Victory, Validation, and Voices

1

“Congratulations! You have received a Title!”

“Congratulations! You have received a Soul Token! (Divine)”

“Congratulations! You have received a Universal Cultivation Token! (Divine)”

“Congratulations! For completing your Shuffle in less than three days, you have gained a Trait!”

“Congratulations! For becoming the first from your planet to complete a Shuffle Event, all rewards have been automatically upgraded!”

“Please step upon the transition pad to claim rewards.”

John was bombarded with information the second he stepped inside his new residence. He couldn’t make sense of most of what was said. What he did understand was that his rewards had not stopped at the ones listed by Ali.

Titles? Traits? Upgrades? None of it made any real impact on John compared with his true desire. He shook his head and continued forward to his bed, where he gratefully fell, exhausted by the stress and challenges he had survived the last few days. He didn’t bother to remove his pack, though his armor melted to nothing, letting his face sink into the soft pillow beneath it.

When John opened his eyes again, he felt like a week had passed. His body was sore from exertion as well as the stiffness that comes with sleeping in one position for too long. His neck cracked several times as he rolled it on his shoulders.

Gingerly sitting up, John limped to the transition pad in the corner of his room. He stepped onto it, ready to return home and see if mother and sister again. When he moved to activate it though, he received a message.

“You have unclaimed rewards! Claim rewards now?”

John wiped away the sleep from his eyes as he digested the words. It hadn’t even occurred to him in his mind addled state to claim the rewards. He had just been trying to go home. Still, no reason to deny a free meal.

“Yes,” he said.

The transition pad flashed, and John was again bombarded with information. He also felt a chilling sensation over his entire body. It felt like stepping into a deep freezer on a hot day. Before he could worry, the sensation vanished.

“You have gained a Title! ‘Shuffle Master!’All future Shuffle events are voluntary! All active Shuffle events are now unlocked!”

“Congratulations! Your Title, ‘Shuffle Master’ has been automatically upgraded! ‘Universal Shuffle Master!’ Title has transcended The Garden Stage 1. This Title will be maintained regardless of Stage.”

“Congratulations! As the first from your planet to receive this Title, Universal Shuffle Master gains the Pioneer Distinction!”

“You have gained a Trait! ‘Speed Runner!’ All future Trials of any kind give additional rewards when completed above the average time.”

“Congratulations! Your Trait, ‘Speed Runner’ has been automatically upgraded! ‘Prophetic Speed Runner!’ Instinctive Knowledge of Speed Running has been gained. All future Trial solutions will be more obvious. All rewards for future Trials will be drastically increased when completed above the average time.”

“Congratulations! As the first from your planet to receive this Trait, Prophetic Speed Runner gains the Pioneer Distinction!”

“You have unused Tokens! Would you like to use them now?”

John blinked. Even more rewards he hadn’t expected. What was the Pioneer Distinction? And the tokens!

He had been so absorbed by the voice in his head that he hadn’t even considered the tangible rewards he had gained. Now, however, with the gentle nudge from The Garden itself, he couldn’t help himself.

“Yes,” he said certainly.

The pedestal next to the transition pad lit up with color as he affirmed his choice. Putting a hand on it, John found that more options were now available to him. It had evolved with his return to let him select his destination. However, in addition to ‘Emerald Base’ and ‘Earth’ there were two additional options.

The first option simply said ‘Soul Exchange’. John assumed that would provide him with a list of Souls to choose from. The second said “Scroll Selector”. Again, John had little question what that option would do. With a smug smile, John picked Soul Exchange.

The smile immediately melted from his face a second later. Without so much as a tingle in his stomach, his room was gone. John was standing on a transition pad similar to any other he had seen. But instead of a room or a building, or indeed, anything at all, John was standing in a void. All around him was blackness.

