They traveled farther west past the mushroom forest, pushing deeper into the Cauldron's realm. Though he had no true measure of distance, Rix judged that they had crossed into the next ring of their dive site where the fades would all be Mid Spark or above, and were possibly even closing in on the next border. Breaker assured them he would keep them safe with his aura, just as he had at their previous site, and as far as Rix could tell, that was true. They didn't encounter any fades along their path.

The farther they went, the more the landscape degraded. The giant fungi gave way to jagged, crystalline structures that looked like shattered teeth jutting from the earth, and the air grew thick and tasted strangely metallic.

Breaker led them to a ridge overlooking a depression in the land. It wasn't a crater, exactly; it looked more like the ground had simply sagged under an immense weight.

"This is it," Breaker said. "An entropy field. This is where you will learn to drown." His voice sounded tinny here, or perhaps the hum was simply louder. Rix had grown so used to that unsettling drone that he rarely thought about it anymore, but it was an ever-present part of the realm's environment.

He could feel the entropy field even now. It wasn't the sharp prickle he was used to from the smaller fields. It was a deep, resonating thrum that vibrated his teeth.

Luna had been quiet on the walk, but she spoke up now. "I went into one of these on my first day in the realm and nearly passed out. Not sure how that's going to help us."

Breaker nodded towards Rix. "Your friend may have some idea."

"I assume you haven't been in one since you started cultivating," Rix said, addressing Luna. "They interact with qi somehow, make the dantian fill faster, though I don't know why."

Both of them looked to Breaker, who nodded. "Entropy and qi have a somewhat symbiotic relationship. Even I don't understand the fullness of it, but there are some things I can tell you." He gestured to two flat slabs of crystal nearby. "First, let us sit."

Rix hesitated. There was already a dim ache forming at the back of his skull. Apparently even the outskirts of an entropy field could cause pain if you lingered.

Luna's discomfort was also painted on her face. Breaker looked between them and scoffed. "You will be subject to far worse than this over the next few months. If you cannot tolerate even this small hardship then our efforts are doomed to fail."

Grimacing, Rix took a seat where Breaker had indicated. He took some small solace in the fact that the pain didn't seem to be getting much worse, but it was just sharp enough to be distracting.

"First, some context," said Breaker, who looked completely unaffected by the entropy. "At the start of our training, I told you that qi was all around us. This is true, however, there is more nuance to the situation than that. Different areas can have different concentrations of qi. While most of the universe is saturated at a base level, there are small pockets where the concentration increases dramatically. My guess is that you have not encountered such places on your home world, as they are not typically present on System planets, but they do exist elsewhere."

"Why is that the case?" asked Rix. "If we have qi, why doesn't it obey the same rules as everywhere else?"

Breaker looked mildly annoyed at the interruption. He hesitated. "That is complicated. For now, suffice it to say that worlds with few cultivators develop differently."

It was an unsatisfying answer, but Rix had learned by now sometimes that was all they'd receive.

"These areas have many names across the universe," Breaker continued. "Leylines, stellar convergences, blessed lands. On First Light we call them sacred sites. Whatever name you prefer, they are much prized by cultivators. More wars than you can count have been fought for control of such areas, as they can be the difference between a clan rising to power or vanishing into obscurity."

"What do they do?" asked Luna.

Breaker gave her an indulgent smile. "Simply put, they accelerate qi absorption. The more concentrated the qi around you is, the more effective any gathering technique will be. To return to our drinking analogy, think of the difference between sipping through a straw and putting your mouth directly to a flowing river. With the Breath Bridge, this makes little practical difference. You'll fill your dantian faster, but as the growth method is simply plugging your meridians, it won't actually have any impact on how quickly you increase your capacity. But with more advanced techniques based on cycling and motion, the inflow of qi makes a significant difference. Clans that control sacred sites see dramatic increases in the qi capacity of their acolytes, assuming they have the techniques to take advantage of them."

"So entropy fields are sacred sites?" asked Rix.

