Another week crawled by, each day blending into the next as I fell into a rhythm of cultivation and herb gathering. My body felt different now, stronger in ways that went beyond simple muscle. The spiritual energy flowing through me grew denser with each meditation session, accumulating in my chest where my core would eventually form.
Body Tempering fifth layer approached. I sensed it the same way you'd sense a storm building on the horizon, an inevitability waiting just beyond reach. A few more days of cultivation, maybe a week at most, and the breakthrough would come.
The inscription manual sat in my mind like a textbook I couldn't actually use. The knowledge transferred clearly enough during purchase. I understood the theory, recognized the patterns, could visualize how energy should flow through carved channels. Actually practicing proved impossible without the one thing I lacked.
Vital energy.
The manual explained it plainly. Spiritual energy existed in the air around us, raw and unrefined. Cultivators absorbed it during meditation, letting it flow through their bodies and strengthen their physical foundation. But using spiritual energy for techniques, for inscriptions, for anything beyond basic cultivation required refinement.
That refinement happened in the Meridian Opening realm. The meridians acted like filters, transforming crude spiritual energy into pure vital energy that could be directed and shaped according to the cultivator's will. Without opened meridians, I had nothing to power an inscription even if I carved one perfectly.
Body Tempering realm cultivators couldn't test their work. We existed in this frustrating gap where we understood the skill but lacked the tools to execute it properly. Who knew how long reaching Meridian Opening would take? Months, probably. Maybe years if my cultivation talent proved mediocre.
The inscription class offered a solution. According to the forum post, materials would be provided in the virtual space. No need for spiritual crystals I couldn't afford. No requirement for vital energy I didn't possess. Everything handled through the shared consciousness environment.
I pulled up the forum on my token, navigating to the pinned post. The subscriber count had exploded to over a million. Comments filled the thread, people expressing excitement or asking questions the teacher hadn't answered yet.
The invitation link glowed at the top of the post.
"First inscription lesson begins in twenty minutes. Click here to join. Materials will be provided."
I pressed it.
The transition felt like stepping through a doorway into somewhere impossible. My apartment vanished, replaced by an endless white void that somehow contained structure. I stood in a seat, except I also saw thousands of other seats stretching in all directions. Other cultivators materialized around me, their forms solid and present despite existing only in projected consciousness.
The spatial arrangement made my brain hurt if I thought about it too hard. I sat in the front row, directly facing the teaching platform. But the person beside me also sat in the front row, facing the same platform from a slightly different angle. And the person behind me, and the person three hundred seats to my left. Everyone occupied the front row simultaneously while still being aware of the massive crowd surrounding them.
Virtual space bullshit. I stopped trying to understand it.
A crystal appeared in my hand, thumb-sized and perfectly clear. Spiritual quartz, according to the knowledge that came with it. An engraving tool materialized beside it, its diamond tip catching light that shouldn't exist in this white void.
The items felt completely real. I turned the crystal over, examining its facets. Solid weight, cool temperature, smooth surface. If someone told me I held an actual physical object, I'd believe them.
More students appeared, filling impossible seating arrangements until the count stabilized somewhere around two hundred thousand. The number boggled my mind. Two hundred thousand people, all gathered to learn inscription from someone who actually knew the craft.
A figure materialized on the teaching platform.
My breath caught.
The teacher stood tall and composed, his presence radiating authority without arrogance. He held up a crystal identical to mine, and it floated into the air before expanding to ten times its normal size. Everyone could see it clearly, the magnification showing every detail of the quartz's structure.
"Welcome to the first inscription lesson." His voice reached me as if he stood right beside me, clear and personal despite addressing hundreds of thousands simultaneously. "Today you'll learn to create a Glow inscription, the simplest and most fundamental pattern in the inscription craft. Master this, and you'll understand the basic principles that govern all inscriptions."
I leaned forward, gripping my engraving tool.
Finally, a real chance to learn this properly.
The teacher's demonstration captivated me. His hands moved with practiced precision, the engraving tool gliding across the magnified crystal like a brush painting on canvas. The input spiral took shape, each curve flowing naturally into the next.
