A city lay below James, a vast expanse of buildings laid out in a lotus pattern. It hung suspended in the water, slowly spinning in a gentle current. Each building represented a part of Nadia’s life, from her time with her family to living in the sect. There was even an agricultural tower.

“I didn’t think I was that important,” James said when he saw the tower.

“You undervalue yourself too often, disciple,” Nadia said. “Now, to connect with the core you will have to reach the central building.

She pointed to the tower at the center of the lotus, a perfect copy of Nadia’s floor sitting at the top. Swirling currents of water, dark and ominous, churned around the tower.

“What are those?” James asked.

“Old parts of my previous cores, absorbed into my new creation when I passed this core on to you,” Nadia answered. “It is up to you to either avoid them or defeat them.”

“It doesn’t matter which?” James asked.

“The trial begins when you reach the central tower,” Nadia explained. “Inside you will come face to face with the world of my making. You must master and turn it so that it works for you and not itself.”

“And failing makes me a conduit for the world,” James finished.

“Yes,” Nadia answered.

“I thought I wasn’t ready,” James said with a raised eyebrow.

“Circumstances forced my hand,” Nadia explained. “You would not last in the immortal’s graveyard without a core. I had to make a gamble.”

“I’ll forgive you this time,” James said lightly. “After all, you were dying.”

“Already on macabre humor?” Nadia joked. “I expected that to come later.”

James bent down and placed a hand on the surface of the waters below. “Don’t you remember, master? I thrive on the unexpected.”

He pushed through the thin membrane, sinking into the waters below. The world became an incandescent blue, the area around James somehow illuminated. He held his breath and swam downward.

Nadia walked up beside him. “Somehow I doubt you’ll get far like that, disciple.”

James stopped and eyed his master accusingly.

She shrugged. “You did not wait for the rest of the explanation.”

James sighed and oriented himself, moving to stand next to his master.

“Here, your body is a representation of your will,” she said. “As such, your thoughts take precedence. If you do not wish to breath, you have no need to. Remember before, disciple? Imagine yourself in a perfect condition.”

James did, centering himself with a breath. The instinctual part of him that screamed against breathing in water crashed against the cage of willpower holding it in. Air entered his lungs, not the water that surrounded them.

“Good,” Nadia said. “Remember this, because the core will try to make you forget.”

James nodded and started walking toward the center of the lotus. He reached the edge in moments, which made him look at his master in questioningly.

“You imagined yourself walking to a position and your body acted,” Nadia explained as she stepped next to him. “If you must, think of it as time working in different ways.”

“Neither of those explanations helped,” James muttered.

“That is because the concept is difficult to grasp,” Nadia answered. “You have spent your whole life in a world bound by a strict set of physics. Here, those physics are malleable, changed to suit the needs of the cultivator.”

“Is that why you could make so much water all the time?” James asked.

“Indeed,” Nadia said. “Now, come with me.”

She led the way, walking James through the buildings representing her life. He saw the pavilion where her friend got in trouble, the branch house she and her mother were relegated to, and a small tower that closely resembled the Blue Mountain sect. There were also a number of government buildings and surprisingly a large number of sporting arenas.

“Skateball was always something of a passion,” Nadia said when James asked. “In my heart I always believed sports were an effective way of solving disputes. That and the tenants of sportsmanship felt so very close to the morals I wanted cultivators to have.”

She gained a faraway look in her eye. “If only we could enjoy cultivation for its own sake, and not treat it as a weapon to hold power over others.”

“I’m sure it’ll happen someday,” James said.

“Perhaps you are right, disciple,” Nadia said. “Now, let us continue.”

They reached the central tower, a soaring crystalline clear glasslike structure holding the floor above. As they walked forward, James heard the familiar noise of rushing water. He looked around, confused as to where the noise came from. Nadia moved forward, placing her hand on the building.

The crystalline glass split between her fingers, revealing itself to be a geyser somehow separate from the liquid around it. Nadia removed her hand, letting the water return to its laminar flow.

