It took everything Jun had to calmly finish exhaling.

Almost immediately the pain noticeably eased—leaving behind a dull throb that could be felt from his crown, all the way to the tips of his toenails and back. Unfortunately, Jun was given no time for further reflection before the next breath in the unforgiving chain arrived.

He was fully committed to the second stage by now, and he knew there would be no turning back.

With mounting dread, he added another exhale to the cycle—lasting for only two heartbeats this time. Once again, a terrible pain stole through him, as if millions of miniature razor blades had been introduced into his blood stream.

The sheer agony of it was unimaginable, half again as bad as the previous flare, so that it was all he could do to grit his teeth through the pain and maintain his steady breathing.

His hesitant exhale did nothing to alleviate the pressure building in his dantian. And he recognized that he’d have to release his spirit at a far faster pace than that. That if he didn’t, and soon, his will was bound to give out long before he was finished. And then where would he be?

Smeared all over the walls would be his first guess.

It was around then that Jun truly began to fear. Because he could already tell that releasing the pent-up energy would not be a quick process. At the rate he was going, it would be hours yet before he found himself in the clear. Meaning that he’d barely even started and already the pain was too much. And if, like he was beginning to suspect, the pain only increased with every cycle of breath… just how bad would things be in an hour? Two? Could he even survive such an ordeal? If not physically, then mentally.

Could he withstand what amounted to a prolonged session of torture, and then maintain the will to keep getting stronger after the fact? Once he made it out onto the other side? If he made it out at all? With a dread shock of soul deep terror, he found that the answer wasn’t even in question.

No. No, he absolutely could not.

His analytical mind shut off about then. Too absorbed by the horror of his current situation. Which was why when an errant thought—innocuous at first glance, almost trite—was gently lobbed up from the deep recesses of his subconscious, he almost ignored it out of hand.

And yet, something about it made him hesitate. It wasn’t even that he thought it would work exactly. It was just that, well, he didn’t really have anything to lose.

And so, with a thought, Jun used [Cutting Hand]—instantly wreathing his clenched fists in a shifting red mist. Immediately he felt a change come over him. A loosening of his muscles as panic eased, and the pain he felt lessened. Yet it still wasn’t enough.

Barely conscious of what he did next, or how, indeed, he was doing it at all, Jun found whatever mechanism transformed his hands into sharpened weapons and pulled.

Slowly at first, almost hesitantly, the shifting red smoke began to climb up his forearms. Within seconds it’d reached up to his elbows, then to his shoulders, and then, in a wild rush, the strange technique rose up all at once to sheath his entire body in the semi-transparent mist. Instantly, the difference he felt was staggering.

*Ding!*

Congratulations!

Your Mantra [Cutting Hand] (Poor Quality) has evolved.

[Cutting Hand] (Poor Quality) has become:

[Blade’s Sheath] (Good Quality) +5 resonance.

It wasn’t that the pain had gone anywhere exactly.

Instead, it was as if a cloudy pane of glass had been placed between him and the agony. So that, if he really squinted hard at it, he could still make out vague shapes, but the brunt of it no longer held the edge it once had. Almost as if it were another person’s pain entirely. He felt good.

No, more than that he felt in control.

It would also appear he hadn’t half imagined the brief flash of calm rationality he’d felt the last times he summoned his Cutting Hand. And now that he’d upgraded the mantra, the effects were like night and day.

And so, it was with an almost detached sense of unreality that he continued the breathing rotation.

Freed from the pain, he was finally allowed time to properly observe the goings on. And in that same detached way, it didn’t take long for him to realize that it wasn’t technically his body that was being affected, but instead the strange channels that were funneling his spirit. Something which, admittedly, made a lot of sense.

Contrary to expectations, whenever he exhaled the pent-up spirit didn’t simply take the simplest route from his diaphragm to his nasal passages. Instead, the spirit appeared to trace a roundabout pathway, which wound its way throughout the entirety of his body, leaving utter ruin in its wake as it did so.

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Jun continued to cultivate.

Time slowly passed.

And as one hour bled into the next, then became three, and nearly four, he began to feel the edges of panic vying for his attention once more. The pain, likely never having stopped its measured advance, soon began to wear away at even his newfound mental defenses.