The pedestal next to him chimed and lit up. Looking at it, John found that there was a list on the screen. At closer inspection, he realized that there were literally millions of options. Everything from insects to dragons were listed. There were filter options based on size, tier, rarity, wether the soul was offensive or defensive, utility or augmentation, ranged or melee, wether the soul had an elemental acuity, wether the soul had a special effect like that of his arrow, and so many other options that made little sense to John.

Selecting offensive, melee, and medium sized as filters, John allowed the list to repopulate. A moment later, he sighed in exasperation. Even with his exceptions, there were still over a hundred thousand options.

John tried not to get overwhelmed, but there was no way he could make a decision among all of the choices he had. He thought by narrowing it beyond ranged weapons as well as large or small weapons the list might be a lot shorter. But as he scrolled through it seeing everything from staffs to daggers to axes to nunchucks, he realized how badly he had underestimated The Garden.

Anything he selected would appear in front of him like a holographic image, and he spent quite some time looking through the various options. There were specific types of swords listed, variations on every type of blade or blunt weapon he could think of and even a few weapons he didn’t recognize the names of.

When he selected one such item on the list, a many tailed whip materialized out of the endless black around him. It shone with an inner light, illuminating the deadly sharp blades woven into the lengths and tips of each tail. John shuddered thinking about the devastation the whip could do to flesh.

John’s hand hovered over the pedestal for long seconds, ready to dismiss the image. But he hesitated. Of all the options he had recognized, none fit his mental picture of both attack and defense better than the whip he was looking at. Of course, he had no idea how to use a whip, but if he could learn well enough to hold his own, it would ensure the acquisition of more advanced genes.

Then again, the same could be said of almost any of the souls on the list. What set this one apart was the defensive potential. Any beast striking at him would have to make it through the many blades first.

The question was, did he have the patience to stand there looking through thousands of options for something better? More importantly, what did he know anyway? Would he even know a better weapon from an inferior one?

They all undoubtedly had amazing potential as Divine tier weapons. But what was the weapon that suited him best? Not knowing the answer to that question was the reason John still hesitated.

There was so much he needed to do, he couldn’t afford to waste time sorting through the list for a better option. Hoping that he wasn’t making a massive mistake, John confirmed the choice.

“You have received Divine Tail of the Kitsune!”

“Your Divine Tail of the Kitsune has been automatically upgraded!”

“Error, Divine Tier already reached. Unable to bestow upgrade. Calculating Restitution.”

“Congratulations! One random Soul you possess has been upgraded to Divine Tier!”

“Wizened Silver Fox Soul has evolved to Divine Silver Fox Soul!”

John’s head rocked back in shock. Before his mind had even expanded to hold his first Divine Soul, he felt the Soul that represented Jane blossom into something much more vibrant. His mind almost ached from the immense expansion he felt.

Then it was over. Looking inward, he could feel the newfound power he held in the form of the two Souls. He wanted to summon both of them immediately, but after considering the amazing rewards he had already gained and remembering there was still one reward left to claim, he decided to delay his curiosity. Placing his hand on the pedestal once again, John picked the Scroll Selector option.

2

As before, the world went black around him and the pedestal changed to an unimaginably long list of Cultivation methods to choose from. The options were sorted alphabetically, which struck John as odd for some reason.

Unlike the Soul list, there were no filter options. There was however a series of tabs dividing the options into four lists. All, Mind, Body, and Spirit. That was helpful enough he supposed. He would get lost trying to narrow his choice down further than the three forms of Cultivation.

John spent a good deal of time idly scrolling down the main list when he noticed something. The list had descended to the “L’s” and was just about to pass into “M” when he saw it. There, between “Ludicrous Speed” and “Lunatic’s Lament” was an option he recognized.

Lunar Radiance. His current Trial objective. John was confused to see it here among the list of Divine Cultivations. Did that mean his version of Lunar Radiance would be incomplete? Was it somehow inferior to this version?

His curiosity made him want to select it just to know the answer. But he resisted the temptation. The information was still worthy of his consideration, however. If he assumed the scroll he would receive upon completing his trial was the same scroll being offered in this reward, the sum of knowledge within should be at the Divine level.