“Wow,” James said.

“This is the difficult portion,” Nadia said. “From here, the remnants of my old cores will attempt to stop you. You must keep a hold on your mind if they attack. I do not believe them to be fast, meaning quick thinking will let you avoid them.”

“And how do I defeat them?” James asked.

“You must imagine yourself greater than them,” Nadia said. “Which is difficult when they are a force all their own.”

“And you can’t help?” James asked, finally voicing the unspoken question in his mind.

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“They are a part of myself,” Nadia said. “My actions would cause them no harm.”

“But you couldn’t keep them away from me?” James asked.

“Not without severing something in myself, disciple,” Nadia said.

“I won’t have to fight you or something, will I?” James asked.

“I cannot say,” Nadia answered. “My experiences with cores have already differed drastically. We are treading unknown ground.”

“Water in this case,” James said, cracking his knuckles.

“Either way, I am limited in my help,” Nadia replied.

James loosened up. “Well, nothing to it but to try.”

He sprinted, imagining himself running up the geyser and reaching the top. As his foot touched the flaring spout of water, the world around him roared. James felt a weight press on him as the core took notice. He ran faster, taking two steps up the geyser for every one he took.

The dark, swirling currents representing the remnants of Nadia’s cores rushed toward James. He dove, pushing into the flowing geyser as they came. The first of the remnants tried to reach for him, a tentacle of dark water moving to wrap around his foot. As soon as it came into contact with the geyser, it recoiled in pain.

Seeing this, James continued his journey up the geyser, using it as a shield to avoid the dark waters. He continued to imagine himself moving faster and faster, trying to outpace his chasing foes to reach the top before them.

He made it halfway up the geyser before the world changed. The water, which had been flowing upward, suddenly shifted to press down on him. His ascent slowed, his willpower unable to convince himself that the pounding water was not a hindrance. Realizing he wasn’t making much progress, James broke out of the geyser and continued to sprint up the side.

The dark remnants moved behind him, swirling together to gain power as James quickened his pace. He felt himself take three steps for every one now. But the chasing darkness also grew in power.

By combining, the remnants exerted more of themselves on the world around, shifting through the waters like an octopus on a torpedo. It target James, moving up to grab his leg as he reached the top tenth of the tower.

James felt his foot compress as water pressure yanked at his foot. It felt like a glacier, slow and strong, inevitable in its movement. He felt himself halt as the feeling tried to overtake him.

He roared, doing his best to convince himself that he was greater than this, that his power stood over the incoming grip of pressure. Despite his beliefs, James felt his speed slowing as the pressure of the ocean depths pushed against him. His body acted as if it moved through sludge, his steps slowing to a crawl as he tried to push through.

The slowness brought that panicking instinct out again, and this time it cracked the cage of willpower holding it in. James felt himself panic, an instinctual feeling of drowning seeping into his being. He started to struggle, thrashing around wildly in an attempt to shake the remnant off.

But it was water, pressure, a shifting concept that pressed into James on all sides. A simple thrashing wasn’t going to make it relent.

James felt cold start to take him, the pressure pushing into him as it tried to overpower his mind. He fought it, but his instinct kept shouting that he was losing. He felt his arms grow heavy, then his legs as the remnant pushed its truth into James. He would sink under this like everything else.

He fought it, pushing against it and trying to imagine himself greater than it. But no matter how much he tried, some part of James didn’t have the confidence. His willpower shrank and the remnants pushed deeper into him. He felt his blood slow, the pressure constricting his very veins.

Desperate, James’s mind tried to latch onto anything. He thought about his uniqueness, his ability to know the exact movements his body needed to make. Neither worked. James had never felt special in his life, and he had never thought of his ability as something greater. His heart felt tight, the remnants pushing further.

James thought of Tsukiko, of her face, the little quirk of her lips when she tried not to laugh at one of his jokes, her faith in him that had her travel from the tower to Cyber Crane Megacity. He thought of his master, of how she always believed in him, how she never said if, only when. He thought of both their love, one of passion, the other compassion.

