Hector followed the stream down to where it pooled in a deep subterranean pond. He was knee deep in sluggishly moving water before he located a dry ledge he could climb onto. The fact that he'd identified the ledge with his touch sense almost made up for his annoyance at the water.

He'd always heard the claim that when someone lost sight their other senses became stronger. That sounded true enough that he never thought to doubt it. Experiencing the phenomenon himself, he realized that the sense didn't grow stronger – the focus shifted. After only a few hours without light, Hector could hardly tell if his eyes were open or shut. His mind hardly paid attention to the lack of visual stimulus anymore. He fixated on everything else instead.

Any sound instantly drew his awareness. It was the same for his nascent touch sense. The feedback he sensed wasn't any better than that morning, but Hector certainly paid attention to what he perceived. Maybe there would be a silver lining to this underground sojourn. If he could hone his senses a little that would be helpful in the combat situations he found himself facing more often.

Over the next several hours, Hector picked his way through a series of caverns. Some were wet, some were floored with dirt, some had sharp stone that would cut unenhanced feet to shreds. All, of course, were pitch black.

It took a long time for him to find his way forward. Fortunately, the path was not a maze. At every point there was a single option for him to progress. It was just too dark to see. He spent a lot of time walking with his hands out like he was doing a pantomime of blindness. Occasionally his touch sense gave him a clear indication.

He stopped for another sandwich, drank a little from his canteen, and took a cultivation break.

Then it was onward once more. Though his mental sense was even worse than the touch sense of his domain, Hector began using both together. The result was a lot of confusion. At least at first. His mind aperture was not very responsive to outside stimulus, he'd long since determined. Maybe it had to do with his personality – he was, after all, an extremely stubborn individual. Or maybe his soul was simply built to be inflexible and difficult to influence by external means. Either way, he got very little detail back with his mind and a lot of imprecise detail from his domain. Reconciling the combination gave him headaches.

Hector ate another sandwich and took a nap when he was in a dry cave.

When he woke next, his freshly rested mind didn't struggle quite so much with his sensory input. He was able to keep his touch sense broad, feeling the entirety of his surroundings in a sphere, and shine his mental sense in particular directions like a virtual flashlight. It took a lot of effort to focus the two senses in such divergent manners, but as he adapted the benefits grew clear.

Mostly those benefits were in regards to his touch sense. Being able to occasionally verify or disprove a hunch with a different sense helped him calibrate. Using his hands and feet as navigational aids had done the same thing in a far less efficient fashion. Now that he'd switched his method, the feedback loop grew tighter and he began to make real progress.

Hector finished his sandwiches, emptied his canteen, did a marathon cultivation session, and then slept once more. When he woke, he took a few moments to ponder his best move. He had sufficient energy reserves to leave this cave by transit sphere. Which was great, because the dark wore on him constantly. He was blind, wet, and cold.

But… almost against his will, he was practicing with his senses. Hector knew he possessed a work ethic that bordered on the obsessive. The problem with his mentality was that the incredible discipline only applied to goals he found worthy. He could devote himself to just about anything, so long as he saw value in his efforts.

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He knew his senses were lagging behind his other aspects. Yet every time he considered doing something about that, he discounted the benefits because he knew his talent to be inferior. He always chose to work on something else that had a better return on investment for the time spent.

Right now he was honing his touch sense at a rapid pace. A big part of that was the fact that he had to use it constantly to navigate. Probably that was even the main part. But another factor was that the darkness focused his attention so effectively. Hector believed no other experience would push him forward in this skill to the same degree.

So he chose to continue his trip through the caverns. More, having fully committed to the trip as a training exercise, Hector stopped using his hands for feedback. He shoved them into the singular pocket at the front of his trousers to make sure he wouldn't reach out by reflex. He also decided to move faster, which forced him to be quicker at discerning obstacles.

There were a couple of falls. A lot of mental fatigue. But in the end he did it.

Hector napped and woke one final time. Then he followed the path, slowly realizing that what had been impossible not long past now felt easy. His sense lacked precision still, it was true. He might never develop that. But he could reliably use his extended touch sense well enough to navigate without using his eyes.

He discovered a light source and followed it to an exit far too small for a human body. Fortunately his touch sense soon revealed an alternative path to freedom. Hector squeezed through a tight seam and then climbed down to emerge into late evening. The twilight seemed brilliant to his dark-adapted eyes. He was a quarter of the way up a mountain.

Hector settled in for the night, climbing partially back into what had been his home the past few days so that he would have cover and concealment from anyone who might be in the area. When morning arrived, he studied the path down to the forest floor. It was a sheer cliff face that induced a touch of vertigo before his brain remembered that he could fly.

Before that, though, he studied the horizon. A nearby mountain had a peculiarly shaped foothill separated from it by a long ravine. A haze that must be smoke could be seen above that ravine. It appeared that he had found Toll Burgh. A city where the burgermeister could ensure peace. At least according to a random Stein citizen.

He hadn't eaten for a while, so Toll Burgh looked like a good destination. Hector dropped feet first and used bursts from his domain to arrest his fall enough that he landed hard and not disastrously. Then he began walking and cultivating. Once he reached the city, he would need to conceal the unnatural speed he gathered energy.

It was several hours into his walk that he began to wonder about what he assumed to be a fundamental fact. Did he need to conceal his insight in Stein? Everyone assumed they knew everything meaningful about him the moment they heard him speak – and sometimes they decided that just based on his appearance. Speaking the Amarat language – English – in the nation of Stein marked him as Amaratti.

If he displayed unusual abilities, why would they think that oddness meant he wasn't from Tian? Wouldn't his foreign status already provide sufficient explanation for any oddity? Insights were rare among every type of human, but especially so among the Xian. Hector couldn't even begin to speculate about why that might be. He did know that they were at least better than the Jinn in that regard – Jinn didn't gain insights at all; they built deep understandings by accumulating knowledge.

Hector jogged across the landscape as he pondered these thoughts. He periodically checked the skyline to ensure no one wearing a blue robe was swooping down to attack him. The rolling hills passed by as the sun rose high above. At the crest of each rise, he'd verify he was on course to reach his chosen destination. All the while, he pulled cosmic energy from chaos.

It was mid-afternoon when he reached Toll Burgh. He almost decided to flee immediately.

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