With that assumption in mind, John moved through the list some more. By his reasoning, he should find the most difficult Cultivation Scroll he could. That would be the most ideal reward.

“If only it was sorted by difficulty,” he said.

As if it heard him, the list on the screen flashed. A second later, the options were shuffled from their previous order. A smile spread across his face as John began scrolling the list. Now, not only were the entries alphabetically jumbled, but they also came with a difficulty rating. It was very similar to the way the regular gene exchange system had been.

John scrolled through the list all the way to the bottom, noting as he did so how far down Lunar Radiance was. It was well over halfway down the list, but there were hundreds of options below it. That was astounding.

The trial for Lunar Radiance had been kicking his ass for weeks. Indeed, it was the most difficult of any of the randomized options he had been given when he chose it. But if there were so many Cultivation methods beyond it in difficulty, John began to worry that he might be getting in over his head.

Nevertheless, John continued to the bottom. He figured that even if he took ten years to understand what he was given, it would be worth it. There was a lot that was still unclear about The Garden and the future of Earth, but John was certain that one thing was needed above all else to survive and keep his family safe. Power.

With that in mind, John almost decided to choose a Body Cultivation. What better way to gain strength than by strengthening your body? But he stopped himself. Lunar Radiance had come with some pretty rigorous gene requirements just to gain baseline proficiency. And John had just lost a hefty sum of his lower genes.

He had confidence that he could make up the difference and even gain more genes quickly to boost his physical capabilities, but if he chose the most difficult Body Cultivation of the Divine level, who knew if he would ever master it? It was for that reason that John selected the Mind tab instead.

He was already well on his way to learning a Spirit Cultivation, and if any of the three were less demanding of the genes he acquired, he assumed it would be Mind Cultivation. The list shrunk considerably, and at the very bottom were three entries that caught his attention.

The first was ‘Mind Void’. It was the first entry on the list to increase from ‘Very Difficult’ to ‘Extremely Difficult’. There was little description when selected other than a small line about blanketing your enemies with the void, which John found absurdly unhelpful.

The one below that was, curiously, an even higher difficulty than ‘Extremely Difficult’. ‘False Truth’, an oxymoron if John had ever heard one, was listed as ‘Nearly Impossible’. The description said “What is true is not. Make it true or it is false.”

“Are you serious with these descriptions?” John asked the pedestal.

The final and lowest option surprised John again. He had expected the difficulty to be ‘Impossible’ after the last one. But that wasn’t what it said.

Third Eye of Callysta Difficulty: Unknown

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

John blinked at the words for several seconds. There was not even a word of description on the Cultivation method. And the difficulty was unknown?

He didn’t understand how The Garden could be unsure of anything. After all, it seemed like it could read his mind half the time. And didn’t it have access to all the information of the Cultivation methods it offered him? How did it not know how difficult it was?

John touched the word ‘Unknown’, wondering if anything would happen. Surprisingly, something did. More surprisingly was that it seemed to answer John’s question before he asked it, reaffirming his suspicion that The Garden was a mind reader. A box of text appeared below the Cultivation method.

Difficulty for a Cultivation method is determined for each race based on the averages of Time to Learn, Anatomical Affinity, Gene Minimums, and Failure/Mortality Rate for all previous Trial takers of that race. If no member of your race has completed the Trial, the difficulty rating will be based on the averages for the most similar race to yours that fits the criteria.

If no Completed Trial Data exists among all catalogued races, difficulty will be left Unknown. Secondary rating system is employed. Difficulty placement based on number of abandoned Trials. Would you like to see difficulty based on this secondary system?

John read the words several times over without understanding exactly what they meant. It looked like either way the system tried to categorize it, Third Eye of Callysta was the toughest cookie to crack. If he was deciphering it right, no one had ever completed the Trial before. That meant that no one had ever received the scroll before too, right?

