The Endless Point Lightning Crucible. Blake stared at the tablet. He had all the meridians open, and the tablet was making slightly more sense. The instructions provided complex mana movements at each point, and the description of what you were supposed to do with your mana at each meridian.

  “So I use this,” Blake said, “I take in the mana, and then, in theory, I’d have lightning-aspect mana?”

  Correct. Though you don’t have anything to use lightning mana on.

  “But I remember the basic palm arts we were taught by the Fate Monks. Or…well, how it was supposed to look, and the theory of how you were supposed to move your mana. I can give one a try if I can get Honour of a new aspect.”

  One step at a time. Try moving your Honour exactly how the technique slate describes, and see if it works.

  Blake said, “You already know it won’t work.”

  Yes, but I need you to try in order to illustrate a point.

  Blake knelt over the technique, until he read the note on the side that demanded he cycle in a cross-legged position. Ethbin made an offhand comment about how Blake shouldn’t bother—in the future, he’d need to be constantly moving and constantly employing the technique, and that sitting or running shouldn’t change anything. He should practice cycling in any position.

  Instead, to get started, Blake sat on the floor of his room, leaning casually against his bed. He placed the slate in his lap. The Honour, which he already had in his body, started at his siphon. He used the last whisper of it that he hadn’t opened his Root Meridian with.

  The Honour crossed into his Blood Meridian, the easiest meridian to use for transport, then through his Intestine and Stomach. Something to do with the nature and prosperity principles of the Vir meridians, like the calm before a storm. Then, it went back into the Blood, then the Bone to strengthen it. The Heart to propel it faster, then down the Spine to ignite it, creating friction like a hailstorm. A whisper of static crackled along his spine.

  When it reached the Root Meridian, he was supposed to push it through all the way, and when it finished looping through, he’d feel the siphon open, drawing in more vital energy.

  When his Honour reached the end of the loop, nothing happened.

  Blake sighed. This was supposed to happen, but it didn’t make it feel any less disheartening.

  Honour is not mana, Ethbin said, as if that was some kind of great philosophical revelation.

  Blake nodded. “How does that help me?”

  I wasn’t expecting you to get this one all on your own, Ethbin said. But I was hoping for you to see the differences.

  Blake grimaced. “I dunno. I’m trying, but…” He scratched the back of his head. “Why would a mana cultivator even need a technique like this? They’d just go Harvest something and steal its mana.”

  Because they could have both techniques, Ethbin said. And the good ones use both, because two sources of mana are better than one. The problem is, most mana cultivators never get very good at using their cycling technique, because they have the crutch of their Harvesting technique. It’s likely why they abandoned the last two stages of Mana Condensation. It’s faster, but they don’t develop their aspect nearly as much, nor is their mana as pure.

  Blake nodded. “Alright. But…I’m still at a loss here. I don’t know how to modify it.”

  And there’s the problem with this technique slate, Ethbin said. It looks only at the rigid, cold mechanics of the mana movements.

  “I dunno, I think there’s a metaphor or simile or some kind of figurative speech on there somewhere. Oh, yeah, look, ‘The mana should circle your Heart Meridian like a bridge-blossom basking in the sun of the High Viridian plateau-fjords.’ ”

  It’s meaningless. Some scholar trying to prove himself knowledgeable while embarrassing himself. I’d bet he’s never been to High Viridian, because the plateaus on that planet really aren’t what they’re made out to be, and it turns out that the concept of a plateau-fjord is impossible—it was a terrible name. Really, that entire quest was a waste of a few years, and my lord thought so as well.

  Blake sighed. “So what should I do?”

  Think about where vital energy comes from.

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  “My Honour comes from that alternate plane. That echo of me, it’s like, the spiritual interpretation of my Honour and a well of it that I can pull over. And there’s the whole Honour Trigram thing that lets me take it into myself, opening the siphon.”

  Precisely. Your cycling techniques will always improve as your alignment with the Honour Trigram does. Your cycling techniques will be more effective in a battle, or in a situation where you’re displaying an act of great loyalty. But your worth is something you can always draw on.

  “My…worth?”

  Your value in your community, or to your lord—or if you are a lord, to those who fight for you. Every act sends a ripple out through those who know you, and that stays with you. It enhances your connection to Honour. The problem with the Honour Trigram is that it is difficult to draw on when you’re just sitting, doing nothing, which is where your cycling technique comes into play.

