After a while - and I honestly no longer have any idea how long 'a while' was - I found I needed to concentrate less and less on the actual mechanics of cycling. It was like I had built up some muscle memory around the whole thing, and the paint's ebb and flow became something almost instinctive. Like breathing. Or stealing mascara in supermarkets.

However, like a vulture circling for the precise moment of a deer's death, Merlin swooped in the second I sensed I might have had some spare mental capacity with a bit of lecturing . . .

I say 'a bit'.

If Satan was seeking to freshen up his circles of Hell - you know, to attract some new business - he could do a lot worse than lock someone in a cave for eternity and have Merlin explain, in punishing detail, the mechanics of cultivation. To contextualise, it was so bad that I looked forward to the moment it stopped, and I got to do some burpees.

Listening to him drone on and on about 'tiers' and 'arcane insight' and 'elemental harmony', I found myself reliving one of the less fulfilling of my short-term relationships.

A few years ago, I'd read something in Cosmopolitan - or one of those other terrible magazines designed to make women hate themselves - about one of the best ways to keep a man was to be fascinated by his interests. I'd recently fallen into bed with a reasonably presentable guy from work and thought - in lieu of anything better to do with my time - I'd give being 'fascinated' a whirl.

Basically, I was entirely up for some football-related banter. I was not specially prepared for the avalanche of Progression Fantasy that suddenly engulfed my life.

There were books. There was anime. There were graphic novels. There were figurines - Oh. My. Word. The figurines - but then there was the final breaking point. The convention.

I'm sure you've picked up that my vibe is to be open to most things. At least once. Usually twice for me to really get a feel for whether I was appalled by it or not. But the morning he presented me with the costume he wanted me to wear to that convention . . . well, that crossed about every line of morality I still had left.

And I've been known to rock a gold bikini.

Anyway, I mention all this because by the fiftieth day of Merlin outlining the various pathways by which Celestial Mastery could be achieved, I was in such a state of bad relationship PTSD I could barely breathe.

"Dude, you need to stop!"

What? Why?

"It's too much. I can't keep it all in my head. You're going on and on about all this stuff, and it makes no sense. All I need is the cliff-notes version of the rules of Cultivation play.

I don't know what you mean.

"Okay, think about it like this. My favourite Tolkien story is The Hobbit. Love me some Bilbo. I sense you'd be more at home with the full-on Lords of the Rings Trilogy - which is fine. It takes all sorts. However, what you are currently vomiting all over me is like listening to the Silmarillion read backwards. In Elvish. Without pictures."

You are asking me to dumb down cultivation theory?

"I'm asking you to shut the fuck up. However, in the clear absence of that being an option, I will accept you slowly and carefully explaining things to me with a limit of complexity or philosophy.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Well, that's no fun.

*

So, here we go. This is what I've gleaned.

Cultivators are all in different leagues.

Tiers, my dear.

Zip it. You had your chance. At the very bottom is where I am at. Merlin calls it the Initiation Tier, but I'm terming it Neville for ease. (Yes, I know he has an epic progression arc throughout the novels and comes out on top. That's the point I'm making, you pedantic mansplaining sealion)

As a Neville, I'm pretty much useless. Basically, it sounds like it's a blooming miracle that I can sense Qi at all, let alone do anything with it. The point of this 'day' of training is to get me to the point where I can effectively cultivate, move my Qi around my body and enter a deep state of calm and mindfulness.

That will upgrade me to a Ron.

Elemental Alignment Tier, my dear.

As a Ron, I'll make the first step towards actually being any good at all this. I'll begin to pull in different flavours of Qi and use these energies more complexly. Apparently, most cultivators with a decent mentor would become Ron around the eighth or ninth birthday. Considering I woke up last week in a pool of my own sick, an eviction notice taped to my front door, an empty bank balance and a worrying rash, I felt this was distinct progress.

Once I get a handle on one particular type of Qi - I'm making an early call for flinging fireballs - I could look to progress into becoming Harry

Arcane Fusion Tier . . .

Where, as well as probably having some nifty scars, I'd be able to put my Qi inside stuff. Oh, and live much longer.

Honestly, you really are making this sound much easier than it actually is.

After that, there's a few other tiers of various bullshit leading up to Snape - which is where everything went a bit wrong for Merlin - and then just a few more until you reach the very top of the tree with Celestial Mastery. Or, as I prefer to term it, McGonagall.

I am a touch disturbed that you have reduced my learned dissertation upon thousands upon thousands of years of complex thought to that summation, my dear. On the other hand, who am I to argue if that makes sense to you?

Damn straight.

*

Cycle. Lecture. Train. Reset.

Cycle. Lecture. Train. Reset.

Cycle. Lecture. Train. Reset.

Cycle . . .

*

I think that may well be our lot, my dear.

The day had barely reset when I realised I had fully replenished my Qi.

"What do you mean?"

We have exhausted all the improvements we can make in this fashion. You have developed a rudimentary understanding of cycling that would be akin to a promising cultivator just leaving childhood.

"So I'm Ron?"

I am still not entirely sure what that means, but yes. If that makes you happy, you are now indisputably Ron.

"How long did it take me?"

Merlin paused before answering. He did not like to tell lies, but he was unsure how well his apprentice would take the news that she had spent the equivalent of three years pushing a relatively small amount of Qi around her body and completing several million press-ups.

It is probably best to think not of the time taken but rather appreciate the journey we have been on. One of the . . . interesting side-effects of the spell I have been using is that you will, in pretty short order, lose the sense that you spent more than a day training. You will retain the progress and any insights you developed during this time, but your memory of the resets will vanish.

In his wildest dreams, Merlin had not thought reaching this stage would take more than a few months of resets. But the very fact Morgan had stuck with it must mean something. He couldn't help but think Sisyphus would have thrown in the towel long before if he'd been in her position.

But, it had served its purpose.

He had managed to move his newest apprentice into a place with a solid enough foundation to begin to press forward.

However, it would never be enough if she took this long to even reach Ron - no. Under no circumstances was he going along with that - to reach the Elemental Alignment Tier.

What he needed now was a way to dramatically speed her up on her cultivation journey.

Oh. Interesting. He actually had just the thing.

Now that you finally have a decent foundation, we need a reasonably rapid way to advance your skills, but one that neither infringes on your somewhat fragile morals nor places us in immediate danger.

"And that would be?"

We're going to go and slay Vortigern's Dragon.