“Director Ix, I’m gonna need a hammer for mining resources,” Hudson said. “And don’t give me any crap about needing any trial merits.”

A large section of the wall opened, and the entire remaining inventory of mining equipment tumbled out and into the hanger. Hudson quickly grabbed a hammer, and slung it awkwardly through the belt on his waist. On the other side slung the medical kit, with a few pills and salves.

Carrying the long sledgehammer was really awkward. Maybe cultivators preferred using spears and swords to hammers because they are easier to carry around.

“Ready?” Hudson asked.

“Ready,” Cor replied, all business as he released the safety on his rifle and brought the sights to bear on Hudson.

The first part of the plan was the riskiest. If things went south and Ix decided to go rogue, Cor was prepared to take decisive action, and had loaded one of his special bullets with a maseki formation engraved in it.

Hudson reached into the chamber and grasped the jade ring that formed Director Ix’s core, his perceptions disappearing in white mist before reappearing in the same metallic room Director Ix had constructed previously.

After Director Ix pulled him into the mindscape, Hudson remarked, “I need to learn how to enter my mindscape by myself.”

“Participant Hudson should also learn how to resist being drawn into a foreign mindscape. It is unusual that you have such a developed mindscape and yet you have not learned to access it yourself, directly, especially considering your current level of cultivating qi,” Director Ix commented.

“Hey, all that money spent on therapy and visualization exercises growing up had to be worth something,” Hudson joked.

“We are unfamiliar with the therapy that would provide this level of mental training, and would ask Participant Hudson to inform us of their childhood experiences at a future time.”

“Um, yeah, sure, maybe some time later,” Hudson replied awkwardly. There was no way they were ever going to have that conversation.

The next step was to remove the restrictions binding Ix’s core. After a brief consultation with Director Ix, they had decided that Hudson had more options and more of a chance of success by doing so within this mindscape. Director Ix was confident that the restriction limiting their cultivation growth had been constructed within their mind.

It made intuitive sense that the sigils carved into the outer portion of their physical form (the jade ring) most likely provided the physical restrictions, such as adjusting the shape of their form or otherwise moving under their own power, while the mental restrictions (such as improving their comprehension) would be carved within their mindscape.

Hudson moved closer to Ix’s nebulous form and attempted to examine the concentric rings of interlocking blue-white stones. They circled rapidly, making it difficult to parse any of the sigils or shapes carved into the stone. Hudson could capture no indication of the meaning inscribed in each, and he realized that was likely intentional. The speed of rotation appeared to be a safety measure to prevent any observers from reading what was inscribed.

“Hmm,” Hudson said. “I got a few ideas, but let’s see what works. I’ll be right back.”

Hudson walked around his dry and dusty yard, gathering up a few things that he thought he could try. He had no idea what he was doing, but it was kind of fun, figuring out a new problem, if he ignored all of the potential consequences for failure – or success.

He grabbed the trusty ax from the shed, a smoldering branch from the oak tree, a bucket of water from his lotus pond, and a small glass of lemonade from the pitcher in the fridge. Some of the items in his mindscape had obvious connections to his physical body – the oak tree and lotus pond having come from the special fruits he had eaten – but others were not so obvious, and he wondered what they might be connected to, or how they were supposed to connect to his body.

On a whim, he also picked up the stone figure of the jackalope off of his front porch and brought it back to the space with Director Ix. Maybe they could tell him something about it, and how to use it.

Hudson looked over his motley collection of tools and then back at the rapidly spinning bindings. They appeared to be linked segments of some blue-ish gray stone, but looks could be deceiving.

“Is there any way you can spin your body in place?” Hudson asked. “It’s difficult to make out the details on the bindings because they are spinning so fast. But I’m thinking if you were able to spin yourself rapidly, then maybe the rotation of the binding will line up and appear slower to me…”

“We will attempt what you request,” Ix replied, then the stars within the dark cloud of gas began to rotate slowly.

The two bindings were rotating in completely opposite directions. As Ix’s main body began spinning faster and faster in a clockwise direction, the inner binding that was spinning clockwise became an even greater blur, whereas the outer binding that was spinning counter-clockwise appeared to slow down.

Individual sigils, one on each of the interlinked segments, began to come into focus for Hudson.

“Hear? or is it listen… and follow, no, obey… the directives as given…ugh.”

The last group of sigils on the outer binding were incomprehensible, and the meanings they tried to impart in Hudson’s mind were just too much. At least the general meaning of the outer binding was clear.

“Can you spin the other way?” Hudson asked. “Let’s see what the inner set of bindings looks like.”

Ix complied, slowly decreasing their rotation and then began spinning the opposite direction. Hudson looked through the sigils and sought out the meanings as they impressed themselves in his mind.

“Silence…ugh,” Hudson said. The first sigil was easily understood, but overwhelming in power. Hudson couldn’t speak for a few moments as he absorbed the impact. When he looked back up, he used his hands to block his view of the first sigil and continue reading the remainder.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“The whispers? teachings? wisdm? And then on over here… something about all things under heaven… and above earth?”

The outer binding seemed to be a general directive to listen and obey – although who or what they were supposed to obey was still a mystery to Hudson – whereas the inner binding was the one which seemed to be blocking Ix’s cultivation.

“I’m going to try and see what I can do on this inner binding,” Hudson told Ix. “If you can, please speed up your spinning a little bit… there you go, at that rate, you’re matching the rotation of the inner binding.”

Hudson picked up the branch he’d taken from the oak tree and tentatively reached out to touch the stone binding with it. There was no way he was going to try and touch it directly with his hands.

