I awoke to the sound of someone crunching wetly into an apple.

  Every fiber of my body was aflame with pain. Even the mere act of thinking sent spasms arcing through me, shaking and shuddering in torment. My vision blurred, tears or sweat—I couldn’t tell—flooding my eyes. I lacked the strength to wipe them away. My clothes, soaked through with sweat, clung to me, chilling me to the bone.

  My mouth was parched, but thirst was a distant concern. It was warmth I needed. My teeth chattered, beyond my control, as if each were armed with tiny minds of their own.

  Twin lights bore down from above, bathing me in the unyielding glare of Ordite’s suns. At least, that’s what I assumed they were. My vision swam, awash with moisture that trailed down my upturned face, pulsating in rhythm with the agony anchoring itself within me.

  “Finally awake?” Orpheus mused, taking another bite of his apple. He sounded close.

  A pathetic groan escaped my lips in response.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, chuckling. “Good news: you survived the forced absorption. Bad news: Your body refused to form a Cauldron—a, uh, what did you call it... a mana reserve. So now, although there is mana inside you it's in quite the frenzy.”

  I tried to snarl at him, knowing this was his fault. Whatever he’d done to my heart core before I blacked out had led to this.

  Bastard.

  “Alright, alright,” he said, taking a seat beside me with a soft thump. “You don’t have to say it—I can feel your intent from here. You’re pissed about what I did to your heart core?”

  Yes! I screamed internally.

  I couldn’t see him, but I imagined him shrugging. “I told you I’d help you absorb a progenitor core properly, but your pride would never have let me embed it in you willingly. Now, you have two heart cores. Sort of. Which is… good. Or bad, if you fail to absorb it and the progenitor core overtakes your original. Then you'll die.”

  Help me, you bastard, I cursed, still unable to speak.

  Orpheus laughed. “Worry not, child,” he said, shifting closer. “I have a method for forcing your body to awaken a mana reserve. The black core I injected into you was brimming with heart energy and mana in a fairly equal amount, so that isn't the cause of your situation. The heart energy I converted to mana from your paragons, unfortunately, wasn’t enough to offset the imbalance of your rather pure and abundant heart energy.” He clicked his tongue. “You should’ve trained them harder. Bronze realms, really, Lilith?” I felt the grin in his voice. The hairs on my neck stood on end. “But the solution is simple. We just need more mana. Fortunately, it’s everywhere.”

  Both his hands pressed down hard on my already screaming abdomen. The agony that tore through me was so excruciating that, for the first time in my existence, I wished I had succumbed to death instead.

  Time became meaningless. I drifted in and out of consciousness, never more than a few seconds of lucidity before the abyss claimed me again. Each time I awoke, I would hear the same crunch of Orpheus’ ever-present apple.

  The last moments of consciousness were always the same. Always filled with that same blinding pain.

  Between these fleeting moments of awareness, I recalled the beatings Orpheus had once subjected me to. Had it been weeks? Months?

  Years?

  I didn't know. Couldn’t know. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel anything beyond the ceaseless torment.

  Back then, my mind and will had somehow remained intact. But now, they crumbled under the weight of my endless agony. I became nothing. Wanted nothing. It was as if I ceased to exist, so buried was I under anguish and torture.

  I vaguely recalled Orpheus mentioning the passage of time. Had he said it'd been a year? Three?

  I wanted to ask, but I never held on to the thought long enough before darkness swallowed me whole.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Then, suddenly, my consciousness slammed back into place from that Nothingness devoid of time. I gasped, inhaling deeply as clarity flooded my mind. Unlike the other times, I was truly awake. Not quite alert but I could finally think.

  My vision was quick to clear, the remaining wetness fleeing down my cheeks.

  My fingers twitched. My toes wiggled.

  I groaned and pushed myself upright. My muscles protested, but the feeling of heavy sedation was gone. The grogginess clung to me, but I fought through it, surveying my surroundings despite the dizziness.

  Ordite was unchanged.

  No. Not Ordite.

  “My landscape,” I rasped. My voice was raw, like I had been screaming for decades.

  This wasn’t Ordite. I was in Graedon. In the body of Lilliana Silverwater.

  “I was wondering when you’d finally come to,” Orpheus said, sprawled lazily across his favorite boulder. He slid off, strolling toward me with a smirk. It crinkled the skin around his ancient black eyes. “We must stop meeting like this. You’ll start associating me with pain.”

  “Fuck… you,” I croaked. “Water?”

