And beyond.
My thoughts exploded out of the meditation. My back arched, and every muscle in my body tensed at once. Jinsei crackled in my aura like a living flame, spearing toward the roof of the dojo in a golden rush. The power carried me with it. I hung, suspended in the air by the forces that had rushed through me during my explosive advancement.
My core had transcended to adept level.
As the rush of power subsided and my feet settled to the floor, I took a deep breath and felt a surge of jinsei pass into my core. It was as if I’d spent my whole life up to that point breathing with only one lung.
A gasp rustled through the students in the dojo. The weight of their attention fell on my aura like tiny hailstones, a pinging rattle that I banished with a thought.
I only had to glance around the room to see that, except for Professor Song’s, my core was the most powerful one in the dojo. The rest of my class were still initiates, much more powerful than the average person, but nowhere near as powerful as I now was.
Finally, all the grinding and frustration had paid off. I’d done it.
“Congratulations are in order, Mr. Warin,” the professor called from his position at the head of the dojo. He strode through the other students, a smile beaming on his face, his eyes lit up with pride as he approached me. “That was an impressively quick advancement for a student.”
He stopped a few feet away, and I bowed respectfully, my eyes never leaving his.
“Thank you, revered Professor,” I said. “I’ve been working hard, and your teachings helped me find the right path.”
“You honor me,” the professor said, returning my bow, his eyes cast to the floor. “It has been my pleasure to instruct a student with such ferocious determination. Perhaps when you have some time, you can show me that technique you used in your duel against Rafael.”
“It’s not all that impressive,” I said, trying to deflect the conversation. “My time in Mr. Reyes’s lab taught me to gather aspects from the environment quickly. The technique is merely an extension of that.”
“I see,” the professor said. He thrust his hand forward, and I took it. “Again, congratulations on your advancement to adept. You may find the change disorienting at first. I’ll dismiss you from class early and will let your other professors know not to expect you today. You should return to your quarters, meditate, and rest. Feel free to explore your new abilities, though it’s important you don’t push yourself too hard just yet. Your core is very sensitive after an advancement of this magnitude. A new world has opened to you—be careful not to trip when you cross its threshold.”
Professor Song shook my hand vigorously and clapped me on the shoulder as the rest of the class burst into applause.
I let myself bask in their admiration and thanked the Grand Design that everything was finally going my way. Even my duel with Rafael had worked out for the best, because I’d learned a new technique. Clem and Rachel were, if not friends, at least friendly toward one another, and I had a girlfriend for the first time in my life. And the dangerous work I’d done for the elders was getting me closer to finding my mother while I made the world a safer place.
The advancement was the icing on the cake.
“Thank you, Professor Song,” I said. “It has been my honor to be your student and learn from your teachings.”
With that, I left the dojo. I’d grown stronger during my time in the Five Dragons Challenge, my body hardened by the combat training. But that paled in comparison to the strength I’d gained from my advancement. It was as if I’d been a child, and now I was a full-grown man. My strides were smooth and long, my legs carrying me with no effort at all. My robes felt tight against my biceps and across my shoulders, like I’d gained muscle mass.
Maybe I had. I’d never known anyone who’d advanced from initiate to adept. There was no telling what sorts of physical changes might accompany such a dramatic shift in mystic ability.
And that had increased dramatically. I noticed faint swirls of golden light at the corners of my vision as I walked through the halls, and when I focused on them, they snapped into sharper relief. The luminous threads crawled along the walls and floated in the air. The longer I stared at them, the more of them I saw.
With a start, I understood these were currents of jinsei. The School’s walls were riddled with them, which made sense. The architecture could shift and move because it was built on a base of sacred energy. I’d just never realized how much jinsei was around me at all times. It was overwhelming.
I was still marveling over this new ability when I reached my quarters. My eyes followed the glowing threads as the door opened, and the inner workings of the mechanism were obvious to my new senses. Sacred energy not only parted the doors, it lubricated the tracks and dampened the sound of their travel. There was so much more to jinsei than I’d ever noticed before.
If the halls had been brimming with jinsei, my quarters overflowed with the spiritual power. The boundary between the school and the forest path that led to my cottage was surrounded by a rectangle of golden light so bright it was difficult to even look at. It had to be a portal of some kind, stable and fixed in place and filled with energy so it didn’t have to be activated. The amount of time and effort that had gone into creating such a thing boggled my mind.
There was so much sacred energy in the air, I had to readjust my vision to ignore it. It was difficult at first, and I stumbled more than once
