When next Jordan entered the ritual chamber, it was blackness, obscured now behind a veil tied around his eyes.

It was also a pink blindfold, to go with the pink ‘obi’ on his waist, and the hidden pink sash under that. Crouching obi, hidden pinkness, he internally moaned. Also, why they called his dumb sash a character from Star Wars, he had no idea, but when he’d poked at the word in his Mind-Palace his translation power went back to calling it a sash. Jordan appreciated that; it was too damn easy to get confused as it was.

They walked for while in the room, nearly barefoot but for socks. Jordan found quickly that the floor, humming with energy, was quite warm. It wasn’t Brat-levels of warmth, but like a nice radiantly heated floor. Though it was perfectly distributed unlike a disastrous attempt Jordan’s father had made. His old man had debated tearing up the concrete to fix it, but Jordan and his brother just threw a giant bean bag chair on the part of the floor that didn’t heat up properly and called it good.

Him and his… brother. Jordan turned his thoughts away from radiant floors.

Being led by the hand with Kioko’s aid, Jordan had wondered why she was being forced to be his caretaker. But listening to the sounds of his adopted Grandfather's footfalls, and the long pause in-between strides made him… grateful he was with her. Afterall, they were both shuffling along slowly after Rahm. Jordan was strangely envious of the freely moving skirts and dresses the Brat’s family had put him in earlier. At least those he could move in!

Eventually, they got to a point where Kioko stopped and Jordan came to a stand still next to her. It had been a monstrously long distance to travel, taking them several minutes. Jordan wasn’t even sure how far that actually translated, though. Shuffling with a child’s gait was guaranteed to throw off his approximation after all.

“Ah, Rahm?” Kioko broke the silence, and Rahm grunted in response. She asked him, “How are you going to help her cultivate with this?”

Jordan felt Kioko’s movements next to him. Was she… gesturing at something?

“Oh, right, this is still set with a single Foci. I’ll rearrange it, just give me a few minutes.”

Kioko was still fidgeting next to Jordan, throwing her weight from foot to foot before admonishing her Master. “Why didn’t you take care of this when you were getting ready earlier!?”

“Er… I, ah, must have… forgot!” Rahm cheerfully replied. Jordan hissed in some breath, and was not surprised at all when he knew the truth.

“He took a nap, Kioko.” Jordan had felt bad for this guy? While Jordan was out sitting on a freshly re-planted stone being directed by a drunk cat-girl on the mysteries of unlocking Skills, this damn bastard had been passed out!

“Well, I needed my strength for what was to come, alright? That counts as getting ready.” A bit of air movement flowing past Jordan made him certain that Rahm was following up his statement with one of his multi-armed dismissing waves.

Jordan yelped when Kioko accidently began to squeeze a little too hard on the hand she still held, clearly as frustrated as Jordan was, but she let go after his squeak and even apologized. The two then stood in awkward solidarity to the sounds of the old man puttering about doing god-knows what in the darkness of Jordan’s blindness.

Sighing in frustration, Jordan found something interesting, however. A part of his pattern was tugging at him, a few pebbles sparking on the verge of something but lacking the necessary Ki to activate. He was still very much getting used to what the patterns meant, really at this point only knowing the motive discerning skill—he almost couldn’t help using it after all—as well as his freshly learned skill. The useless investment that would let him turn ‘invisible’ so long as he did nothing and no one noticed him use it.

Jordan was still pissed that Kioko hadn’t explained how upgrading Skills worked. How was he supposed to know that at its base it was practically useless? He’d never played the damn game!

Whatever, focus! He recentered his thoughts. The pattern was familiar. He didn’t know what it was, for sure, but he was confident he’d used something like it before. So, he decided to risk it and with a slow breath let his energy flow through the pattern, lighting up the constellation within.

It built slowly, but surely. A rush of… knowledge. [Analyze Mandala]. The world, black with his eyes closed because it was pink with the blindfold otherwise, lit up in his mind’s eye. While the floor had originally been solid white with all the energy, now he could feel the pattern in its perfection, down to the last flourished line. It was overwhelming, and he was struck with immediate panic that he was going to be hit by the damn feels-train again, only… it didn’t trigger.

He could sense the Mandala, but he wasn’t reading it like before. It wasn’t… going through his eyes? Whatever skill that showed me what was felt by Rahm when he made it isn’t happening right now, so maybe it only triggers if I see things? Wait, seeing things? Ugh, that makes it sound like I’m hallucinating. He dismissed the thought.

