The communication board exploded with incoming transmissions. Ethan counted at least fifteen different sources, all demanding clarification, offering terms, or threatening violence if he didn't deal with them specifically.
"This is Commander Seris Tal of the Crystal Dominion," Seris transmitted on an official channel.
"As the highest-ranking Coalition officer present, I will serve as neutral arbiter for these proceedings.
All offers must be submitted formally within the next six hours. Violence during negotiations will result in immediate disqualification."
"You think they'll actually follow rules?" one of Lyra's warriors asked skeptically.
"Some will. Others won't." Seris's expression was calculating. "But even the threat of disqualification will make them hesitate. No one wants to be the faction that lost the human because they violated protocol."
Empress Kara's face appeared on the main viewscreen, her burning eyes radiating barely contained fury.
"You dare turn this into a marketplace transaction? I could vaporize your ship and end this farce…"
"But you won't," Ethan interrupted, forcing his voice to remain steady. "Because the moment you fire, every other fleet here will either join you—making it a free-for-all that you might not win—or defend me because they don't want you to have me. Either way, you lose your advantage."
Kara gave that her smiling smirk. "Clever human. Very well then. I will participate in your little auction. But know this—the Solar Dynasty does not lose. Whatever the highest bid, I will exceed it." And with that, her image vanished.
"That," Lyra said quietly, "is both good and terrifying. Good because she's playing along. Terrifying because she means what she said."
More transmissions flooded in. Lady Nyx of the Obsidian Matriarchy. Representatives from the Eternal Gardens. A dozen smaller factions Ethan had never heard of. All of them eager, desperate, or coldly stating their offers.
"Six hours," Dr. Senna said, pulling Ethan aside. "That's your window. If you're going to attempt Core Formation, it needs to be now."
"How do I even start?"
"You don't. The system does." Senna handed him a small device that hummed with energy.
"This is a medical stabilizer. It'll monitor your vital signs and hopefully keep you alive if something goes wrong. Find somewhere quiet, access your system guidance, and don't die."
"Inspiring pep talk."
"I'm a doctor, not a motivational speaker." But her amber eyes held genuine concern. "I've seen cultivators attempt rapid advancement, and most of them failed. The ones who survive are never quite the same. Are you sure about this?"
Ethan thought about Earth burning. About being the last human alive in a galaxy that saw him as a resource to be exploited. About spending the rest of his life running or being controlled by whoever proved strongest.
"I don't have a choice," he said. "Being weak in this galaxy means being owned. I'd rather risk death than accept that."
Senna slowly nodded. "Then go. We'll handle the negotiations and buy you time."
Ethan returned to the small quarters, sealing the door behind him. The medical stabilizer attached to his wrist with a soft click. Through the walls, he could hear Seris beginning formal negotiations, her voice projecting authority as various factions stated their opening offers.
He sat cross-legged on the bunk and pulled up his system interface.
**[CORE FORMATION BREAKTHROUGH - INITIATING]**
**[STEP ONE: ENERGY COMPRESSION]**
**[VISUALIZE YOUR POWER AS A PHYSICAL ENTITY]**
**[COMPRESS IT INTO THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE FORM]**
Ethan closed his eyes and felt for the energy in his body. It responded immediately, wild and eager after being suppressed for so long. He imagined it as a storm, lightning and thunder and rain all whirling inside him.
Then he began to compress it. The pain came immediately and it was excruciating. It felt like trying to crush a star with his bare hands, the energy fighting back against containment. Sweat broke out across his forehead as he forced the power inward, smaller and smaller and smaller.
**[COMPRESSION: 23%]**
**[WARNING: ENERGY RESISTANCE HIGH]**
**[RECOMMENDATION: VISUALIZE A STABLE PATTERN]**
A pattern. What pattern? The system didn't specify, just showed him abstract concepts—spirals, geometric shapes, crystalline structures. Ethan's mind raced through possibilities.
Then he remembered Earth. Not the planet burning, but before that.
The spiral of continents, the pattern of clouds, the delicate balance of ecosystems. His home, reduced to energy and memory and he used that.
He shaped the compressed energy into a spiral pattern that mimicked Earth's rotation, its orbital path, the curve of its atmosphere.
**[COMPRESSION: 67%]**
**[PATTERN RECOGNITION: UNIQUE CONFIGURATION DETECTED]**
**[PLANETARY RESONANCE - COMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN ORIGIN]**
The energy suddenly stopped fighting. It settled into the spiral pattern as if it had always meant to be there, turning and turning in a perfect cycle.
**[STEP TWO: SPIRITUAL AWAKENING]**
**[EXTEND YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS BEYOND YOUR BODY]**
**[PERCEIVE THE ENERGY THAT SURROUNDS ALL THINGS]**
This was harder. Ethan's consciousness was firmly rooted in his physical form, in the concrete reality of metal and asteroid and starlight. The system wanted him to perceive something else.
He pushed his awareness outward. At first there was nothing. Then, slowly, he began to feel it.
Energy everywhere. In the ship's hull, residual from whatever materials it was forged from. In the asteroid field outside, ancient stone that had drifted for billions of years.
In the women arguing on the command deck, their cultivation burning like different-colored flames.
And beyond that, stranger things. The void between stars wasn't empty, it churned with energy too subtle for normal senses. The fabric of space itself had texture, dimension, and even weight.
