The text displayed in front of him was so profound, even as he felt understanding fill his mind, Noah knew it was just a minor aspect of what was conveyed. Every single character appeared like a 3D model despite being on a screen that should have been 2D, and even the depth of certain parts of the characters conveyed unique meanings.
Even as he could see everything in his vision. That single line of text brought about a vision so real he felt like he had experienced it and was looking upon a memory. He sat down and meditated on his core, the part of his body that connected his soul to his body and channeled energy into it.
The energy condensed and flowed around that spot. Weaving itself into a tight lattice that was filled in as more and more energy entered his core through his storage and soon a perfect orb was complete. He wasn’t done yet though, and even more energy filled the orb, empowering it and charging it to do its purpose. The energy condensed and changed, undergoing a process Noah couldn’t understand, but in the end, a core had formed.
Noah let out the breath he was holding as he finished reading the line. He was completely overwhelmed by the experience he just had. His mind raced through each moment of the core formation he had witnessed. To think that one line of any language could impart that much information; It was truly beyond him what sort of text he had read.
He only noticed he was on his knees a minute later when he finally got himself together to check his surroundings. While standing up, he planned how he would take advantage of the new information given to him.
“Even with my power saved, I won’t have enough to make the core. I need to return to the starting room.” Once his self-announcement ended, he rushed down the stairs. If he had been bothering to think about anything other than the core formation, he’d feel lucky about his increased agility. Being so absent-minded would have had him trip and fall down the stairs in his old life.
His focus finally returned to his surroundings when he felt a burning pain in his thigh. Faltering and looking down, he realized he had brushed up against a petal of the fire flower and was burned by its heat. Glaring at the plant, he was about to complain when his adrenaline finally calmed down. His mind had been so focused on the insights of the text he hyperfocused to an alarming degree.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I need to stay calm. Nothing good will happen if I rush.” Noah took deep breaths, wishing once again that he had remembered his meditation techniques so he could calm down. Whatever writing he had seen was dangerous. He had focused on it so hard that he likely would have ignored any warning signs in his pursuit of the knowledge it gave him.
It took an indeterminate amount of time for Noah to calm himself down, leaning against the wall and breathing deeply. Not being able to see the plants helped a little, though he didn’t know how much the distracting orange light that filtered through his eyelids hindered that. He then walked calmly through the goblin room and into the bonfire room. Entering this room almost sent him back into hyper-focusing on the text as he could feel the energy flowing around him from his experience forming a core.
“But I didn’t form a core. It felt so real that it’s like a memory.” Noah complained, sitting down to meditate a bit more. Once he was calm he grabbed at the energy surrounding him. The power he had was slowly pulled into his core following the instructions of the text. Of course, the text had displayed it to be far easier than it was. Noah felt it was as hard to pull the power into himself as it was to push the energy in his core out into his body.
He persisted though, focusing on forging the power into strands to create a lattice for an orb. Weaving the strands together to make the core that he had been given the blessing to understand its process. The memory also allowed him to seamlessly begin to pull energy from his surroundings when the power ran out, his mind, despite his efforts, diving as deep into the process as he could to forge the core.
Noah let out another gasp as his core was finished. His body aching from the time spent cross-legged and a headache so bad he felt like how they described hangovers after being blackout drunk. He felt like he had been doing both physical and mental activities to the point he collapsed.
“Damnit. This is way too rough.” Noah complained. Finally understanding what his bloodline meant by dangerous paths of thought. His mind was so entranced by something he wasn’t prepared for, that it pushed him to his limits just to make sure the information wasn’t wasted.
Thinking back on what happened, it was obvious why his brain would like the idea to the point it would surpass warnings to get it done. The core was an esoteric piece of…. Spirit? Technique? He wasn’t sure. But he felt it had been a puzzle piece put in place that made him more complete. And if this was anything like the golden core, then it was a significant boon.
This moment of calm introspection brought another feeling from him… he was filling up. Not at any significant rate, but considering his energy storage felt empty, for it to be feeling any energy at all was a surprise. He focused harder on it, his head aching even more as he looked to see if it was true. However, he couldn’t get any answers before he stopped his attempt due to the pain of his headache.
“I need to sleep before I can do anything else. Hopefully, there won’t be any side effects of pulling everything I have into making that core after a rest.” He grumbled, lying down on the rough ground, but his weakness caused him to fall asleep almost instantly.