The sensory restriction thing did sort of make sense to Jordan, if only because he could compare it to the oily potion that had robbed him of taste but freed him from embarrassment. But it seemed weird that skills would be so highly restricted on things like sensory input.

Unless his sensitivity… was also a hallucination? Were his actions just him being… crazy?

Jordan shuddered at that. No, he wasn’t crazy! He was himself, and everything else was wrong. Some skills, or effects and whatever, just went through senses, and it was only natural to find that… squidgy. There had to be a reason he could use this skill and not be affected. So he redoubled his efforts on his internal examinations.

As he gazed at the river of his existence, he thought about something else he had learned earlier. The nature of Experience. According to Rahm, it was a real tangible thing, and with Kioko’s help he’d even directed the latent energy inside to change parts of the river. To change parts of himself.

And mostly been disappointed, all things considered. What a useless damn skill she taught him! He grumbled internally, but turned back to his… patterns.

Was it possible the pebbles in the river were… parts of himself? Aspects of who he was? If so, he’d need a primer. There was no way to identify, or understand what he was looking at, past the most vague allusions in his mind to rivers, rocks, and constellations. He’d have to ask someone when he had a chance. Preferably a person who wasn’t drunk and liable to sic adorable Carbuncles on him.

With that pleasant memory, he turned away from himself and re-focused on his mandala analyzing skill. It wasn’t using his eyes, but he could still see with his imagination. It was like standing in the middle of a motherboard made of curving lines, and being able to see every burst of electricity firing down the bus. Tens of thousands of times, in beautiful patterns that shifted and ebbed around him. Jordan breathed in awe at the complexity of the concepts of hundreds of different symbols, ideals, and prayers dancing nearby.

Another skill began to tug at him, very similar to the one he had running, so he let it go as well. It was far hungrier, and Jordan began to realize he was burning through his Ki rapidly as [Mandala Identifying inspection] activated. While before, his analysis had told him more or less the functionality of the ritual Rahm was performing (it was flawless beyond any way Jordan could conceive of the word, and that hurt his head a little), this little bugger of a skill seemed to be telling him more about everything.

The Mandala Rahm was working on was a Cultivation Formation, which when Jordan seemed confused by that, there was another tug that prompted him into using his [Mandala Lore] skill. He immediately wished he hadn’t called on it, as it was a complete waste of Ki.

The ritual was for cultivation. That was… pretty much all there was to it.

Beyond the obvious, however, Jordan could see all the parts to the ritual between the two (useful) skills he had going. There was an outer edge, connecting various different aspects of reality. He couldn’t tell which ones as he lacked the specific knowledge, and the mandala lore only confirmed his ignorance. Useless as an invisibility skill, that one was.

There were also a multitude of symbols and materials he’d missed in his brief emotional freak out when he’d physically seen the formation that provided the ritual with dozens and dozens of different sources of Essence. He could tell the scale was brought up to a ridiculous level, as well as using miniaturization on the lines, but that had been obvious coming in.

He could also sense… time. Something about time in this ritual was special. Controlled. The… Kalachakra, or Wheel of Time? Cycle of Time? No amount of mandala lore was helping him with that one, it just reported dutifully that this ritual had control over its own cycle of time and his translation skill confused him with words he didn't know.

He could tell, however, that there were also redundancies built in like logical gates, reinforcements on the lines themselves, and the Foci, or focus, of the Mandala was—

“Gah! What the hell?” Jordan cried out as all the light he was seeing internally began to shift.

“Eh? Oh, you’re watching are you? Good to see that… well, never mind. Tell me Aury, do you see what I’m doing here?”

Jordan cocked his blindfolded head in frustration. He was feeling a bit woozy from vertigo as it felt like the whole damn world was rotating and shifting around him.

“Ugh… ah, I think you’re… shrinking parts of the mandala?”

“Good! What else?”

“Um, you’re doing something to the middle part, the ah… hang on, [Mandala Lore]. Okay, I see it now! You’re modifying the Foci in the center! About time that skill was finally useful.”

“Well done Aury! Full Marks!”

The way the entire Mandala began to collapse suddenly before being caught, made it clear to Jordan the old man had flashed him another quad-thumbs up.

