I had unlocked two sets of abilities at this point and was feeling pretty good about myself. It even seemed like the abilities I gained were good ones, and they had already started working in conjunction with my racial abilities. I was willing to bet that the runes would eventually work with my aura. I still felt a little off about how everything was going, though. Mord had warned me against forcing, and some of this felt forced. I wasn't quite sure how he described using aspected potential, but it still felt like I was missing a piece. I felt like I was choosing what loci to focus on instead of what should be my best. Speed and sense were probably two of my weakest areas. And Runes made no sense to me at all. I’d never heard of runes before this and yet I had an affinity, apparently. I didn't even know that much coding, just a few things here or there for simple projects or saying FU to somebody’s restrictions on a webpage or download, and that was after looking them up. Also, let us not forget aura. What the fuck is an aura? How am I attuned to something I’m pretty sure exists only here? I sure as hell hoped I would get another round with older Mord. I had questions, and Papa Dungeon had answers.

  If I was going to get one shot with Mord, I wanted to have a fair few ducks in a row first. That meant emptying the hot tub or at least getting all six loci aspected. I would deal with leftovers when I got to that point, but for right now, I had both potential to burn and places to burn it.

  Getting back into the lotus pose was a unique experience this time, as my aura sense let me see my positioning. It was all messed up. I was in a comfortable state of wrong. It was wrong enough to bother me. It made me think back to my instructor and how she allowed this to continue. She had corrected others on their poses and even a few of mine over the handful of classes I attended. It mattered not. I focused on the here and now and forced myself into a better position.

  It was like turning on a light switch. As soon as I got into a proper position, I could see all my loci in perfect clarity. Aura might have helped with this, but still, the positioning was the ticket. If this system ever hit Earth, Tibet was going to be badass central. If my math was right, I had four loci left, I could see three of them very well, but the fourth was a good deal dimmer. If I had to give it a magnitude, it was as dim compared to my unaspected loci as those three were to my two aspected. My interface said all six were unlocked, but unlocked could be relative. Maybe I didn’t have any affinity for that one. That would suck. Mord said I could aspect as long as I had affinity and unaspected potential. If I couldn’t do that one au naturel, I would have to force it. My RPG brain told me this had a lot of room for greatness, but also that the really good stuff would be rare and not available to me for a long time, if ever. It was a catch-22 that I had hoped to avoid. With enough dwelling on what might be, I returned to what is.

  The three loci looked about equal, and, barring any actual guide on how to pick the best one, I just trusted myself and started dragging water from my hot tub of potential. I did play “Who do you love best” with the potential as I dragged it to the center of the three loci and waited for it to react. It reacted just like a dog that loves everyone; it sat there. I tried to get it close to one loci to see if there was a pull, but backed off as I got too close with no indication. I was torn between the two loci near my shoulders, trying to determine which road to take, and in true fashion, took the other as just as fair.

  The Potental wanted to crash through the loci as wrathful and uncontrolled as before, but I was ready this time and kept it in check. I paid close attention to what it did and how. I watched as what was a point expanded into a torus, a donut, if you will. And that one turned into a stack a half dozen tall. It made sense as Mord had told me about six abilities per loci. This world loved six, which gave the whole Titan of Order history a lot of credence. I watched as the potential flowed through the center of the stack and back to the hot tub with no interaction. I thought I might be doing something wrong, so I let the leash slip a little. Sure enough, as I let it slip, a small amount began to wrap itself around the first donut. The wrap was slow and really wasn't doing anything, and I could feel my focus begin to waver. I felt a headache starting to form.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I felt it and saw it simultaneously. The flow completely destabilized and came crashing down. With the crash came the spike of a migraine. I was getting better at staying awake with such trauma, but the first of something tends to be worse. I woke up in a gray room.

  I was fairly certain that I had only been out for a moment. This room was great at recovery. I can only imagine how powerful Mord must have been to create this place. Hopefully, I would get a chance to build a rapport with him and learn some more secrets. I wanted to start that by showing him I was taking his lesson to heart. I got back into my lotus pose and tried again. And failed again. All in all, I woke up in the recovery room a dozen times. Something was missing. I tried each of the Loci, including the half-hidden one. I tried two at once. And on this last one, I tried all three of the easy ones with the same result. A little ring around the donut, and it all came down.

  I have no idea how long each attempt was either. Because every time I woke up, I was clean shaven. Even my long foray in the cave gave me somewhat of a scruff, but it was gone every time I was here. Time felt different when I was focusing on channeling. I had a sinking sensation, backed by dozens of LitRPG novels, that time passed very quickly while cultivating. I was certain I had been here at least a month at this point, but it could have been a year or more. I didn’t know. I just knew nobody had come through the double fuck-off doors. At least I hoped nobody had, that would suck if they were like ‘nah let the cultivator be’ and went on the merry way. I would have to check the vending room, if Mord didn’t tell me first. It seemed like there were several ways to obtain obols, and I’m confident that’s what my shady little coins were.

  I took some time to relax and go over what I was doing wrong. I may not know what right was, but wrong had been knocking me out for the last hot minute. Twelve times wasn’t insanity, right? Against my better judgment, I decided to give it one more full-bore go. At this point, I didn’t even need to hold a yoga pose.

  I reached down to the hot tub and pulled four separate strands of potential, forcing each directly into the doughnut stacks. It was difficult to say the least, but the harder I pulled, the more it started to flow. I could feel it moving faster, faster than before. It gave me a bit of manic glee, so I pulled harder. I pulled more and more out of the tub faster and faster as it ran through the donut stacks and back. I could feel it start to circulate around the first donut. I was not pleased with that and I pulled additional strands off the main channels and forced them around the second donut. I pulled more and more, faster and faster. Finally, I pulled enough that I was draining the tub faster than it refilled. I pulled the draining strands into the upward flow. I was maintaining a dozen strands, and I could feel myself breaking down. I was shaking. I was sweating. At any moment, I knew I would get the copper and forest scent of my own blood as my nose, eyes, and ears started to bleed. I felt it I had crossed a point of no return. I could feel it all coming apart, so I clamped down harder. Donuts within donuts within donuts, I cycled all of it, a dozen separate strands, all held an inch away from working and moments from crumbling apart and taking me with them.

  “Goddammit, Doughnut” I screamed and forced everything in. The barriers broke and what was so hard became easy way too easy. It was like I’d pushed so hard that something began to fuse. And like fusion, something exploded. It was me. A flash of light. And darkness.