In the shattering, Jordan blacked out. His consciousness, or perhaps entire Astral-Being, had snuffed out like a candle.

He wasn’t sure when it came back to him, he only knew… that he was standing on something solid. And for a while, he simply didn’t do anything while he waited. A part of him, some distant section of his mind perhaps, assumed he was back in his Review. Patiently biding his time until a pillar of light spawned to usher him forward. But there was only darkness, and he was alone.

But it wasn’t empty.

There was a pressure in this place, and it carried with it an air of power, like a terrifying promise. It was a quiet, dreadful thing—cold and distant as it pressed on him. He knew, somehow, that all it needed was a spark. Something to give it form.

He shivered in the lightless space as he was reminded of hydrogen, of all things. That base element that sat as number one on the periodic charts. Memories of the unassuming gas were flooding his brain with flashbacks to High School chemistry.

But, in truth, it was one specific High School memory it brought on that disturbed him.

He’d been in High School when a hydrogen bomb went off in New Delhi. While there had been plenty of—thankfully—unrealized scares from the terrorists after that, he never forgot how the world stopped from that terrible moment. Frozen to the core.

And just like Earth, the place here needed only a catalyst to change everything. An irreversible decision with unimaginable costs.

Because that was what this place was.

Not hydrogen, of course, nor was it an actual bomb of any kind (he hoped). It was just… potential. Raw power, unformed and undirected. It suffused the world around him, patiently waiting for him to call on it and pull the trigger, like a gun in a cabinet.

As he began to walk, his footsteps echoed in the darkness, reverberating dramatically as they grew louder even as they faded with distance. The gloom gave way slowly—unexpectedly. A creeping change that ate at his awareness until he finally noticed what was happening.

He was no longer alone.

Walking alongside him, feet were beginning to take form. They stopped when he stopped, they turned when he turned, and they ran when he ran.

The further he fled, in confused zig-zagging directions, the more the images multiplied and grew to become fully fleshed beings. Eventually Jordan had to stop running. He wasn’t sure if he could continue, but not for stamina issues. He was completely surrounded, closed in on all sides with nowhere left to run…

From her.

The Brat stood in front of him. Dozens of her, hundreds possibly in the distance, but not true versions. Reflections. Jordan could see small glints of light bouncing off of translucent glossy sheens suffusing them—small lens flares flashing depending on the angle he faced them. It was as though all the reflections stood within invisible mirrors, lit up by an unseen glow emanating from himself.

“What do you want?” Jordan asked, but none of the images reacted. Incensed, he stepped closer to one and realized… it wasn’t exactly the Brat.

The one in front of him was older, perhaps a teenager. She’d grown into her frame, but her eyes still kept that familiar contempt when she looked at him. When… he looked at himself. Her clothes were more dramatic though, almost like a school girls outfit overlaid with armor. A large contraption on her arm, and wands on her belt. She sneered at him and Jordan walked past her. She let him, as none of the reflections mimicked him. They only stayed uncomfortably close.

There were more, always more. Different clothes, different hair styles. Different walks of life. Some warriors, some casters, a few stealthy ones, and even a few in sparkling dresses. The worst ones though… were the adults who were expecting. Jordan didn’t look at those ones. He didn’t want to acknowledge that kind of potential.

He jogged for a while, his images lazily keeping pace as he swerved through them, but he never arrived anywhere. Eventually, no more showed up but none left either—save for a few corpses lying around here or there. So he stopped moving and looked down. The floor was still dark and formless, but it beat staring at a thousand pairs of eyes judging him.

What was he supposed to do here? Where was he supposed to go? Without Rahm to guide him… he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. The other layers had been straight forward—so what was with this one? What was he missing? He decided to reflect on how he arrived in this place.

The first layer had really been just that. The first. The first step, the first breath, the first push. There wasn’t anything difficult about it, you just had to do it. That second layer had required work. Hard work to dig through that ground, or in Jordan’s case, pile drive through it screaming like a pancake.

The third layer however… he had tasted it. Power. It had been exhilarating, tempting, wondrous even. He still wanted to go back there, and bask in the feeling of triumph it filled him with. He might have if it hadn’t been for the fourth layer. The… price of it all. The cost to power and the fallout of it. How it grabs you and takes you—crushes you with the very thing you sought after.

But here, there was nothing to push against. Nothing to rail against. Nothing except… potentials. Possible… futures? Paths? Was he supposed to find a reflection and choose it? It could make sense. He didn’t know how but he knew that this layer was more… abstract.

Which meant it was entirely possible that there was no answer; no true path. Only what he made of it.

