A month passed. For Ren, this month was both an eternity and the blink of an eye. His world, once a frantic scramble for survival, had contracted into a simple, monastic, and brutally demanding routine. Mornings were spent kneeling in the dirt of the Elder's garden, his entire being focused on the impossible task of lifting a single grain of sand. Afternoons were spent in the silent, dusty chill of the GAMA archives, chasing the ghost of a forgotten name. Evenings, before he collapsed onto his cot, were dedicated to the same grueling meditation, his progress measured in seconds, not breakthroughs.
Elder Tian was a distant, silent observer. He would watch, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for an hour, his presence a constant, unspoken pressure. He offered no praise for success, no critique for failure. He simply observed, his gaze like that of a geologist watching a mountain erode, content to measure change on a timescale beyond the comprehension of mortal men.
The training was a lesson in humility. The single, breathtaking second of levitation he had achieved was a fluke of perfect mental alignment, a lightning strike of chance he could not replicate for two more days. The frustration was a physical thing, a hot coil in his gut that he had to systematically dismantle each morning. His power, the raw, untamed force that could blast through targets, was useless here. This was a different kind of strength, a strength of stillness, of infinite patience.
He learned to feel the world in a new way. He learned that the simple act of a cloud passing overhead subtly altered the Aetheric pressure, requiring a microscopic adjustment to his focus. A gust of wind was a tidal wave that could scatter his efforts. He had to learn to anticipate these changes, to create a pocket of absolute tranquility that was immune to the whims of the world.
After a week of relentless effort, he could hold the grain of sand steady for ten seconds. The mental exhaustion from this brief period was more profound than after his entire night in the Aetheric Font. He would leave the garden, his mind feeling scoured and raw, and retreat to the archives.
There, he found no further direct mention of the Raijin. It was as if the name itself had been deliberately excised from history, a word too dangerous to be remembered. So he changed his tactics. He could not study the ghost, but he could study the tombstone that marked its grave: The Great Cataclysm.
He pulled down scrolls and codices that smelled of time itself. He learned that the Cataclysm was not a single event, but a century-long dark age where the Grand Seal of Aerthos, the metaphysical barrier that protected the world from the Aetherial Abyss, had catastrophically weakened. He read fragmented, terrifying accounts from that era: tales of Aetheric storms that warped reality, of entire coastlines sinking beneath the waves, of Rift Breaks so massive they were like wounds in the sky that bled monsters for decades.
A chilling hypothesis began to form in his mind. In an age of such cosmic instability, a bloodline like the Raijin, whose very presence was said to disrupt the Aether Weave, would not have been seen as a blessing. They would have been a catalyst for disaster. Perhaps they hadn't been wiped out by the Abyss. Perhaps, in a desperate attempt to stabilize their fracturing world, the other powers of the age had wiped them out first. Or perhaps their own volatile nature, amplified by the chaotic energies of the Cataclysm, had simply caused them to burn out, like stars collapsing under their own gravity. The title of his book, The Sundered Lineages, took on a more sinister meaning.
This new, grim perspective fueled his training. He was the last ember of a fire that had burned too brightly. He had to learn control, not just for his own survival, but to honor the silence of his lost kin.
By the end of the third week, he could hold one grain of sand steady for nearly forty minutes. He moved on to two grains. The difficulty increased tenfold. It required him to maintain two distinct, perfectly balanced fields of force, each one isolated from the other. It was like trying to pat his head and rub his stomach on a spiritual, microscopic level. His failures became constant again.
All the while, his body continued its silent cultivation. The Aether he consciously absorbed to fuel his will was a mere trickle compared to the steady, unconscious tide his body drank in. He grew leaner, but his weight remained the same, his muscle and bone growing denser, saturated with a latent power that had nowhere to go. He was a living battery, charging day and night without an outlet.
On the final day of the month, as dusk painted the sky in shades of orange and violet, he knelt in his usual spot. He was calm, his mind a placid lake. He reached out with his will, a familiar and precise tool now, and isolated a single grain of sand. He created the perfect equilibrium of force, a cradle of stillness.
The grain lifted. It hung in the air, one inch above the dirt, as motionless as the stars.
One minute passed. Then ten. Then thirty. The moon began its ascent, casting a silver glow on the garden. Ren's focus was absolute. There was no strain, no struggle. There was only the quiet hum of perfect control. When a full hour had passed, he gently, almost regretfully, released his will, and the grain settled back into its place as if it had never moved.
A soft, slow clap echoed from behind him.
Ren turned. Elder Tian stood there, his hands clasped behind his back. A rare, impossibly thin smile touched the corners of his ancient lips.
"The first step is complete," the Elder said, his voice holding a new note of deep satisfaction. "Tomorrow, you will learn to sculpt the stone."