Just like that, the energy cut off and the stone dimmed before my eyes. I tried again, but my breaths kept disrupting me. The energy scattered, sending a waving of tingling down my torso and limbs. I closed my eyes in an effort to focus and fight against the building frustration. I needed to focus the movements of the energy. If I could do that…

I groaned as I remembered Dorian’s comment. Practicing on the light would be good for my channels. Of course, I had ignored that nonsense about channels, but I wasn’t on Earth. Some would say I was doing magic by lighting this stone with a touch. Or I could just be doing this all wrong and the stone was just the equivalent of a lamp that turns on with a touch. Probably not.

These pathways might be the key, but how did I access them?

In response, a memory tickled the back of my mind, but I quite couldn’t grasp it. Yet…

I dropped my arms to my side took a deep breath. Air, and likely Aether, filled my lungs followed by a warm tingling as energy surged in them. as soon as it crossed a threshold, it spread outwards into the rest of my body. It was just fast and too diffuse to follow. I needed to slow it down and only allow a trickle. If I could push it out, could I pull or restrain it?

My effort was clunky, but eventually I succeeded. I locked down the energy to just my lungs. A subtle fatigue accompanied the act, but it was nothing like before. Now I was getting somewhere. Now I just need to slightly push my limits of my containment.

It was easier than expected. I just varied the depth of my breathing. Whatever wall I had erected had cracks. Instead of a gush, the energy trickled outward down various pathways—discrete pathways. The channels spread down in my arms and legs and across my torso in fine bands. The arms were the easiest. The stone acted as sink, sucking in the energy and causing trickles to intensify into small streams. However, by stretching my concentration, I could follow each spillover of energy as it moved to other parts of my body. After multiple attempts, I could make out a pattern, a very familiar pattern.

It couldn’t be that easy. These pathways, or channels to use the Dorian parlance, mimicked the nervous system, but the coincidence was too much. Or was it? Biologically it could make sense, and a memory from my Aether-induced stupor seemed to agree. So much of that time remained a haze, but I couldn’t shake the fact that I was rediscovering something I already knew.

So I ran with it even given some discrepancies. For all I knew, the channels piggybacked on nerves. Of course, that created another set of questions: How did lungs interface with nervous systems? Was the autonomic innervation to the lung robust enough? Could I draw in Aether through another method besides breathing?

The questions would make an interesting dissertation—no, research career. If that path had been open when I was doing my Ph.D…. I shook my head. Not happening here, but at least my medical knowledge might not be completely useless.

Now that I had a hypothesis regrading the channels, how do I test it?

I would be a easy experiment. Compression could impair neural conduction. Could it do the same to a channel? I had at least four nerves—median, ulnar, peroneal, and sciatic—that could be relatively easy to test. Of the four, the median nerve should be the easiest. I could adapt a maneuver used to test for carpal tunnel. Of course, this test for when the nerve was irritated. If test failed, it wouldn’t disprove my hypothesis. However, it would be quick and a positive result be illuminating.

I hyperventilated to ramp up the energy in my body. Once I felt like a my body was waking up from being dipped in novocaine, I tried the carpal tunnel compression test. I pressed my left thumb at the base of my right palm and counted. Nothing changed at first, but at a count of thirty, the tingling in my first three fingers diminished. I wiggled them, and they moved without a hint of numbness or weakness.

Now for the test. I touched the stone. It lit up, but not at a brightness commensurate with energy flowing through me. Positive so far. I released the pressure on my palm. A familiar sensation returned to my fingers, and with it, light burst from the stone.

It worked. The lack of tingling was the complete opposite of this normal positive of this test, but, but nonetheless, its supported my hypothesis. I had impaired conduction.

I let the light in the stone die out and planned my next test. I could impair energy flows, but could I generate them without a sink for the energy? Without touching the stone, I focused on building up my internal energy. I was getting better at it, both in generating energy and keeping contained. I could now build up a noticeable bit more without it spilling outward or generating a headache.

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I released the energy, but it didn’t flow down my arm like before. I had to actually force with a mental push that caused my head to throb. However, with some effort, I filled my arm with energy until I felt just enough of the telltale tingling in my fingers to partially light the stone. I touched the stone, and it flared so bright that I reflexively closed my eyes. I flinched back, but I didn’t let go of the stone. I couldn’t. The stone wouldn’t let me. It pulled on my finger and, through it, the energy I was holding.