Maybe all this layer was meant to impose on him was… awareness of his own ignorance?

That could make sense to Jordan, because to him there was a truth to power. Power by itself, was meaningless. Power by itself, could do nothing. It was nothing. It was the person who wielded it that gave it purpose. Gave it form.

Jordan had… he had heard a lot of arguments about gun safety in his life. Many people had preached it to him, not knowing how it had affected him, and he tried to grin and bear it. He could understand many of their arguments. As much as he hated guns with all his heart… he knew that no gun ever killed someone on its own.

It was the person who pulled the trigger.

And he’d blamed the people on the other side of the Colt for giving up. For pulling the trigger. Kate didn’t like to talk about it, but she was the one who found Luke afterwards. It was his mother who had found his dad later on. A part of him had always wondered… would it be Anna who found him? Was each man in his family destined to die and each woman fated to find them? Were they helpless in this fate?

A few tears fell to the floor and echoed into the chambers loudly. Jordan sighed, and reached up to wipe them away. It was typical, really. Whenever he got a little bit sad, the Brat’s body would—

Jordan froze mid-cleanup as he looked up. One of the Brats stood directly in front of him.

She had a patch over an eye, with a horrible scar across her face. She was older and both of her hands were… metallic. Artificial. Scars showed along her ankles where even now he could see thorns growing into her skin. Like she had put them there just to mock the world.

She made for a terrifying view, armor a deep grey, heavier than the room around him. But worst of all, to his horror, she lifted up a handkerchief and wiped his tears away. The scarred, mutilated Brat… gave him a [Perfect Smile].

She was the only one in the room that didn’t look at him with contempt.

“H-how… how can you…?” He couldn’t even fathom it. How could she smile? How?

The reflection cocked her head at him, still smiling, and then… she posed. Like a superhero, dramatically laughing though her voice couldn’t be heard. Villainous in ways, but…

Jordan laughed with her. It was… madness, but who cared? Hadn’t he gone too far to quit?

What was a little bit further?

When he settled down, the reflections parted around him, forming a hallway. Down the corridor of reflections, was an empty mirror. Jordan strode towards it and walked through the frame, shattering black glass revealing a white void beyond.

About time, Aury. You spent hours in there!

Oh, ah, s-sorry Sofu. Does… does this mean we're done?

Ha, done she says. No Aury, that’s just the first part of the fifth stage.

Wait, what? Come on!

Now, now, don’t worry. I really just needed you to make up your mind and accept your Potential so I could take care of the rest.

Take care… of the rest? What the fuck does that mean!? Are you going to push me again or something?

Hah, not quite. Ah, hold on to something. Also, fair warning… this part will hurt and there’s nothing I can do about that.

Oh… joy.

Jordan stood anxiously in the white void. He looked around for any features to ‘hold onto’ and saw only one. With nothing to do while he waited, he walked up to the sole object.

Center stage, elevated on a platform a couple feet high, was a massive crystal. It was a lightly-colored purple, similar to the potato really, but prettier in design despite its rough shaping. The center of his core perhaps? Maybe—

Pain. PAIN. PAIN! It wracked him, it tore at him, it shot through him. An instant. A moment. Pain, like the very CONCEPT of it, wrote into his soul.

Jordan looked down, grabbing at his chest despite the fact he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that to the Brat’s body, but… there was a hole in him?

He stuck a hand… into himself. He reached further and it went… all the way through? Were Astral selves allowed to have holes through chests and spines? Wasn’t his kind allergic to being holy? Ha… ha… ha….

The crystal… was also… cracked. No… holed? Yeah… it had a hole in it too. They were hole brothers. Soul sisters? Ha… Ha…… ha……

Jordan fell to his knees and vomited ephemeral rainbows. All the colors seemed to be shades of red though. The world around him began to shake… and tremble? Cracks in the white void were forming.

And like a bad latency catching up, something began to flicker and form. An… arrow? Yeah… an arrow.

Yay! He found it. The arrow. It was… in his body? Sticking through him. And his crystal. And his…

Real body. Pain.

The… the fucker had shot him with that damn arrow.

An Arrow of Light.

Stupid fantasy bulls—

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The world became light. From his core and outward, it suffused every single portion. Like a pulsar, staring at you from a cul-de-sac, accusing you of being riff-raff.

Jordan was glowing with the white hot fury of the sun, as Radiance itself filled him. He laughed as he felt his astral form dissipate, only to reform when the crackling plasma wrapped around him and chained him in place.

He laughed when the crystal in front of him shattered into sparkling motes, only to turn white hot and melt back into itself, bound by a line of light running through it just like with Jordan.