Deciding that it was worth knowing how many people had attempted the Trial, John returned his attention to the pedestal. Speaking his affirmation clearly, he answered the question.

“Yes,” he said.

The list repopulated a third time, but nothing changed at the bottom. The three lowest entries remained the same and in the same order. What was different was the classification used to determine difficulty. Words had become numbers. Astoundingly high numbers.

Mind Void Difficulty: 287,436,234

False Truth Difficulty: 832,457,976,231

Third Eye of Callysta Difficulty: 9.82359e14

John didn’t even know what the last one meant, but he knew that when letters started getting slapped between numbers, things were serious. In any event, even if he didn’t understand the number, The Garden did. And if The Garden said it was higher, John believed it.

The sheer number of failed Trials in Mind Void alone was baffling. And False Truth was three entire decimals longer than that. So many people had given up. And more still on the final entry. Moreover, no one had ever completed it. The other two at least had some form of success stories. Third Eye of Callysta was on its own level.

Any normal man, or teenager as the case may be, might have seen that as a very sensible deterrent from choosing such a fate. But to John, all of the intimidation, all of the discouraging statistics only served to ignite his desire. Here was a method of Cultivation that no one had ever mastered. John had the chance to become the only person in this crazy new universe to gain it.

So, like so many before him, John confirmed his selection. But before anything happened, he heard the voice of The Garden speak to him. It’s words made John’s eyes widen and his jaw practically fall from his face.

“You have received Scroll: Third Eye of Callysta!”

“Scroll: Third Eye of Callysta automatically upgraded!”

“Error. Third Eye of Callysta is already Divine Tier. Unable to bestow upgrade. Calculating Restitution”

“Third Eye of Callysta will be learned.”

“Congratulations! First Gate of Third Eye of Callysta has been opened!”

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had known that some kind of upgrade would be attached to this reward as well after the Soul upgrade. What he hadn’t expected at all was to learn the cultivation method on the spot. He didn’t know what it meant by “First Gate” but he could feel his mind rapidly expanding even as the scroll itself emerged from the pedestal and his room materialized around him once more.

John grabbed the extravagantly designed scroll from its place, noting the fastening that kept it closed. It was a buckle styled as a demonic looking cat with deep red fur bordering on black. It had two glowing red eyes and a third on its forehead that shone with a kaleidoscope of color, always shifting and changing when he moved his eyes.

John was fascinated by it, and as he walked back to his bed, suddenly not in a hurry to go anywhere, he couldn’t take his eyes off the figure. Halfway to his bed, John’s head started to feel wrong. It felt like a thousand voices were trying to scream entire books worth of information into his ears all at once. He flinched dropped the scroll onto his bed as his hands flew to his head.

John screamed in agony as his mind was split into a million pieces. He felt himself falling, but never felt the impact beneath him as the world went black around him. But John didn’t lose consciousness. The pain kept him all too present.

3

What seemed like hours passed as John continued to hold his head and writhe around on whatever surface his body had come to rest against since the lights departed his vision. He screamed in absolute desperation for the pain to end, but it was in vain.

The voices. The terrible, plentiful, insistent voices. What did they say? Who were they saying it to? John only knew that he was forced to receive everything they wished to give. Numbers, words, concepts, feelings, emotions, calculations, possibilities, complexities, equations, theories, conspiracies, anomalies, paradoxes; what did it all mean?

An incalculable time later, long after John’s mind had completely fractured from the information it was blasted with, the voices slowly reduced in number. Then they reduced in urgency. Then they reduced in volume until at last the final whisper of thought faded from his mind.

The world snapped back into place as suddenly as it had gone black, and John was laying face down on his bed, still cradling his head in his hands. He groaned in agony as he tried to make any sense of what he had just experienced. Then the voice, that fucking voice spoke once more.

“Congratulations! As the first from your planet to break a Mind Gate, you have received a Title: ‘Mental Forerunner!’ All mental cultivation is now 20% easier! This Title gains the Pioneer’s Distinction.”