The grip around his heart lessened. James gasped as the feelings he held for Tsukiko and his master pushed back against the pressure. He focused on them, trying to determine why they worked when his own belief didn’t.

He realized then that James didn’t have it in him to think of himself as someone greater. He had grown up an orphan, had lived as someone with nothing special to his name. It was impossible for him to imagine himself as something greater in the world.

But he could believe in the image of himself that others saw. He believed Tsukiko when she professed her love, believed her when she told him he would succeed. He believed his master every time she mentioned his talent, her words somehow greater than James’s own.

The image they had of him was greater than a remnant, greater than a piece of some core. Growling, James centered himself around that image, that feeling of surety that the people he loved gave him. It pushed against the pressure, loosening his blood, his arms, his legs.

James burst through the remnants around him, moving four steps for every one and reaching the top of the tower in a heartbeat. He landed on one of the various lotus petals drifting atop the pristine lake on the top. With sure steps, he moved across the top of the water to the center where a glowing, soft blue orb waited.

The orb focused on him as he came near it, a pressure unlike any before bearing against James. But despite its force, there was something calming about the orb in front of him. Unlike the dark remnants of the core below, James felt compassion, a caring nature that he knew belonged to one person.

He reached out, cupping the orb in both hands and moving to sit in the lotus position. A watery image of his master sat with him, timing her breaths with his. James closed his eyes, reaching out with his will toward the orb. The orb met his intent.

The petals of the lotus below separated, moving outward toward the edge of the core as James interacted with it. As their wills met, James could feel the core attempting to break through into his world. The lotus petals pressed against the membrane that connected to James in an attempt to push through. James felt his heartbeat thunder in his ears as he used everything he had to hold it back.

He searched through the orb, looking for something that would let him overpower the world inside with his own. As he did, more memories of Nadia’s life entered him. He saw her failures and successes, her goals both succeeded and failed, and all the power she had at her fingertips.

But the more James searched, the more he felt like something was wrong. He noticed it only a second later. His search through the core was harming it. He was brute forcing his entry, acting like a looter whose only goal was to take what was theirs. Every search shaved a bit of memory away, a bit of the power that Nadia once had.

The act made James recoil, and he instantly retreated from inside the core. He felt the lotus below him push against him harder, as if it was a shark that smelled blood in the water. James pushed it back, using the belief others had of him to hold it at bay while he thought.

He didn’t want to harm his master’s core, not while he knew she lived inside it. He already regretted the reckless entry the first time, and hoped that nothing important had been broken.

James needed to find a way to link with the core without harming it. But his master had only told him that he needed to overpower it.

But, she had also said James’s experience already differed greatly from hers. Perhaps there was something else he could do?

He thought, wracking his brain for anything he could think of. He thought back to Barish, and how he’d somehow placed the man in isolation without knowing. An isolation that James could enter, but only when he was unconscious.

If James could find a way to isolate the core and access it while conscious, then he wouldn’t have to break through it. He could keep it separate in his mind and attempt to link with it safely.

It would be reckless, though. James had never consciously accessed this isolation room. But he was a cultivator now, nothing in his mind was out of reach. All of his instinctual thoughts were accessible, meaning that this should be as well.

James split his focus, using a part of himself to hold Nadia’s core at bay while another looked for the isolation room in his mind. His head pounded as he searched, his mind working overtime on the two tasks.

When he found the room, James could feel his mental walls cracking. Nadia’s core crashed against it with unrelenting force.

Tired, James moved his isolation room toward one of the mental cracks, positioning it so that when it broke the core would flow inside. Then, once he felt ready, James pierced through the isolation room and his mental walls. It was like a dam had burst. The water, lotus petals, and the orb in James’s hands spinning into the isolation room like water down a drain.

James followed it, reinforcing the sides of his mental walls while the core flowed. When the last drop of water splashed out of the core, James imagined a door to the isolation room and closed it.