Chapter 29: At the Bottom Again
Day nine of the bottleneck, and Tharia was losing her mind.
It had started the morning after the kits.
One day of meditation becoming two, two becoming four, the qi pressing at the same wall every time and the wall not moving. Not in any interesting way, just her, cross-legged in the same cave, sweating through her new pleated skirt and jacket, while her meridians declined every reasonable request.
"Move," she told her meridians.
They didn't.
"I beat Joren... I even survived a formation explosion." She pressed her knuckles to her ribs where the blockage sat, dense and indifferent. "You owe me this."
Her tail lashed the floor.
The qi did not care about her resume.
She'd tried everything Kaela had shown her, slow pressure, sustained flow, even brief explosive pushes that left her gasping and the blockage exactly where it started.
By day four she'd been waking up in the middle of the night to push at it in the dark, half-asleep, her illusion flickering on and off like a dying lantern.
"Cooperate," she'd told her ribs at two in the morning, voice rough with sleep. "This is embarrassing for both of us."
Her ribs had not cooperated.
By day six she'd stopped taking missions.
"This is stupid," she muttered at the wall. "This is genuinely, completely stupid."
Her qi disagreed.
"Fuck."
By day seven, the gossips started and she heard them from her cave. Outer disciples passing on the path outside, not even bothering to lower their voices.
"She's still in there."
"Seven days. That's not a bottleneck, that's giving up."
"I heard she's afraid after that formation job went wrong."
Tharia's ears went flat.
'I'm not afraid,' she thought, with great dignity. 'I have a completely healthy respect for formations that explode. That's different.'
Her name had stopped appearing on the mission slates. She checked every morning. Every morning: nothing. The sect didn't punish bottlenecks, but it didn't wait for them either. Points total didn't change making her ranking drop.
She knew, because the mission board attendant had stopped making eye contact.
'Rude,' she thought. 'I'm having a personal cultivation crisis. Some sympathy would be nice.'
On the ninth night, she stopped fighting it.
Not giving up. Just... stopping. She sat with her legs folded, hands loose in her lap, and let the qi move wherever it wanted instead of shoving it at the wall like a ram.
It drifted.
Circled.
Found the blockage on its own, the way water finds a crack without being told to, and settled against it with a patience she had absolutely not taught it.
Then pain hit. Sharp, specific, right under her left rib. Her breath locked. Her tail shot out rigid.
'Oh shit—'
The crack opened.
No explosion, celestial music or whatever the elder disciples talked about in their memoirs. Just a sudden absence of resistance, then warmth flooding through a channel that had been locked shut for nine days, and her entire left side going boneless with relief.
She sat completely still for a moment.
"Oh," she said, out loud, to the empty cave.
Then she collapsed sideways onto her bedding, tail flopping over her face, and lay there breathing while the warmth spread through her ribs like the first cup of hot tea after a week of cold water.
System:
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Foundation Veins Stage: Achieved.
First Vein Opened: Left Rib Node.
Note: Nine days. The average is four.
You can finally face your fat squirrel nemesis.
Secondary Note: The System is not going to make a big deal of this... The System is a little bit making a big deal of this.
[collapse]
Her tail twitched off her face.
She looked at the ceiling.
"Nine days," she said. Then: "Shut up."
[...]
"Hmph."
She hauled herself upright, reached for Serenya's wooden comb, and dragged it through her tail's fur. Then sat with the overlay open in front of her.
"One vein," she told the cave. "Foundation Veins Stage. Started." She nodded at nothing in particular. "Very good. On track. Completely normal timing."
The cave did not confirm this.
"Nine days is normal," she told it. "Lots of people take nine days."
Focusing on the overlay, the old numbers were gone: No resonance threshold ticking up by single points. No stability index showing how good she was at focusing. Just:
System:
[SYSTEM STATUS]
Illusion Proficiency: 40%
Chaos Stability: Fragile (Holding)
Stage: Foundation Veins: First Vein Opened.
[collapse]
One vein.
She'd done it.
Her tail curled around her legs and she allowed herself exactly thirty seconds of sitting quietly with that.
Then she put on her high heels and went outside.
The courtyard hit her like a wall, Not of sound or smell, though both were present, but of qi.
The press of auras, layered and distinct. She was never able to feel it before, but now, as a real cultivator she could.
A girl near the sparring circle radiated two veins, clean and steady. A pair of boys by the water station felt like three apiece. Another disciple passing through carried something heavier, five at least, that made the air feel thick for the two seconds he was nearby.
Tharia stood at the edge of the courtyard and took stock.
Her own aura was thin. She could feel it, the way you could feel the difference between a candle and a lantern. Warm. Real. But small.
'Okay,' she thought. 'Fine. That's fine.'
A disciple near the slate board glanced at her. Looked away, then looked back, while whispering something to the disciple beside him.
The second one laughed.
Tharia's ears went flat, catching some of its fragments.
"Only one?"
"Late, isn't she?"
"Thought she'd be further by now after the duel—"
"Oh, hell with all of you," she mumbled, and kept walking. Chin up, heels clicking and tail still because she refused to let it betray her in front of strangers.