  Orpheus rolled his eyes. “Lilith, I remind you that this is your mindscape.”

  I winced, shifting into a more comfortable position. Slowly, I willed water into existence. Minutes passed before a bucket of clear blue water finally materialized, but time had little meaning to me. I cupped my hands and drank deeply from the water for some time, but my endless thirst remained unquenched.

  I glanced at Orpheus, the question unspoken.

  “It’s in your head, Lilith,” he said. “Your thirst. Your hunger. Your pain. None of it exists outside this mindscape. This place is within your Temple of Shen, disconnected from reality. Once you understand that, these desires will cease to disturb you.”

  I sucked in a slow breath, held it, then exhaled, attempting to steady my heart and quiet my need for water.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now,” Orpheus said, “we train. I managed to force what mana I could pull from the outside into your lower dantian and create the mana reserve, somewhat balancing the dantians. But your mana reserve is still too small compared to the sheer amount of mana I had to push into your lower dantian. If you try forming a core now, it’ll shatter from the mana pressure. I stared at him blankly. He dismissed my expression with a wave. "Don't worry about it. My knowledge of external and internal energies surpasses even most progenitors. Not all of them come from educated worlds. The Demon Progenitor who killed you in your past life? He was born, raised, and turned in Ordite. No different from you, really."

  "And now he's in Graedon? With me?" I asked, my head still reeling. When time meant nothing for so long, it was difficult to regain its meaning.

  Orpheus hesitated before sighing. "I believe so. Though for what purpose, I don't know. The Main System rarely relocates progenitors between worlds—it defeats the purpose of our individual systems."

  "Like the Orpheus System?"

  He nodded. "Our individual systems act like miniature versions of the Main System, effective only within our Perfect Domains. Outside of them, they lose their effects."

  "Always?"

  "When derived from our blood, yes." He gestured vaguely. "We can sometimes bind our effects to locations, like I did with the colosseum in Sealrite. But only those blessed by the Main System’s host have full access to the System."

  "That’s different," I murmured, rubbing my temple, voice still hoarse.

  "Different?"

  "From the Desire System. I don’t even have a Domain yet."

  Orpheus' expression turned thoughtful, but he just shrugged. "Different systems, different rules. You’ll learn as you interact with it."

  The problem was, I didn’t want to interact with something I didn’t understand—especially when I was certain the damn thing had a mind of its own. I hadn't felt it corrupting me yet, but I hadn’t forgotten the Main System’s warning.

  Orpheus dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. "Regardless, that's not important right now. Your body succeeded in reflexively forming a Cauldron—a mana reserve—when your mana intake balanced out your energy cultivation. The problem is, your reserve is too small compared to the mana I had forced into your lower dantian to have that balance happen. If you try forming a core now, it'll shatter immediately. That’s why you're in so much pain."

  I nodded, but the motion sent a sharp sting through my chest, momentarily turning my vision white.

  "Ah, right," Orpheus muttered. "Your heart energy is nearing the point of cracking your silver core, thanks to the progenitor core. I've tried to limit the amount of energy leaking from it and entering your heart core, but I wasn't able to completely stop the flow. We'll need to strengthen your heart core too. I assume you never learned to condense heart energy? Just gather and purify?"

  I nodded again. He sighed. "At least we have time."

  "How do I start?"

  "Feel your mana reserve."

  "How?"

  "The same way you sense your heart core."

  I closed my eyes, steadying my breathing. When I felt centered, I turned my focus inward. At first, all I saw was my heart core pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat, surrounded by the black, smoky, unpurified heart energy of the progenitor core. Nearby, the black core loomed, an immense mass circling unnervingly close—like a sun orbiting a planet instead of the other way around.

  I pushed my senses past it, searching my lower dantian. There, amidst a swirling galaxy of mana, I saw it—a minuscule vortex. Tendrils of mana, in every color imaginable, lashed against it with such force that I was amazed it hadn’t unraveled.

  "That’s your Cauldron," Orpheus explained. "Without a core, the rampant mana will keep battering it. And as you can see, there’s a lot of it—too much for an unprotected vortex to withstand."

  "What do I do?"

  "Your lower dantian has been reflexively attempting to form a core, but without outside intervention, it will continue to fail. You need to contain the rampant mana by relying on your heart energy. Draw on it—not too much, or you’ll poison your dantian. Take care."

