My father had always warned us about the fragility of trust and the dangers of overreliance.

  “Trust the serpent, and you risk its venom. But in surviving its bite, you awaken a strength that no crown can bestow.” The first time he’d spoken those words, he had cut off the heads of a dozen snakes and forced each of us to swallow a poison sac.

  When the Ordite of my mindscape appeared before me once more, I was reminded of that moment. And when Orpheus casually emerged from behind a large boulder, smirking at me with the bottomless pits he called eyes, my stomach churned with the memory of snake venom.

  I’d survived the serpent's venom back then. I could survive it again.

  The twin suns above reminded me of home, while the wind's chill brought back memories of why I loathed traversing the Northern ranges. I noticed the subtle shift in my mindscape: the rocks were more solid, more tangible; the frost now seeped through my bones, freezing the river that once flowed freely.

  My breath quickened as my heart hammered in my chest, threatening to break free, while my mind raced to comprehend where I was and what was unfolding.

  I needed power. That was why I was here.

  Mindscapes usually slowed time, though I wasn’t certain how Orpheus’ presence might alter that. Regardless, this was my only opportunity to change the fate of my paragons—and possibly my own.

  “Have you come to accept my offer?” Orpheus asked, leaning against the boulder. His knowing smile suggested he already knew my answer.

  “Can you see the world through my eyes?” I countered, narrowing my gaze.

  Orpheus shrugged. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” His half-truths didn't escape me, but before I could press him, he spoke again. “If you haven't accepted my deal, then why have you come at all, Queen of Rot?”

  My jaw clenched. Gods, I hated that title.

  “If I accept your deal,” I said, forcing the words out, “you’ll help me reach the Gold Realm before I leave here. That’s my condition.”

  “You forget that I witnessed your... situation,” Orpheus sneered, the left corner of his mouth curling upward. “You cannot negotiate with me. If I refuse, what can you do?”

  “I can let your race fade into extinction,” I shot back, my heart still thudding in my chest. I clenched my fists, gathering all my willpower for this conversation, pushing aside thoughts of Nida and Nasq. “I assume time moves slower here?”

  “Of course,” Orpheus grunted. “Mindscapes don’t follow the same rules as reality.”

  I nodded. “But this isn’t a normal mindscape.”

  The progenitor waved the concern away. “It approximates a decade per second.” He raised a finger when I opened my mouth. “But there’s a cost to staying here,” he warned. “It will erode your memories. The longer you remain, the faster they begin to deteriorate."

  That was fine. My memories, aside from those of battle and war, meant little to me. Most of them, I wished I’d never experienced.

  “Then I suppose we’d better begin.” I extended my hand, tendrils of energy swirling around it. “I, Lilith Reiter, Queen of Aedronir and the Eastern Continent’s foremost Queen of Conquest, offer this pact. Teach me to fully absorb progenitor cores and impart all you know about the System. In return, I will bring the Angellic back from extinction.”

  “No time to waste, indeed,” Orpheus said, grasping my hand. His energy intertwined with mine, a binding oath settling between us. His smirk widened, and I knew I’d just made a decision that would eventually stab me in the back. But I had no other choice. If I didn’t act, the Hydra would destroy everything I had built—and then it would kill me.

  Even if I managed to escape, which seemed unlikely, it would pursue me forever. For what purpose, I didn’t know, though I hoped Orpheus did.

  “There’s much we don’t know about the System,” he began. “But I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. The first thing we need to address is your Dantians. Your understanding of them is woefully inadequate.”

  When we released hands, his smoky black core appeared beside my feet. He sat before it, robes flowing like the leaves of a tree swaying in the cool breeze of the mindscape. I crossed my legs, mirroring him so we were face to face, separated only by the black sphere.

  He reached forward and tapped my chest, right where my heart beat. “I’ve alluded to this before, but there are three Dantians, each interconnected with the other. Your heart core is only a portion of what you should be able to access.” His voice softened, no longer mocking, but gentle, rumbling like distant thunder. “The three Dantians mirror the heavens, the earth, and the bridge between. It’s no surprise that lesser worlds like Ordite and Graedon have forgotten this truth.” He moved closer. “Let me show you.”