"No, but they mimic them." Breaker gestured down to the depression in the earth. "The qi in that space is no more concentrated than anywhere else in the realm, but it is more mobile. Entropy is constantly in motion in its attempt to make all things one. While it cannot change qi's fundamental nature the way it does the rest of the landscape here, it does agitate it, which happens to also do a reasonable job imitating a sacred site. It's not perfect, but for our purposes it is better than nothing."

"Where do we start?" Rix asked, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. The entropy pain had begun to spread now, radiating down his back.

"Like all good techniques, we begin with a visualization," Breaker said, glancing briefly at Luna. To her credit, she didn't react at all, which drew another smile from the man. "But first, you must unlearn a limitation of the Breath Bridge. The Bridge is a tool of invitation. It asks the qi to enter, drawing it across a span. That is no longer enough for us. We do not want to invite the qi. We want to make its entry inevitable.

"In the Breath Bridge, you reach out," he continued. "Here, you will reach in. You must create a sense of gravity."

Rix frowned. "Gravity?"

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"Think of a whirlpool," Breaker said. "When water spins fast enough, the center becomes hollow. It creates a vacuum. The water outside rushes in not because it is forced, but because nature abhors the empty space. It must fill it."

He gestured to Rix's chest. "You must spin your own qi. You must cycle it through your meridians with such ferocity that it creates a spiritual gravity. You will not pull the ambient qi in, Zao Rixian. You will create a space where the qi has no choice but to fall."

"And that's safe?" Luna asked.

"It is efficient," Breaker said, sidestepping the question. "This is the first part of the Torrential Cycle. Once you've mastered the vortex, the goal is to ramp up the speed further still. It will seem daunting, but the entropy field will help, and ultimately, this is where the growth comes from. It is expansion through force. As the qi spins, centrifugal force will push it outward against the walls of your meridians and your dantian. It will stretch you. It will be agonizing. But you will make space."

"Okay," Rix said, taking a breath. "Walk me through it."

"Visualize your meridians," Breaker instructed. "Not as a network of streams, but as a single, closed channel. Dantian, up the spine, over the shoulders, down the arms, and crashing back into the core. It is a loop."

Breaker glanced at Luna. "Kai Luna, you can attempt this first part. I believe you should have all the requisite meridians at this point." Luna was getting close to finishing burning in her second spiritual network, which meant she would soon be ready to begin attempting to open gates of her own.

Together, the two of them closed their eyes. Rix found the familiar hum of his qi sitting in his dantian.

"Begin the cycle," Breaker said. "Start slowly and use just a fraction of your qi. Don't visualize anything yet. For now, we're just getting a feel for it."

Rix did as he was told, taking his time. It was an odd sensation. While he was no stranger to cycling at this point, all he'd really done was learn one specific pattern extremely well. This was something new. Some of these meridians he'd barely used before.

After one loop, he felt nothing.

"Again," Breaker said.

He continued. Up the spine, across the shoulders, down the arms, and back into the core, over and over. It felt clumsy, but that had been true when he began the Mountain Gate cycle too. It almost felt like learning a dance. He knew he was capable of moving in this way, but he'd never done it before.

He continued that pattern for several minutes until Breaker called for a halt. "Now that you have a sense of it, we can add visualization. Kai Luna, I will ask you to drop off at this point. You can continue practicing the cycle while we progress."

"Will do," she said.

Breaker addressed Rix once more. "Picture a raging whirlpool. I want you to visualize that vortex spinning in the center of your dantian. Tight. Controlled. A perfect spiral."

Rix had never witnessed such a phenomenon in person before, but he'd seen drawings in books. He built the image in his head, picturing a mass of water spiraling at the center of his spiritual network. His experience with visualization meant it came much more easily than the bridge had the first time.

"Now," Breaker continued, "begin the cycle again. You must hold the image while gradually escalating the speed of your qi flow."

This proved much more challenging. Rix tried to match the pace of his qi to the image, but the two felt disconnected, and everything fell apart almost immediately.

"I don't think I quite get it," he said. "If this were a real whirlpool, I can't see how moving qi up my body would cause it to spin since the dantian isn't at the centre."

