The training was held in a pressurized chamber five hundred meters below the Earth's crust. Hobs handed Carson a rusted iron rod—a Tier-1 training saber.
"The Nine Realms of Ascension are not just levels, Carson. They are layers of reality," Hobs lectured. "You are currently a Level 0. To reach the Transcendent Bridge, you must first climb the nine rungs of the Mortal Foundation."
For the first year, Carson didn't swing the blade. He sat in the dark, breathing according to his mother's alchemical charts. He learned to feel the "Saber-Chi" in the air—the sharp, kinetic energy of metal.
In the second year, he began to compress that Chi.
"Form one strand of Saber-Qi," Hobs commanded. "If you fail, the pressure in this room will crush your lungs."
Carson's blood boiled and his skin peeled under the atmospheric pressure of the chamber. On the 90th day of the second year, a faint, violet hum vibrated through the iron rod. A single, hair-thin thread of energy coiled around the rusted metal.
One strand.
Carson had breached the first gate. He had moved from Saber-Chi to Saber-Qi. He didn't stop. He pushed his body until his muscles tore and his bones cracked, using Hobs' alchemical pills to heal and regrow even stronger.
By the third year, he had five strands. By the fourth, he was venturing into "Historical Sites"—ancient, gravity-locked caves hidden beneath the Himalayas—to find the Heart-Stones required to push his cultivation into the higher realms.