Hugh sat there and once again tried to search inside himself for the seed. This time, it didn’t take him nearly as long before he found himself floating in an empty space with the seed floating in front of him.

  Studying it, Hugh thought it appeared normal, like the first time, except the pattern he remembered tracing was glowing brightly on its surface. As Hugh’s intent wanted to look at what was underneath it, his vision shifted some and the outermost pattern seemed to fade away, no longer obscuring what was below.

  With a bit of relief, Hugh began to inspect all around it and found that, like last time, there was an obvious path. Underneath it there was yet another one that was only partially visible.

  Knowing what he knew now, Hugh chose a spot at random on the newly visible path and began to trace it. Some time later, he found himself back at the beginning and was incredulous at how long that took.

  With a deep sigh, Hugh began again, repeating it until he had it memorized so that he could trace the path with his energy after.

  Time slowly passed and Hugh had made his way from memorizing, to tracing, to absorbing energy once again. Just like last time, he was left feeling weak as soon as he completed the path. Fortunately, due to the higher energy density and different types in the better training room, he didn’t take nearly as long before he started feeling better again. It was only a week, and during that time, he found that he wasn’t left wanting for food.

  Periodically, Dolnma swept his energy past to check up on him, but never disturbed him once. It was after he finished the second line that Hugh felt like he was automatically absorbing energy now without having to focus on his breathing.

  Finally, Hugh stepped outside and went to the front room to find Dolmna,

  “Eld… Senior Dolnma…”

  Dolmna looked over and smiled.

  “It’s about time. I see you’re still at the edge of condensation though. Didn’t you finish the method?”

  Hugh reported, “I finished the second one, but there’s another after that. Is it normal to not need food anymore?”

  Dolnmas’ eyes widened a little bit. He could go without food for quite a long time, but that was because he was in the shattered stage, and could mostly nourish his body from the surrounding energy. That was especially true since they were in the Nexus, which had been built near a natural energy spring.

  “You don’t feel hungry at all?”

  Hugh shook his head to the sides.

  “I feel like I could eat, but I’m not really hungry like normal. And I don’t have to focus on absorbing energy anymore.”

  Dolnma swept over Hugh with his energy again to scan him. As he did so, Dolnma sunk into thought. The results showed that Hugh was still in the Condensation stage but was somehow naturally absorbing energy. That shouldn’t be possible until the restructure stage at minimum, and only at the peak when you are ready to step into the Shattered stage.

  Dolnma then asked, “You said there was another method?”

  Hugh nodded, “The seed, er, my inheritance shows two more paths I can copy. There might be more though.”

  Dolnma had to admit, he had never heard of anything like that before.

  Moving to a different door, Dolnma said, “Follow me.”

  Hugh tagged along, and he soon found himself in a different room. It followed the same aesthetic, but in the middle, there was a pillar that only rose halfway to the ceiling.

  Dolnma turned and sternly said, “Hit the pillar with all of your strength.”

  Hugh nodded and walked over to the pillar, inspecting it during his approach but not finding anything strange. The room’s floor did have a bunch of patterns on it like the training rooms, but they were obviously for something different, especially since he didn’t feel any increase of ambient energy while approaching the center of the room.

  Dolnma watched and frowned as Hugh took a stance he was unfamiliar with before throwing out his right hand and striking the pillar with a palm.

  Not to either of their surprise, nothing happened and the light sound of the pillar being hit rung out as a dull thud.

  Despite feeling no energy fluctuations, Dolnma asked, “Did you use any energy?”

  Hugh felt a little abashed at the question before replying, “I, uh, don’t know how.”

  Dolnma looked exasperated, “Just do what you did when pushing your energy into the orb. This time, time the release with your hit.”

  Hugh listened and then turned back, getting into the same stance before focusing inside.

  Dolnma watched and waited, and finally Hugh struck out again. The result was the same, and Dolnma asked, “What was that?”

  Hugh apologized, “Sorry! I messed up. Let me try again.”

  Dolnma crossed his arms, not saying a word and waited another four hits until the hit wasn’t a light thud, but a snap as the wall at the side of the room finally lit up and they both turned to see what it said.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Liquid - Mid-stage

  Dolnma wasn’t even sure if the result would be considered good or bad anymore. Hugh’s stance was terrible, his strike was worse, and who knows how much energy was properly delivered in the strike.

  Dolmna was about to tell Hugh to keep trying, but then saw his haggard look and wondered if he’d guessed wrong.

  Was Hugh really at the Condensation stage and eked out a strike that punched above what he should?

  Hugh felt utterly drained, and weak again. Even with his body absorbing the ambient energy now, outside of the training room, he felt there just wasn’t enough to keep him feeling good. After spending a lot on the first strike and missing, each next one was barely a fraction of the energy of the first. With the expenditure, the patterns seemed to fight for every last bit that entered his body once again.

  Dolnma said, “Return to the training room and recover your energy.”

  Hugh nodded but thought to ask, “Is there another room with more energy in it?”

  Dolnma froze and was about to deny him, then thought that it really shouldn’t be such a big deal since pretty much everybody was out on missions right now.

  “There is. Just keep going down the hall where we entered the first training room. Each door down has better energy, and each one across is the same as each others. Nobody else is using them at the moment, so feel free to move to the next one.”