“J-just focus on the ritual thing, alright!?”

“Focus on the foci? You got it! Ahahaha!”

“That—!”

“Let it go kid. Just… let it go.” A hand on Jordan’s shoulder squeezed empathetically. He sighed in frustration, worried that kicking the old man would result in the collapse of the world.

But, man, did Rahm’s shin present a tempting foci for Jordan’s wrath.

----------------------------------------

“[Mandala Lore]. Master and apprentice Foci? A ritual formation that allows a more experienced ritualist to aid another. Good for guiding Essence types, redundant control options, and… moral support?”

“Well done, Aury! Spot on. Can you tell where you need to sit?”

It had been almost ten minutes of awkward standing waiting for the old man to finish his ritual modifications, so Jordan was happy to be able to take a load off. The Brat’s body wasn’t exactly built for endurance after all.

“Yeah, I… yeah I sense it, I think. This spot, right?”

Jordan walked along the mandala, despite his blindness, and stood on a part of the Foci. It had originally been a circular pattern connecting a thousand, thousand times to various lines and smaller circles surrounding it, a shield-like buffer designed to filter and control the Essence coming in, but Rahm had expanded it. It was almost like a Venn Diagram in ways now; two overlapping circles.

There was no actual discernable features telling him which circle was his, and Jordan wasn’t sure why his stupid mandala skills were telling him why one spot was correct and the other wasn’t. But the old man grunted in approval, so Jordan sat on his knees, readjusting his stupid bowtie kimono in the process.

A heavy plop sounded out opposite him and Jordan knew his adopted Grandfather had joined him.

“Are you ready Aury?”

“Nope, but ah, I guess we're doing this.” Jordan tried to smile. It didn’t really work.

“It’s alright to be nervous. You’ve never cultivated before, so it's only natural. It… will probably be scary. I’m sorry about that.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know. This time.”

“Hey now, what’s that supposed to mean?” The old man had the gall to sound offended!

“What do I mean? You dragged me up here on this ‘quick trip’ and every five minutes you tell me something only to have it not be true!”

“What? When have I ever lied to you?”

“I just said one! Quick trip!”

“Bah, a day or two is quick.”

“You said we weren’t going far!”

“We didn’t! The Solarius Realm overlaps the Material. Cosmologically speaking, we’re barely a side step away.”

“You said the dead wouldn’t mind us cutting in line! You also said you ‘knew’ a guy that would help, and you pouty-tortured him into it!”

“Er, well, I…”

“And… you’re always smiling. But that’s a lie too, isn’t it?”

Silence was his only answer.

Jordan didn’t want this. He didn’t want to feel all of this. He… tried to smile it away like he’d seen his sister do, but it was so damn hard. Harder than he could ever imagine. And here he was, sitting wrapped like a present, waiting to explore the universe and all he could think about was...

His brother.

“Hey there brat!” The door swung open, and Jordan announced himself to the happy sight of his sister.

“Jordan!” Anna ran over and gave him a hug, laughing as she always did. Things were tough now, but… brighter. She had a new heart, and while the family was scared, they had each other.

“Hey, where’s mom and dad?” Jordan asked.

“They took Kate to the park.” She happily replied.

“Are you here alone?” Jordan wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but his sister shook her head.

“Nah, Luke’s down stairs studying, and ah, ‘watching me.’” She made exaggerated air quotes, eliciting a small chuckle from Jordan. She was fiercely independent, even for a borderline tween.

“Well, shall we join him?” Jordan asked, to the happy affirmation of his sister.

The two of them made their way down the stairs, and sure enough, sitting at a small, rickety fold-out table was Luke. He was staring at his text book, with a bored look on his face slowly tapping a pen against his paper. It wasn’t an uncommon sight, and Jordan couldn’t blame his brother for not being terribly enthused with the wonders of the arcane Mathematics book in front of him. It was of a level Jordan couldn’t even distinguish, some super-advanced Calculus looking-stuff.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

His brother’s eyes shot over to Jordan, and he gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement. Nothing more, but that wasn’t unexpected.

“Hey, do you mind if we watch something down here with you?” Jordan asked. His brother grunted, shrugging a bit.

‘It must be a bad day for him then.’ Jordan thought. Jordan was only in middle school still, while his brother had already graduated high school early and begun college. The thing was, he could have done it a lot sooner. Learning was easy for him. Math, science, history, hell even the theatre class he took to spice things up were all easy. And it always bored him.

