Levi lashed out, slamming his open palm against the cold stone. His voice echoed back at him in the empty space, mocking him with its hollowness.
This failure made it the thirty-seventh. Thirty-seven times in a row, he had tried to establish a single channel. Thirty-seven times, the same collapse.
He had known it would be difficult. The novel hadn’t painted cultivation as something easy, and he had braced himself for the grind. But this— this was borderline torture.
Each attempt felt promising in the beginning. The filament would stretch, creep into his veins, anchor at his navel, and for a heartbeat he’d think—
And then, inevitably, it would buckle, disintegrating before he could so much as feed the node a sip of power.
The worst part wasn’t even the collapse— it was the sensation left behind.
It felt like tearing through soft bread, only for his teeth to suddenly smash into stone. The abrupt shock of it rattled through his body every single time, leaving his veins buzzing, his chest tight, and his patience frayed.
They was no pain, not exactly— but the jarring amount of failure made him want to claw at his own skin and tear the node out his body.
Levi dragged in a sharp breath, fingers curling against his knees. Mind still recoiling from the thirty-seven failures.
His jaw clenched. "How many more before it sticks... fifty? A hundred?"
He hated how his voice cracked on the last word..
But then he suddenly remembered something and then burst out laughing. In the novel the protagonist failed to establish a channel twenty six times in a row and started to contemplate suicide.
Levi leaned his head back against the wall, laughter fading into quiet chuckles that scraped at his throat.
"I miss Seralith". He muttered, almost wistfully. The OG protagonist— now that guy was cool. Maybe too cool.
Seralith had been the kind of character you couldn’t hate even if you tried. He carried life like it was a passing storm, always with some wry quip or lighthearted shrug.
Chill to the bone. Except when it came to cultivation failures— then he cracked, turned dramatic, acted like the universe had betrayed him. Twenty-six times was all it took for him to start weighing suicide as an option.
Levi huffed through his nose. "Twenty-six, huh? Guess I’ve already left him in the dust."
The smile tugging at his lips felt fragile, bitter-sweet. He rubbed his palms over his face, dragging the exhaustion out of his skin. "Guess I’ll just have to keep going. Thirty-eight’s waiting."
Levi exhaled, steadying his trembling hands. "Thirty-eight. Let’s go."
In the endless void of his soul canvas, the amethyst star pulsed faintly, like it had been waiting for him. He narrowed his focus, drawing his mind into its glow.
A vein of light stirred, thin and delicate as silk thread. It drifted outward from the star, wavering, almost hesitant. Levi held his breath, guiding it with thought alone. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲·𝗻𝗲𝘁
’Steady... elongate first’.
The filament stretched, piercing through the thin veil of nothingness, then slid down into the black. For a brief, dizzying instant, he could feel it slip into his physical body— like a second pulse threading itself between his veins.
Then, as though drawn by instinct, the light curved toward his navel. Like a compass needle pulled by a magnet.
Moving through, around, over, under veins. Getting closer... closer... until at last it brushed against something cold. Hollow.
The node at his navel.
It was emptier than he had imagined, like an abandoned chamber of ice buried inside his body. For a second, Levi’s excitement almost overrode his discipline. His heart hammered, but he forced himself to stay calm.
’Connection made. Good. Now... draw’.
He shifted his attention back to the star, nudging the energy as politely as one would ask a stranger to move aside.
And to no one’s surprise— it listened.
The energy trickled downward, seeping into the fragile channel. It didn’t collapse immediately. His breath hitched. It’s working.
The thread slipped across the boundary, moving from the star in his canvas into his body.
Then everything went wrong.
The instant the energy crossed that threshold, the flow surged. As if a dam had cracked. What had been a trickle turned into a river, rushing headlong into the newborn channel.
Levi’s teeth clenched. He had expected this. He slammed down with his will, forcing the torrent to slow.
But he overdid it. The sudden choke was too abrupt.
The wild energy slammed into the bottleneck like a flood crashing against a narrowing gorge. The channel swelled, trembling violently— then burst apart with a snap.
Levi gasped, doubling over, clutching his stomach. The jarring sensation tore through him again, veins buzzing, chest tight, his whole body ringing like struck iron.
Another collapse. Another failure.
He pressed a fist against his mouth, riding the aftershock, eyes squeezed shut. "Thirty-eight...". His voice cracked into a bitter laugh. "Guess the universe isn’t done playing with me yet."
C) **** you author, you can’t tell me what to do