  Dolnma left and Hugh smiled, rushing to the training rooms again. He took a step in the next one down, and felt it was still not enough, so he moved to the last room, which didn’t have an adjacent door since it was at the end of the hall. He had passed eight rooms before it and once he stepped inside, he felt like it was a different world.

  Suddenly, the patterns inside seemed to radiate and Hugh felt even weaker than before as energy rushed inside of his body. Hugh just laid there for several hours until he finally began to feel better again.

  Hugh stood up and slowly made his way to the middle of the grand training room and sat on the small pedestal in the middle.

  Sitting there, Hugh delved into what he called the inner mind once again to memorize and then trace the new pattern with his energy.

  Outside the room, Dolnma had only left a small note and inscribed stone at the desk in the front room before immediately leaving the Nexus to visit the library in the central building that Diosk stayed in. He began to search book after book, trying to see if he could find out what was going on with his martial nephew’s new disciple.

  While Dolnma was searching Diosks’ library of books, several days passed. Each day Hugh had memorized, traced, and spent several hours feeling severely weakened again. Eventually, Hugh found that there didn’t seem to be a second path to trace after tracing eight.

  “Looks like there’s only one left,” Hugh spoke to himself.

  Hugh was glad that he could stay in this better training room, as he knew that if he was in the other one, or even the room at his supposed house, he would never finish all these paths. He would just sit there weakly for months, having Heron feed him from time to time, and probably struggle to use the bathroom.

  Hugh realized he hadn’t even used the bathroom in several days now, and wondered for a moment if that was a side effect of the paths he traced. It was nice, but he also hadn’t eaten, yet after all of that so far, he still didn’t feel much stronger than when he began tracing the first path.

  Taking a deep breath, Hugh refocused on his inner world and began memorizing what he hoped would be the last path.

  In the Library, Dolnma had exhausted almost every book he could find and had just been sitting, thinking about everything he had read while attempting to put the pieces together as he spoke out loud.

  “A pattern that acts like a seal that isn’t a seal. It absorbs all the energy from the person, not letting them progress. Maybe until all patterns are done? There are more than two patterns, maybe up to four. The seals of the nobles never had more than one pattern.”

  Like several times in the days prior, Dolnma stood up and began to pace as he tried to come up with something.

  “It allows natural absorption before the shattered stage. Maybe it’s mimicking a beast’s internal structure and using that to pull in energy. If that’s the first one, then maybe the second one would help blend that to be more usable by people?”

  Dolnma shook his head as he threw out one wild guess after another, not caring for time in any sense. He had just finished re-reading a few specific points made in a couple of books that were sprawled on the table in front of him when he froze.

  He felt one of his inscription stones had a message so he pulled it out to read it. After seeing it, his brow creased when he noticed it was one of the automated messages for when the Nexus had to reallocate energy.

  Dolnma hadn’t noticed it before, as there were some times when the natural energy around him was a little lower than normal. That usually happened when the main training room was in use and the energy was still not enough. The room was built to pull from the surrounding area for more if that were the case.

  Dolnma frowned. That would only happen when, Diosk, himself, or another shattered stage person was using it. Diosk put the books back and as soon as he stepped out of Diosk’s building, his eyes widened.

  The energy outside felt barren, and what little that was left was all pulled toward the Nexus above the training room.

  Dolnma rushed over and flew through the door. He quickly sent his energy into the first four training rooms to look for Hugh but didn’t find him. He let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the boy went back to his house, but just in case, scanned the strength testing room as well, finding it empty.

  Dolnma didn’t dare send his energy to check on the room at the end of the hall, since it was usually somebody breaking through that would require so much energy. After briefly wondering who it was, he shook his head to see the note and inscription stone still sitting at the front desk, untouched.

  Dolnma harrumphed, “I’ll just wait and see who didn’t check in before using the room to break through. Disk’s disciple could’ve been injured by the pulse released at the peak of the breakthrough.”

  Dolnma took a seat behind the desk and waited to see who it was.

  Inside the room, Hugh was gritting his teeth so hard his gums were bleeding. Energy from everywhere around him was being pulled in so hard it felt like needles were stabbing him from every direction down to his core.

  As soon as he had finished tracing the ninth path, his absorption began to kick up wildly. It was tolerable at first, a bit like the opposite of when he felt weakened, but as the minutes turned into an hour, and so on, that all changed.

  What was first a light pressure, began to feel like his skin was cracking. Then into a pulling sensation through his body. The pulling then turned to a tearing sensation as the energy ripped through his body faster and faster, trying to reach the patterns he had traced.

  Just when Hugh felt his consciousness slip from him, he somehow awoke in his internal mind where the seed now had nine complex patterns spinning around it as they shifted about and rearranged themselves over and over. They moved quickly and then slowed before shifting the lines they were made of again. With each shift, they all flowed together for a moment like an undulation of chaotic waves canceling each other out. In the center of all of it was the seed, which had begun to glow so bright, Hugh would be blinded if it were his physical eyes.

  That didn’t do much to give Hugh a natural reaction of looking away, especially since he had no eyelids in his internal mind to close.

  It was then that the light seemed to explode and Hugh lost all thoughts except for the brief instant that he felt like his very being was ripped apart.