Floating in the endless void, Jun thought about a lot of things.

  About his friends, about his enemies, about the weeks, going on a month now, he’d spent attempting this trial. The large majority of that time spent opposite a crotchety old woman with a penchant for provocation—playing a game he hadn’t seen nor heard of outside the trial, and likely would never do so again once he’d left it.

  A pastime taken up to while away eternity.

  Little more than an excuse to procrastinate.

  Which was what made it all the more peculiar that, out of everything—his many obligations, vendettas, and those loved ones he’d left behind—it was his time spent across from that eccentric old hag which had brought him back here. Trying again, in earnest, to solve the problem that’d been plaguing him for so long now.

  So! I’m a chronic deceiver, huh? Forever courting instability, if she’s to be believed. First start with an honest foundation…

  For the record, he didn’t actually think this would work. It likely wouldn’t work. It was probably a huge waste of time. By now, the optimism hadn’t been beaten out of him, per say, so much as shorn from him with a rusty, and not especially sharp, pair of cutting sheers.

  Slowly, agonizingly, and unhygienically to boot.

  Nevertheless…

  Jun mentally reached out to the accursed purple puff ball, and, with a thought, dispersed it utterly, like the scattering of dandelion fluff. Until not even an echo of its unfortunate shape remained. Immediately he could feel that he hadn’t been given a clean slate by any means.

  He’d begun the trial under the pretense he’d be making some sort of piercing technique, and so, a piercing technique was what he was effectively bound to make.

  Even still, the palpable waves of relief he felt at being allowed even the pretense of a new beginning was well worth the restrictions. Jun took in a deep, figurative breath, and began to form a mantra. This time, with the sole purpose of capturing a basic aspect of the concept.

  And although his instincts were practically screaming he start pushing and pulling until he got the result he desired, he restrained himself. It wouldn’t do for him to simply trick the purple granules into taking on the shape he desired.

  He’d already done plenty of that to dismal effect all around.

  Instead, he would start with an idea. A simple image.

  The spear.

  Closing his eyes. He tried to hold in his mind the image of a spear.

  Long shaft… Pointy end… Wait, what else is there?

  He shrugged.

  Should be good enough.

  Opening his eyes, he was immediately greeted with irrefutable proof that it had not, as it so happens, been “good enough.” Hovering in front of him was what looked to be a child’s crude rendition of the titular weapon, and a rather untalented child at that. Two dimensional and partly see through, it looked like nothing so much as a squiggly chalk outline. Jun buried his head in his hands.

  Got it. So, there’s more to a spear than just long and pointy. But what?

  Thinking on it for a second, he decided it was probably optimal it exist in all three dimensions before he did anything else.

  And so, he pictured that.

  Layering another image on top of what he already had. Interweaving it with the first, as one might two threads of twine. He imagined the roundness of the shaft. Pictured it’s heft. Tried to recall the feel of its weight in his hands, from the few times he’d ever held a spear. The memories were hazy and incomplete, but, nevertheless, when he opened his eyes, he was still pleasantly surprised.

  It was still crude and indistinct, but it definitely existed in more than two dimensions now.

  Woohoo! Take that you stingy patrons! Jun, one. All powerful conceptual entities, zero!

  He thought he was starting to understand how exactly all this was supposed to work. Grinning, he began to add more image threads to the growing weave.

  He added the feel of wood grain between his fingers. The sharp scent of metal polished to a mirror shine. The sting of being pricked by something sharp. He even started to get into more esoteric territory.

  The contentedness that came with holding something well worn and trustworthy. The irrepressible need to push forward no matter the obstacle.

  With every image he layered atop one another in his mind, the more defined the construct before him became. Until…

  Basic Mantra: [Spearing Thrust] (1st Aspected)

  Grade: (Excellent Quality)

  Conceptual Stability: 60%

  Before him floated the miniature image of a plain spear. Completely unadorned, the slowly rotating sculpture looked like something you might find in any old bargain barrel bristling with shoddy weaponry.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Common, in other words. Entirely average. And yet the palpable waves of conceptual energy roiling off of the simple image spoke to it being anything but.

  Most surprising was that, in the end, the actual wording of the mantra mattered not at all. Indeed, it never even came up, far as he could tell. The simple compiling of compatible imageries were more than enough to carry the day.

  Although, having said that, it was also immediately apparent that, should the need arise, the proper verbiage would surface of its own accord—as easily as one might pluck free a perfectly ripe berry.

  Now, don’t get him wrong. He was still in disbelief that what little he had known to conceptualize, had been enough to flesh it out so completely. More so that all it had taken was a slight change in his mindset. To come at the problem genuinely and in earnest, instead of hastily rushing the final product. Running headlong toward ever retreating success.

  Go figure.

  As counter intuitive as it felt, in the beginning it would’ve actually been far faster to move with slow deliberation, rather than brute force it at break neck speeds. Huh. There was probably a lesson in there somewhere.