Breaker compressed his lips. "A reasonable observation. The key thing to remember is visualization is a tool, rather than something literal. Much like the Breath Bridge was a metaphor for opening a path between yourself and the outside world, the whirlpool is a metaphor for circular motion. If it helps, you can broaden the image of the vortex to encompass the entire circuit within your network. Just know that once you've got the hang of it, you'll eventually need to shrink it back down for the next phase."

Rix nodded. That concept made more sense to him. A whirlpool laid atop the entire cycle.

The next time, he managed two full rotations before his concentration slipped. The vortex collapsed into a shapeless pool, and the qi stalled in his shoulder.

Rix grunted, frustration spiking. It was like trying to juggle water.

He was on the verge of saying something, but Breaker raised an eyebrow, which was all it took to get the message across. Once again, Rix was expecting too much of himself.

He reset. Vortex. Spiral. Flow.

He got three rotations this time. Then four. He could feel a rhythm building, a faint centrifugal pull at the edges of his awareness.

"Good," Breaker murmured. "Now, accelerate. You do not create gravity with a mere current. Your flow must be as the rushing river."

Rix focused on the sensation of the spin. Speed had never been a factor in the Mountain Gate cycle, so he'd always maintained a consistent pace. It took some experimentation to even work out how to control that. Eventually, he found he could apply a sort of pressure, almost like a mental shove. It made the pain in the back of his skull spike and sweat bead on his brow, but gradually, the qi began to move faster.

After the first few loops, he found that if he let each cycle flow directly into the next, that helped, as though his qi were simply one big wave rolling indefinitely through his network, steadily picking up speed.

Five rotations. Ten. The hum of the entropy field seemed to recede slightly, drowned out by the rising whine of his own internal power.

"Do you feel it?" asked Breaker. "A vacuum forming at the center of yourself?"

Rix didn't trust himself to speak, but he gave the barest of nods. It was there. A tiny flicker. A sense of force that tugged ever so slightly at the outside world.

"That is the gravity," Breaker said, his voice low and intense. "You are close. Sharpen the image, maintain the loop, and qi will come. But you must prepare yourself. This technique is far more effective than the Breath Bridge. And though we only stand at the outskirts of the entropy field, it, too, will have an impact. When your focus breaks — and it will — you must be ready. You cannot let the qi run wild through your system. You must guide it back to a standstill. This is where the danger of the technique lies."

Rix didn't make any further acknowledgments. He barely heard the words. It was all he could do to hold his current cycle as his qi galloped through his meridians like a racehorse, far faster and more intense than ever before. To drop it now would be to lose all the momentum he'd built up.

After two more loops, it happened.

The nagging pull became something more, something insistent, and qi roared into his dantian. It felt like opening a window during a storm. Where the Breath Bridge had created a gentle trickle, this was a torrent.

As Breaker had warned, it was too much. The sudden influx broke his rhythm, shattering his concentration. The vortex collapsed. The qi inside him bucked, slamming against his meridian walls with a force that made him cry out. He doubled over, clutching his chest as his spirit roiled.

"Stabilize!" Breaker barked. "You must slow it down."

Rix gritted his teeth, fighting through the nausea. He grabbed the chaotic mess of energy, attempting to force it back under his control. It fought him — heavy, sluggish, and angry — but he wrestled it into submission. One rotation. Two. He eased the pressure, guiding the flow back down to a moderate pace before letting it stop entirely.

He slumped back against the ground, panting. "That… was unpleasant."

"You lost the rhythm," Breaker said, not unkindly. "It happens to everyone at first. The important thing is that you controlled the deceleration."

Luna was looking at Rix with concern. "You all good?"

He nodded once, then again more firmly. "Compared to the box, this was a walk through the gardens."

Breaker looked at him appraisingly. "Rest for a moment. Let your channels cool. Then we try again."

Rix nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. It had been difficult, but nonetheless, he felt optimistic. After the challenges he'd already faced, something like this couldn't break him.

He closed his eyes. Vortex. Spiral. Flow.

He went again.

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