Jordan knew from experience his brother could have likely finished his homework ages ago. Sometimes at night in the room they shared, his brother would confess the dark thoughts he had. Jordan knew those were probably the thoughts going through his mind now too.

“Well brat, whaddya wanna watch?” Jordan poked at his sister.

She bounced in the air and yelled, “Oo! Oo! Let’s watch Dragon Ball Super!”

Jordan turned to his brother, who shrugged again, giving them the go ahead. Plopping in a giant bean bag chair, followed by Anna crushing him as she joined him, he flipped on the TV and got it going.

“Ow! Anna I love you and all, but you got a bony butt. Sit on the dang sofa!”

“Awww!” She protested, as little sisters were wont to do, but obliged.

The familiar music played, and they began to watch. They’d done this many times in the past, so Jordan knew which show his brother would like the most. Honestly, they’d all seen it many times now but… well there was something fun about it. DBZ was the show his brother had watched when he was younger, and had introduced to Jordan to.

And Jordan had kept watching it even after his brother stopped, hoping he would rejoin him.

While they were watching their second episode, Jordan heard his brother sigh again. Looking back towards him, Jordan realized Luke wasn’t paying attention to even the show today. Anna noticed as well, and Jordan and his sister shared a look.

Their brother had days like this, and it was hard to know what to do at these times.

Well, for Jordan it was. Anna, however, had an optimism that couldn’t be beat. She smiled at Luke, and then jumped off the couch.

“Alright Goku, I’m your boy Freeza, and I’m here to destroy your puny planet for good!” She cried out, punching into the air towards Jordan. She had that adorable smile still, and Jordan couldn’t help it.

“Hah! As if I would let that happen Freeza!” Jordan jumped out of the bean bag chair, less than gracefully of course, and posed as well. The two of them fake spared, crying out dramatically as they did.

Luke sighed and said, “Aren’t you guys a little old for this?”

Anna paused, hesitating in the moment, but Jordan didn’t. He turned towards his brother, formed fists with his hands as he held them by his side, and began to shout.

“aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Jordan trembled with his roar, before posing dramatically. Anna mirrored him on his side, and the two of them did every dumb move they could as they ‘shot’ power blasts at one another.

But it was worth it. They’re brother couldn’t help but smile. Why wouldn’t he? He was the one that taught them how to ‘Super Saiyan’ up when they were younger after all.

He was the one that wanted to believe in heroes, but was depressed with a world that had nothing to offer him.

Jordan wiped at the tears that leaked out past the stupid pink blindfold. His brother… had left him with only a note saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I know how all this ends.’

He was a man that could do anything. Brilliant and loving, but devoured from within by a darkness his medication eventually failed to hold back. Jordan had stopped watching cartoons after that. He’d stopped believing in heroes too.

He could feel the tension from Rahm, not purposefully coming from him but… it was always there in truth. Jordan just hadn’t seen it until now. How long before he can’t keep smiling either? How long before his boredom and sorrow with the world…

“H-hey old man.”

A small grunt answered him. It was probably accompanied by a shrug.

“I know you… don’t believe me about stuff and all, but ah… anyway, I said I’d take responsibility, you know? Maybe that doesn’t mean anything but… you’re my grandfather now, I guess. My, ah… Sofu?” The word seemed right. Jordan nodded when he confirmed it in his mind.

“Aury, I—”

Jordan interrupted the man by standing up suddenly. It wasn’t actually as easy as he wanted with the damn dress. He heard Rahm begin to shuffle about, likely to stand as well, but Jordan held up a hand to stop him. He waited until the shifting mass before him settled back down.

I… can’t change anything. But… I can do one thing, even if it's stupid.

Jordan balled up his new fists. He stuck them to his side and spread his legs as far as he could with his clothes. It… actually went further then he realized. He had more room to maneuver, but it seemed his etiquette ability had stopped him from risking the state of his Kimono. Stupid mannerisms!

Jordan took in a deep breath and…

It began as a whisper, but grew into a shout. Into a battle cry to challenge the heavens.

His promise.

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

“W-what the hell brat? Are you—?”

“Aury, are you okay? Why—”

“Ha Ha Ha!” Jordan laughed dramatically. “You made a grave mistake, underestimating me old man Sofu! For you see… I am no ordinary Brat! I am the legendary, the ultimate, the SUPER BRAT! AH HA HA HA!”

