Turned out that ‘a fuckin’ minute’ was about six hours. We’d met up with Lex, Jerome, Amos, Frank, and Byron shortly after sneaking hundreds of people past the soldiers at the checkpoint via Lacy’s illusion magic.

They’d been shocked to see the crowd behind us, to say the least. But no one had grumbled or complained—not even Amos—once they’d heard the plan.

With Lex as our eye in the sky, avoiding imp packs had been straightforward—and the one’s we couldn’t avoid, the team had wiped using Lacy’s magic to distract and the rest of us as the meatgrinder. The party had even gained a handful of levels each, bringing the average—not including me—up to almost 20.

But even with the relative density of the safe zones and the six of us—I kept Athena with me and Lex scouted high above—splitting up to watch over smaller groups queued outside their zones, the waiting had been brutal.

Ushering more than five hundred people into their zones was great—amazing, even. But it wasn’t scalable. Six hours I could have been using to try and break through to the Adept Stage. Six hours I could have spent going Instance to Instance to unlock the Second Floor for the millions still stranded.

It hadn’t been a waste of time—saving lives was never a waste of time—but I had to admit, it probably wasn’t the most practical use of my time.

Still, as the final person at the zone I was chaperoning made it into the safe zone and completed their Beginner’s Trial, a feeling of self-satisfaction filled me.

No, it certainly hadn’t been a waste of time.

All the same, I was ready to focus on my breakthrough. Working for the many was nice—essential, even—but working on my own power was what would bring humanity up through the Tower eventually.

With a shared exhausted sigh, the eight of us went through the safe zone portal. Since we’d each already cleared the Beginner’s Trial—or were underage or of a goose-like nature—we were able to enter together.

“I’m gonna go shower for an hour,” Lacy said wearily.

“Forget a shower,” Byron added. “I’m taking a nap.”

Jerome grunted in agreement while Lex let out a weary honk.

Since I had entered first, the safe zone was keyed to me, and Kurian materialized, his over-sized hand wielding a magical tablet of sorts.

“You guys enjoy,” I said with false cheer. “I’m gonna train for a bit.”

Lacy and Athena paused a beat as the others filed by with weary waves.

“Want me to keep you company?” Lacy asked quietly. There was a genuine tone to the question, but the slackness of her face betrayed just how tired she was.

I leaned in so Athena wouldn’t hear. “No, I want her to take a break and she won’t if you stay.” Louder, I added, “I’ll be fine. Just gonna brainstorm with Kurian for a few before I take a shower.”

She pursed her lips, clearly deciding if she was going to debate me. But then she caught sight of Athena watching her closely out of the corner of her eye and smiled at the girl.

“Hey, I’ve been wanting to show you my shower’s features. It. Is. Life changing!”

The girl hesitated a moment, turning to me with a question on her face.

I faked a smile and waved her on. “I’ve got dibs after you! Hurry up or I’m gonna take your turn!”

Lacy wrapped her arm around the girl and gently ushered her toward my Personal Space door. She let herself be pulled away, but cast a look back at me. I winked and flashed her a thumbs up, to which she rolled her eyes—though I noticed the smile she tried to hide as well.

When they were through the door, I finally let my posture relax, the bone-deep weariness impossible to mask.

“A break wouldn’t kill you,” Kurian called from across the room without looking up from his inter-dimensional soap opera—or whatever the hell he was watching.

I sighed and said, “Maybe not me. But it might kill others.”

The magical tablet in his hand disappeared with a wave and he finally looked up to regard me.

“You carry too much weight on your shoulders. Have you considered the possibility that some are fated to die no matter what you do?”

I nodded slowly, pulling my damp and dirty shirt off with a groan as I pulled a fresh one from my Inventory.

“I’ve considered it. It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s all the others I might have been able to save if I had pushed harder.” I turned to look at him, one arm in and one arm out of my new shirt. “That, I can’t live with.”

He stared at me for a moment, unmoving. I paused awkwardly, my shirt half-on, half-off. After a second longer, he nodded once.

“Then let’s begin.”

I returned his nod and finished dressing. As I walked over, Lex returned from our Personal Space, his feathers ruffled and at odd angles, the weariness he couldn’t hide visible through our bond like a black and purple bruise on his mind.

“Dirk?”

“Go rest, buddy. I’m okay.”

“I feel through our bond that you are not. Perhaps a—”

I held up my hand to stop him. The more times others told me to rest, the more annoyed I became. Not at them, exactly, but because I didn’t trust myself. My resolve felt like it was being chipped away and I was scared. Scared that I’d give in, concede to the sweet temptation of rest and relaxation. Not this time, but maybe the next, or the next.