The force disappeared in a less than a second. I would have thought myself delusional if I hadn’t seen how the light stone reacted. Even blinking to clear the spots in my eyes, I caught the stone dim before rapidly increasing to full illumination. It was the surge of energy had created a subsequent vacuum, sucking the energy from me to fill the void. Such strange behavior, but at least I knew a way for quick activation, for whatever good that did me.

Now, I could turn on a light, but could I turn it off?

A few tried, I figured it out, though with limited success. Trying to just “pull” energy from the light worked, but barely. After a few more tries, I increase my efficiency by accidentally starting before I let the energy drain from my finger. With just a smidge of energy in my hand, pulling energy from the stone became easier. I improved it further by using the burst of light as inspiration. While I couldn’t create a burst, I could create a vacuum of sort. By cycling energy through entire arm save the fingers touching the stone, I increased the pull.

I played with turning the light on and off, smiling the entire time. I was making discoveries. Now, I had one more trick to try. First the Vísir, then Dorian had lit the stone from a far, and so would I. Except of course, it wasn’t easy.

No matter hard I pushed into my hand, I could not get the stone to turn on. I did learn what happens when you send too much energy down the channels. My fingers felt like they were on fire long after I stopped pushing energy into them. Once I recovered, I moved to starting with touching the light stone. Still, the light dimmed the moment I pulled my finger away. The Vísir had said my Projection was low. Did that mean I couldn’t light this?

I held my fingertip millimeters from the crystalline surface and channeled energy down my arm. The tingling in my fingers intensified, yet no light came. I sent more to no avail. I stopped, shaking my hand to wake my fingers back up. As the sensation died down, I turned my hand over and examined by fingers. They were fine, but was I damaging my channels? I didn’t know what I was playing with, and last time I did that I ended up in a coma. I should quit. I had lit every other stone. Except, I couldn’t give the Vísir that satisfaction. I would light this damned stone if only to wipe that smug expression off her face.

I drove as much energy as I could muster down my arm. My fingers burned. My hand shook. The stone didn’t light. I kept hitting a same limit. It wasn’t the pain. I couldn’t figure out how to push more energy into my arm. I lost my driving force as my arm gained more energy. It was as if my lungs and arm had reached an equilibrium. Of course, I could remedy the issue if I introduced a sink by touching the light, but that defeated the point. Maybe if I hyperventilated….but even if the Aether density was lower here, I couldn’t risk that. It probably wouldn’t work the way I wanted. Based on my limited experience, Aether and energy, while related, acted differently, and hyperventilation impacted Aether far more. I kept trying, using my new familiarity with channels seal off any other avenue besides my arm for energy to flow down, all to know avail. Finally, on on a whim, I tried to cycle my energy through my entire body in the attempt to somehow generate a stronger driving force.

An unexpected coolness on my temple almost broke my concentration. However, with it, came the dimmest of light from the stone. I didn’t dare stop. I split my attention, trying to understand what was happening in my head. It was a similar sensation to my lungs, but on another order of magnitude. Instead of passively absorbing energy, it was…harvesting it?

I brought my other hand and covered my temple. The cool sensation lessened, and light winked out at once. I took it way, and both returned. It was collecting something, and my hand blocked. By why there on my temple? Nothing was—

My Mark. Where these tattoos actually functional?

I changed my focus to my forehead and pulled. A bolt of energy roared down my arm, causing my arm to jerk. I shook my arm out, more out of reflex than anything else. The pain had left as quickly as it had come. However, it still succeeded in bringing the light to half its full illumination. I had figured out how to drive enough energy to jump the gap.

My next attempt at a small step back failed. So I opted to slowly enlarge the distance between my fingertips and the stone. What seemed easy at first, became difficult with each extra millimeter. As I moved further away, I need to pump more and more energy into my fingers—exponentially more, or at least it felt. The coolness in my forehead gave way to cold. The burning in my fingertip, a scalding heat. The stone should be exploding with light based how much energy I was trying to force into it, except I was barely charging the light. Each little bit caused the disparity in the temperature my hand and forehead to increase. Fire and ice. I pushed through it, but I didn’t more than a foot before I couldn’t generate any traces light.

I balled my fists. The Vísir had done it from across the room. I wouldn’t let—

“Impressive for your level.” I jumped and let out a small scream only to find Dorian smiling and pointing at a plate of food. “Though I would recommend taking a break. Your food is getting pretty cold.”