The oak branch scraped against the sigil for “heaven.” He pushed harder; nothing happened. Not even a smudge from the smoldering ash at the end of the branch.

“Hmm.”

Next up, Hudson tried the ax. He first tapped the stone lightly with the back of the ax head, then took a wide stance, pulled back, and swung down hard.

The ax bounced off of the blue-gray stone with a high-pitched “ping.” Whatever stone these bindings were made of was a very hard material. Hudson swung a few more times, to no avail. Not even a scratch.

Flipping the ax head around, he aimed the sharp blade at one of the joints. He was standing on the right side of Ix, so that the “silence” sigil was not in his direct view. He pulled back and swung as hard as he could, smashing the head of the ax into the blue-gray stone.

There was a sharper “ping” than before and Hudson looked down expectantly at the stone bindings. He couldn’t see any change in the stone. As he lifted his ax up, he noticed that there was now a notch in the blade of his ax that hadn’t been there before.

Hudson sighed and put the ax down. The stone was stronger than this ax, and he was just damaging it by trying to cut the stone bindings with it.

Next up, he opened the jar of lemonade. The mist that wafted out did have an effect, but it was not necessarily the effect he wanted. The rotation of the two bindings began to increase in speed.

“We believe that you are mkaing the bindings stronger, Participant Hudson,” Ix said, somewhat reproachfully.

Hudson quickly put the cap back on his jar of lemonade and let out another big sigh.

“I’m not sure this is going to work,” Hudson said. “But I’m not giving up yet!”

He thought through what he had learned so far. The stone was incredibly tough, stronger than his ax blade, and resistant to scratching. His efforts so far had only increased the speed of the bindings… which Ix had felt as making them stronger.

There might be something there… if increasing the speed of the bindings made their effect seem stronger to Ix, then maybe slowing them down would make them weaker.

“Okay, I’m going to try something different. I want to try and slow the rotation of the bindings down. I wish I had some rope, to tie the stone segments with… But maybe we can use friction instead.

“Can you actually spin the other way, Ix, so that the inner binding is rotating at even greater speed than it normally is?”

Ix complied, and Hudson picked up his oak branch again. Holding it with two hands, he slowly brought the smoldering tip down on the inner binding. The oak branch bucked against his hands, but he held it down firmly onto the spinning surface, pushing hard.

The smoldering tip burst into flame, and splinters of sparks and wood began to shoot off. There was a strange and muted sound, like a high-pitch squeal but coming through deep water.

Hudson kept at it for several minutes until the branch gradually wore down inch by inch against the fiercely rotating binder. When the branch was mostly gone, Hudson called a halt out to Ix.

“Let’s see if we’ve done any damage.”

Ix reversed their rotation and picked up enough speed to allow Hudson to review his handiwork.

For all of his efforts, there was barely a smudge on the binding, and only on the leading edges of the individual stone pieces. There was a bit of wear and a dark spot on the places where each segment joined the next, but the sigils themselves were none the worse for wear.

“Good news is I was able to scratch it a bit, but not on the sigils or other formation markings… they must have more protection than the connecting bits. I think we need something a bit harder than wood…”

Hudson glanced over at his ax on the ground, now sporting a large ding in the sharp blade, and grimaced. If he had to pick a winner between the ax and the spinning stone binding, he would definitely pick the stone binding.

But maybe he could use stone against stone? His gaze rested on the stone figure of the jackalope and felt a little sorry for what he was about to do.

He didn’t know how to use this piece of rock, or anything about the sigil he could potentially absorb from it. What was the dao of “Liminality” to begin with? Something to do with teleportation, he supposed. Hudson shook his head ruefully. He intuitively understood what fire was supposed to do – thus it had been relatively “easy” to recall the basics of the sigil of Eternal Flame.

Messing around with sigils seemed like an easy and fast path to power… but also an easy and fast path to unintended consequences. He’d almost burned himself alive activating the sigil of Eternal Flame… if he messed around with this one, he could see himself easily transporting only half of himself, or turning himself inside out, or some other horrible mishap.

As Hudson picked up the stone jackalope and picked a dull spot on the back of the figure, he was wondering if this decision would end up having unintended consequences as well.

Hudson braced himself and pushed the figure of the stone jackalope up against the fiercely rotating binding. There was a horrible screeching noise and sparks flew in an enormous arc behind the stone jackalope. The stone in his grip began to grow warm, but not uncomfortably so.

That’s what I’m talking about, Hudson thought to himself, certain that he could cause serious damage to the binding this way. But before he could congratulate himself further, the stone jackalope disappeared out of his hands.

He stumbled forward, narrowly missing hitting the spinning grinder of stone with his head.

“What?” Hudson said, completely confused. “Where did it go?”

He looked around, and it was behind him, near the end of the room.

“Now how did that happen?” Hudson asked himself. “Is that thing alive?”

“Negative,” Ix answered him. “Not in the way Participant Hudson would understand life. We hypothesize that energy from the binding was absorbed by the petrified remnant, activating the dao understanding crystallized within.”

“Huh,” Hudson said. “What did they call it… was that the dao of Liminality?” Hudson asked as he walked over and picked up the petrified figure of the jackalope.

“We are not certain, but it appears to be similar to the understandings that allow us to open rifts in the fabric of spacetime,” Ix said.

“Interesting,” Hudson said. If he could learn to open rifts or teleport… that sounded much better than setting his hair on fire, or turning himself into a (very durable) punching bag.