Inside the Roaring Stone Mountain.
At its base, not too deep in where the concentration of Mana was high but not yet dangerous for those who had just begun to cultivate, Damian and Uncle Adam moved through the forest of glowing trees and Spirit Stones like two predators engaged in a dance older than memory.
Their spear and axe clashed with rhythms that echoed off the purple-veined stones surrounding them, each strike sending ripples of force through the Mana-saturated air. Uncle Adam’s movements were precise and powerful, the technique of a soldier who had spent decades refining every angle of attack and every method of defense. Damian’s movements were faster, more fluid, guided by systems that worked in harmony.
And around them, the phenomenon that should only appear when higher circle Warriors or above engaged in combat manifested once more.
The Ancestral Veil.
Pure Mana swirled around them like mist rising from warm water meeting cold air, drawn from the mountain itself by the intensity and purity of their exertion. The blue-white energy gathered in increasingly dense concentrations, flowing into both of their bodies through pores and breath and the subtle channels that cultivation opened within flesh and bone.
The more Damian cultivated his Vakochev’s Doctrines of Stone, the more resilient his body’s systems became.
The intake of Mana he could handle right now was ridiculous compared to the first time he’d attempted simultaneous cultivation. What had nearly killed him yesterday now felt merely uncomfortable, like drinking water that was too cold rather than swallowing molten stone.
Because normally, when a Fifth Circle Organ Sanctification Warrior cultivated, their organs had a level of resiliency due to their months and years of sequential development. They had spent time at Flesh Awakening, allowing their muscles and skin to adapt. They had progressed through Bone Tempering, letting their skeleton become accustomed to containing power. They had advanced through Blood Refinement and Marrow Crystallization, each stage preparing them for the next.
By the time they reached Organ Sanctification, their bodies were ready for the strain.
But even they proceeded slowly while bathing their organs in Mana, taking weeks or months to fully integrate power that their predecessors had spent similar timeframes developing.
Damian had just begun cultivating yesterday.
And he had now gained that same initial resiliency through sheer repetition of damage and healing, through the cycle of destruction and restoration that the Primordial Tongue made possible.
But he was not proceeding carefully.
For him, it was almost suicidal.
He was taking in as much Mana as he could without worry of the dangers, flooding his systems with power that should have torn him apart ten times over, because he had the Primordial Tongue.
So for the past hour, he had actually been absorbing droves and droves of Mana while he sparred with Uncle Adam. The concentrations he took in had to be more than a dozen times what Uncle Adam was absorbing, perhaps more, an intake that would have killed any normal cultivator within the first few minutes.
The more he took in, the more resilient his organs became.
And the more resilient they became, the more he could take in.
It was a cycle of exponential growth that defied everything the established cultivation wisdom taught, a methodology that only worked because he could heal any damage that resulted from pushing too far.
The only caveat was that pushing too far still hurt.
A lot.
BZZT!
He felt his organs pulsing with strain as his heart beat unfathomably heavy and fast, like an ancient engine that had been idle for too long and was now being forced to redline without mercy. Everything inside him seemed to be screaming a warning that he was ignoring, his body telling him to slow down before something catastrophic occurred.
But he simply went faster.
The thick walls of his heart began to rip and fracture, microscopic tears spreading through muscle that wasn’t yet strong enough to contain the power being forced into it. His lungs burned with Mana that seared their delicate tissue. His liver and kidneys struggled to process energies they weren’t designed to handle at this stage of cultivation.
And the moment this damage appeared, the moment his organs began to fail under the strain he was deliberately inflicting upon them...
"Persevere."
He uttered out that glorious letter as his lips moved to form sounds that didn’t quite belong in mortal speech.
BOOM!
Blue-gold flames erupted around him like a furnace igniting, their heaviness greater than ever before. The sacred fire wrapped around his body and sank into his flesh with an intensity that made the previous uses of this power seem like candle flames compared to a bonfire.
It felt like each time he spoke that letter, it portrayed more and more power.
As if him growing stronger made the effects of the Primordial Tongue and what it could do grow stronger in turn.
Or really, it was that he had been far too weak to truly express the effects of this letter, and only now was he beginning to glimpse what it was actually capable of.
The flames coursed through his organs, healing the tears and fractures with speed that defied mortal comprehension. But this time, they didn’t just heal.
They transformed.
BOOM!
He felt an explosion inside his body, a detonation of power that originated from his heart and radiated outward through every vessel and nerve and fiber of his being. The explosion released a terrifying suction pressure, a hunger that reached beyond his flesh and pulled at the world around him.
All of the surrounding Mana for more than a mile in diameter drew toward him like water swirling toward a drain, the atmosphere left empty and still in the wake of his body’s demand. Trees that had been glowing with absorbed power dimmed as their Mana was stripped away. Spirit Stones flickered and went dark. Even Uncle Adam stumbled as the energy supporting his cultivation was suddenly redirected.
And inside of him...
He felt his flesh, bone, blood, marrow, and organs vibrating in perfect harmony, resonating at a frequency that felt both new and ancient at the same time.
On his heart, he felt a piercing pain unlike anything he had experienced before.
It wasn’t the pain of damage.
It was the pain of inscription.
He could feel it happening, could sense with impossible clarity as something was being carved into the very tissue of his heart, not with blade or tool but with meaning itself. The letter of the Primordial Tongue that he had spoken, that he had used to heal himself again and again since awakening this power, was writing itself upon his most vital organ.
He saw it in his mind’s eye, the symbol |Persevere| forming in lines of golden light that sank into the muscle of his heart and became part of its structure, as permanent as the beat that sustained his life!
DUM!