  Orpheus waved a hand, and I felt a pull just below my navel. A warm, translucent sphere of light exited from the spot near my navel, and it hovered there, pulsing faint traces of mana. “Ordite and Graedon believe your power comes from either the heart or the mana reserve. That’s only half true. The cores are shields—barriers around what my world calls Dantians. Everyone has Dantians, though, for most, they remain sealed. By opening your Dantian, you can learn to draw in energy and mana, and then to create cores.”

  I nodded along. Though Orpheus’ terminology was new, the idea was familiar. The heart core protects the heart and the energy circulating within it. Whether Orpheus called it a Dantian didn’t matter much.

  “In my world,” Orpheus continued, “what you call the mana core is the shield around the Lower Dantian, which contains the Cauldron, or the mana reserve, as you've learned it. Its purpose is to draw in energy from the world, connecting your body and spirit to the natural forces around you. We call this external energy."

  “Mana,” I said, beginning to understand.

  “Yes, the people in Graedon call it mana,” Orpheus agreed. “It’s abundant, but you can’t purify it as you do heart energy. Mana is static—it has an elemental nature. Even using it to levitate an object relies on one attribute or another. Only the Worlds and the Systems can access pure, unaligned mana. Mages, like your paragon Nasq Delacoire, are rare. They tap into the System or World Leylines to access raw mana. Where I am from, a mana core is referred to as a World Core.” His hands floated upward, and a second orb appeared from my chest, pulsing with a brilliant silver light beside my heart. “This is the Middle Dantian, where your Life Core is formed. Unlike the World Core, the Life Core is fueled by your heart—by your soul and existence, not by the world. Though your soul is naturally attuned to certain attributes, since the energy is cultivated within your body, your heart core accepts raw energy more readily than your body does raw mana. We call heart energy, internal energy. Your base method of cultivating this dantian is correct, aside from your attempts at isolating it."

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  He moved his hands together, and the light from my Lower Dantian began to flow upward, merging with the light from my heart.

  “The mana you pull from the world,” Orpheus continued, “should naturally flow upward through your Middle Dantian. But instead, you’ve been rejecting it, relying solely on your internal energy.”

  Orpheus’ words were heavy with new terminology, and I struggled to keep up. But if what he said was true, even in my past life I had barely tapped into the potential power available to me.

  He reached forward and tapped my forehead. “The third Dantian is called the Temple of Shen. It’s the source of your Will,” he said. “It’s the foundation for creating Domains and Authority. Shen energy is born from combining natural external energy—mana—and internal energy—heart energy.”

  “So, magic is just... energy?” I asked tentatively.

  Orpheus frowned. “It’s a matter of perspective and terminology. In my world, heart energy is Qi, and mana is Jing. What you call magic is a product of how Jing energy is cultivated and used.” He shrugged. "It hardly matters at the moment. For now, you simply need to understand what they are and how they intersect with each other."

  His explanation left me more confused than before, but I chose not to press further. I had little time to waste.

  “Mana comes from the world around us,” I clarified, deciding to stick with my own terminology. “It bolsters my heart core and prevents me from depleting my internal reserves. And both combine into a third energy, Shen, which originates from my... mind core?”

  Orpheus laughed. “There’s no mind core, little one. The Temple of Shen is your consciousness—your soul, your thoughts. It connects you to the Heavens and beyond. It can’t be stored. Jing is the natural result of properly cultivating your lower and middle cores.” He leaned back, hands resting behind him for balance. “True mastery comes from balancing all three: nurturing your connection to the world, your heart and body, and your mind in equal measure. You,” he pointed directly at me, “are incredibly imbalanced. Your heart and body are so out of sync with your connection to the World’s energy that you’re unconsciously rejecting it.” The progenitor sighed. “Until you learn that all three dantains are a single mechanism, interconnected to their very roots, you will likely continue to struggle.”

  In a way, that explained why I could sense mana but had never been able to collect it.

  “Then what about the mana reserve? How is that part of the lower dantian?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question.” Orpheus responded, his tone a touch too patronizing, and I narrowed my eyes at him. He entirely ignored my reaction. “What your little mage called a mana reserve is what I’ve referred to as the Cauldron. It’s a space within the dantian that pulls mana from the world and stores it, preventing it from flooding haphazardly into your heart core. An overload of external energy would poison your heart.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I already knew the next few years with Orpheus would involve as much deciphering his words as applying them. I understood the theory, but understanding something didn’t mean I’d learned it.