  Blake nodded. “We’ve been through this stuff before, haven’t we?”

  Yes. Now, how do you connect yourself to the spiritual plane, where your infinite sea of Honour resides?

  “My…siphon?”

  Partly. Your siphon is the end of a channel. My people called it the Great Pillar. The Nords call it the Great Tree. The effect is the same—there is a channel connecting everyone and everything to the spiritual plane. It’s where mana cultivators connect to wells of ambient mana, and it’s where our Echoes exist.

  “How does this help?”

  The cycling technique, the precise movement of Honour, opens the siphon and pulls more Honour through the Great Pillar—usually at a rate proportional to your worth, or whichever element of the Honour Trigram you're calling on. Once it’s in you, the specific meridian pattern determines the aspect, and your Root Meridian solidifies it.

  Blake nodded. “So where am I failing? What do I have to change?”

  Nothing about the initial pattern. I know many Honour cycling techniques, and there’s a secret they don’t really tell you. The initial pattern, the first six meridians you use, aren’t nearly as important as the Root. You connect with your Root and figure out what it means for you, then you’re set. Techniques work best when you think about what you want to accomplish, not the precise movements, and the same goes for this. Think about the Root as the goal.

  “My Root is just a circle.”

  Indeed. It’s a Root pattern I haven’t seen in my life or my undeath, only read about: the Galactic Serpent.

  Blake narrowed his eyes. “Snakes aren’t circles.”

  They are when they eat their own tails.

  “What?”

  You were right to pick a lightning slate. If you’d picked, say, fire, you wouldn’t have accomplished much. It’s adjacent but not compatible. Ice? Same problem, earth, same problem, and don’t get me started on metal. But you picked an opposite aspect to what your Root is inclined to.

  “Gramps, you’re just saying words. These don’t mean anything to me. Are you saying that lightning is the opposite of a circle?”

  To channel the opposite of something is quite easy. You form it in the same way, but you modify it in your Root.

  “But what’s the opposite of lightning? Water? Glass?”

  Blake could practically imagine Ethbin shaking his head and sighing.

  No, no, Ethbin said. Dark lightning.

  Blake just blinked. “What?”

  Lightning is the purest form of light you can get. It’s not like fire, which can be quenched by water. The only true opposite of lightning is dark lightning. The deadly bolts that crackle through the great void, rending the hulls of manaships, unseen from the surface of planets except for the rare occasion they pass in front of a star and make it flicker. And dark lightning comes from the Galaxy Serpent itself. The snake eating its tail.

  “I think I’m going to need a mythology lesson. I mean, I’ve seen a few bracelets like that from time to time, and a belt buckle with that symbol. It must be important, right?”

  One of the Wyrdfather’s sons, a great cultivator, came to embody lightning. His arch-enemy was the Galaxy Serpent, a great void-born snake which circles the edge of the galaxy, holding the stars in place and forming a natural barrier to manaships—and also the source of all fiends, which is likely where you obtained it from. We could talk about doomsday prophecies, but ultimately, the point is that dark lightning has always rivalled lightning.

  Blake’s brain felt like it was going to melt, and he didn’t know how to process the information he was just taking in.

  Try again. Focus on your Root. Focus on what it turns your mana into. And this time, follow the breathing instructions.

  Blake inhaled, then tried again. Like the slate said, his breathing pattern helped focus his will, and it made it pass through the necessary points faster. Instead of thinking about shooting the Honour from point to point, though, he thought about it travelling in a loop—a circle in a similar shape to his Root. It accumulated static, making his channels tremble with black mist.

  When it reached his Root, he passed it into the second loop, thinking about what he wanted to accomplish. What it…meant to him.

  His life was an endless cycle. It always had been. Waking up, getting water, going back to the city and barely scraping by, only to end up failing. Why should a cycling pattern be any different?

  Except he wasn’t going to end with a failure.

  The static crackled into his Honour, giving it an aspect. In his perception, the Honour took a tinge of white, but it didn’t last. The longer it crossed through the loop, the more it turned into an oily black, the nature of his fiend-blend seeping back into it.

  But that was what was supposed to happen, wasn’t it?

  Instead of slowing the Honour, instead of turning it into unusable sludge, the darkness electrified it. He could barely perceive it, with how dark it was. It crackled through the channel before finally returning to his siphon.

  It lingered there, ready to use.

  Without thinking, without waiting—unwilling to wait any longer—he deployed a palm art.