It… turned into something strangely villainous with the stupid Brat’s voice, but his incredibly stupid and childish actions… brought a [Perfect Smile] to his own lips.It was just too stupid not to laugh at!

And it changed everything.

Because who cared if he acted dumb? He was a kid again and he was stupid! Er, well, maybe not stupid, but he certainly had been humbled enough by the world to not give a crap.

He followed up his boast by posing dramatically over and over again, which was made needlessly difficult with the stupid kimono-dress. But it worked. With a chuckle, with a laugh… with a roar the old man couldn’t stop himself. He snorted himself silly, as Kioko’s shrill little bells were echoing out as well.

Jordan… couldn’t always smile like his sister could. He wasn't strong like she was.

But he could force it, at least when it counted.

----------------------------------------

This time when Jordan sat in his Foci, it felt right. His Sofu was smiling, genuinely beaming, and the tension and fear and worry about what was about to happen… was gone.

“Alright, let’s get started then. I need you to focus inward. I’m going to start directing Essence towards your Core and then give you instructions as we go.”

Jordan nodded affirmatively, and did as instructed. His attention began at his river, filled with his pebbles and dancing constellations of light. He watched it all flow around, before it suddenly felt like the sun began to shine on it. The ripples before him took on a sheen, the rocks in the bed sparkled, and a warmth suffused his being.

“Alright Aury, now start by following the Flow of your Essence. Your focus should begin to narrow down, so don’t be startled by it. Let it take you in its stream.”

Jordan watched the river diligently. The waters, now flush with the energy being sent his way, were easy to follow. As he observed, he saw what his Sofu had meant. What had originally just appeared as a giant river bed to his mind, was beginning to take shape the more he focused. It was more than just one bed.

It was an entire collection of them, and just like in his Time-Out skill, his mental retreat as it was, when he shifted how he looked at it all, he could start to make out the various branches and streams. But as much as they were divided… it was all still the same. It took him several times to even realize he was following one river only to find it looped back into itself. A closed circuit cycling through his being.

Well, okay then. I guess that solves the question of ‘where does it end.’ The river bed wasn’t flat and featureless, it built back in on itself, and nothing stopped Jordan from watching it from the reverse side. What he'd thought was him looking down at it, quickly gave way to the truth. It was a river of stars so thick with sparkling motes of power that he had thought it a wall—the river’s bed.

But now he understood. He saw how all the lights, and the flows of energy, formed a picture. A pattern of a… girl.

The star points really were parts of his body, but there were layers to its existence. He could push through them, and everything would shift with his perspective. As much as he was thrilled to finally have determined that he was looking at his new body, it was more confusing now than ever before!

Like the sparkling light just below his stomach, for example. All points seemed to go there, but it was more than just a stomach. Thoughts and beliefs, perspectives, and forms, they all intersected there, and he could travel up them to see pebbles in his dreams. Back in the convergence though, raw energy coalesced around it, flowed through it, and the skills in his pattern were tied to it, showing up along different points of each version of his patterns layering. Body, mind, and something else. Soul?

He tried to examine the center point further, as everything kept flowing back to it, but doing so caused more and more detail about his pattern to slip away. It almost frightened him, but he remembered his Sofu’s words and focused. He began to feel like he was falling, hurtling towards that central light. The closer he got, the further away it seemed to get as it began to loom larger and larger.

Down he traveled. Down into his center. Down into the light, like the end of a tunnel. In the corners of his mind’s eyes the various twinkles began to fade into the distance. His body in the real world grew distant, the feeling of breath diminishing. He hoped the stupid Brat’s instincts would keep it breathing.

Into a stream that sparkled like annoying Rhinestone glitter. He gasped at the feeling of it, cool and refreshing like Mountain Dew and Cat Buns, as his whole world became compressed into a single point.

Good, you’re there.

A voice sounded out. Jordan realized he couldn’t hear the outside world from where he was, but he felt it. Vibrations in his soul, carrying the words down with glowing energy that washed over him.

Er, hi? Can you hear me Sofu?

Can do, Aury! Tell me, what do you think of your Core?

The old man had a cheerfulness to his Mind-Voice that made Jordan want to kick his shin. Was this a joke or something he didn’t know about yet?