And he laughed as he coughed up blood that Kioko wiped away. At the hands trying to hold onto the arrow protruding from his guts, held by large calloused weights. Damn four-handed bastard, it was unfair to have such a numerical advantage!

But Jordan didn’t laugh when his body locked up.

He didn’t laugh when the crystal imploded into light.

And he didn’t laugh when he became a pancake again. Potatoed as an implosion before him dragged him in. And then—

Jordan became the crystal. He had become his core—the planet itself. He was truly potate now. He gazed upon his new reality—every portion visible to his Astral Eyes. He saw the length and breadth of it, the myriad imperfections to it, he saw…

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

How it was cracking everywhere as a pillar of light stretched onward beyond his ability to perceive. As the light pulsed, a wave of energy slammed into Potato-Jordan and his core splintered upon every seam and every ridge as power began to ignite from within. It exploded outward, and Jordan perished in a flash.

Only to not be dead as golden hands wrapped around his potato. Jordan wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He was incredibly certain he had literally just died.

Haha, here we go! Looks like it stuck and your core’s purring like a Beastkin. I’m going to remove the Arrow and dress the wound. Hold on for a bit and we’ll jump to the next part. Until then just think, ah, spinny thoughts.

What the fuck.

The pillar of heaven faded from sight as Jordan’s insides became outsides, and he flipped between the two states several times. His core, which he really, really felt should be a solid thing, was currently so fractured and broken into tiny bits and pieces he was practically liquid! Or, was he more of a gas now?

Either way, he was terrified as he could no longer sense his physical body. It was a new and unwelcome sensation, as there had been times he’d been so focused everything had disappeared, but when he’d tried to focus on it, he’d been able to still sense it. Now though…

Looking up at the sky, the distant lights were practically invisible. Fading. Dying.

Spinny thoughts though? Was that what he’d said? All Jordan could think about was how screwed he was right now. If the two golden hands of Rahm, currently half the size of freaking Jupitar, weren’t holding him together he’d… he’d be dead. What was he even doing with his other hands? Jordan was dying, right this second, hanging on his last breath! Suspended in his final moment.

Cultivation was death. Death was cultivation. He had become death, the destroyer of potatoes.

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Alright, you’re good to go! Let’s get on to the next stage, shall we? How are you doing with your spinny thoughts?

AHHHH AHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHH

Hmm, that sounds more like existential dread to me. Hey now, focus will you? It’s just a near death—

HELP ME PLEASE!

Hmph, stop being so dramatic girl, it’s just death and you haven’t even properly died. Yet. So pipe down and listen, would you?

W-what… what do I do!?

The next Attribute we’re going to work on is your Core’s Control. We’re going to start from the outer edge and work our way in. Move your perspective to the far reaches of your Core Realm.

It was surprisingly easy to find the edge of his existence now. Before, he would have shot right past it, going back into his own Pattern beyond. But cut off as he was… the edge was simply as far as he could go.

It was also really freakin’ far away from his Potato-Self! An entire solar system’s span of distance, with his potato fading off into a tiny spec in the horizon, held in the golden hands like a dim star.

O-okay, I think I’m there.

Good! I’m going to begin etching a Mandala onto the outer portions of your Core Realm. While there’s many ways to go about it, we’re going to go with a classic Formation-Ring cultivation method for you.

Is that a really good one?

Eh, it isn’t bad but it’s traditional, understand?

…you mean it's easiest for you, don’t you.

Full Marks!

Jordan’s world shuddered as he died, snuffed out in an instant as his core shattered into—

And was brought back within the same breath, once more held by the Golden Hands of Divinity.

Don’t let go of my core, damnit!

Oops, heheh.

Jordan waited on the edge of existence, where the world faded into an obscuring mist as the dying lights on the other side shown through. His patience was rewarded when two hands appeared and began to draw golden lines that formed a circular shape. The figure slowly began to twist on itself, the patterns on it dancing inward as Essence sang through its thrumming lines. After a few minutes the formation, spinning in the air like clockwork, was finished.

Okay, one down. Got a few more to go, so just hang tight, okay?

Is there… anything I can do to help?

Normally? Yes, you’d be the one drawing these. But that would take a while, and I’m just going to expedite the process. But if you want to help, I won’t stop you! Just do your best to copy what you saw me make and I’ll correct it all in the end.

Jordan looked at the spinning lines of Essence. Next to it, a few thousand miles or so away, Jordan could see Rahm already making another one. There was… a rhythm to it though. A specific distance that made a repeating pattern. Feeling for it, Jordan found something like gravity spots—points where the patterns fit best. He sat on the side opposite of Rahm to begin working.