'They're not wrong,' she thought, which was the worst part. 'I'm not going to stand here and pretend they're wrong.'
Joren found her by the mission slates. He always found her by the mission slates. She was starting to suspect he waited. "Are you a stalker?"
"One vein," he said ignoring her rude comment, then he looked at her aura the way you'd look at someone who'd shown up to a footrace with one shoe. "Congratulations."
"Thank you," Tharia said pleasantly. "Five veins looks good on you. Very threatening. Very 'I have nothing to prove but I'm going to prove it anyway. Almost making me wanna cry.'"
His jaw tightened.
"I won't underestimate you again," he said, and the smug edge had dropped out of his voice entirely. "You caught me off guard before. I've trained since. New techniques. When we cross blades again—"
"When," she said.
"When." He held her gaze. "It won't go the same way."
Her tail flicked once. "Looking forward to it," she said, and meant it, and walked past him to check the mission board.
Renji materialized at her elbow approximately thirty seconds later, which was peak Renji timing.
"You broke through," he said.
"I did."
"First vein."
"Also yes."
He was quiet for a moment. His own aura pressed at two veins — she could feel it now, that specific weight in the air that she'd been too unformed to read before. He'd gotten stronger while she was locked in her cave sweating at a wall.
"Starting late doesn't mean—"
"Renji." She turned to look at him. "If you finish that sentence I will assign you tail-duty."
He closed his mouth.
"I know what it means," she said. "I know I'm behind. I know Joren's at five and you're at two and half the courtyard probably lapped me." She looked at her left side. "I spent nine days arguing with my own ribs."
A pause.
"They were very stubborn ribs."
Renji's mouth twitched.
"I'm moving anyway," she said.
Renji blinked, then smiled, small and genuine. "Okay."
"Okay," she agreed, grabbed the first mission slip that wasn't in a swamp.
Kaela found her that afternoon at the training dummies. She didn't announce herself but just appeared the way Kaela always appeared, like she'd been there a moment longer than seemed possible, and stood watching Tharia work through the forms with the critical, professionally neutral expression that meant she was clocking every mistake.
Tharia kept going. Footwork. Strike. Reset.
She could feel the new vein now in a way she couldn't have a week ago; a small steady heat under her left rib, like an ember that hadn't decided yet if it wanted to be a fire.
"Your qi flow is cleaner," Kaela said.
"Thank you."
"It's still slow."
"Also thank you."
Kaela was quiet for a moment. "One vein is the beginning, not the achievement."
"I know."
"Most disciples your stage are working toward their third."
"I know that too." Tharia lowered her hand and looked at her. "Are you here to tell me I'm behind, or are you here to tell me what to do about it?"
A pause that felt like the world's shortest evaluation.
"Both," Kaela said. "You opened the left rib node. The right follows when the qi has learned the shape of the first. Don't push it. Let it find the mirror path."
Tharia's ears perked.
"That's actually useful information."
"I have some occasionally."
Kaela turned to leave, then stopped. "The disciples who talk about your rank don't train as hard as you do. I've noticed."
She left without waiting for a response.
Tharia stood very still for a moment as her tail curled.
'Was that... encouragement? Did Kaela just encouragement at me?'
[Record this moment. It may not happen again.]
"Yeah," Tharia said softly. "Okay."
She looked at the training dummy.
"You heard that," she told it. "Witness."
She went back to the forms.
Strike. Reset. The ember under her rib glowed steady.
That night, cross-legged again, the overlay open:
System Status:
Host: Tharia | Age: 18
Status: Healthy.
[TECHNIQUE ANALYSIS]
Illusion Proficiency: 40%
Chaos Stability: Fragile (Holding).
Stage: Foundation Veins: First Vein Opened.
Achievement: {Style Over Substance: Passed evaluation wearing absolutely nothing. Technically.} {Fought in Public Naked and Won Anyway: Illusion failed. Dignity failed. Victory did not.}
Traits: 'The Reluctant Royal' (Passive). ‘Willing Exposure’ (Passive)
Passive Techniques: 'Shame-Guard' (Passive)
Module: 'Path of the Unseen'
Active Techniques: Illusory Raiment (Rank: C)
Chaos Essence: 63.
Status: Duskwind Sect - Outer Disciple.
Active Quests: None.
SHOP.
[collapse]
One vein.
The gap between her and Joren was four veins and counting, and the gap between her and average was two.
She looked at the numbers for a long time.
Then she thought about the way Joren's smug edge had dropped out of his voice when he said 'I won't underestimate you again'. Like it cost him something to admit it. Like she'd already earned something he couldn't take back.
Her tail uncurled.
'Right,' she thought. 'One vein is enough to start. The rest will follow.'
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the overlay where the Roulette icon sat, small and patient. Sixty-three essence. Five per spin. She could spin it twelve times.
'Not tonight,' she told it.
Her tail flicked once.
'...Tomorrow.'
She closed the overlay as the ember under her rib glowed on.
Please support the novel on patr3on or by like and rating/ reviewing the novel. To keep me going knowing many of my readers support me <3