A strange heavenly music drowned out the world before the voice could continue. It swelled in intensity until chills covered every inch of John’s body. He took a shaky breath, knowing somehow that this was very different from everything that had previously happened. The symphony of majesty reached a thrilling conclusion and died into silence before the voice of The Garden spoke again.

“Congratulations! You have performed a Legendary Action!”

“Legendary Action performed: First in Universe! You were the first in the history of the universe to accomplish a particular goal.”

“Calculating reward. Accomplishment Rating adjusted based on number of previous failures. Previous Failures: 982,359,485,623,835. Accomplishment Rating adjusted based on age of the Trial. Trial Age: 13,124,734,167 cycles relative to your Solar Calendar. Accomplishment Rating adjusted based on age of recipient. Age: 16. Accomplishment Rating adjusted based on completion time. Completion Time: 6 hours 24 minutes.

“Congratulations! Legendary Action has been upgraded to Godly Achievement!”

“Congratulations! For performing a Godly Achievement, “Prodigy la Première”, you have received a Soul Stamp! ‘Eye of Callysta’.”

“Congratulations! As the first to successfully practice “Third Eye of Callysta” you have been marked by Callysta! You now carry her Divine Signature. Allies of Callysta will instinctively follow you. Enemies of Callysta will instinctively distrust you.”

“Congratulations! You have received a Legendary Title: ‘Child of Callysta!’ All Cultivation is 25% easier. Cultivation of ‘Third Eye of Callysta’ is 50% easier.”

“Congratulations! Your Legendary Title, ‘Child of Callysta’ has been upgraded! ‘Prodigal Child of Callysta!’ All Cultivation is 50% easier. Cultivation of ‘Third Eye of Callysta’ is 100% easier.”

As the voice finally grew silent, John closed his eyes again and rubbed his temples. The cascade of notifications was nothing compared to the reality-fracturing pain of his previous ordeal, but it did make his headache a bit worse. There was so much to comprehend.

First and foremost was the fact that he had done the impossible. He was the first in the universe to complete Third Eye of Callysta. The entire universe. Trillions, hundreds of trillions of people had failed to learn it.

More than that, John was absolutely astounded by the sheer age of the Trial. Unless he was stupid, he was pretty sure The Garden said that Third Eye of Callysta’s Trial was over thirteen billion years old. How old did Earth’s scientists say the universe was again? John couldn’t remember, but he thought he remembered the number thirteen mentioned. Regardless of universal relativity, John knew that for no one to pass the Trial in over thirteen billion years, it was something beyond the means of mortal men.

But because of a beautiful loophole, John had not only ended that undefeated streak, but also shattered the record so completely that The Garden had called it a “Godly Achievement”. And what the hell was a Soul Stamp?

The thought made John start to itch. It was a peculiar sensation localized to his left pectoral, right over his heart. He scrabbled at his shirt to expose the irritated skin.

When he lifted his shirt, John was taken aback to see a small emblem tattooed on his chest. It was Callysta. John now had no doubt that the demonic looking cat on the clasp of the scroll was this Callysta figure. Not only because the same cat head was now branded to his skin, but also because, as the voice had said, he was marked by Callysta.

As he looked at the glowing eyes emanating creepily from his chest, he could feel his connection to the cat. He knew that Callysta was the cat. Moreover, he knew something much more pertinent.

He had been marked by Callysta. That wasn’t lost on John. For the cat itself to mark him meant only one thing: Callysta was still alive.

Somewhere out there, maybe billions of light years away, was the real Callysta. Living, breathing, and undoubtedly insanely powerful, she had been made aware of John at the same moment he was made aware of her. And for becoming the first to follow down her path, she had marked him. Again, John didn’t know the full implications of that.

Every time he turned around, John was bombarded with new information. It wouldn’t be so bad if he had anyone to ask. Thinking of that, John rolled his eyes. That was probably exactly what he was meant to think so that he would return to the Tower to seek answers from Ali.

