Three months to the Solstice. Ninety tallies to carve.
The knowledge of a deadline transformed Damien's existence yet again. Survival was no longer the aim; it was the baseline. Every action, every breath, every beat of his frost-tempered heart was now in service to a single goal: Peak of the 1st Order.
He became a specter of ruthless routine.
His diet was strictly regulated. The Drake-discarded boar meat, rich in the earth-attuned energy of a 2nd Order beast, was his staple. He supplemented it with Crystal Moss for spiritual lubrication and the occasional, carefully rendered fat from the boar, which he burned in a shallow stone dish to create a weak, smoky flame. He used it not for warmth—he had no need of that—but for a new form of tempering.
He would sit before the feeble flame, its heat a localized insult in his cold world, and circulate his frost mana through his Frost-Skin Meridians, the next node on the Circuit. He forced the heat to assault his pores while his internal winter fought to repel it. It was a brutal, micro-level war across the entire landscape of his body. Sweat would freeze the instant it beaded, creating a glittering, painful rime on his skin. But with each session, his skin grew tougher, less like flesh and more like flexible permafrost.
[Frost-Skin Meridian: 65% cleared. Dermal mana conductivity increased. Passive resistance to low-grade elemental effects (heat/cold) acquired.]
His hunts, now infrequent due to his stockpile, became advanced training. He no longer hunted Skitters. He hunted the Geophage Pods.
It started as a theory. The Pods were immobile, Order 1 beasts. They were dangerous for their acid and filaments, but they possessed a small, fiery core—a concentrated knot of geothermal mana. If the Drake could consume pure mana, perhaps his own Glacial Devourer could process these lesser cores, not for their heat, but for their raw energetic density.
The first attempt was a disaster. He misjudged the range of a filament. It wrapped around his left ankle before he could freeze it, its touch searing through his boot of cured hide. He severed it with an ice-blade, but not before it injected a paralyzing neurotoxin. He spent two days in his alcove, his frost core working overtime to metabolize the poison, his body locked in agonizing cramps. The System logged the toxin's signature, analyzing it for future resistance.
The second attempt, he used the environment. He lured a Skitter (captured alive days prior) to a spot beneath a Pod and severed its spine. The Pod, sensing the death-throes, struck, enveloping the Skitter in digestive filaments. As it began to feed, distracted, Damien struck from above. He'd climbed the mineral pillars, silent as a shadow. He dropped, driving an ice-spear, supercharged with all the piercing intent he could muster, directly into the Pod's central core.
The Pod erupted. Not in acid, but in a gout of steaming, viscous mana-fluid and shattered crystal. Damien was sprayed, his skin sizzling, but he held on, his hands freezing to the spear haft. He pulled with his spirit, activating Glacial Devourer at maximum draw.
The dying Pod's core energy, wild and geothermal, flooded into him. It was like swallowing a volcano. His frost meridians screamed in protest, scoured by the foreign, violent energy. But the Conqueror's Paradigm guided the chaos, forcing it into a collision course with his own frost mana in the crucible of his dantian. The two opposing forces didn't merge; they annihilated each other in a controlled, internal cataclysm. The resulting shockwave of pure, neutral force blasted through his meridian blockages, shattering them to dust.
It was excruciating. It was transcendent.
When the storm inside him subsided, he was on his knees, vomit of half-frozen, acidic sludge beside him. But his Frost-Skin Meridian was 100% clear. His mana reserves had not just refilled; they had expanded.
[Geophage Pod Core successfully devoured. Warning: Method is high-risk, high-reward.]
[Mana Reserves: 300 → 340/340. Cultivation progress accelerated.]
['Glacial Devourer' efficiency rating upgraded. Can now process low-grade opposing elemental energies at 25% conversion rate.]
He had found his accelerant. Pod-hunting became his most dangerous, most rewarding cultivation practice. He cleared the Frost-Skin, then the Frost-Liver Meridian (for toxin filtration and enhanced energy conversion), and began work on the Frost-Kidney Meridians (for vital essence retention and bone-deep fortification).
Each Pod was a boss fight in his subterranean realm. Each victory left him stronger, harder, colder. His movements grew more fluid, his ice-shaping more instantaneous and complex. He could now create a wall of ice to block acid, or a lattice of frost to tangle filaments.
Two months to Solstice.
He stood at the edge of the steam chasm, the great limit of his early days. The roaring, superheated plume was a wall of obliteration to any normal being. To his refined Frost-Sight, it was a chaotic, magnificent tapestry of interwoven fire and water mana, a natural tribulation.
The Pathway Projection for his final push to the 9th Rank was clear: he needed extreme pressure to condense his mana. The chasm's edge, buffeted by that furious energy, was the perfect place.
He began spending hours there, seated in a lotus position so close to the drop that the steam seared his skin and the thunder of it vibrated in his teeth. He would cycle his mana, using the external, aggressive pressure of the chasm's energy to hammer his own power into a denser, more obedient form. It was like trying to meditate in the heart of a forge. His clothes charred and fell away. His hair crisped at the ends. But his frost core spun faster and faster, a gyroscope of cold in a hurricane of heat.
One day, as he pushed too deep into a cycle, the equilibrium broke. A tendril of superheated steam, thicker than the rest, lashed across his chest.