Though he couldn’t help notice his Sofus comment about there only being a ‘few’ more to go was slightly off.

There were clearly thousands of spots to fill. They rung the entirety of the space in his Core Realm. This is going to take a while, he Astrally sighed.

At first, Jordan set upon his task with diligence. Drawing in this place reminded him of the Trial and its pictures, it was a place where his concepts became reality, and what he willed could be made true. Well, as long as he had a giant ritual funneling Essence into him. He knew that somehow, even though it made little sense to him.

Playing with the Mandala was mind numbing with its complexity, and shooting back and forth between the points for reference was taking a lot of time. Rahm had completed a dozen more by the time Jordan was half way done with his first!

Incensed, Jordan made a copy of the Mandala, taking the image in his mind like a mental clipboard taking a snapshot, and then pasted the copy next to the Mandala he was working on. It was far easier to copy when he didn’t have to jump back and forth endlessly. His work went smoothly as he—

Stared at the copy he’d made. Copy! What the hell am I doing!?

Jordan wiped his ‘attempt’ away and put the copy he’d made in its place. The thing fit just fine, so he made more copies and began to race through the various pseudo-LaGrange points of his Core Realm and paste more. There were still so many damn locations to be filled, he decided to just group select, copied, and pasted. A few Mandalas wobbled, not quite stuck in the proper places, but a couple nudges set them right. He was making incredible progress when he heard Rahm’s Mind-Voice… Astral-Voice?

What in the Hells are you doing? Are you… how did you copy them all Aury?

Er… I dunno, I just did. Am I not supposed to?

Well, I, ah, I guess nothing stops you from doing that. Clearly. I just… I guess I don’t see how you thought of it.

Why wouldn’t someone think to copy the work? It’s a hell of a lot easier than drawing each one!

How?

…how what?

How would someone copy them?

Copy… paste?

Can you say that in Old Tongue for me?

…oh shut up, old man.

Hahahah!

With all the mystical splendor of a word processor, Jordan completed the chore of ringing his Core Realm. Happy to be done, his adopted Grandfather surprised him by pushing him to go further. Saying something about ‘while we’re here we may as well.’

Copying and pasting till the cows came home, Jordan painted the rim above and below, but this time with different Mandalas. Rahm made them, and Jordan spread them, but the one’s for ‘above’ and ‘below’ were each separate, and grew in complexity as they got closer to the center of the Core Realm. Overall, his entire new Solar System was… kind of a pancake shaped disc.

Once they were finished, however, Jordan felt the difference. It had come to him slowly but the more they completed, and especially with the directions of ‘up’ and ‘down’ defined, the more the grey mists beyond had receded. The sky was filled with the shining stars once more. The twinkling pebbles of his river-bed. The nodes in his Pattern.

Not that it made that great a difference. He still couldn’t feel any of it, and the lights were still clearly in distress. But he took comfort in being able to at least see it again.

Alright, that went much smoother than I thought. We’re going to get started on the next stage, and to help with that I’m going to… give you a little boost, we’ll say.

You’re going to stab me again.

What? No! Of course not.

Just… just drop the punch line already Sofu. I know there’s going to be more to it.

Oh, don’t spoil my fun! You’ll see. This part is going to be great!

The sound of thunder echoed into his Core Realm. Distant and faint, Jordan saw it first as lightning dancing among the stars. The Heavens above were convulsing, locking up in strange ways as they seized up. It was almost as though…

The old man was electrocuting him. Jordan should have seen that coming.

The storm above swept in with terrifying speed. When it smashed into the barrier between his Core Realm and the Pattern beyond, it roiled in frustration, clouding along the edges of reality. Jordan was momentarily pleased that the work they’d just done was protecting him, before gasping in horror when he saw the storm begin to slip into his Core Realm. It was using the mandalas they just made to do it!

Like a gas leak a thousand times over, dark clouds with sparks of light flashing in them pushed their way into his Core Realm. Like a flash flood, it quickly overwhelmed Jordan’s ability to track it all. The storm filled the Solar System of his potato place, until all he could see were dark clouds and flashes of the lighting within.

Good, it all fits. Was a tad worried there for a moment, but let’s move on.

Do I… even want to know what’s happening out there?

Er, probably not. Let’s just focus, shall we?

F-fine. What do I do next?

We’re going to start by funneling all that Storm Essence into your Core. Don’t worry about trying to cycle it, I’ll take care of it on my end. For now, let’s direct it and then we’ll begin working on the next stage. We just need it in motion first.

