Eight:

All the people in the room were content to ignore him, which was just as well. Leo preferred it to the looks of disgust, contempt, and, in some cases, curiosity that may have interfered in his meditation.

At this moment he was not simply present in this room; he was not an idealistic youth, or an ignition ritual hopeful, or some Low City orphan with implausible aspirations. Right now, he was energy, he was mana. It felt like a part of him – an out-of-reach part – had connected and attuned to the world around, and to that ephemeral energy; that which reached into the beyond.

He was both present in body, but also entirely divorced from it. He was a part of the world, not just a witness or a participant in it. He could feel the energy; so vast, so potent, so freely available, just sitting there. It was silent, but active. No, that wasn’t the right term. The energy was… Anticipatory. He felt as though the mana was ready, almost hopeful for him to take it, to embrace it and pull it into himself or push it away. It wanted to be used or left to its own devices. To act, to react, or to sit and observe. It simply wanted to do. It was potential; pure, unmitigated potential, and it felt good.

It felt right.

He had felt this before, once or twice, but never so powerfully, and never so easily. It generally happened when his pain became so unbearable his mind simply shut down, pulling him away and letting him drift. It had also happened when his mind was so full or so busy it felt as though it would splinter apart into little pieces and never recover.

Coming back to himself Leo took notes in his own shorthand, a language he’d invented for himself after the time somebody stole his previous notebook and proceeded to relentlessly mock his dreams, observations, and aspirations.

It hadn’t been a huge loss, considering his perfect memory - ‘eidetic,’ one of the books had called it – but it had forced him to recreate the journal. To intentionally recall and relive memories he would rather remain forever forgotten. An effusion of feelings meant for a single moment in time, memorialized on paper, in ink. His memory was both a blessing and a curse because nothing went away. Not even the things that would’ve been better off left forgotten.

That had been another time he’d sunk into this sort of all consuming meditation. For Leo, the nice thing about reaching that state of mind was that pain seemed to dull. No, that wasn’t correct. It was as though pain became secondary. The pulsing, tingling, burning in his body; the aching, crushing, rending emotions and memories. All of it seemed to finally, if momentarily, call a truce. It was like all the things that plagued him were out of reach. Leo was elsewhere and the torment wouldn’t reach him even if it tried.

Of course, it worked in reverse as well, dulling positive feelings like elation, compassion, and admiration leaving only neutral or dampened feelings and reactions in their place.

He also never knew how long he spent in that state; picking apart memories and feelings, attuning to the energy and feeling as though it was speaking back, breathing deeply and settling into the energies of the world. It normally took a sudden shock or cacophony of sensations and noise to break him out of it. Or, apparently, mana shifting aggressively or suddenly enough could rouse him as well. It was the first time Leo had experienced this, and it made contemplate things he never had before. He’d make notes and look into it later. Right now, he wanted to know what had roused the mana.

Blinking open eyes he hadn’t realised he’d closed, Leo looked around the room. There seemed to be a projector type setup Leo didn’t recognize on the far wall – perhaps it was some form of illusion or magical hologram? There, a name was being projected.

“Congratulations, Kinsley May,” the nameless head technician called out the name. “Our first ignited core of the group. All stand and pay your respects. There is a new cultivator in your midst.” Leo didn’t want to stand and clap – not for this girl.

‘Kinsley May’ had pale skin, brown hair, and grey eyes. She was about his age, average height, maybe 165 centimetres (5ft4), and she had a look about her – a sort of passive sneer that told anyone with a smidge of social awareness, that she was better than you. Her expression of smug superiority would make one think she knew this was going to happen. That her ignition was, in fact, an expected outcome, and that anybody who didn’t bow down now would be remembered.

This May girl looked like too many people Leo had known before. They were people he had been glad to pretend he’d never known and never see again. Many of those people had caused him pain.

However, Mr. 3rd Circle, nameless, bossman had made an order, not a request. Stand and clap for the self-important baby cultivator. It didn’t matter to the powers-that-be that standing right now would be painful and taxing for Leo. In his limited experience, cultivators had never needed a reason to take offence, and the look the man was giving Leo told him that if he didn’t rise, and quickly, he would take offense. So, Leo would stand, and clap.

‘Such a good little doggy,’ Leo thought, setting his jaw. He kept his face carefully neutral s the sensations he’d been blocking out came rushing back to him. ‘Ouch,’ he thought. ‘Ouch, ouch, ouch,’ he silently chanted as he stood with the rest of the young hopefuls and clapped.

The May girl sneered out at those she deemed lesser than her, already adopting the attitude he’d come to expect from so many cultivators. As she was led away by some attendants on hand, he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit bad for whichever sect or clan had the displeasure of recruiting her.

Putting her out of his mind as he slid back down the wall, Leo was annoyed that he’d missed actively observing the entire ignition process. Though, he had a feeling the process had something to do with the intense fluctuations he’d felt before being pulled out of his meditation. He promised himself he’d pay better attention to the next rounds so that he’d catch it the moment another core ignited.

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In an unusually impulsive move, Leo tried to dive back into his mana-sight. He wanted to brush against the mana around the new cultivator. He knew that unlike trained cultivators, new cultivators had a difficult time perceiving or controlling their auras. He hadn’t had any opportunities to observe a newly ignited person before, and though he wasn’t reckless enough to try and slip inside her aura like he’d tried with the healer, he was curious as to what the mana around her might tell him. Feeling at a distinct disadvantage, even among his supposed “peers” he wanted – needed – all the information he could get.