I gripped my own tool, pressing the diamond tip against my crystal's edge. The quartz resisted at first, then gave way with a faint scraping sound. My hand jerked, the line veering off course.
"Damn it."
I tried again, forcing myself to move slower. The channel deepened gradually, a hair-thin groove catching the white void's ambient light. My spiral looked more like a drunken wobble than the teacher's elegant curve, but at least it didn't crack the crystal.
Around me, other students struggled with the same problems. A middle-aged woman to my left had already broken her first crystal, a fresh one materializing in her hand moments later. Someone behind me muttered curses in what sounded like Mandarin.
The teacher appeared beside the woman, his presence somehow both there and not there. He demonstrated the proper grip, adjusting her hand position. She nodded, starting fresh with better control.
I kept carving. The spiral grew inward, circling toward the crystal's center. My depth varied, some sections deeper than others, but I maintained the general pattern. Good enough for a first attempt.
The teacher returned to the platform, magnifying his crystal again. The conversion node looked impossibly complex, six channels intersecting in a three-dimensional starburst. Each one had to meet at precise angles, all of them converging on a single point.
"This is where most failures happen," he said.
Yeah, no kidding. I studied the pattern, trying to memorize the angles. Sixty degrees, one hundred twenty degrees, straight down first. My spatial reasoning had never been great, but the cultivation seemed to help. Body Tempering fourth layer gave me sharper eyes and steadier hands.
I positioned my tool and carved straight down. One and a half millimeters deep, according to the instructions. I had no real way to measure that, so I went by feel and visual comparison to the magnified example.
The second channel came next, intersecting the first at what I hoped was sixty degrees. The diamond tip scraped through quartz, creating a satisfying resistance that told me I'd hit the right depth.
Third channel. Fourth. Fifth. The starburst pattern emerged, rough and imperfect but recognizable. I carved the final channel, watching it meet the others at the center point.
My crystal heated up.
"Shit!"
The warmth spread through my palm, not painful but definitely wrong. I dropped the crystal onto my virtual workstation, watching a hairline crack appear across the conversion node.
The teacher materialized beside me.
"Your angles were close, but the fifth channel went too deep. The energy flow created a feedback loop." He handed me a fresh crystal. "Try again, and remember that deeper isn't better. Consistent depth matters more than perfect angles."
I nodded, accepting the replacement. The failed crystal vanished from my workstation.
Second attempt. I carved more carefully this time, checking each channel's depth against the others before moving to the next. The starburst took shape again, its geometry cleaner than before.
No heat this time. The crystal remained cool in my hand.
The dispersal array came last, a web of interconnected channels spreading across the outer surface. I followed the teacher's demonstration, carving branches that split and merged like blood vessels. Some lines came out crooked, others too shallow, but the basic pattern held together.
Forty minutes had passed since the lesson started. My hands ached from gripping the engraving tool, virtual fatigue translating into real muscle strain somehow. I ignored it, focusing on the final channels.
Done.
The inscription looked terrible compared to the teacher's example. Wobbly spirals, uneven depths, crooked dispersal lines. But the structure was complete, all three components connected properly.
"Test it," the teacher said, appearing beside me again. "Will energy into the input spiral."
I focused on the crystal, trying to push something into it. Nothing happened at first. Then I felt a strange sensation, like flexing a muscle I didn't know I had. Energy flowed from somewhere inside me, through my hand, into the quartz.
The conversion node flickered. Blue light stuttered to life, spreading through the dispersal array in uneven pulses. Half the crystal glowed brightly while the other half barely lit up, revealing how badly I'd screwed up the channel depths.
But it worked.
"Holy shit." I stared at the glowing crystal, watching light dance through imperfect channels. "I actually did it."
Around me, other students achieved their first successes. Crystals lit up throughout the impossible classroom, blue light spreading like stars appearing in the white void. Applause erupted, thousands of voices cheering each new achievement.
I held my crystal up, its lopsided glow casting shadows across my virtual hands. Terrible craftsmanship, barely functional, probably useless for anything practical.
But I'd created it myself. First real inscription, carved with my own hands following principles I actually understood.
I grinned, tucking the crystal into my pocket where it continued glowing faintly. I couldn't actually take a virtual crystal with me, but I wanted to document this achievement.
