Ten:

At first, he didn't know exactly what he was pulling. All he knew was that his intuition was telling him to keep going. His intuition was yet to lead him astray, so without hesitation, Leo obeyed, pulling, and pulling for all he was worth. It was that primal instinct that sometimes said the knowledge was meant to find him. It was that incomplete place inside him where ideas beyond his imagination whispered lullabies to him on particularly quiet nights. It was a secret place inside himself, a hidden something he'd never dared to speak of aloud, just in case they called him crazy and locked him away, or even worse believed him.

The truly insane were treated forever as children. Pampered, coddled, and left with absolutely no agency. But those who piqued the interest of the powerful, the curious, or the greedy, well those people were taken. If not by the sects, then by the Coalition, the state, or even more dangerous captors. He'd seen the broken husks that were the results of the perverse attentions of those ‘worse’ captors.

Leo would sooner die then end up in their clutches. That or become powerful. Insanely powerful. Powerful enough that even the attention of the so-called immortals, those cultivators that have ascended past the 10th Circle and called themselves divine, that even they, with all their power would not cross him lightly.

As the chamber filled, and Leo began to pull, the pain he’d been feeling earlier spread like an infection, ratcheting his discomfort up to new heights. It felt like instead of just his core igniting his entire body was on fire. Then the fire became acid, and that became plasma. Pure, unadulterated, burning agony had his body bulging and swelling like cold rubber stretched too far.

Leo felt his skin split open in jagged cracks. He could feel his blood trickling down his arms, warming his skin, and making him want to itch and shake at the same time because the tickling sensation contrasted aggressively with the feeling of being slowly torn apart. Cracked and oozing like he was a fractured dam, Leo endured, leaking and crumbling under the pressure and the ever-increasing onslaught. It hurt. It hurt everywhere. Yet within that pain he felt the power.

Mana flowed into him just as quickly as it entered the chamber and Leo did what he’d promised himself he would, he pulled. All too soon the pressure eased, the chamber began to feel empty, and even through the agony Leo knew that this was not enough. So, he pulled, and he pulled, and he stretched his senses back to the source. Leo reached for where the manna was flowing into the chamber from, reached past the artificial barrier preventing him from getting that which he needed to survive this ignition.

It wasn’t just his core igniting. Leo was being reforged in power, in essence. His entire being, from the physical and beyond, was taking in the power like a dry, dessert riverbed that has finally felt the rain. Leo soaked in the mana he found in abundance at the leylines, a small tendril of himself snaking out like a straw and tapping directly from the source.

This time, when he pulled, it was not a trickle, or a shower, Leo brought forth a torrent. Mana, wild and abundant, ripped up through the earth and into the chamber. The tiny ignition chamber crackled with energy. Outside of himself he could almost smell the energy and taste the power. He was so connected with the world around him that he felt instead of heard the dull vibrations of someone banging on the outside of the chamber. Runes flared in response, preventing the people outside from interrupting the ritual. Unperturbed, and distant, Leo memorized acknowledged what was going on before focusing back on the world around him. He couldn't be distracted right now. Not when he was in the eye of the storm, of the torrent of mana that seemed to be pouring into him like he was a black hole.

He needed more. More mana, more power. More! So, he pulled.

Like a well-trained puppy, eagerly obeying a simple command, the mana responded to Leo with fervor. His urgency seemed to spur it on as he felt himself being made whole. The parts of him that had been broken and re-broken so many times, the parts of him that even today had fractured and shattered, the small fragments of bone that had never quite mended right, the ligaments and muscles that had been supernaturally torn so many times. Every broken piece of him ignored or poorly fixed by negligent healers and caretakers; those bits of him that had needed to be mended, and re-mended because of neglectful handling, those bits of him that were passed over so often that they were mangled as much from inattention as anything else. Right now, in this chamber, it was as though all of it was being erased.

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No, not erased. In the deluge of power, he was Reforged.

Leo kept pulling.

He didn't know if it was minutes or hours later until he was finished. What he did know was that the ignition chamber had been sucked entirely dry of mana, and he’d been forced to tap into the source, into the leyline, to ensure he would have enough raw power to fully ignite his core without completely sacrificing his body.

He could feel the raw mana even now. It was a pulsing, undulating, ‘something’ that he could feel was mirrored, if slightly different, in his naval, right where his solar plexus was.

His core – and he knew it was his core although it wasn’t completely formed yet – was blazing with potential. Leo was officially a core formation cultivator.

More than that, he felt like his entire everything was just brimming with mana. Leo felt strong, powerful, and for the first time in his life, Leo felt whole. It was exhilarating, Leo was jubilant. He wanted to jump and shout and twirl and run. He wanted to bang his arms and legs against something solid just to reassure himself that whichever limb was abused wouldn't flare up in that familiar burning, searing pain he’d lived with all his life.

His complete elation, his utter focus and insistence on containing his senses allowed him to forget the world. If only for a few seconds, Leo basked in the ignorance of the world around him as he dressed slowly, languorously, and one article at a time. He stretched his arms over his head and felt the flex and give of well worked muscles as he engaged them.

Immediately, there was a difference in what he could perceive. His eyes took in the almost follicle like texture of the denim that made-up his jeans. So many different variations of blue that was integrated into one colour. He felt the rough stretchy texture of his socks as he pulled them up along his feet and to his calves. He wiggled each toe as he stuck it in his ‘good’ runners. The beat-up everyday pair of shoes sat at the bottom of his rucksack near his one pair of boots.

It was as he was reaching up, marveling in the ease at which he slung such a heavy bag over his shoulder that he realized the little silver white crystal he’d noticed before had almost completely dimed. Actually, almost everything except his ignition chamber was completely dim.

Leo pushed at the door to the chamber and realized just how limited his mortal view of world had been from the reality around him. While still surrounded by the nearly opaque walls of the chamber, Leo made a point of sweeping the outside of the chamber.

While he may not have liked the other youths or the technicians, he had grown used to their presence. When he pushed his mana sight out, he became disconcerted when he realized that the room was empty. There were no technicians, no healers, no hopeful, disappointed, or elated youth coming out of their own chambers. Instead, there was only darkness. No light was present, save for the artificial green glow of the sign above the door that read

‘IGNITION ROOM’

Open | Closed

in blocky, boxy lettering.

Leaning against that door was a woman Leo had never seen before. She radiated no power, and lacked the distinctive aura of a cultivator. Yet she also didn’t register as a living being. She definitely didn’t feel like any of the non-ignited mortals had felt.

The woman had distinctly hawklike features, piercing blue-green eyes, high sharp cheekbones, and a smile that seemed as straight and unyielding as the seam of a beak on a bird-of-prey. Yet for all of that, her obviously avian, predatory qualities did not detract from her supernatural beauty.

Powerful, Leo thought. This woman was a predator, and the look in her eyes told Leo that to this woman thought of him as nothing more than easy prey.

“You'll be coming with me,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. Leo wasn’t necessarily opposed to going with the obviously powerful woman. Honestly, he simply didn’t have enough information to be. However, he was also aware that based on the absence of the other technicians, this woman was as much a liability to him as they may have been an asset.

While Leo debated with himself, the woman kept speaking. “Don't worry,” she said. “Your secret is safe.” Her voice a higher pitched than Leo had assumed, it made her next words incongruent with the soft, delicate femineity she was exuding. “I killed them all.”