuse. A feat which will take some all their days, earning them the boon of an enlightenment in the next life, and others a period of years. Only then is the disciple ready to truly ascend as a cultivator.”

Eric clenched his jaw, ignoring the regret he heard in what he was sure was just an echo of the book’s own lessons, combined with his own regrets and insecurities. Struck as he was by the bitter knowledge that he was so close, as an impossibly weakened stream of spiritual energy, a dried river bed so filled with gunk and refuse that the tiniest trickle of water had no hope of crossing a final damn that would complete its circuit, and allow the cycle of cleansing to truly begin. Only then could he begin to chip away at clogged meridians and cycle his Qi, infusing his body and spirit with the sweet, fiery spiritual energy infusing this entire realm.

A realm that was absolutely perfect for any budding cultivator.

Yet as much as Eric wanted to collapse in slumber, after the monumental feat of pushing the tiniest tendrils of Qi past the massive blockages clogging 11 of his meridians, he was somehow certain that the moment he capitulated in his struggle, the instant he ceased his efforts to form a circuit that absolutely had to include the final gate, his mind would drift away from the dozens of insights now flooding his soul, like being pulled awake far too soon from a wondrous dream, before he could make the truths he felt on the cusp of understanding truly his own.

Insights and revelations regarding the spiritual energy swelling through him, stopping abruptly at a final stubborn node, too clogged to complete the circuit. And like a man forced to hold his breath to the point of dizziness and collapse, if he didn’t break through soon… he’d lose it all.

He’d lose even the sense of what he was doing.

He knew that just as surely as he could sense the bitter tears streaking down his face.

He lifted his head up as a shaft of morning light caressed his parched skin, taking what bittersweet comfort he could in this beautiful little world all around him as he felt his strength waning, so close to breaking through.

Before his eyes snapped open, momentarily blinded by the dazzle of the morning light.

Struck by one final insight that he prayed would be enough as he fought to embrace his own inner truth.

A truth that resonated so well with this realm as a whole.

Fire.

From the moment he had first dared to jump in an orcish fire pit to rescue his sister, to the day he had brazenly coated his weapons in living flame, to the act of gambling his very soul on his ability to feel even arcane storms of flame, and channel it all to his will.

Because whatever the origins of the potency flowing through him, Arcane energy, Soul Reserves, or the power of his blood, Fire was his essence, one of the three powers that shaped his being, and defined his very soul.

It was a roaring flame he could now visualize so clearly within his minds eye, howling with a fierce heat against the futility of his struggles as he pounded desperately upon the gateway that would bar him from a cultivator’s ascension, that would doom him to a mortal’s despair.

Until the flow of Qi within his soul blazed like the white-hot coals in the crucible of his soul.

A blaze so furiously hot that the final clogged artery of power, far from a measly trickle, instead burst open like a dam.

Eric howled with an ecstacy that bordered on agony when the dry sludge-filled wick of his potential was lit ablaze with sudden insight, and hefound himself trembling on his hands and knees, sweating foul black sludge from his pores, his pounding heart now beating so fast he feared it would burst as he gazed about himself with sudden illumination, feeling as if he was finally waking up, as if he had spent his entire life lost in a waking dream.

Yet even caught between blinding insight and mind-numbing exhaustion he desperately held on to his sense of the energy suddenly flowing through the network of gateways and channels now blazing so brightly in his mind’s eye. Even if it was just the tiniest trickle of tainted fluid flowing between his channels, he knew that, one day, with enough practice and dedication, that spiritual energy he was just now beginning to sense would flood the banks of his meridians like the mightiest of rivers, so long as he dared to walk this path.

Congratulations! You have managed to sense all 12 of your Meridian gates! You have successfully catalyzed the flow of Qi through your meridian channels! (Present Qi-Flow: Miniscule)

The Cultivator’s Path is now open to you!

Warning! This is a Non System-Standard Galactic Path! Engage at your own risk! (Standard System classes are best facilitated with FULLY SEALED NODES!)

“Eric? Eric, what happened?” Samuel’s anxious voice washed over Eric as he took deep wheezing gasps, struggling just to summon a cold water flask from storage as he continued to cough up gunk from his lungs, shivering with what felt like a dreadful fever.

And the look Sam gave him made it clear that Eric was indeed a mess, and that the black sludge dripping from his pours was just as foul smelling as he feared.

“Jeezus, Eric. What happened? Are you alright?”

Eric flashed an exhausted smile, whispering words that made Sam frown. “I’m sorry, what was that? Oh god, Eric, you need a bath! You stink!”

“I did it,” Eric whispered, before closing his eyes once more, and refusing to sleep as much as he cried out for it. Not until he could feel the tiny trickle of Qi cycling through his body so well that he knew he’d be in no danger of forgetting the sense of it. And when he was ready to take the next step, he would do so without hesitation, filled with the desperate hope that maybe the very thing that had allowed him to actually break through and unlock his potential might just help him clear his meridians and ascend as a cultivator in record time.

Congratulations! For being the first mortal to break through as a cultivator within Summer’s Realm, you have earned the Lesser title: First Ascendant!

First Ascendant Perks include 5% Increased rate of cultivation! +5 to Spiritual Energy!

Congratulations! You have taken your first steps upon the path of cultivation!

Due to your unique method of breakthrough, and essence affinity, you now walk the path of Basic Fire Cultivation! Each Rank of Cultivation along this path earns you +1 to Strength, Vitality, Quickness, and Spiritual Energy as the wild power of Fire becomes your own!

Abbreviated Character Sheet

_____________________________________

Eric Silver Level 9 Conscript (You are 100% of the way to level 10!)

Rank 1 Basic Fire Cultivator

NOTE! - You have successfully infused your core! You are currently at 98% of maximum core density!)

Physical Characteristics

Strength – 54 (91%)

Vitality – 37

Finesse – 64

Quickness – 42

Appearance – 17

Mental Characteristics

Scholarship – 13

Perception – 51

Willpower – 34

Charisma – 13

Potency Pools

Arcane Potential – 17

(Mana Pool = 204)

Spiritual Energy – 22

Soul Reserves – 58 (52)

Stamina – 410 Points

Health – 514 Points.

Resistances & Recovery

Physical Resistance – 4

Physical Regeneration – 3.7/second

Elemental Resistance – 0

Qi Resistance – 1

Mental Resistance – 12

But before he could put his ideas to the test, he found his thoughts spiraling into darkness, exhaustion claiming him at last.