It turned out that using the Augmentation technique to fill your bones with Honour was incredibly handy when you didn’t have a staff and had to resort to punching howlers really hard.

  It wasn’t anything fancy, but now that he’d opened his Bone Meridians, he didn’t have to worry about breaking his knuckles.

  As he killed the wolves, Ethbin said, You would be wise to keep their pelts. When Blake asked why, Ethbin explained, The most common and prosperous sects out here are hunter sects. They gather pelts and sell them to offworlders who don’t want to hunt the beasts themselves. You bring pelts in, it’ll prove your worth to them, and they may award you some contribution points. But the biggest boon is getting let into a sect in the first place.

  As soon as he had all the Honour he needed, he got to work on the Spine Meridian.

  It’ll be the hardest of the Aes Meridians to open, Ethbin said when Blake settled down in the branches of a tree.

  “Why’s that?”

  You’ll temporarily lose control over your body. It will be up to nothing but your will to open your spine channels. If you can’t do it quickly, there’s a chance you knock yourself out and paralyze yourself for life. Are you sure you’re rested enough?

  “I’m pretty sure I just rested for twelve hours,” Blake said. “I’m ready to try.”

  Be careful, Blake.

  “I won’t leave you stuck out here.”

  I’m less worried about myself at the moment.

  “You’ve had plenty of pupils, haven’t you?”

  I care for all my disciples. I don’t just stop caring for them because I’ve had hundreds before, and it doesn’t hurt any less when they die. Which is exactly why I don’t want to see you destroy yourself in your rush.

  “I’ve got years to catch up on,” Blake said. “And we’re running out of rations. I still need enough to get out of the mists.”

  If you think you’re ready, then go for it.

  Blake shut his eyes and envisioned the channels around his spine. He’d opened the vertebrae already, as part of the Bone Meridians, but it was something within the spine that he had to clear.

  There was a thick column of channels, but they all ran vertically. Almost all of them were clogged.

  He inhaled, then pushed through.

  As soon as he pierced into his first spinal channel, his body began writhing. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Nerves twitched, and impulses ran around his body, making him rock side-to-side uncontrollably in the cradle of branches.

  He couldn’t shut his eyes, but he could tune out the stimulus. He couldn’t block the pain, and he wasn’t exactly getting used to it—he didn’t think it’d ever be possible to get used to that—but he could manage it.

  He just pushed. He kept the Honour moving, threading it carefully through the channels. His neck ached from twitching, and a branch sliced his back. He couldn’t stop. If the channel was only half open, he was never going to walk again.

  Up and down. Up and down. Clear the channels.

  But on the last few, his head jerked to the side. He bashed his skull into the tree’s main trunk, and darkness brimmed on the edge of his vision. He’d…hit it that hard? Was he going to go unconscious?

  He couldn’t. Not when he was so close.

  He couldn’t clench his teeth or fists, but he held on, fighting against the urge to sleep. He threw up, and it was a miracle he didn’t choke on his own vomit.

  This couldn’t all be for nothing. If it ended here, his life would be so…empty. Just an endless cycle of work, then a pitiful blaze, having accomplished nothing with himself.

  There had to be something more.

  With a surge of effort, he pierced open the last channel. His spine went rigid, then he collapsed. Everything went dark.

  ~ ~ ~

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  When Blake opened his eyes, he first felt Ethbin’s warm presence. For a few seconds, there was a horrible tingling in his fingers, and he feared the worst. That he’d paralyzed himself neck down. But he’d just slept in a terrible position, and he could move his fingers freely still.

  “It worked?”

  It worked, Ethbin replied. Barely.

  “Then…that’s all the Aes Meridians!” Blake pushed himself up and leaned back against the main tree trunk, using his backpack as a cushion. He glanced down at his rank seal. Six waves. Sixth stage…

  Sixth stage? On his own…?

  Don’t let it go to your head, Ethbin said. All of my other disciples had their meridians open well before they met me—since they were ten or twelve years old, most likely. Their struggle was condensing a large enough Honour sea.

  Blake exhaled. His chest deflated.

  But I will admit, I don’t think any of them would have survived a spine opening as harrowing as yours.

  Blake’s grin returned.