It took some time for him to slip back into the quasi-meditative state he needed to use mana-sight, but he managed it before the May girl had left the room. The brief glimpse of the mana around her didn’t tell him much, especially as he was simply observing instead of trying to actively manipulate his new sense like he’d done with the healer. However, the somewhat erratic activity of some of the mana around the girl had him making a few hypotheses that he was quick to jot down in the margins of his notebook.

As the May girl was escorted out using a different door than all the people who had failed their ignition, Leo reminded himself to stay alert and aware enough that he could catch it the next time a core was ignited. He didn’t hold out much hope, as he knew it was possible that Kinsley May would be the only other person to ignite their core the whole day. Even if another person managed it, Leo figured he’d be left waiting a long time

He wasn’t. After only two more rounds of unlucky young people leaving the chambers just as mortal as when they’d entered, one of the younger kids – 12 or 13 at the oldest – had their core ignite. This time, Leo had been paying attention, passively monitoring the ebb and flow of mana into and out of the chambers. Then it happened, and to Leo, it was beautiful.

It was natural geometry, art in nature. It was that flower, once more, unfolding in front of him. He needed to see more. Stretching his senses past anything he’d ever tried before, Leo watched, waited, and held his breath as he felt something fundamentally shift in the third ignition chamber.

What was most shocking to him wasn’t the shift itself, but the realization that nobody else seemed to be reacting to it. It was like, suddenly, every bit of energy that wanted to be fire, and light travelled rapidly towards the chamber. Not just mana, but what felt like fundamental concepts were drawn in. They floated in happy, joyful circuits as they drifted towards their destination. The 3rd chamber.

All the light, fire – and what Leo guessed was heat – mana around the ignition chamber that didn’t make it into the chamber itself were still more animated than the other types of mana he could observe. It was surreal, and incredible, and Leo found himself unconsciously mirroring the jubilation of the little motes of mana, a barely there smile forming on his lips.

The slight tugging of rarely used muscles brought Leo out of his reverie. Even so, it was difficult for him to tamp down on his instincts. Reality just felt so real right now. Everything was brighter, sharper, more. He wanted to scoot forward; to lean in close and get a better look at the chamber, at the mana, at the emerging cultivator. It was a struggle to restrain himself as he tried to discreetly figure out what was happening to the figure inside of the chamber.

He knew he lacked the knowledge, experience, and control necessary to understand even how much he wasn’t seeing. Just how much of that was his ignorance, and how much was the chamber being warded or obscured somehow, he didn’t know. It was even possible that some mechanism of ignition itself prevented him for perceiving what was happening; a natural defense mechanism within the body, or the unformed core that stopped him from getting a proper peek at the process. He just didn’t know enough to really begin to say. A common problem he seemed to be running into more and more frequently, and one that he hoped to resolve with time, training, and an ignited core of his own.

His conviction flared once more as he promised himself that he’d get the answers some day. Instead of dwelling on what he lacked, he reminded himself to be grateful he’d witnessed what little bit of the phenomenon he was able to.

‘Memorize. Theorize. Synthesize. Realize’ he chanted in his mind. It was a mantra he’d created for moments like these. When his mind became chaotic in its fixation, or refused to let go of an idea, often getting him into trouble. Breaking it down into steps always helped him focus. So, that was what he did. He began with active memorization, recalling in vivid detail the gathering of the elements.

Leo replayed the moment again and again in his mind, combing over it more meticulously than the caretakers at the home during the lice incident. Then he began to theorize.

The ignition had been like a coalescence of mana that he assumed flowed into the body, or maybe directly into the core? It hadn’t felt like an entirely passive process. Something about the mana seemed to spur the core or the cultivator to react, to attract the mana. Or maybe it was the other way around? Maybe, the ignition was a reaction to something about the core, or something about the cultivator. Was it something they were, or something they did? So many questions, too few answers. Answers he wouldn’t get in time.

Instead of annoyance, or disappointment, he focused on the next step. A synthesis of his ideas. He was focused on the information he had, and how he could use it to help him when it was his turn in the chamber. If the process was somehow active, how could that help him, what did that tell him. What could he do?

“Pull,” he mumbled under his breath, his voice less than a whisper. When it was his turn, he needed to pull. He nodded to himself as he scribbled notes, theories and ideas into his notebook.

Pull to where, his core? A cultivator’s core was neither completely physical nor entirely corporeal. He knew that. Everyone – even poor orphans with their subpar, state-funded educations – knew that. So how was he supposed to just, ‘pull’. Also, where and what exactly should he be pulling?

That kid had seemed to just attract not just fire and light mana, but whatever other concepts came with it. What was Leo supposed to do?

He allowed himself another moment of worrying before he reminded himself that he could only do what he could with what he had, and to keep his focus on that which he could control. Even when he didn’t exactly know ‘how’

“Pull,” he told himself. “Don’t think too hard, just pull.” He made a note in his book, nodded his head once, and pushed off the wall, glad that his fatigue and soreness was abating. He could swear he was recovering much faster than he usually did. Even without eating the second food bar the healer had given him.

As they all stood and clapped for the kid being ushered off by the attendants, Leo thought about the final step. Realization, the step where thoughts became actions. He promised himself that that if the mana didn’t come to him, he would pull it. He would drag it into his core and make the thing ignite. He would be a cultivator. The mana would obey.