The Elder's command was absolute. Begin.
Ren sank to the ground, crossing his legs in the standard meditation pose he'd learned from scavenged manuals. He closed his eyes, and the world outside vanished, replaced by the landscape of his own soul. Here, his Aether was a familiar river, a roaring torrent of azure lightning and shadow that had been his only companion for years. It was wild and chaotic, but it was his.
Now, he had to build a dam.
He focused his will, a fragile thing against the might of his own power, and pushed against the current. The response was immediate and violent. A fiery revolt erupted in his veins. Every Aetheric channel he tried to block screamed in protest, a chorus of agonizing pressure building behind his eyes. The spectral wolf of his Spirit Soul, feeling its flow being choked off, snarled in his consciousness, a primal rejection of the command.
Elder Tian watched from the stream's edge, his face a mask of stone. He offered no guidance, no encouragement. This was Ren's first test: a battle of will against his own nature.
Hours crawled by. The initial agony subsided into a deep, gnawing ache. It was a hunger unlike any he had ever known, a profound starvation of the soul. His muscles trembled with the strain. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. The dragon was being starved, and it fought him at every turn, sending jolts of pain through his body as it sought an outlet. Ren grit his teeth, his resolve hardened by the memory of a burning village and the promise of survival. He would not break.
He pushed the pain away, focusing on the simple sensation of the cool air, the sound of the trickling stream, anything to distract from the war within. He had to win. He had to prove he was more than the monster the Elder saw.
It was in this state of desperate focus, on the very edge of his endurance, that he felt it.
A new sensation, completely separate from the internal battle.
It was subtle at first, a faint tingling on his skin. He almost dismissed it as a symptom of his exhaustion. But it grew stronger, a persistent, pervasive coolness seeping into him from the air itself. It wasn't the familiar rush of Aether being drawn into his core to be circulated; he was still successfully damming that river, holding his Spirit Soul in a state of forced hibernation.
This was different. This was absorption.
The impossibly pure Prime Aether of the courtyard garden, a Nexus Point of concentrated energy, wasn't being drawn to his soul—it was being drawn to his flesh. Each cell in his body felt like a thirsty mouth, drinking directly from the Aether-rich atmosphere. It was an automatic, unconscious process, a tide seeping into his very being through his skin, muscle, and bone, completely bypassing the channels he was fighting so hard to keep closed.
It was his Aether Assimilation. He had always thought of it as an active skill, something he used to consciously devour the residual energy of defeated foes. He never realized it was always on, a passive trait of his unique body. While his will starved his Spirit Soul, his body was feasting.
The realization sent a jolt of shock and confusion through him, nearly causing him to lose his focus. He quickly clamped down again, the internal pain flaring anew. He was trapped in a paradox: he was successfully suppressing his cultivation, yet he was still cultivating.
Finally, as the enchanted sky above began to shift from the blue of day to the deep indigo of evening, Ren opened his eyes. He was pale and drenched in sweat, but his gaze was steady. He had survived. He had passed the test.
He looked at Elder Tian, unsure how to even begin explaining the bizarre phenomenon he had just experienced. But the Elder was no longer looking at the stream. His ancient eyes were narrowed, fixed on Ren with an expression of profound confusion, a crack in his stoic facade. He took a step closer, his gaze sweeping over Ren not as a person, but as an anomaly that defied his vast knowledge.
"What have you done, boy?" Elder Tian's voice was a low whisper, laced with a dawning bewilderment. "The Aether in this garden... it is clinging to you like a shroud."