The teleportation light faded.
When Leo's vision cleared, he stood on a cobbled stone platform overlooking the sprawling grounds of a fortress—ancient, yet pristine. Towering ramparts and spires stretched into the sky, bathed in a golden twilight that never seemed to fade. The fourth floor was a castle, and it breathed history with every gust of wind.
Trialists appeared nearby in small clusters, their gear tattered, eyes cautious. Fewer than two dozen remained—out of the hundreds that had first arrived at the base of the Tower.
Only twenty or so.
And yet, among them, Leo, Mira, and Aric stood apart again.
A robed attendant approached the trio and bowed with deep formality. "Aric . Mira . Your quarters are prepared in the east wing."
Then the attendant turned to Leo and gestured upward. "Leo, your chambers are in the high tower. Follow the west staircase to the top. The essence flow is strongest there. A reward for consistent exceptional performance."
Leo blinked. "The top room?"
The attendant merely bowed again and walked away.
Later That Night
The high tower chamber was unlike anything Leo had trained in before.
The walls were etched with ancient runes that subtly pulsed with gathered qi. The air shimmered faintly, dense with elemental resonance—especially fire and space. Just breathing in the chamber filled Leo's limbs with a buzzing charge.
If his training areas on earlier floors had been pools, this room was a current.
Yet despite the privilege, Leo didn't isolate himself.
In the days that followed, the trio began mingling with the remaining trialists—what was left of the once-massive crowd. Everyone bore signs of hardship. Scars. Silence. That blank stare of people who'd seen too many fall.
The atmosphere was lighter in the courtyard. Some trialists gathered around benches and campfires in the evenings, laughing quietly, clutching bowls of food with trembling hands. Tower guards stood nearby—smiling, talking, even offering advice or sparring casually with some of the teams.
But never with Leo's group.
The guards nodded politely when passing Aric, or gave a small respectful glance to Mira.
But none approached.
None sat with them.
It became impossible to ignore.
One evening, after a light meal in the lower courtyard, Leo finally asked a question that had been on his mind for days.
He turned to a passing guard—a tall woman in armor etched with glyphs that shimmered softly in the torchlight.
"Can I ask something?"
She paused, then nodded.
"Why don't you… talk with us? The other groups joke around with you. You spar with some. But with us…" he trailed off. "It's different."
She tilted her head slightly, eyes flicking toward Mira and Aric before returning to Leo.
Her voice was quiet, almost kind.
"Because we can tell which groups are staying," she said simply. "And which are still climbing."
Leo frowned. "Staying?"
She gestured toward the courtyard, where two groups laughed around a campfire. "They'll choose comfort. Or they'll hit their wall on the next floor. Some already have. They just don't know it yet."
Then she pointed up—toward the top of the tower that loomed above the castle.
"You're still climbing, Leo. All three of you. We see that. And the Tower sees it too."
Her voice dropped slightly.
"And it's best we don't get too attached."
She gave him a small, solemn nod and walked away.
Leo stood there for a long moment, the cool wind brushing his face, the sound of quiet laughter ringing behind him like an echo from another life.
He wasn't just surviving anymore.
He was leaving people behind.
One floor at a time.
Leo had lost count of how many days had passed.
The high tower chamber hummed with stillness, its heavy air alive with invisible currents. He trained alone for hours—forms, meditations, stillness, breath. Each strike of the spear was sharper. Each breath a little deeper.
But the fifth qi point refused to open.
He could feel it—just out of reach. A locked door with no key.
Until that night.
He sat cross-legged in the center of the rune-carved floor, sweat clinging to his back, the spear laid across his knees. His breath slowed. Focus sharpened. The world around him grew silent.
Then—
A thrum.
Not sound.
A vibration.
It came not from within his body, but from around him. The air itself bent for a moment, like silk being stretched. He opened his eyes—and saw nothing visibly different.
But he felt it.
Space wasn't empty.
It had tension. Texture. Layers.
And one of those layers—thin and invisible—began to wrap around the stagnant fifth point deep in his body. The sensation was subtle, like a thread winding into place.
And then—click.
Power rushed in like floodwater. But it wasn't wild. It was precise.
The fifth qi point opened.
Not with fire. Not with heat or shock.
But with quiet order.
Leo gasped as awareness flared in him—an echo of that textured reality. For a heartbeat, he could almost see the structure of space. The geometry beneath movement. The subtle bends that shaped position and path.
Sadly It was fleeting.
Later that night, he found Mira and Aric in the quiet courtyard outside the castle library, both seated beneath a lantern's soft glow. He sat beside them without a word for a time, before finally speaking.
"I unlocked the fifth."
"Space. I could… feel it. Not just the essence. The shape. The structure. I lost it after the breakthrough, but—there's something there I need to understand."
Mira leaned forward slightly. "You're not wrong. That's how the fundamental laws work."
Aric nodded. "Every practitioner has two core elements. One from the main five—fire, water, earth, wind, or metal. And one that binds it. Holds it. A law."
"Space," Leo murmured.
"Mine's time," Aric added. "It lets me stretch or compress the way my water behaves—like dragging a current across seconds."
"Mine's chaos," Mira said, grinning. "Fire and chaos. No wonder I'm a walking brawl."
Leo glanced between them. "And these… fundamental elements—they're the key to higher breakthroughs?"
"Yes," Aric said quietly. "To reach the tenth qi point, you have to integrate a strand of your core element. One of the five."
"But the twentieth?" Mira said, voice soft. "That takes more. You have to integrate a strand of the law."
Leo leaned back, staring up at the stars painted across the castle's illusionary sky. His thoughts were a storm.
"I barely held on to that awareness. Like trying to remember a dream after waking up."
"That's how it starts," Aric said. "Understanding's the first step. The second… is making it yours."
Leo didn't answer.
He just looked down at his hand—then at the spear across his lap. One day not even space would impede it's path