Breakthrough

"Oh shoot, I forgot to talk to Jeremy about the accountant," Michael mumbled in realization as he sat down on his bed. "Can you make a task for it for tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'll put it on your to-do list," the System replied jokingly in her lilting voice.

Michael smiled and closed his eyes to begin his breathing practice. While he still wasn't wholly sold, something about both the emphasis the System was placing on it as well as that odd spinning sensation that he had been experiencing recently made him want to redouble his efforts.

After a brief period of time, he was able to clear his mind and get back into the regular pattern. Soon, that feeling of someone pressing down on the plunger of a top was present once more, and with ever inhalation it felt like someone was pressing down, and a very faint whirling sensation could be felt from a spot deep in his core. The shock of it almost brought him out of his cycle, when the System's voice interjected sharply.

"Stay focused! Don't lose the rhythm."

Understanding that something special was happening right now, Michael redoubled his focus and maintained the breathing cycle. The pressure and whirling sensation inside continued to build, gradually joined by a roaring sound like crashing waves erupting in his ears. An external observer would notice that Michael had begun sweating heavily, and his skin was turning a deep red, like a bad sunburn, or someone who was exerting themselves heavily.

Not long after the roaring sound had become almost unbearable, a sound akin to breaking glass could be heard, and Michael swiftly felt his perception shift and pulled, like someone on an amusement park ride, as he found himself staring at a large empty space. Faintly glimmering at the center of this large black void was a speck of blue light.

"What is this place?", Michael mumbled, bewildered

"Congratulations. This is your inner core, or at least your perception of it," the System said, a smug, satisfied tone coating her words.

"My what?"

"Your inner core. I'm not sure exactly what it felt like to you, but the fact that you can perceive this place means that you've taken the first step on <!@$#%#>," the System explained, ending in a phrase that was completely unintelligible to Michael.

"What was that last thing? It sounded like gobbledygook," Michael asked.

"Interesting. That word's a no-go, huh? I guess that makes sense. You can think of it meaning something like cultivation, like tending painstakingly to a garden and watching it grow. I guess that's a reasonable enough way to translate it.

That little blue dot is the very beginnings of your own assimilated energy. The fabric of reality is comprised of various particles - some of this is known to you already, like the rough approximation of the building blocks of matter. I'm sure as you get better at physics you'll understand more of that, but there are some parts that aren't usually covered.

Think of it this way: Imagine someone is smoking a pipe - the tobacco smoke enters their mouth, and then they might exhale it. In that instance, most of what is inhaled is immediately exhaled, and not much is retained. Sure, there will be some particulates that stay inside the body, but not much.

On the other hand, when you take a deep breath while running, you inhale a number of gases, primarily nitrogen, with some oxygen and a tiny amount of carbon dioxide. When you exhale, it's still mostly nitrogen, with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide.

So most of what we inhale is ultimately exhaled. Only a small portion is actually used by the body. Imagine that there were more particles in there, smaller or harder to detect than these gases. Usually, these are also simply exhaled, just like most of it. However, there are ways of breathing that allow someone to try to trap and assimilate those particles - specific cycles and patterns one can use to force those particles to separate and gather. Think of it almost like how a centrifuge can separate particles from a solution.

What we've just done is used a specific cycle in order to gather just enough of one of these types of particles and settle it into a space inside your body. It's a bit more complicated than that, but we'll leave it at that for now. Also, now that you know what these particles 'look' or feel like, it will be easier to gather them in the future."

Michael sat silently while he tried to absorb this information. "Is this supposed to make me stronger?"

"Well, not right now, but eventually. For now, we just need to keep breathing and gathering these particles in this space. Once we've hit a certain critical mass, we'll be able to do something with them. Just being able to sense them, and this space, is already the first step along the path."

"The...cultivation path?"

"Exactly."

Michael fought back the urge to ask more questions, as well as the combination of excitement and frustration, and continued his breathing. He noticed that now that he'd unlocked this perception, he could feel an incredibly faint presence of those particles when he inhaled, and was able to trace the particle's trajectory as it followed a spinning path deep into his core to join the rest. Each breath only added the tiniest fraction to the building amount in his inner space, like a snowflake on top of a snowball. By the end of his two hours of breathing, Michael could barely tell the difference. He refused to get discouraged, though, and lay down to switch to the next part of his evening.

However, when Michael 'opened' his eyes, instead of his Lucid Space, he found himself in what appeared to be an office inside a skyscraper, at night. Standing at the wall-length, floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at an unfamiliar cityscape, was a figure Michael was quickly becoming familiar with.

His benefactor, and ostensibly his future self, languidly turned around to face Michael, with a half-smile on his face.

"Hey, kid. Long time no see."