Very soon the pain rose to match its previous crescendo, leaving him shaken by the decidedly grim implications. What might it have felt like had he not had his cutting aura active, he wondered? Nevertheless, he continued to release one breath after another, this despite the ever-mounting agony. His only consolation the near certainty that he was basically on the final stretch.

In this way, time dragged on one glacial second after another. His mind falling into a hazy, pain induced stupor. One so complete and overwhelming, that he almost missed the most important bit entirely. The moment when the winds swirling around in his diaphragm finally died out.

The ordeal left a tear-streaked Jun kneeling prostrate, weeping in a cold puddle of his own sweat.

Forehead resting against the wet stone. Body trembling like a leaf in the wind, he could feel the faded edges of unconsciousness slowly encroaching. With a shake of his head, however, he banished even the temptation. He simply couldn’t afford such a luxury.

Not yet.

He had to understand what it was he’d done first. And whether or not he’d suffered irreparable damage. He took a second to compose himself, then flared out his cutting aura—instantly forcing calm. He opened his eyes.

Your body has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your mind has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your spirit has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Wow… Four measly hours to earn nearly double what I’d have consolidated in a year previously, and that’s not even counting what all I’ve gained in spirit. Wait, how much stronger does that make me? I guess that’s what risking life and limb gets you. Huh. …I hate the fact that I’m actually starting to get the appeal, damn them.

Rising gingerly to a sitting position, he managed to catch Ivory’s eye as, for the first time in days, she peeled her gaze up away from her book. And so it was that he got to watch, in real time, as she first scrutinized his sorry state, contemplated admonishing him for, yet again, placing his health unnecessarily at risk, apparently wrote him off as a hopelessly lost cause, before she turned back to whichever page she’d been on.

Ah, well. It would appear I’ve turned my once bubbly companion into quite the jaded little creature, Jun thought. And all in the span of half a week no less. Either that or Lady Maisell made more of an impact on her than I’d first realized.

To which a disapproving “hmph!” was her only response, essentially proving his point.

Shaking his head, only once he’d re-centered himself, did he dare to take a peek inside his dantian. He was immediately shocked by what he saw. The wind in the space was entirely absent, but in its place, sat six small leaves.

And it didn’t end there either.

He hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance before, but if he had to wager a guess, he’d say that his pathways felt…bigger? Hollower somehow. As if the pressure of all that energy being released had ballooned them outward. Given what he’d been through, it wasn’t a hard thing to believe.

Though that did beg the question, what did this mean for him specifically?

Of course, the benefits were readily apparent.

Three new leaves in less than a day? He was still feeling rather sated so it can’t have been that long. It had taken him more than two days to form his first ever leaf. To have tripled that output in a fraction of the time…? What could that mean for his cultivation if he could keep up such a pace?

Jun, getting a hunch, decided to try something. With a mental nudge, he sent a small amount of spirit through his channels, finding the act as natural as breathing. Ignoring the sharp pain with a detached disinterest, he noticed that the energy moved noticeably faster through his channels.

It moved at what had to have been half again what he’d been capable of previous. And while he wasn’t sure what that might mean moving forward, being faster on the uptake had never led him wrong before. Perhaps the same would apply to cultivation?

First things first though, he’d definitely done some damage to his channels, even if he couldn’t feel it at the moment. If he wanted to continue to cultivate in this way—in Jun’s mind the benefits far outweighed a little discomfort—then he would need a way to heal himself after every session.

If not, he might wind up crippling himself for good. He wasn’t confident on how far he could, or should, be pushing things, and would prefer not to find out he’d overstepped his bounds the hard way.

His first instinct was to use the mending pills he’d bought, but something made him hesitate. It wasn’t really his body that was injured, right? Sure, he’d been in immense pain, but when actually inspecting himself physically, he felt fine.

Would the pill even do anything? Or would it be equivalent to flooding his channels again—only serving to worsen the damage? Were there specific resources to combat such an injury that he just didn’t know about?

Feeling like there had to be something—he refused to believe he was the first to stumble into such a dilemma—he decided to contact the highest authority on such matters. With a jarring chime, he opened his screens and entered the system’s general marketplace. It would seem he had some shopping left to do.

And while he was there, he might as well check up on how his investments were panning out. He had no idea how expensive such a treatment might be, after all. And he’d hate to come across the perfect solution, only to be stymied due to a lack of funds.

Wasting no time, Jun made his way over to the trading house screen. When he saw what all was waiting for him there, he couldn’t help but smile.