The Dreamer's Fall

Chapter 10 - Cultivation

It was already getting late into the night, and Arthur felt exhausted, but he couldn't sleep just yet. He still needed to cultivate for the day, and considering the situation, he needed power more than ever before.

Arthur didn't have the benefit of aether crystals like the guards. That was why he couldn't progress past the third circle for the past two years. Aether crystals were regulated, and only select merchants could sell them within the empire.

The merchants were also required to log all sales as an extra layer of security against any would-be troublemakers raising their own army of mages. The problem for Arthur wasn't so much his secrecy as it was a problem of funds.

He had been saving up his allowance in response to the threat of being disinherited, which meant he had to go without the luxury of aether crystals. He had always intended to start using them after gaining some degree of autonomy in the future.

Arthur wasn't too worried about falling behind on his cultivation, though. Most people didn't start cultivating until they were fourteen or fifteen, so he was still ahead of the curve.

After grabbing his research journal, Arthur left the study and began to walk the moonlit halls of Revan Manor. He returned to his room before throwing his journal onto the bed and changing into something more comfortable.

Once changed, Arthur sat down and took up the lotus position on the floor at the edge of his bed. Sitting in the lotus position wasn't necessary. One could cultivate lying down or standing if they wanted to, but Arthur felt like the lotus position was fitting, as if he were some mystical martial artist.

As Arthur's eyes closed, his mind's eye opened. A vast, never-ending expanse opened up before him. He didn't have a form in this place, only existing as a type of nothingness no different from the rest of the expanse.

Situated around his consciousness were six gigantic rings of white light incrementally increasing in diameter. They rotated slowly with him at their center as if he were inside some gyroscopic prison.

Arthur could see a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view around him at all times. The sudden change in his vision always disoriented him, and it took him a moment to adjust. Finally, after he felt comfortable, he looked into himself.

At the center of his consciousness, a small light-blue star gently swirled about in cosmic brilliance. The star was his mana core, and the rings surrounding it were what mages used to measure their strength: circles.

The first time Arthur entered the cultivation state, nine rings of light surrounded him, but now there were six. The reason for that is, that as a mage's mana core grew, it would become larger and larger until it could no longer be contained by the ring of light closest to it. Once the mana core made contact with that ring, it would shatter.

Mages were ranked by the number of circles they had shattered. Thus, since Arthur's mana core had grown large enough to have shattered three rings of light, he was considered a third circle mage.

Looking back out to the rings, Arthur felt a bit disheartened. The bottleneck that occurred after reaching third circle felt insurmountable without aether crystals. After two years, he had only managed to grow his mana core thirty percent of the way toward the fourth ring.

Shaking off his sense of hopelessness, he looked out to the void beyond the rings. A sparse golden luminescent fog occupied the expanse that flowed like a quiet river of clouds. In some places, the aether was turbulent, seeming to act with purpose as it flowed in a specific direction before disappearing in an explosion of strange arcane symbols.

The turbulent aether was undoubtedly the other cultivators within the mansion, but Arthur wasn't worried about being caught. The expanse was disorienting, and no mage could see another's rings, making it nearly impossible to locate someone based on the flow of aether.