  Now that he had a stable, honest foundation however…?

  If he’d had the wherewithal to grin in that instant, he would have. Jun promptly took the mantra he’d just so recently created, and with slow, deliberate thoughts, began to innovate.

  ***

  Jun let out a long exhale, breath frosting the chilly morning air in an expansive white plume. Silhouettes shifted—noticed, if not remarked upon—from out of the corner of his eye. The hunched figures of elderly inmates shuffling to and fro.

  Unhurried, deliberate, and aloof as always. There came the hushed susurration of early morning voices, well rehearsed greetings and quiet rejoinders swapped between age old acquaintances.

  All around him, unassuming men and women draped in threadbare brown cloth were going about their routines, and seeing to their daily necessities.

  Consecutive pops and cracks echoing from behind, as, despite their getting on in age, many of those present made to contort themselves into inane, downright bizarre looking positions he couldn’t hope to mimic, each more devilishly complex than the last.

  Many stretching in preparation for long hours spent in prayer. While still others did the same for equally sedentary, if far less pious, reasons.

  Even now the alluring tug of the gogi board called to him with that addictive promise of one last game. He ignored the urge, however—the seductive pull.

  More than that, he ignored his surroundings.

  He even managed to block out the bitter cold. And in their place? He turned all of his attentions inward, and, with a flutter of fear and anticipation, brought to fruition the culmination of several weeks’ effort.

  The spear is mighty; it’s reach is vast—my gaze is to you as the heron to the salmon.

  Jun felt the telltale strain on his mental faculties; the snaking tendrils of stiff tension wrap his body in iron bands. He felt the space behind his sockets begin to warm ominously, his brain made to cope with the mounting levels of stress.

  And then, all at once, as if a pressure valve had been released, three beams of emerald green energy shot from his corneas—two short bursts and a sweeping curve. Tiny chips of stone sent pinging throughout the courtyard.

  Three high pitched whines accompanied each flicker of emerald, as his all powerful mantra carved a perfect little smiley face into the thin layer of snow at his feet. Well, the snow, and a good deal of the flagstone beneath, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

  Releasing his mantra with a huff—and letting his eyesight return to their usual color range—Jun first wobbled dangerously, then fell flat on his rear. His watery legs due more to the sheer relief he felt in that moment, than any real exhaustion. Though there was plenty of that too, and make no mistake.

  He’d done it. It had taken him a while, but he’d finally done it!

  “Not too shabby,” he whistled, inspecting the damage.

  Three jagged furrows channeled deep into the flagstone. That was all he had to show for his blood, sweat, and not a small amount of tears.

  Now, was it worth it?

  No. Not even close.

  His only real consolation prize the simple fact it was over with, and that hopefully, gods willing, he’d never have to go through something like that ever again.

  “Isn’t there a saying? It being about the journey and not the destination? Given the fact that I’m pretty sure said journey left me severely traumatized, I can’t say I’m particularly fond of the idea.”

  Ah well. It wasn’t as if things were all bad. He thought he might actually grow to miss some of his time here. Once the cold became a distant memory of course, and not a first person, teeth rattling, frostbitten experience. He was sure he could delude himself into thinking it’d been a grand old time by then.

  Once it was all a far off memory, hazy and blessedly indistinct, he could then look upon his many ups and downs with newfound appreciation. After he’d finally escaped this hellhole, he was sure he’d be able to pinpoint the highlights, wherever they were, no matter how sparse or unlikely. Now that he’d applied his mantra successfully, however, it was only a matter of time before he was whisked away from this damnable trial, and officially sent down the path of enlightened reminiscence.

  Any minute now. Any second.

  Abruptly, there was a commotion from the other end of the open-air space, which, in and of it self, was nothing new. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve gone unnoticed—lost amid the raucous, overly boisterous din—but for the sudden hush that had fallen over the courtyard.

  Jun glanced in that direction, only to spot the milling sea of inmates part before a heavily armored procession. A procession that just so happened to be marching in his general direction. Jun was able to make out the fur lined uniforms of the prison guard, otherwise dressed to the nines in gleaming white plate-mail, their expressions tight and demeanors professional.

  Occasionally, when one inmate or another was too slow to move, while it was true they were still battered aside—business as usual—it was done without any of the sadistic pleasure or malice he was so used to seeing.

  They didn’t even stop to kick the guy while he was down!

  It was practically unheard of. And, quite frankly, it terrified him. All the more so because of the awfully suspicious timing. It hadn’t escaped his notice that, in all his time here, not once had he seen it’s like.

  Days, no, weeks spent haunting this trial world and he’d never had something like this transpire.

  And yet the second he successfully operates his mantra, this martial parade suddenly comes out of the woodwork? What were the odds that this was just a coincidence? Not great, if he had to wager a guess. And suddenly he felt this uncanny certainty that, were he to die now, there would be no second chances.

  It’s do or die time.