It was genuinely nice to see her that excited.

“Anyway,” Thea began, her hands already animated, “I was thinking, how could I actually access it? How could I enter the space that lets us cultivate in the first place?”

“Aaand?” I prompted, nudging her along.

“And it worked!” she beamed, then paused, glancing around as if expecting fanfare.

Hmmm.

Clap.

I gave her one solitary clap followed by two more slower ones.

Clap… clap.

Clap. That last one came from Elric. “Amazing,” he said in deadpan monotone.

Sia bowed her head dramatically. “Please continue, master of masters.”

Thea rolled her eyes but smiled, encouraged by the sarcasm. “I started feeding energy into it, trying to probe the space.”

That sounds like...

“And little branches erupted from the Nexus,” she said, eyes wide. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much with them.”

“And this is where the term Spiritual Refinement comes in,” Elric added, actually helping keep her on track for once instead of continuing our teasing.

“Exactly. Body Refinement pushes the Channels to their limits. So I tried doing the same thing to the Nexus; fed it more and more and… eventually, it exploded.” She said it like it was a scientific breakthrough, not a near-death event.

I glanced over at Lyra and Elric.

Lyra sighed, shaking her head with maternal exhaustion. “I found her first. Pale as snow, twitching on the floor. I thought she might’ve...”

Her voice shifted, heavier with concern. I caught the flicker of guilt in Thea’s eyes until Sia broke the tension.

“Elric fixed her up. She was fine. What was scary was how happy she got after almost dying.” She raised her arms in mock celebration, what must've been an imitation in her hurrah moment. “Jumping around like a maniac.”

With the mood lighter again, Thea continued. “When it exploded, those little hairs or tendrils pulled back in, but something else was forced out. A sliver of violet energy.”

“Wow.” I leaned forward. “That’s amazing. You actually managed to extract it. Plus, it actually sounds like the initial process is the failed formation of something I know: a Spiritual Root.”

She perked up with curiosity, but Elric cut off the follow-up.

“Afterward, her PE stats dropped in the system,” he explained. “She forced the energy back in, which reset things, but that wasn’t the whole story right, Thea?”

She shook her head and met my eyes. “It’s different now.”

I leaned closer.

“The Nexus. It’s not... normal anymore. It breathes, pulses. Like it’s alive. I felt something more inside it, but I couldn’t keep going; it wouldn’t let me push in more energy.”

“She stopped trying,” Lyra added, “because I asked her to. Not until we’re sure it’s safe.”

“Does it do anything else?” I asked.

Thea frowned, thinking. “Not much. I can absorb World Force faster now, but my Channel’s full, so I can’t do much with it.”

But that caught me off guard. That was exactly the kind of problem I’d been trying to solve.

Peter.

'Wyrem, I told—'

'Shut up.' His voice was sharper than usual, startling me. 'Ask her if she could sense energy from farther away. After she absorbs. Did her range increase?'

He sounded… urgent. Almost desperate.

I tried to keep my expression neutral. “Anything else?”

“Elric managed to replicate the experience,” Lyra said. “And after, when he created the opposite of Sensory Veil—”

“Unveiled Perception,” Elric interrupted, clearly proud of the name.

Lyra went on. “He told us he could feel slivers of something beyond the normal world energy.”

Elric nodded. “Nothing clear, just a faint thread of something else.”

'That girl actually gave her discovery a fitting name,' Wyrem whispered in awe. 'I never even thought about it.'

'What?' I asked, suddenly curious for an answer.

'I was born with my Spiritual Sense. You have a method to develop it. Some gain it through accidents… but training it? That’s something else. No one does that naturally.'

'Treasures are required to awaken the source of a creature's power, to enliven it, and with every use, the treasures diminish in effect.'

'I don’t get it,' Luna chimed in. 'What’s happening?'

'It might’ve never been known,' Wyrem said, almost reverently. 'Who would blow up their own Nexus, after all? But she trained it, Peter. That girl, a true radicalist genius, discovered how to train a Spirit Sense before even developing it.'

“Peter?” Thea’s voice broke through my thoughts, worried.

“Sorry, talking,” I said, distracted.

“No you weren’t,” Elric chuckled.

I raised my plant-arm. “With Luna. And someone else.”

