He woke up at five and his forearm told him about it immediately.
Not severe. Just the specific morning-after tightness of a cut that had closed overnight and was now expressing its opinions about existing. He checked it. Doran's compound had done good work, the edge sealed clean, no inflammation, just the bruised-looking line of a shallow wound that would be invisible in a week.
He sat up and ran cultivation for forty minutes.
Stage One was at fourteen percent and he needed it moving faster. The twelve element roadmap he'd decoded from the diagram gave him a clearer picture of what each percentage band actually represented and he'd been working through element three, active circulation under static conditions, for three days.
Time to push into element four.
Stability under movement.
He stood up. Started walking around the room. Kept the cultivation thread active. Immediately lost it on the third step.
Found it again. Walked. Lost it on the sixth step.
