Nightmare Realm Summoner

"Here," Orchid said.

She, along with Alex and Claire, stood within one of the few wooden cabins that had managed to survive the Gorgonaga's attack largely unscathed. There were several bundles of straw and used clothes wrapped together into makeshift seats.

"Here?" Alex repeated, his words considerably more doubtful than Orchid's had been. "What exactly?"

Orchid grinned. "Sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. Well, about as comfortable as you can get. It won't last long."

"I don't love the sound of that," Claire said as she and Alex both walked over to their respective pads. "What are you going to do? Start throwing shit at us?"

"No. You'll have enough to worry about in a moment," Orchid replied. "This is one of the areas that Rhyss set up the Cultivation Array's focus. It can set up multiple focal points, but he said it was best to keep them in protected locations. I imagine you'll see why in a moment."

"So what happens when we sit?" Claire asked. "Something displeasing, I take it? Probably means Alex will love it."

"Hey!" Alex protested. "I'm not a masochist!"

Both Orchid and Claire sent him a look.

"What?" Alex asked.

"Nothing," they said at the same time.

"Just make sure to take a deep breath before you settle in. It'll take a moment, so don't let your guard down," Orchid advised. "And stay on there for as long as possible. It's good for you. Really good. You'll see why once you start. If I say anything else, it'll probably ruin the experience. I'd hate to be the one to mess up your first."

Alex paused at that. Orchid had made a joke. He was pretty sure she didn't do those. But, by the time he'd registered what the woman had said, she'd already pulled the door open and taken a step outside.

"Where are you going?" Alex asked.

"To keep an eye on things from outside," Orchid said. "It's best if you aren't disturbed until you're done. And I imagine it shouldn't be too hard to guess, but if you need to stop, get off the seats."

Then she closed the door behind her.

Alex and Claire exchanged a glance.

"I suddenly feel a lot less motivated to do this," Alex said wryly. "It seems like the entire building is going to explode the moment we sit down."

"Only one way to find out." Claire shrugged and nodded to her pillow. "Want to sit down at the same time and see who has to stand up first?"

"You're on," Alex said with a grin.

The two of them dropped onto their cushions as one.

It felt… about how Alex would have expected sitting on a cushion would have felt like. It wasn't particularly comfortable but given the fact he was sitting on a bundle of straw and clothes, it wasn't the worst either.

Orchid's warning was the only thing that kept him from standing up and looking around in confusion to see if this was some kind of prank. She'd said that it would take a moment for—

An immense weight slammed into Alex's chest with such force that all the breath his lungs had stored up within them exploded out from his mouth in a startled wheeze. His eyes bulged as he found pressure bearing down from every single direction on every part of his body.

It wormed its way into him through his ears and tried to press on the walls of his throat to fill replace all the air that had been stolen from his lungs. Alex doubled over, his insides knotting so badly that it felt like his organs were about to split into pieces.

Shit! What is this?

The pressure wasn't a physical force. He could feel on some instinctive level that it was far greater than that. This force was purely magical. And, as it tried to wring him from the insides out, he realized there was only one way to keep himself from being turned into a pretzel.

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"Magic!" Claire said through a pained wheeze.

Alex was already on it. He drew on his power, letting it flow out from his core to flood through his entire body. A vein throbbed in his temple. He let out a groan. But his efforts weren't for naught.

As he drew deeper and grabbed onto his Qi, distributing that throughout himself as well, the pressure begun to relent. It wasn't by a significant amount, but even a small amount of leeway felt like a breath of air after drowning.

The pain toned down several notches, going from nearly intolerable to just agonizing. Every single breath felt like it was a battle — but he was still breathing. Alex clenched his teeth. His fingernails dug into his palms.

And that was it.

There was no sudden change. No revelation. Just pain and discomfort.

If this was a prank, it was a particularly disrespectful one.

But Alex didn't let himself give up that easily. Even if it had been a prank, he had a bet with Claire. There was no way he was going to stand up this quickly.

So he sat.

They sat.

And they waited, fighting back against the relentless pressure bearing down on them.

Seconds ticked by. They dragged on into minutes.

Alex's thoughts drifted. And then they faded. It was difficult to think about much at all when something was trying to beat down his skull. His mind went silent, aware of only his body and the pain.

There really wasn't much else to think about.

But in that silence came something unexpected.

A sense of peace. It wasn't quite comfortable. Nobody could have claimed that. But was focused. It was a deep connection to every single part of his body. An awareness of himself almost akin to what he would have assumed a monk in deep meditation might have been able to achieve.

The pain was like paint poured over the body of an invisible man. It dripped from his Mind Palace, illuminating every single part of it in excruciating detail. Traveled along his body, igniting the paths his veins took with burning discomfort before gathering in his heart.

And it was like a third eye had opened. Alex could feel the imperfections within his body. The System had strengthened it, but it hadn't fixed it. Even though he didn't have the faintest idea what each one of his individual muscles did, he could see the knots in them. The weaknesses that had been borne of his rather sedentary life and old injuries that had never fully healed. All the power the System had filled them with had glossed over those imperfections, the damage, with a golden veneer.

But the damage was still there, and it was everywhere. It was the history of a life, etched into his very being. Every single cut. Every single scrape and injury. His body remembered it. That wasn't even to start on his gut health and the state of his innards.

Holy crap. Maybe I really should have kept a better diet. Why does my body feel like a toxic wasteland? The nuggets were made with real chicken! At least, that's what the ad told me. I think they might have been lying.

As Alex pushed through the immense discomfort to examine the damage buried beneath the surface of his body, something shifted. A micro-tear in his shoulder that his mind had been lingering on suddenly started to… shift.

Pain welled in the area, burning like a searing brand. Alex let out a hiss of pain and clenched his teeth even tighter. What felt like worms squirmed beneath his flesh. The muscle trembled and twitched — and then the tear pulled together.

He couldn't even draw in a relieved breath. The pressure didn't relent in the slightest. There was no reprieve. But the damage had been reversed. There was no trace of the micro-tear. That part of his muscle was as good as new.

And, finally, even though he didn't have the slightest idea how it worked, Alex realized just what the Cultivation Array did.

It let him refine his body. All the power the System granted him as he advanced Mind Palace wasn't going to do anything to actually fix himself up. And that made more sense the more he thought about it.

The System didn't do things for people. It simply gave them power to do it themselves. His body had gotten stronger, but it was nowhere near where it needed to be. And, just as his Mind Palace had to be perfected, his flesh did too.

A grin split his lips in spite of the pain.

This is incredible. Without the Cultivation Array, I have no idea how I would have found this out or fixed it. Is this kind of like super-powered acupuncture, using the pressure to stab out the damage?

Man, I wish I studied something actually useful. It has to be such a huge advantage… but I can't say I don't like the challenge.

Alex turned his attention to the next tear in his muscles. There was quite a bit of damage he was going to have to get through before it had all been cleansed. More than he could ever possibly hope to do in one sitting.

How much powerful can this make me? I thought the changes to my body were already insane, but now I can see that I was basically driving around a beat up old Honda. Functional… but not exactly peak performance.

There's no way I'm going to settle for that when I can achieve so much more.

His ability to resist the Cultivation Array would only last as long as he still had magic to draw on, but his reserves were dwindling rapidly. Sitting around and doing nothing was the equivalent of throwing liquid gold away.

Alex's grin grew wider as he drove his senses deep into himself. Claire was definitely doing the same, and he'd be damned if he lost their race without putting up every bit of a fight that he could muster.

Let's see just how much I can accomplish before I give in.