  “The Hydra outside this mindscape is growing rapidly because a monster’s core serves the function of both the lower and middle dantians, much like a progenitor's core." He tapped his chest lightly. "Every second it fights against you and your people is another second it uses energy from the World to strengthen itself.” He sighed. “Your only chance of success, I believe, is to gain mastery over Jing energy.” A wry smile tugged at his lips. “After all, you only need a single opportunity. I learned that the hard way, didn’t I?”

  “Indeed, you did,” I replied, smiling back, though it was feral, teeth bared. “How do I stop resisting the World’s external energy?”

  “That’s the easy part.” Orpheus stood abruptly, grabbing hold of his core. “You haven’t accepted the energy from your… what did you call them? Paragons?” I shook my head. I hadn't. I didn't want to. “Accept it.”

  “Would that not be heart energy?” I asked.

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “It's from a System, after all. I’ll make sure it’s directed to you as natural, world energy. The only way to fix the imbalance is to forcefully raise your intake of mana.”

  My eyes widened. “Wouldn’t that cause a budding core to burst?”

  Orpheus shook his head. “I’ll hold it together. If it cracks or breaks, I’ll make sure it mends. Your only choice is to stretch it as far as you can.” He shrugged. “Normally, I might suggest destroying your heart core and starting over, but I’m concerned your soul wouldn’t withstand the pressure of creating a third core, especially considering the strength of the previous two.”

  I raised an eyebrow. "There’s a limit to restarting?"

  He chuckled. "Your soul has endured much, Queen of Rot. I’ll risk it if you desire, but you’re just as likely to fail as you are to succeed. And if you manage it, your meridian channels will be so exhausted that it could take decades to recover.” Orpheus shrugged again. “Or, there may be no side effects. It’s impossible to say. The Soul Transference you used to gain this body… that’s something I’ve only ever heard of in theory. How exactly did you do it?”

  Even if I knew how I’d done it, I wouldn’t share it with him.

  “Are you sure it will work?” I asked, taking a deep breath and preparing myself, ignoring his inquisitive gaze.

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “Probably. It wouldn't be the first time someone from a lesser world has forced open a closed Dantian. If it succeeds, you'll quickly grow far more powerful than any gold or platinum realm cultivator from a lesser world. And if it goes exceedingly well, you might even surpass those from educated worlds of equal realms through your sheer, ridiculous amount of talent.”

  I exhaled and lay back as Orpheus gestured for me to do so. His rough hand rested just below my navel, the cold of his touch raising goosebumps along my neck. His other hand hovered above my heart.

  I closed my eyes, summoning the Desire System’s prompt:

  [SYSTEM REMINDER: You have gained many Paragons. Congratulations!]

  [Reward: You now gain a percentage of all Paragons’ heart energy whenever the System rewards them with bonus energy. Do you accept this reward?]

  [Note: This applies to previously rewarded energy as well. All chosen Paragons will experience a slight reduction in levels as compensation for the energy reaped.]

  [Yes] / [No]

  I clicked [Yes].

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then I opened my eyes to Orpheus’ chuckle, his black core suspended in a hand just above my heart core.

  As spasms seized my body, a torrent of unfamiliar energy rushed into me from every direction.

  Mana.

  External energy, Orpheus had called it.

  The agony that suddenly seared through my stomach was indescribable as Orpheus forced open my Lower Dantian. It felt as though a million knives coated in the worst poisons were plunged into my abdomen repeatedly, each stab perfectly pinpointed to cause the most amount of suffering. My mouth hung open in a silent scream, my eyes rolling back until only whites remained, my consciousness beginning to fade.

  The mana within my Lower Dantian threatened to shatter it, to tear apart the dantian until it was nothing but a shell.

  I forced my eyes open, fighting the encroaching blackness. But when my gaze met Orpheus’ soulless eyes, the triumphant smile on his face sent a shudder through me. That expression told me the pain I felt was only the beginning, and that what he’d shared with me was barely half of what he intended.

  My suspicions were confirmed when Orpheus drove his smoky black core into my chest. It plunged into me, tendrils of ancient power reaching for my heart core.

  The instant his core collided with mine, the world—my mindscape and my very reality—fractured, replaced by a single point of white-hot pain that scorched the very center of my soul.