The courage did not arrive gently.
It came all at once, wild and unreasonable, like a spark falling into dry grass.
Zareck stood in the center of his cultivation room, bare feet against the cool stone floor, the tattered manual still open on the table behind him. His chest felt tight, his thoughts restless, looping back on themselves no matter how hard he tried to calm them.
Malichi's face surfaced unbidden.
Not his grin. Not his laughter.
The jade slip.
Brighter. Deeper. Chosen.
Zareck let out a short, breathless laugh. "Figures."
He had never envied Malichi, not truly. Malichi had responsibilities, expectations, a future already written in ink. Zareck had grown up in the margins, unnoticed and unclaimed.
But tonight, that brighter jade slip burned in his mind like a brand.
"Screw it," Zareck said aloud.
The words echoed softly in the empty room.
He turned back to the table and read the first section of Thy Image of Zenith again, slower now, committing every line to memory.
The opening stage was blunt.
No breathing exercises.
No posture diagrams.
No meditative mantras.
Only a directive.
Draw in spiritual energy until resistance appears. Do not stop.
Zareck swallowed.
He sat down on the cultivation mat, spine straight, hands resting loosely on his knees. He closed his eyes and reached outward, not with technique, but with intent.
At first, nothing happened.
Then he felt it.
A faint pressure against his skin, like standing just beneath the surface of deep water. The ambient spiritual energy he had always ignored was suddenly there, aware of him now that he was aware of it.
The Hans Flower Technique would have instructed him to guide it gently, to let it brush past his body and acclimate him slowly.
Thy Image of Zenith demanded more.
Zareck inhaled sharply and pulled.
The sensation was immediate.
Spiritual energy rushed into him like cold air into burning lungs. His muscles tightened instinctively, his body recoiling from something it had never been meant to hold.
Pain flared. Sharp, sudden, shocking.
Zareck gasped, nearly breaking concentration at once.
"Don't stop," he hissed through clenched teeth.
He pulled again.
The energy flooded deeper, pressing into his muscles as if trying to occupy space that did not exist. It felt wrong. Like forcing a joint past its limit, multiplied across his entire body.
His thighs spasmed.
His shoulders locked.
Then—
Something gave.
A dull, internal crack echoed through his awareness, followed by a surge of agony so intense his vision went white.
Zareck screamed.
The sound tore from his throat, raw and uncontrolled, as his muscles convulsed violently. He collapsed forward, palms slamming against the stone floor as waves of pain rolled through him.
Bones.
It was his bones.
They felt like they were being crushed from the inside, compressed and twisted by an invisible force that did not care whether they survived.
"This is insane," he sobbed, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. "This is insane—"
Another crack.
Clearer this time.
His forearm.
Zareck howled, his fingers clawing uselessly at the floor as his arm bent at an angle it never should have. The pain was all-consuming, drowning thought, shredding reason.
Instinct screamed at him to stop.
To let go.
To crawl to the door and beg for help.
And then, through the haze of agony, he remembered the next line.
If you release the energy now, the damage will remain.
Zareck froze.
The spiritual energy inside him churned violently, unstable, tearing at muscle and bone alike. If he stopped now, if he expelled it without control, his body would shatter and stay shattered.
He would live.
Crippled.
His breathing hitched.
"No," he whispered. "No."
With what little will he had left, Zareck forced the energy inward instead of out. He guided it, not gently, not skilfully, but be damned he was stubborn.
The response was immediate.
Heat exploded through his broken arm, searing and intense. The pain did not lessen, it changed. Where before it had been sharp and tearing, it now burned, deep and relentless.
Zareck collapsed fully onto the mat, body shaking uncontrollably.
Muscle fibres tore apart under the strain, then knit back together in thicker, denser strands. Cracked bones ground against themselves as spiritual energy forced reconstruction, packing material into every fracture until the gaps vanished.
Zareck bit down hard on his sleeve to keep from screaming again.
His jaw ached.
His teeth rattled.
Time lost meaning.
There was only pain, breath, and the relentless pulse of energy forcing his body to become something it had never been.
At some point, he realized his heart was pounding dangerously fast, each beat slamming against his chest like a hammer.
At some point, he tasted blood.
And then—
The pressure eased.
Not gone.
Just… stable.
Zareck lay there, gasping, limbs twitching weakly, sweat pooling beneath him. Every inch of his body throbbed with residual pain, but the sharp edge was gone.
He was still alive.
He opened his eyes slowly.
The room looked the same. The walls hadn't cracked. The world hadn't ended.
His arm lay straight.
Zareck lifted it experimentally.
It moved.
A laugh bubbled out of his chest, half-hysterical, half-disbelieving. "I'm… alive."
More than that.
He clenched his fist.
The sensation startled him.
Strength surged through the motion, raw and unfamiliar. His muscles felt heavier, denser, like they carried weight they hadn't before.
Zareck pushed himself upright, ignoring the lingering ache, and sat there breathing hard.
This was only the beginning.
Only the first break.
And it had nearly killed him.
He glanced back at the open manual on the table.
For the first time, fear and exhilaration twisted together in his chest.
"If this is just the start," he whispered hoarsely, "what kind of monster does this technique expect me to become?"
The manual did not answer.
But deep within his bones, something newly forged pulsed in quiet, undeniable affirmation.