Jordan looked out in front of his Astral Projection, startled for a moment that he knew what it was, before shaking it off and examined the object far off into the distance.

Ah, Sofu? Is it supposed to look like that?

Hmm? Like what?

The old man was asking ‘innocently.’ Jordan resolved to kick him when he got out of this.

Like a damn purple potato!

His Sofu laughed in glee as he glared at the horizon. Hanging before him, suspended in an impossibly big space, was a giant… purple potato—there was no other way to describe it! Even though from his current perspective it was larger than the Cosmic Oasis sitting outside Rahm’s home, it was lumpy, purple, and just depressing to look at.

Now, now, don’t worry. All Cores tend to look a little like… hehee potatoes… Ahahah! Oh I love that description. Hey Kioko, can you write that down for me? Thanks.

Wait, is she in here too!?

What? Of course not. Doesn’t mean she can’t hear me though.

Er… cool. So, ah, what do I do with the potato? Plant it?

Hmm, as much of an interesting take on a Cultivation Paradigm as that would be, best not. Instead, we’re going to get started by working on your Potency.

Okay, what do I do?

Well… hold on to something?

Wait, wha—

From behind Jordan energy, as golden and brilliant as a Zenith Sun, coalesced into a Hand the Size of the Fucking Universe.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!

Jordan’s question was answered when the Universe deigned to shrink itself to fit his mental limitations of processing power. He was grateful for that, but not for what followed.

The hand, only the size of a moon now really, slammed into Jordan. Jordan’s Astral Self immediately collapsed from a vague person shape into a small ball. It then immediately did its best pancake impression as the sense of immeasurable speed and momentum propelled him forth.

Jordan screamed, endlessly thanks to lack of need for air in this environment, as the Hand of the Buddha rushed him towards the depressing potato planet in the distance. The world got bigger and bigger the closer they got, even as the hand behind him shrank more and more. After minutes of falling, wailing into the heavens, Jordan hit a small film of force surrounding the potato which had grown to fill his entire vision.

Jordan blabbered something to the effect of ‘what the fuck is happening,’ but also caught on something like soul fire as he hit the atmosphere of the potato. Smashing through the ‘air’ of the object, the pressure emitting from his core certainly seemed planet-like.

Jordan’s babbling cries were quickly brought to a silence, however, when he finally met the surface after a dozen miles of rocketing. The ground itself was spongy, yet ungiving. Brittle even, despite its more chitinous appearance. Jordan burbled at this point, reminded far too vividly of power-hugs from Catella, as he was squished even further.

Eventually, the ground gave in and Jordan was shoved through the surface of his potato core by a hand that had taken a more reasonable, freight tanker size. It shoved him with merciless intent, crushing him through mile after mile of agonizing potato madness. Jordan finally stopped screaming, if only because he felt he couldn’t breathe anymore on a spiritual level.

What he had hoped would be a thin crust and a quick trip was not so. The density of the potato increased with each mile they went, and the pressure crushing him only grew. What was worse, the closer he got to the center, the more he realized he was beginning to feel what the potato felt. He was becoming one with the potato. Beginning to potate.

And it fucking hurt.

Through the last agonizing miles, past distances that made him scoff at Celestial City commutes, Jordan was finally there. The journey was finally over.

He was through the crust.

And like dresses, kimonos, and Mercia when she started lecturing, it kept going.

Jordan felt the difference, not only in himself, but also in the world around him. He had literally hit a layer, a different point that he now realized was his third since coming here. The first had been the ‘atmosphere’ as he thought of it. It had been easy to push past, hardly an issue. The second layer, brittle and difficult as it was, was also not difficult to traverse. It just needed work to dig it away and get to what laid beneath.

This third layer, however, was beginning to heat up. The material around him, no different than the core of a planet, was semi-solid and blinded him with its compressed mass. A liquid of super condensed energy that when pushed through, was made even harder. What was worse was that behind him the energy released by their travels began to geyser up, like striking oil, and energy began shooting out of the potato.

He could feel it entering the Brat’s body from here. Power, raw and unfiltered, pouring into his pattern, giving him a line from this center to what was out there. His Ki reserves, which he’d been foolishly burning through were restoring rapidly. He could almost—

Hey now, don’t lose focus! Look to your Core and not away.

Rahms Mind-Voice slammed into Jordan’s pancake back, and he winced spiritual eyes.