The Garden loved nothing more than stimulation. And with all he had been given since completing his trial; John was nothing if not stimulated. And one thing he didn’t need help understanding was the final title he had received.

Alongside Mental Forerunner, which had already granted him easier Mind Cultivation, Prodigal Child of Callysta, a Legendary Title, would make it more than 100% easier to progress in his new mental cultivation method. In addition, all other types of cultivation would be half as difficult to make progress in as well. If he wasn’t mistaken, that alone was a greater advantage than almost anyone else could hope to receive.

John couldn’t have imagined a few days ago that he would be sitting in what was basically a metropolis of The Garden, invited by the Divine Thunder Fox. So many things had happened. He didn’t know what monumental event deserved the most attention. In the end, he decided that nothing was so pressing that it couldn’t wait a little longer.

With shaky legs and a body still sore all over, John returned to the transition pad and allowed it to take him back to his own world. In seconds, he was breathing the slightly dirty air of his home. He let his data implant be scanned by the waiting Kumani and quickly called a shuttle to take him home.

4

“John!” Both his sister and mother shouted as John gently opened the door to their home and stepped inside.

They practically tackled him to the ground in their haste to reunite with him. His mom was immediately unloading all of her built up worry in a stream of never-ending words that were half relief and half grief. His sister just held him tighter than she had ever before as he felt her tears steadily stream onto his shoulder.

“I went to your room after you didn’t come back and-” his mom was saying.

John held them both for long moments as they both cried for his return. And though he was too mentally stunned to initiate it himself, his eyes involuntarily began leaking as well. They all just stood in the doorway, crying and embracing each other.

“-and when I saw that you had been shuffled just like your father I thought-”

John let them both feel everything they needed to feel. He didn’t explain what had happened to him, nor did they ask him for details. But when his mom’s hysteria reached incomprehensible speech, he put a hand on her shoulder to silence her.

“I’m safe now. And you don’t have to worry about that again. I’m safe from being shuffled against my will ever again.”

“It doesn’t matter John! Don’t you understand? I’ll never be able to sleep easy again! There will always be another reason to worry! Every time you walk out that door you come back less. Don’t think I can’t see the haunted look you try to hide from me John! I’ve seen what’s out there. Your friend Jules told me the kind of adventures you have. Terrifying tales for a mother to hear of her son. And you always come back later than expected, with some transparent story of mediocrity. I’m not a fool, John. I know what you’re doing out there. And I know why you’re doing it,” his mom’s eyes flicked ever so slightly to his sister at those words, “but you don’t need to take it so far. We will make it through this just fine without you destroying yourself to keep us safe!”

“Mom,” John started, but it was no use.

His mom was nothing if not a master of getting the last word. She had already turned away and was retreating to her room. He let her go, helpless to say anything to stop her.

“Thank you, John,” Emma whispered into his ear.

She had not let him go since he had walked in the door. Even through his mother’s rant she held him tightly, silently weeping into his shoulder. And with those words, John realized that she too understood what his mom had meant.

“I’ll always be here for you. I promise,” he whispered back.

She finally let him go at those words. He looked into her red rimmed eyes and held her unsteady gaze for several seconds.

“I promise,” he repeated.

John stayed with his sister for the better part of an hour, telling her some of the less traumatizing adventures he had been up to. He also told her about his new Cultivation. She was so intrigued by what he said that John actually removed the scroll from his bag and showed it to her.

Her eyes widened at the exquisite item. As they sat together at the table, John grabbed the head of Callysta and unclasped the scroll. For the first time, he unrolled the parchment to reveal its secrets.

The scroll I was littered from top to bottom, left to right, with words, numbers, symbols, and seemingly irrelevant details. It was a jumble so incomprehensible that he couldn’t make sense of it. And he supposedly already knew all of this.

To say that John was expecting something different would be an understatement. But if he was confused by what he saw, his sister was completely baffled. She stared open mouthed at the scroll until John broke the silence.