“Lex,” I said softly. “I need to do this.”

His beak opened and I braced for one of his ear-splitting honks.

Instead, he simply said, “I understand.” Then, he flapped his wings with visible effort and perched on the table. “I’ll watch.”

I wanted to argue, ask him—no, tell him—to leave me to my suffering alone. But something stopped me. Our emotions intermingled, sometimes making it hard to know where his stopped and mine began. I felt something there—pride, maybe?—that I couldn’t quite delineate from my own thoughts. It was almost as if he were bolstering my resolve with his sheer presence.

So, I nodded and turned to Kurian.

“I need to break through.”

The chair he was reclining in disappeared and he stood to his full 15-foot height. It was hard not to be intimidated by his stature—and it wasn’t just his height. A palpable aura accompanied his presence, one that was difficult to put to words. It was like a weight, a gravity almost, that drew my attention and thoughts. The only time I hadn’t felt it was when Athena and I had been sparing him and each other.

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It might have been distracting at any other time, but now, it anchored my burned out mind. My eyes were glued to the Class Guide as he approached.

“Each Stage’s requirements for breakthrough are different, in theory. But there are certain parallels that apply no matter what level you are.”

I watched him with rapt attention, my head craned all the way back to look into his eyes.

“First and foremost, your cores must each be at the peak. Attempting a breakthrough without that requisite will only stunt you forever—if it doesn’t kill you.” He waved his hand and an image projected in front of us. Three swirling balls of energy floated there, equidistant from each other. One was gold, compacted tight and full of power that nearly seared my eyes. The next was grey, the energies within clashing against each other. I felt the resistance of each strand against the others, like they were kids in a ballpit wrestling to escape. The feeling of both energies was unmistakable—my Fate and Friction core projected before my eyes.

The final ball of energy oozed like molasses, slow, dense, and thick with power. But it was obvious to my eyes and spiritual senses that it was an order of magnitude less powerful than the other two cores. The potential, however, was palpable. The energy almost had a personality in the way it coexisted next to its sibling cores. It was saying, I can be so much more.

“Your Fate core is not necessary for your breakthrough,” Kurian said with a wave toward the golden ball of power. “It’s full of Her mature energy and cannot be incorporated anyway. It will grow with you, but we can ignore it for our purposes.”

I nodded, simultaneously relieved and surprised. Of course I recognized that my Fate energy had been instrumental in saving Lacy, fighting Turok, and so much more. But it also scared me. Frank’s Patron faction—the Keeper of Secrets—had explicitly utilized one of his limited Patron powers to warn us away from collecting her Boon in the Hold. Hiko herself had similarly expressed a deep regret for the existence of her Fate core. It was clearly a power that demanded just as much as it gave, and I was happy that I didn’t have to construct my entire Path around it.

“But you have been ignoring your Mass core and we must rectify that if you desire a breakthrough before the next Floor.”

I snapped back to attention, my mind bristling against that characterization.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been ignoring it.”

Kurian pursed his lips, his eyes staring down at me impassively. The weight of his presence was like every scolding and beating I’d ever felt at my dad’s hands condensed into one look.

“Well, I mean, I haven’t been trying to ignore it,” I amended. “I use it all the time!”

“Using is not the same as understanding. You may use a knife when you eat, but that does not make you proficient in knife fighting. You may speak with words, but that does not make you a wordsmith. Practice, intentionality, and experimentation are the three pillars of learning.”

I opened my mouth to protest: that was what I had been doing. But his eyes looked into my damn soul and I clamped my jaw shut.

He waited a beat to see if I’d say something stupid and to my credit, I didn’t. But the training session was young, so who knew how I’d find a way to put my foot in my mouth. When he seemed satisfied at my patience, he pulled up another projection to replace the three swirling balls of energy that were my cores.

I turned my attention to the image and saw myself. Kurian and Athena were there, watching as I threw baseballs at targets obscured by a wall. Seeing it now, I remembered that session. It was when I had learned to use my Friction energy for more than just my [Sticky Fingers] fastballs. I watched as the other me launched baseball after baseball at the targets, getting closer and closer as the hours progressed in just a minute.

By the end of the session, I had been able to curve the baseball in a full boomerang and my Friction core had jumped an entire Tier.

Kurian pointed to the projection once it had finished.

“What do you see?”

I resisted the impulse to answer with the obvious, not caring to experience another one of his disappointed dad looks.

After a few moments, I hadn’t come up with anything profound, so I just laid it out in simple terms.