  Something tells me you’re going to get us in so much trouble.

  “Maybe.” Blake jumped down from the tree, then opened his backpack and retrieved the elixir vial. “Now, this?”

  You’re ready to keep working?

  “No, no.” Blake shook his head. “Climbing on the mist-rigs and gathering water for the cultivators was working. This? Uh, I dunno what this is, but it doesn’t feel the same.” He shook the vial. “If I were to just keep the elixir on my body, do you think they would know the difference?”

  At a glance, perhaps not. But they would then think you’re at Foundation Establishment, and deny you access.

  “Why?”

  They want young, mouldable junior brothers.

  “I’m not there to be moulded, am I?”

  That’s my job. You’re there for contribution points. For weapons and modifiable technique slates, for sparring partners and hunting missions.

  “So…” Blake shook the vial again. He contemplated dumping some out, but that would be such a waste. “So I need them to only sense as much of the elixir as I want them to?”

  And you need to make it look like part of yourself. If you cannot do that, they will eventually see through it, and you will be caught.

  Blake scrunched his eyebrows and stared at the elixir. “I could drink it.” But that would have the same problem as before. It’d just be sitting in his body. Even if he could get it to sit in his stomach forever, it’d still feel like a separate part of him.

  Your spine, Ethbin said. Think. Why are some cultivators inseparable from their weapons?

  “Their spine?” That didn’t make any sense.

  You’ve never had someone tell you to grow a spine? Your Spine Meridian is necessary to assert a claim over a sacred weapon, among other handy things like killing intent, but we’ll get to that later. The channels of your spine usually form the endpoint of a soft, usually unnoticeable, subconscious loop with the object, binding you to it and asserting your claim over it.

  “I could do the same with the elixir?” Blake held out the vial. It didn’t really feel like his.

  Yes. It hasn’t been designed to be claimed, not like most enchanted weapons, but if you concentrate…you still have a sliver or two of Honour in you, don’t you?

  He concentrated on the vial, then gripped it tight. But it was up to his Honour control. He started the last wisp of it in his spine, then directed it out through his bone channels to his hand, where he held the vial.

  A wisp of darkness swirled through the vial, and the light dimmed. Then it re-entered his channels, looping back around to his spine, and completing the loop.

  And there you have it, Ethbin said. Unless a Core Formation stage cultivator is closely examining you, you should register in their perception as Foundation Establishment. But now, do you think you know how to make it seem weaker?

  “Honour isn’t just undetectable to mana cultivators,” Blake said. “It’s…antagonistic. I saw what it did to Svarikson. Honour can cancel out mana?”

  Not all Honour can do that. But your Honour can.

  Blake blinked.

  You are part fiend. It taints your Honour just as it tainted your mana. Most Honour doesn’t appear like black mist, for the record. Specifically your Honour is in direct opposition to mana, and can cancel out its strength.

  “So I put more in the vial, and lower it to the level I want.” Blake nodded. “Seems doable.”

  He pulled the cork stopper out of the elixir vial, then placed the palm of his hand over it. At the moment, he didn’t need to assert a claim over the vial, so he broke the loop, and instead used the wisp of Honour to darken the vial. He ejected it out his hand, like he was pushing mana out of his body, and the Honour listened. Three black drops trickled into the vial.

  “How strong is it, now?” Blake asked.

  Body Tempering five. You have a little ways to go.

  For experiment’s sake, Blake concentrated on the Honour he’d put into the vial. The black droplets didn’t diffuse. They floated in the turquoise liquid like oil in water, and they were still his. He called them back, and though he couldn’t convince them to enter his skin, he still maintained control over them. He could raise the elixir’s strength back up if he needed.

  He let the droplets fall back down, then tightened his backpack’s straps. “Alright, Gramps. I think we’ve done everything we need.”

  I concur. We must hope, though, that you find some beasts on the way out. You’ll need a little more Honour to finish this off.

  “Um, which way, exactly, should I go to get out?”

  By my reckoning, if you turn right until…keep turning, keep turning, now stop. Now walk straight. You should be heading west, and that will take you out the other side of the merge-mists. There, we can look for another city.

  Blake hung the elixir around his neck by a thin string, then set off to the west.