“Well this is confusing,” he said.

“Confusing? It’s nonsense! You said there was a Trial to pass? How did you possibly complete it before you got this scroll?”

“I… might have wrote the answers on my hand, so to speak,” John smiled.

“You must write really small,” Emma returned, still not taking her eyes from the scroll.

“You could say that,” John said, thinking of the agonizing download of information he had gone through.

“What does any of it mean?” She asked.

“Well,” John began, “Third Eye of Callysta is a Mind Cultivation. So very little information is based on the physical. All of these symbols here stand for different branches of mental cultivation. There is Analysis, that’s this symbol here, and branching off of it are all of these concepts like Interaction, Passivity, Statistics, etc.. Each branch of the Cultivation has several branches of its own. And when you understand each limb, you can comprehend each branch. When you comprehend each branch, you have officially learned how to Cultivate Third Eye of Callysta.”

John didn’t know how he knew any of that, but the words spilled out of his mouth like he had said them a million times. Moreover, he knew they were correct. He understood the information on the scroll instinctively. And only focusing on it for a second was required to pass on his knowledge.

“That’s really complex,” Emma said.

“It is,” John replied.

He could tell that the already idol like mentality his sister held him in was only growing with each passing second that she studied the scroll. Her eyes lit up with a zealous fervor. He recognized the look immediately. It was the same look he often found plastered on his own face when considering the future.

It was the look of a person possessed. It was the look of someone who had tasted the wine and could never return to the life of mediocrity before it. His sister had caught the contagion. She, like him, lusted for more.

“What does this symbol mean?” She asked.

John answered her, and she repeated the response as if committing it to her memory. Then she asked another question. Again and again John answered her questions, and each time another quickly took the place of the last.

After several minutes of this, she stood from the table and ran to her room. She returned only seconds later with an empty notebook. She furiously began scribbling down all the symbols and translations John gave her before inquiring further.

John was shocked how adamant she had suddenly become. He knew firsthand how difficult the information was to comprehend. He wasn’t even sure how he understood it himself. Nor was he sure just how much information had been given to him.

What he did understand was that his sister had the itch. She wouldn’t stop now until something made her. So, he simply continued to answer her questions until several pages of her notebook were filled front and back with detailed notes of concepts relating to other concepts and how each branch correlated to the next or the last.

Eventually, John had to hold up a hand. She had been at it for hours; never satisfied with amount of information she was given. She had categorized everything he told her in a way that actually made a great deal of sense.

If he hadn’t already mastered all of the information, he had to admit that her method of analysis would have been extremely conducive to gaining insight. He wasn’t sure how helpful that would be to someone like her who had no deeper understanding. But he was impressed by the ability she shown to decipher what he told her. He couldn’t have done half so well I’m her position.

“That’s enough for now,” he said.

“Wait, there’s still so much more I need to know.” Emma said, fanatic zealotry clear in her voice.

“Study what you have. Trust me, you don’t want to overdo it with the information you try to take in. You can keep the scroll for now. I don’t need it to continue my practice. Study it with what you have. I promise I’ll devote some time every week to teaching you more about it. But you won’t get anywhere in an afternoon. That much I know.”

“Come on John, please!” Emma pleaded.

“Trust me. You can work on what you have for now. You have nothing but time to study it. I’ll give you more to think about when you show me you really understand what I’ve already given you. It won’t do you any good to move past the basics without understanding them properly.”

“Fine,” she said, dejected.

“Good. Now I don’t know about you, but my ass is starving.”

John stood and moved to the cabinets to find something to make for dinner as Emma poured over the pages of notes she had taken. The two of them worked on their respective tasks in silence as the evening turned to night. When John had finished eating and wished his sister goodnight, she was still obsessively hunched over her work. A terse “goodnight” was all he received as he turned the corner and went to his room. As he drifted slowly into sleep that night, he wondered if he had just started a forest fire.