The teacher raised his hand, calling for silence.
"Congratulations to everyone who completed their first inscription. For those still working, keep practicing. The lobby will remain open for another two hours."
Two more hours. I glanced at my lopsided glowing crystal, then at the fresh materials that appeared on my virtual workstation. No reason to leave when I could keep practicing for free.
Around me, maybe half the students vanished, their virtual forms dissolving as they disconnected. The ones who stayed settled back into their seats, gripping engraving tools with renewed determination.
I picked up a fresh crystal and started over.
The input spiral came easier this time. My hand remembered the pressure, the angle, the slow circular motion required to keep the channel consistent. The diamond tip scraped through quartz with satisfying resistance, carving a groove that actually looked somewhat circular.
Better. Not good, but better.
The conversion node still gave me trouble. My first channel went straight down, one and a half millimeters deep according to my best guess. The second intersected it at what I hoped was sixty degrees. When I carved the third, the crystal heated up again.
Wrong angle. I dropped it before the crack formed and grabbed another crystal.
Third attempt. I measured the angles more carefully this time, using my thumb as a reference point and trusting my eyes to judge the spacing. The starburst pattern emerged cleaner, its geometry closer to the teacher's example.
No heat. The crystal stayed cool.
I moved on to the dispersal array, carving branches that split and merged across the outer surface. My lines wandered less than before, following the pattern with growing confidence. When I tested it, blue light spread through the channels in a slightly more even distribution.
Progress.
I lost track of time, falling into a rhythm of carving and testing. Each crystal taught me something new. Too much pressure here caused cracks. Too little there left channels too shallow. The conversion node required perfect depth consistency, while the dispersal array tolerated minor variations.
By my seventh attempt, the inscription actually looked decent. The spiral curved smoothly inward, the conversion node formed a clean starburst, and the dispersal array spread across the surface in mostly even branches. When I channeled energy into it, the entire crystal glowed bright blue with only minor flickering in the outer edges.
"Much better," the teacher said, appearing beside me. "Your channel depths are consistent now. The dispersal array still needs work, but you've grasped the fundamentals."
I nodded, already reaching for another crystal. "How many attempts does it usually take to get good at this?"
"Define good." He smiled. "A functional inscription? You've already achieved that. A professional-quality inscription? Hundreds of attempts, maybe thousands. Master craftsmen spend years perfecting single patterns."
Years. The timeline didn't discourage me. I had time, and the virtual space gave me unlimited materials to practice with.
I kept carving. The lobby population dwindled as the two hours crawled past, students disconnecting one by one until maybe twenty thousand remained. The dedicated ones, I figured. People serious about learning the craft properly.
My hands ached from gripping the engraving tool, virtual fatigue translating into real muscle strain. I ignored it, starting my twelfth crystal. The motions felt almost automatic now. Spiral, starburst, web. Test. Analyze the flaws. Start fresh.
The teacher moved through the remaining students, offering corrections and encouragement. He spent time with a middle-aged man whose crystals kept cracking at the conversion node, demonstrating the proper depth until the man finally succeeded. Applause echoed through the lobby when his inscription lit up.
I finished my fifteenth attempt and held it up to examine. The glow spread evenly this time, no flickering, no dead spots. Not perfect, but functional enough that someone might actually use it as a light source.
Good enough for today.
The two-hour mark arrived. The teacher returned to the platform, his presence drawing attention from the remaining students.
"Thank you all for your dedication. The recording of this lesson will be available on the forums for anyone who wants to review it. Practice regularly, and you'll master the Glow inscription soon enough."
He paused, scanning the crowd.
"Next lesson will cover the Heat inscription, which introduces directional energy flow. Watch for the forum post."
The lobby began dissolving, white void fading back into my apartment's familiar walls. I blinked, adjusting to the transition. My hands still ached, the phantom sensation of gripping an engraving tool lingering in my muscles.
Fifteen practice attempts in two hours. Not bad for a first session.
I checked my token. No new crystals appeared in my possession, of course. Virtual materials stayed virtual. But the knowledge remained, the muscle memory of carving channels and testing energy flow. That was worth more than any physical crystal.