Sia leaned forward, curious. “Guess it’s your turn, then. What was up with those weapons you pulled out of nowhere?”

“Spiritual Weapons,” I replied with a grin. “Though, I’m still figuring out how they’d interact with magic tools. They’re created and shaped from your own energy, condensed and tied to something meaningful to you… or, you know, something like that.”

“…What?” Elric blinked, clearly thrown off by the vagueness.

“Well, I failed when I tried to make a sword. I never really used one, never cared much outside of thinking they looked cool, but when I went all-in on gauntlets? Instant success.”

“How strong are they?” Lyra asked. “Do they evolve?”

I paused. Never really thought about that.

“They’re strong. They cause shockwaves of your energy when they hit, and I think they focus your abilities when used through them. At least it seems like it… but maybe I could refine them more.” I glanced at my hand. “I didn’t even have my Precursor Energy when I made them. What if I tried again using everything?”

“They burn through energy?” Elric guessed.

I nodded. “Yeah. A lot.”

“Most fights end quickly anyway. Battlefields are the only exception, and even then, retreats happen,” Elric said, eerily confident.

“Who cares about weapons right now?” Thea said, a little impatiently. She pointed to the floor where a sheen of frost was sublimating into mist. “Explain. Explain the ice.”

“Let’s start with the foundation first,” I said, my tone shifting as I slowed down.

I explained the three fundamental cultivation paths, and how I wanted to fuse them. My plan to crack the Grand Channel in a few places to make room for the others. Painful, yeah. Risky too, but possible.

“Wait,” Thea interrupted, eyes lighting up. “So if we form a Spiritual Root, could I keep going with Spiritual Refinement?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But when you complete the circuits, you develop a Spiritual Sense, and your method might be the key to training it.”

She nodded thoughtfully and went quiet, giving me space to finish.

I told them what I’d seen. How, after the accident that took my arm, Luna helped me perceive elemental forces: Natural, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind. How I’d formed a core due to absorption resistance… and how I planned to eventually fuse every element into my body.

I explained my time in the essence realm. How it all boiled down to seeing a pretty glowing orb after flying into a giant space monster’s eyeball to learn how to absorb Water Force.

“Wow,” Thea whispered. “You’ve learned so much.”

“Using needle-cores to cripple yourself?” Elric muttered. “It’s already bad enough with the Grand Carving technique.”

“I haven’t even tried it,” I admitted. “It’s just an idea. If you’ve got something better, I’m all ears.”

He scratched the back of his head... clearly, he didn’t.

“I can mute pain,” Lyra offered. “If I combine that ability with cultivation and Precursor Energy, maybe I can dull it enough to make the process bearable.”

I nodded slowly. “It’s worth a try… but I remember how that spell feels. You’re not exactly the smartest afterward.”

“We could test it on each other,” Sia suggested, far too casually. “Lyra dampens the pain, then we make our own needles, pierce the channel, and boom, problem solved.”

'I’m starting to see why you like sharing knowledge Peter,' Wyrem said with a rare note of admiration. 'That might actually work.'

Pushed by his input, I nodded. “Yeah… we could try it.”

“One last thing,” Thea added. She looked at me, and I immediately understood what she meant from that look.

“The name,” she said.

“Perfect Foundation?” Elric offered before I could get a word in.

The others nodded. It was honestly a good name, fitting, even solid; though, maybe a little arrogant. Which, coming from Elric, just made it sound even more on-brand.

But I shook my head. “No. I don’t want it to sound like it’s done. Like there’s nothing left to improve. I mean, look at us. What if someone comes along in a year, a hundred years, or a thousand, and makes it better?”

A brief silence followed.

“You’re right, man,” Elric said finally. “Might not even take that long. I’ll probably find some way to improve it myself.”

Arrogant bastard.

“I’ve had another name in mind anyway, something I wanted to use later, but maybe this is where it starts. Let’s call it… Harmonic Foundation.”

Thea, bless her heart, stepped in to explain it better than I could.

“I like it,” she said, beaming. “We’re combining two established methods and our own, bringing them into balance. Letting them work in harmony.” 

I wanted to hug her.

But instead, I shifted gears, finally voicing the question that had been pressing on me since I came back.

“…Do you guys like it here?”

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