I quickly owned up to the fact that I was not secretly a Buddhist monk gifted with the path of enlightenment. Hell, I was the kind of guy to take a yoga class to stare at asses and play ‘panty or no panty?’ for all the girls in the class. I was always kind and respectful, though. That counts, right? Regardless of previous failings, I was stuck with my current one. How precisely in the fuck do you cultivate? Mord told me it was cycling my gained potential through my loci, and I kinda had the dharmic vision when he talked about it. So I had a starting point and a destination but now how to move A to B?

  What felt like four hours later, I was still stumped. I sat there for that long, and I couldn’t even get the weird vision to come back. I would like to think I had patience, but not that much. I thought about going for another bout with young Mord, but I was not certain I wouldn't just end up back in the cave and, you know, fuck those stairs right now and forever. Regardless, I needed to get up and move. The room wasn’t huge by any means, but I paced around it for a bit. The pacing became a light jog. The jog? It became a door to fuck off door sprint. I had boundless energy in this room. It must have been providing it directly. After twenty straight minutes of running, sprinting really, I was barely winded. I rolled my shoulders and started doing pushups.

  It was somewhere around pushup two hundred that I had my epiphany. As I got into the rhythm of the up and down, I closed my eyes and focused just on the motion and my breathing. Just the simple mechanics of it. I felt the warmth of my muscles moving and even started to get a feel for my blood flowing. I could feel it hit my lungs and even feel the relief as the air exchanged before each exhale. That’s when I started to feel another warmth. I started to fall back into the chakra vision I had had with Mord. I could feel one of those points glowing and growing stronger. It started pulsing in time with my push-ups. The more I focused on it, the more I felt it. I could feel it; the best I could describe is pulling, pulling on something. After another ten or so reps, I could feel it start to hurt. It was like trying to breathe with a hand over your mouth. It needed air, but the problem was that I had none. Or did I? I pushed harder and faster, making it want more. The harder I pushed, the harder it pulled. It pulled and I pushed until something broke.

  That warm hot tub feeling that I had before felt like a zip popping, and all that warmth rushed out and hit the loci like a freight train. The sense of relief was intense; it washed over me like a hot shower after a walk in frozen tundra. I felt every part of my body come alive, every muscle rippled with strength, and I felt like I could bench press a house. As I finally got control of the hot tub source and cut it off, I collapsed to the ground, muscles spent. It was fucking nap time.

  I woke sometime later, but I felt way different. I went to get up and was caught by a strange dis-symmetry. I felt like I stood in an instant but also like it took a very long time. It was like my motions were fast, but my ability to see and think was even faster. It was experiment time.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I walked back over to the coin bag and fished out a fancy gold coin. I gave it a good flip and was amazed that it flipped normally. Did I say amazed? I meant unimpressed. That was until I went to catch it. As soon as I had the desire to catch it, it was in my hand, but I had watched it as time basically slowed down for me to catch it.

  Several tries later, I realized that I was much faster, but I could still function in normal time. This gave me a sense of slowed time, where I moved at the same speed but everything else slowed down. I took the opportunity to gently toss the coin across the room and catch it.

  I may have gone and had a little fun running and playing catch with myself. I even tried to juggle. I could catch the coins all right, but it all felt out of synch as I couldn't follow them as fast as I could move my hand to them.

  I was pretty certain I had just aspected one of my stats. Given that I couldn't actually bench a house but could stop time, I was betting it was my speed loci. If I was right, I had unlocked my ability to cultivate. I could feel the point that everything had flowed through. It was glowing brighter than the rest. I could see them all now. I could feel them all now. The one I had just used being Speed, just felt right. I was certain that if I focused on any of them, I could identify which they were. I felt down into the hot tub, and it was noticeably lower but far from empty. At this point, I felt I could just pull the water up and through any of the loci as I pleased. Before I would do that, I had to be certain. Time to see if my interface power worked as I hoped.

  I focused on the gray haze at the bottom of my vision and, this time, kept the ideas of aspects and loci in my mind. I was greeted by a message

  First Loci aspected. The loci of Speed has gained the Rune aspect. You have gained two powers. Focus more potential through this loci to enhance your speed attributes, strengthen your powers, and gain new ones.

  Ability gained!

  Rune Magic- Allows for the use of Runes. Runes can be used to create individual or linked spells and spell-like effects.

  Ability gained!

  Inscribe Rune- allows for the inscribing of Runes on objects.

  I was a fucking spell caster. I wanted to do a backflip but quickly tempered myself with some horrifying knowledge. It was a horror of three parts. First was Mord’s concept of forcing. I could not be certain that the hot tub wasn't full of Runic EXP and that in doing the push-up and sprint method, I hadn't focused on primary stat loci, and if speed was my primary stat, how were runes my greatest affinity? Second, I had no idea how to highlight some of the obscure stats like spirit. And finally, third, what the fuck were runes?

  I mean, I kinda knew of runes like the tribal tats that some white guys used to pass themselves off as some sort of alpha-male Vikings or some shit but beyond random symbols and archaic language, I had no ideas. Was the At symbol a rune? I giggled as I envisioned myself writing in emojis and leet speek on a rock and it is becoming a super weapon or something.

  I resigned breath, brought me back to reality and not knowing what I didn't know. I rolled my neck and shoulders and decided I needed to see if I could get another round with either of the Mords before I tried anything else. As I walked towards the door to exit the recovery room, I smiled. For the first time, reality hit me. I had superpowers. Fuck yeah.