  I didn’t reply, just focused. It wasn’t as simple as he made it sound, but it was possible. After six tries, I managed to pull strands of heart energy through my meridians, guiding them through the tangle of mana toward the vortex. I formed a thin sphere around it, barely holding back a scream as pain lanced through me. But compared to what I endured to form this precious little vortex, the mere pain was nothing. I would not allow it to shatter.

  "Good," Orpheus said. "Now, build your mana core the same way you built your heart core. But instead of purifying, condense it with your Will."

  A dull throb pounded in my skull, but I forced myself to concentrate. I gathered mana, trying to compress it, but it easily slipped through my grasp like smoke.

  "Again," Orpheus ordered.

  And I did.

  A thousand times. Another thousand.

  Time slipped by once more as what felt like an eternity of failure went by.

  "It’s not working," I snarled, yanking myself out of the meditative state in frustration. Time was slipping past—weeks, months, maybe more—and I was no closer.

  "Do it again," Orpheus said calmly. "If it takes months, then it will take months months. If it takes years, you’ll take the years. If it takes a decade, you will take that decade."

  I glared at the infuriatingly serene monster but didn’t argue. Hunger gnawed at me, thirst clawed at my throat, yet neither affected me anymore. I couldn’t let them.

  So I closed my eyes. And tried again.

  And again.

  Until, finally, the mana didn’t escape. Under the pressure of my Will, it compacted like snow. I used that tiny packed fragment as the foundation, pulling more and more into it, forcing the wild mana into my growing core until it was large enough to encompass the vortex.

  "Now, condense it outward," Orpheus instructed. "Make room for the Cauldron to fit."

  He was right—despite the core being large enough to fit the vortex, its density threatened to crush the vortex. There was simply no room for the little vortex. Without hesitation, without doubting the words of this old monster who'd caused me so much suffering, I compressed the mana outward, hollowing the core around my mana reserve.

  "Amazing," Orpheus murmured, clapping a hand on my shoulder. "That should’ve taken you decades."

  I gasped as the core clicked into place, eyes snapping open to meet Orpheus’ smile that expressed an odd mix of emotions I'd never thought to see in a progenitor.

  "I have to admit, Queen of Rot, even knowing your talent, I wasn’t expecting you to accomplish everything in just under eight years."

  I nearly leapt to my feet but was stopped by the weight of his hand on my shoulder. "Eight years?" I shouted in barely restrained disbelief.

  He nodded. “Quite fast.” Orpheus released my shoulder and stepped back to his usual spot. The dry grass and dirt he'd been standing on had long since compacted from his weight during the passing years. “Get up. Now, we build the mana core up.” I opened my mouth to ask how, but he cut me off, already anticipating my question. “Unlike heart cores, mana cores don’t have rings. Their strength is determined by the density of mana within your Cauldron or reserve. You need to continuously draw in mana—external energy—until your Cauldron is at its limit, just before it shatters. Now that your lower and middle dantians are connected and balanced, you can use heart energy to stabilize the process, preventing another near-collapse like before. When that critical moment arrives, you won’t stop. Instead, you will condense the gathered mana even further, compressing it and expanding the core. The greater its volume, the denser its mana, the stronger it becomes. And when you reach a certain threshold, the core will respond on its own—expanding naturally. Evolving.”

  I blinked. "That’s it?"

  Orpheus smirked. "Say that after you get there." Then he cracked his knuckles, vanished, and reappeared inches in front of me. A heartbeat later, his fist crashed into my left cheek, the bone shattering on impact. Blood and flesh sprayed as I spiraled backward, the world twisting around me.

  My recovery was quick—as it always had been in mindscapes—and I staggered to my feet, leveling a glare at Orpheus.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “The best way to grow your mana core and expand the mana reserve is through live combat. It will teach you focus and your body will learn to constantly subconsciously draw in mana, improving your core at all times.” He shrugged. “If you can’t keep up… well, we’ll just repeat our last encounter. We go until your energy and mana reach equilibrium within their respective third realms.” He disappeared again and I crouched, eyes scanning my surroundings to track his movements. I lost him almost immediately.

  I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering at the memories his words evoked. Gritting my teeth, I reached out with my mana core to pull in external energy. The mana was abundant, despite this being a mindscape—I didn’t have time to question why—but just as I started absorbing more than a few wisps, my heart stopped. More exactly, it was ripped from my chest.

  I looked down and groaned.

  Orpheus’ hand had punched clean through me, his fingers sticking out the front of my chest. He gave a small wave and dropped my stilled heart to the cold, hard ground.

  

  Oh also, story is completed in Patreon. Goes to chapter 80 ??