S-sorry Sofu!

Focus. I need to focus!

But it was so hard! There was so much energy here! Like a hundred Catella’s worth! He could do anything with this energy. He couldn’t even help how he giggled, and he—

Was… was he becoming a bigger pancake? Jordan ‘blinked’ and realized that his pretend self was soaking in the energy, growing despite its hydraulic-pressed form. He’d thought he was just leaking out of everywhere, like Sofu and his Tiger-girlfriend. Huh.

Jordan… blinked from within the pancake, startled to realize he had something like eyes? Right, he was a person who had eyes, and eyes went on his… head? Yeah!

Slowly, the pancake began to re-shape itself as energy smashed into it, forging being against the Hand of God sending him on an express elevator down. Two arms came out next, one shooting out in a superman pose. Posing was fun!

Legs, bound in a dress because they always were, gah! And then a torso… with a demon heart! Wooo!

I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep at it girl! We’re almost through this layer, and the next one’s a doozy!

Bring it on!

Jordan… cried out? Why did he sound so much like a damn girl? And wait, was he wearing a dress? Oh right, he was a girl now. Er... had he forgot something?

Bleegghhh…. I shoulda made a corset!

Down he went, through the fire of Power, and its Temptations. Madness spinning in his head as he laughed through it all puking out excess energies. He superman dove towards the next layer that loomed like a diamond lattice work before them. Solid, but fully lit. The further they went, the more the darkness of solid mass disappeared, and the more he could begin to see everything coming up.

When he smashed into the diamond barrier, he briefly reverted back to a pancake and babble-burble-blabbered in protest before the Hand of ALL THINGS shoved him through it.

Smashing past the layer was like breaking through glass. Shards of the crystalline material flew off around him, as though in slow motion. He paused, hanging in the air, and this time the Hand didn’t push him. It had kept shrinking, and now was only the size of his mother's sedan.

Do what you can to hold yourself together Aury!

This layer did not resist him. It did not stop him. It did not hinder him in any way. He hung in the sky, looking down at a world of waters, clear and bright this close to the diamond surface, no heat or rock to be seen. A super liquid, but one that presented no pressure.

Instead, it acted like a vortex to drag him down.

Jordan screamed as two fingers delicately grabbed him by the scruff, and he felt himself violently plunging to the floor that wasn’t even visible! Just an empty, yawning chasm that slowly transitioned from the light near the edges, illuminated by the layer above, turning into a solid abyss below him. The more he looked, the darker it got. The greater the void grew, and the more it felt like falling into the ocean to be crushed.

Distance. So much distance off to his sides. Above him. Below him. Everywhere. Allwheres. He could sense it all around him, despite its formless tasteless liquid nature he could see the ripples, the currents, and the flow. A world of water and rays of light piercing through it only a dozen yards before darkness swallowed them all. He could go anywhere but it all took him nowhere.

He was drowning. He was disappearing. Falling into it all, he was being crushed. Like despair. Like his brother. Like his repentance. He wanted to cry, but this was where tears came from. So he became tears.

Jordan didn’t know how long he was there. Falling. Seconds became minutes. Minutes became hours. And hours became meaningless in the Core. It was all meaningless. He knew it was only his Sofu holding him, descending him slowly as the waters rippled across his Astral Form trying to crush it, tear it, flay it away in his sorrow, that he made it to the bottom.

This was the layer that would have consumed him. Utterly and completely.

He landed on the floor. It was dark, and his Astral Ears rang from the pressure pressing in on him. It was still… distant and odd, echoing around him as underwater sound waves did. He stared at the floor, noticing finally that he could see. The light from the Doberman sized hand behind him illuminated just enough that the reflection beneath shown out as he stood on a reflective sheen barrier.

A girl. A horrible little brat. The one who had brought him here. Had trapped him here. She’s the one that—

Her eyes were black. All black. Her hair drifted in the water, decay mangling flesh under the surface as her face contorted in anguish. What was wrong? Why was—

He was staring at himself. His beard was back. Was he waking up? Was this a dream? Would he be free soon? He wanted—

…Anna. Luke. Kate.

…Justinian. Lucius. Catella.

Jordan screamed, clasped his hands together above his head, and brought them down with Usiu slaying force.

The floor smashed, and he fell into darkness, the golden light of the hand behind him winking out.

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