“That was a video of me practicing with my Friction energy, learning to apply it in different ways to create specific spin on my baseballs.”

His face didn’t change and he didn’t respond. He simply looked at me expectantly and I realized he was prompting me to say more.

“Uh, I…well, I guess you could say I was doing what you mentioned earlier. Practicing with intention and experimenting throughout the session.”

He finally nodded and I felt like the teacher had just given me a gold star.

“And what have you done with your Mass energy in that regard?”

Slow as I was, I finally understood his point.

“Nothing,” I agreed with a nod. “I guess I’ve been too busy and—” I cut myself off, recognizing the excuse before it could fully form. “Nothing.”

He nodded once more, seeming pleased at the realization.

“That changes now.”

With a wave of his hand, the room filled with ten targets angled away from us at set intervals. They were simple bullseye targets about two hands across in every direction. Above each target was a number. The closest target had a large ‘1’ above it, the next a ‘2’, and so on, all the way to ‘10.’

“These targets are pressure sensitive,” Kurian said. “The first target requires five pounds of force to clear. The next, ten. The third, fifteen. The final target will only clear with precisely fifty pounds of force dead center.”

My stomach dropped as he explained. I could already see what he was getting at and I realized that this training session was going to be very, very frustrating.

“I’ve already explained Affinity Permanence to you, and your understanding is sufficient for this task. Now is the time for practice, intentionality, and experimentation. Now, any questions before we begin?”

Taking a deep breath, I began cycling my Mass energy through my body.

“I get the idea,” I replied. “But how do I utilize my energy with that level of precision? Is there some trick to it or…”

“The third pillar,” he said simply.

Experimentation…great…

“Okay,” I said, trying to keep the weariness out of my voice. “Experimentation it is.”

The concept of Affinity Permanence wasn’t difficult—on paper. But it required a tremendous amount of concentration, even for my Friction energy, which was at the Peak.

My Mass energy had been coursing through my body, building momentum that was characteristic of this particular Affinity. It resisted at first, but as it picked up speed, I had to focus less and less to keep it moving. A thick tendril of that energy formed in my hand with a thought as I pulled a baseball from my Inventory. Crafting the intention, I attached it to the ball. The weight was off almost immediately, shifting the balance to one side. Extracting some more, I began to apply the energy in an even coat around the surface, doing my best to keep the density of the energy and the ball uniform.

Once I had it as close to what I wanted as I could manage, I raised the baseball and sighted the first target. It was close, barely more than fifteen feet away—a trivial distance for a lob. But the density of the ball was magnified, giving the impression of something closer to a lacrosse ball than a baseball. Not that throwing a lacrosse ball was difficult for me, but it did throw off my intuition at first.

Taking my time, I focused on really feeling the weight with my energy coating its surface. Once I felt like I had a good idea of how heavy it was, I overhand threw the ball—more of a lob, really—with barely any force. As soon as it left my hand, I knew it was off target. It was difficult to tell if my Mantle-enhanced Mastery was playing a role here, but it just felt off.

The baseball veered wide left, barely clipping the edge of the target. The target flashed red and a number popped up in the center, rising up into the air before dissipating—like a hit marker from a video game.

22.7 lbs of force

My stomach flipped. Not only was I off target, but I’d also been way off on the level of force. And worst of all, the hit marker was accurate to the tenth of a pound. Meaning I was going to have to be extremely precise.

More than precision, though, I had automatically directed my Mass energy in the wrong direction. I assumed I needed to bump up the mass, when I really needed to dial it down.

I looked to Kurian to see if he had any notes, but he stood impassively, just watching me as I stood there awkwardly.

“You got this, Dirk!” Lex encouraged from the sidelines.

I flashed him a confident smile, then turned my attention back to the next baseball already in my hand.

A new coat of Mass energy wrapped around the ball through mental coaxing—this time, reducing the mass. When I was done, the ball felt light in my hand—too light, honestly. But this was one of the pillars Kurian had explained—experimentation. If this one didn’t do the trick, I’d try again. And again. And again.

Hefting the lighter baseball, I aimed, took a breath, then released. It was more on target now, though not dead center. I was happy with that, at least.

What I wasn’t happy about was the hit marker that flashed above the target.

11.3 lbs of force

Eleven point three? Are you fucking kidding?

I was an order of magnitude above the 5 lb threshold and I wasn’t even sure I could reduce the mass of the ball any further.

But I wasn’t someone to quit. If it took a thousand throws, I would beat this course. No matter what it took, I would break through to the next Stage.

I had to…