Jordan followed the old man’s instructions, moving his perspective back to his Potato-Home where he did his best to hoover up all the Storm Essence sitting around him. It… didn’t really go well, all things considered. The Essence kept rushing in, smashing into his gravelly surface, racing in whatever manner it pleased. Eventually some of it struck at the molten crystal within the depths.

Once there it simply vanished, but it formed a connection. With it, all the Storm Essence sitting around began to rush towards the Core, throwing itself into his depths. Yet for all the Essence that disappeared, more came into the Core Realm, continuing to rush through the Mandalas on the edge of reality.

But now, the entire Solar System was in motion, as the storm raged within.

Perfect. Glad to see the Storm likes you, it would’ve been… awkward if it hadn’t. Anyway, the next part we’re going to do involves making more Mandala’s nearby. We’re going to slowly shape the inner space and also bring your Core to the center of it all.

Wait, it isn’t the center point already?

You tell me, Aury. We defined the centers, above and below, remember? Look at it. Do you see how far off the core is?

Oh. Oh wow, that’s… is that bad?

Yup. Let’s get to work then, shall we?

Circling space, like planets around a star, Rahm began to draw more Mandalas. Watching with fascination, Jordan saw the Storm’s Essence begin to bend and rotate around the new patterns, and after a while, they spun around them.

After swirling for a time, they would continue onward, but they seemed more… refined? The Storm’s Essence was less raw and wild, more purposeful in its trajectory, arching through the space instead of making a wild screaming beeline.

Following that, with slow deliberate effort, Rahm helped ‘nudge’ Jordan’s potato towards the center point of his Core Realm. It had been about as far from the center of the ‘solar system’ as Mercury from the sun, so in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t too far off.

But trying to move a ball of gravelled, powered potato?

Rahm lightly cursed, over and over again as bits and pieces of Jordan’s core broke off. They floated away, but thankfully the storm swirling outside, rushing to get into his core, helped keep it close. The old man kept reaching back to recapture the lost chunks and stick them back in. Jordan watched it all with a nauseous fascination as each movement could be felt reverberating through his being.

It was worth it in the end. The moment his core sat snug in the true center, a point that until the Mandalas Above and Below had been drawn didn’t exist, the entire universe of his Core Realm vibrated, struck by a wave of energy that washed through it. Then everything began a slow rotation around his core, directed by the variations of the patterns defining the disk.

Alright, that’s in place, now we’re going to start funneling the Essence in properly. Watch what I draw, though don’t worry about copying it. I’ll be making several and each one’s going to be different.

What are these Mandalas about?

These ones are going to help break down complex Essence and purify them. Each one will have a different ratio though.

With that brief explanation, the old man began to work as more asteroid sized Godly Hands manifested around Jordan’s core, the same ones that had drawn all the previous Mandalas. Whereas before he had drawn the Mandalas with lines of golden Essence, this time he took the enveloping storm and drew lines out of it. The patterns formed, shifted, and then they too began to spin.

First one small swirl in the clouds, hovering over Jordan like a small moon. But then another, and another. A dozen or more slowly appeared, all orbiting Jordan’s potato being on a perfect plane, but each was at different distances and orbiting at various speeds as Rahm kept pushing at them to keep them moving.

The storm was caught in their motion and the Essence that tried to rush past was stymied over and over again by one layer or another. It was spun and intermixed, until it smashed into the outer layer of his core.

By that point, the Essence had slowed, its momentum absorbed by the Mandalas above, and rained down gently onto Jordan. Gradually the storm began to calm above him, the excess energies drained off, and the clouds compressed forming rings around his core. His potato planet looked just like Saturn now!

Alright Aury, the last part of the Control Attribute we’re going to address is your ability to keep this all in motion without my help.

It’s not going to keep doing this on its own!?

What? Why would it?

…gravity?

Bwhahaa! Gravity, hehe, like that ever mattered. Enough jokes though Aury, go ahead and shift your focus back down into your Center.

Okay…

Once there, well… it’s going to get a little abstract again, like with the last Attribute. What you need to do, however, is focus on controlling your core. It’ll be tough, but once you can get it started I’ll help with the rest, just like last time okay?

Y-yeah.

Hey. You’re doing good kid.

…thanks Sofu.

Jordan’s perspective shifted once more. Moving downward, through the gritty shattered layers of his core, he came before his molten center. Despite the motion in the world above, the area around the core was quiet and still. Even as the spiritual pressure of all the Storm’s Essence pressed in on him, rushing towards the molten crystal in front of him, it resisted it. It was trapped by it.

He could understand that feeling.

Jordan Astrally-Breathed in, and dove into the crystal.

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