Agony. The heat penetrated his Frost-Skin resistance, burning flesh. He screamed, a raw, animal sound lost in the chasm's roar. He fell back, rolling, his frost mana instinctively surging to the wound, flash-freezing the damaged tissue. He lay gasping, a horrible, glistening burn of ice and seared flesh across his pectoral.
It was a major setback. The pain was distracting, a constant drain on his focus. The System advised rest, a halt to cultivation.
Damien looked at his tally wall. Sixty days left. He couldn't afford rest.
He remembered the Mana-Spring in the Drake's chamber. The liquid mana was pure, potent energy. If he could harvest even a thimbleful, it might catalyze his healing and his advancement.
It was the greatest risk he had considered since the first scavenging run. This wasn't stealing scraps; this was siphoning the dragon's drink.
He prepared for a week. He honed his Ghost-Walk and Still Pulse to perfection. He crafted a tool: a long, hollow reed of ice, reinforced with a filament of his own frozen mana, impossibly delicate, designed to wick liquid via capillary action. He practiced with it on the boiling pools until he could draw a droplet from ten inches away without a ripple.
On a night when the geothermal rhythms of the mountain seemed deepest and most regular, he went to the high gallery.
The Drake was there, asleep, its massive side rising and falling. The Mana-Spring glowed, a pool of liquid sapphire light.
Damien became a ghost. He moved across the chamber floor, not with steps, but with minute shifts of weight, his Rime-Step leaving not even a thermal whisper. It took him an hour to cross fifty feet.
He reached the spring's edge. The mana radiating from it was intoxicating, a pressure that made his own core hum in sympathetic vibration. He slowly, slowly, extended the ice-reed. The tip touched the glowing liquid.
A connection. Pure, dense mana began to siphon up the reed, a glowing blue thread in the dark.
He had a small, sealed gourd of cured hide. He directed the thread into it. Drop by glorious drop, it filled.
He was so focused on the delicate transfer, on maintaining his absolute stillness, that he failed to notice the subtle change in the Drake's breathing. The rhythm hitched. A dream of plenty, perhaps disturbed by the tiny, constant drain on its spring.
The great sensory plate flickered.
Damien saw it in his Frost-Sight—a wave of awakening consciousness radiating from the beast. He severed the mana-thread instantly, sealed the gourd, and froze. Still Pulse. Heart stopped. Spirit dormant.
The Drake's head lifted. It was fully awake now. It turned its blind face toward the spring, then swept its mana-perception across the chamber. It sensed the minute disturbance in the spring's energy field. It sensed… a void. A perfect, cold, empty spot where a rock should have a faint geological mana signature.
The void was Damien.
The Drake was intelligent. A void where there should not be a void was an anomaly. Anomalies were threats.
It didn't roar. It exhaled. A thin, focused beam of Mana Dissolution shot from its nostrils, not at the void, but at the area around it, a sweeping erasure.
Damien saw the attack coming in his mana-sight—a ripple of un-making energy. He broke Still Pulse, his heart slamming back to life with a painful jolt. He didn't try to run sideways; he ran toward the Drake, under the sweep of the beam. The dissolution energy passed over his head, vaporizing a stalactite into glittering dust.
The Drake, surprised by the sudden burst of life-signature from the void, recoiled slightly. That half-second was all Damien needed. He didn't head for the exit tunnel. He headed for the one place the great beast might not expect: the mound of its own discarded kills.
He dove into the bone pile, burrowing under the skeletal remains of the boar and other creatures, covering himself in their mana-dead detritus. He reactivated Ghost-Walk, but layered it with the scent and spiritual numbness of the dead things around him.
The Drake's perception swept over the mound. It felt the dead things. It felt a faint, cold chill—but that could be the old meat. The anomaly had vanished again, perhaps destroyed by its beam.
It snuffed, unsatisfied, and paced around its spring for a long time before finally settling back to a watchful doze.
Damien did not move for six hours. He lay buried in bone and offal, the small, priceless gourd of liquid mana clutched to his chest. When he finally extracted himself and crept from the chamber, he was coated in gore, shaking with adrenaline and triumph.
He had stolen from a dragon. And survived.
Back in his alcove, he allowed himself one drop of the liquid mana. It hit his system like a supernova. The burn on his chest healed over in minutes, leaving only smooth, faintly silvery skin. His mana reserves surged, his meridians sang with power. That single drop advanced his cultivation more than a week of Pod-hunting.
[Acquired: 'Condensed Geospheric Mana' (Liquid). Tier: High. Purity: Exceptional.]
[Cultivation Boost: Progress to 1st Order, 9th Rank increased by 15%.]
[Warning: Direct consumption of this grade of mana is unsustainable for current vessel. Use as extreme-situational catalyst only.]
He had his catalyst. The dragon's table had provided the final, crucial ingredient.
One month to Solstice.
The final tally marks were carved with a steady, unhurried hand. Damien Karyon sat before his map, now a masterpiece of survival and strategy. He had reached 1st Order, 8th Rank. He was at the precipice.
He looked at the final, blank section of his Glacial Circuit projection: the Frost-Brain Meridian, connecting his everything to his mind's very seat of consciousness. The final integration. The most dangerous clearance of all.
He had the Pod-cores for aggression. He had the chasm's pressure for condensation. He had the dragon's mana for catalytic ignition.
He was ready for the final push. He was ready to step onto the peak of the mortal realm, and look into the abyss of the spiritual.
Tomorrow, he would begin the last climb.