He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it out. Started cross-referencing what he knew about Stage One from the book with the number of distinct elements the book actually covered. Mana current identification. Active circulation. Pathway familiarization. Stability under movement. Stability under combat pressure. Integration with existing skills.
He counted.
Eleven. Possibly twelve if you split the combat pressure section into static and dynamic components.
He looked at the diagram.
He looked at his count.
Twelve elements. Outer ring. Stage One.
"You absolute old bastard," he said, quietly, with something that was almost affection underneath the exasperation.
The diagram wasn't a formation. It was a roadmap. Whoever had left this room two hundred years ago had mapped out the full cultivation path for a Sovereign Core user, compressed into a single geometric diagram, hiding in plain sight as something it wasn't.
He spent an hour cross-referencing until his eyes hurt.