Ethan's consciousness expanded, and he suddenly understood why cultivators spoke of realms and stages. This was a fundamentally different way of perceiving reality.
**[SPIRITUAL AWAKENING: ACHIEVED]**
**[STEP THREE: CORE FORMATION]**
**[MERGE COMPRESSED ENERGY WITH SPIRITUAL AWARENESS]**
**[CREATE A STABLE CORE THAT CAN HOLD AND CHANNEL POWER]**
This was it, the critical step where most cultivators apparently failed.
*****
Frankly sharing my story. I was really scared here. Although I didn't show much of it, but trust me… I regretted existing.
********
Ethan took his compressed, and spiral-patterned energy and his expanded spiritual awareness and began to merge them.
The reaction was violent. Two fundamental forces colliding, trying to occupy the same space. Then pain exploded through his every nerve, and Ethan distantly felt the medical stabilizer on his wrist begin shrieking alarms.
**[CRITICAL STAGE]**
**[MAINTAIN FOCUS]**
**[DEVIATION PROBABILITY INCREASING]**
He was losing control. The energy wanted to explode outward. His consciousness wanted to fragment into infinite pieces. Ethan felt himself tearing apart from the inside.
Then, through the pain he felt the presence of the three women on the command deck. Lyra's fierce protective instinct. Seris's cruel coldness that still carried a thread of genuine concern. Senna's desperate hope that he'd survive.
They were all connected to him somehow. The resonance formation from the Voidborne fight had created links that still persisted, invisible threads of energy connecting their cores to his forming one.
Ethan grabbed those threads like lifelines and used them to anchor himself. The energy stabilized, finding equilibrium between explosion and compression.
His consciousness stopped fragmenting, and held itself together by the reminder that he wasn't alone in this.
The spiral pattern of compressed energy and the expanded spiritual awareness merged smoothly, perfectly, like two puzzle pieces that had always been meant to fit together.
At the center of his being, a core crystallized. It spun like a miniature Earth, energy flowing around it in perfect cycles.
Blue and green and white, colors that shouldn't have been possible in pure energy but existed anyway because that's what he'd visualized, what he'd needed it to be.
**[CORE FORMATION: COMPLETE]**
**[CONGRATULATIONS: LOW CORE FORMATION ACHIEVED]**
**[TIME ELAPSED: 4 HOURS, 37 MINUTES]**
**[NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED]**
**[CULTIVATION SPEED: INCREASED 400%]**
**[ENERGY CAPACITY: INCREASED 1000%]**
**[SPIRITUAL SENSE: ACTIVE]**
**[BONUS QUEST COMPLETE: ADVANCED TECHNIQUE UNLOCKED]**
**[ABILITY GAINED: RESONANCE AMPLIFICATION]**
Ethan opened his eyes but the room looked different. He could see energy flowing through the ship's systems, he could also feel the presence of everyone aboard, and sense the fleets positioned around them in the asteroid field.
He stood, and the movement felt effortless. His body was lighter, stronger, and more responsive. And power hummed through his veins, feeling controlled and ready.
The door to the command deck opened before he reached it, and three faces turned toward him with expressions ranging from shock to awe.
"Impossible," Seris breathed. "Your energy signature just increased tenfold. You actually did it."
"In under five hours," Lyra added, her golden eyes wide. "That's... that's not supposed to be possible."
Dr. Senna was staring at her medical scanner like it had personally offended her. "Your vitals are stronger than when you started. You should be half-dead from the strain, but you're... healthier."
"The system guided me through it." Ethan flexed his hands, marveling at the controlled power flowing through him.
"And I had help. You three actually helped me. The resonance links from the Voidborne fight—I used them to anchor myself."
"You used our cores as stabilizers?" Seris's expression changed a bit, and she looked very serious that it almost seemed scary. "That means you can still feel us. Like… still access that connection."
"Does it bother you?"
"Bother?" A slow smile spread across Seris's face. "Human, you just created permanent cultivation bonds with three Core Formation cultivators. Do you understand what that means politically?"
Ethan was getting a sinking feeling he was about to find out.
"It means," Lyra said, her grin matching Seris's, "that anyone who wants you has to go through all three of us. Together. And that's a much more difficult proposition."
"The auction just became infinitely more complicated," Senna added.
"You're not just a lone human anymore. You're a bonded unit with representatives from three different factions."
**[QUEST TIMER: 16:41:23 REMAINING]**
**[STATUS: ON TRACK FOR COMPLETION]**
**[NEW OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE AUCTION NEGOTIATIONS]**
On the viewscreen, Empress Kara's face appeared again, her expression suggesting she'd sensed the breakthrough.
"The human has advanced to Core Formation," she announced, her voice carrying to all fleets.
"And formed resonance bonds with Commander Seris, Princess Lyra, and an unidentified fourth party. This changes the parameters of negotiation."
"Indeed it does," Seris said, stepping forward with renewed confidence. "Factions wishing to bid must now factor in existing bonds.
The human cannot be separated from his resonance partners without destroying his cultivation entirely."
It was a lie, or at least an exaggeration, but Ethan wasn't about to correct her. Not when it was clearly working.
Several fleets began repositioning, their strategies obviously changing.
"Sixteen hours left," Ethan murmured, watching the tactical display. "What happens when the quest timer runs out?"