That evening Koji sat in his dads study room with his mom and dad, today was the day he was going to breakthrough and become a Transcendent.
"Okay Koji, here is your Relic. Remember, only let out small traces of it into your soul over time. If you do too much not only will you experience extreme amounts of pain, but you may even die."
Ivan said with a serious tone to Koji, he had to make sure that his son knew how dangerous this was.
Koji nodded as his dad said that, then he looked down at the Relic in his hands.
It was a crude, dark grey ball that was made out of rustic wood. But within it was a glowing, light blue orb.
'This may be the hardest thing I've ever done, but really it is essential. How could I achieve my dreams with mere 60% talent? This is non-negotiable!'
He then start the process.
He closed his eyes, his eyelashes coming together, his vision dimming and eventually fully dissipating into nothing but darkness.
He tried to picture his own soul, his own Xin core.
He focused fully in on the darkness and slowly a light started to form, at first it was subtle but then it grew and grew until finally he could envision the full, glowing white orb in front of him.
He then clenched the Relic with his hands, this was going to be the hardest part.
Slowly he imagined absorbing the Relic inside of himself.
It was like a pond, but then a river was carved out and now all the water was flowing into it.
But an intense pain assaulted his head; this was a reason it was hard too, because of the pain.
He couldn't grit his teeth or anything; the process would fail if he moved a muscle.
The Relic slowly rose up into the air, and the blue light from the relic grew brighter and brighter. Finally, a light shot out at Koji's head and the Relic started to become smaller, it would do this until fully being absorbed into him.
He felt a great pressure on his head, but he had to resist it, for if he gave up and moved under the pressure or absorb too much of the Relic at once, he may die.
But this was the part where he was going to risk it.
Instead of letting 1% of the Relic into him every three seconds, he would do 2%!
Instantly, as he focused on absorbing it faster the pain increased greatly!
It felt as if his whole body was put on a crushing machine, the pain was extremely severe!
'Come on, if this gets worse I'm giving up! I don't care!'
He was someone who did everything he could to avoid pain, but now he had to bring it on himself.
The pain increased, his Xin core was shaking. If he messed up for even a second it would explode and he would die!
Although he said he would give up, he just wasn't. It was getting close to 10%, the point of no return. But he couldn't force himself to give up, it was as if his whole soul was telling him to keep going.
4%, 6%, 8%...
10%!
He had to keep this up all the way to 100%.
The pain did not waver, it did not dissipate; it only grew stronger as time went on. Koji just wanted to give up, but since he was past 10% now, he would die if he did! There was no going back.
This was not the only issue.
Ivan and Mei both noticed what he was doing, but worst of all they couldn't do a thing about it. If they disrupted him as he was doing this, he would die. If they made noise and distracted him, he would die; they could only stay silent and watch.
While normally one would only risk death after absorbing 90%, through this method one would die if they wavered after absorbing 10%!
But why was this? Well, when you are absorbing the Relic at a slow and steady pace the Xin Core has more time to adapt, so although it is still going to break eventually the pressure is greatly reduced on it and it has less chance of breaking beyond the potential. But when you absorb too much, the pressure intensifies greatly. But of course, Koji wants it to break beyond it's potential. But how is this safe at all? Well, it is basically brute forcing it into becoming desperate and adapting. So it stabilizes even though originally it could only be opened 60%.
Picture the Xin as a desperate animal who is slowly being cut into, although one would assume it would die quickly, instead the willpower of it causes it to defy common sense.
But how does one even control how much of the Relic they absorb? The Xin stored inside the Relic links with the Xin core in Koji's soul; he gradually absorbs the Xin into his core but the core is already full so since more is coming in, it breaks under the pressure. Koji can feel extremely well when even 0.1% of the new Xin is absorbed, which allows him to stabilize the flow at which it comes in. Otherwise, he would not be able to do it so precisely.
20%.
30%.
The percentages kept flowing, now Koji's Xin core was no longer at 60% open; it was at 65% instead. But why doesn't he just quit the flow of 2% every three seconds and go back to 1% to make it safe again? Well, if he did this then the initial flow would have to take time to form into a new frequency, and through that he would have to concentrate on every single micro percentage as it was happening. This was too difficult, he would for sure die because of it. So he had no choice but to continue, the pain assaulting every fiber of his very existence.
60%.
70%.
He was now over halfway through, and now his Xin core was no longer opened 65%, it was opened 75%.
80%.
90%.
But then right as 90% hit, everything changed; the pain stopped coming but he kept absorbing the Relic.
His parents saw this and gulped, although this shouldn't have much effect on Koji since he didn't have any
Because he was defying the balance of the universe by doing this method!
'W-what is going on?'
He suddenly heard girls voices in his ear, although no one was speaking.
This was the final challenge, the essence of the universe itself resisted the brute force technique by making the person doing it experience a traumatic memory in their head over and over. If the user lost focus on absorbing the Xin while it happened, they would die.
This was a memory from when he was six on earth with his sister, she was thirteen. They were in a hallway surrounded by yellowish walls and a wooden floor, the atmosphere was depressing.
"Ivan, go to your room okay? Uncle is just a little angry."
In this memory, he was talking to his sister who was crying.
"I don't want to! Why are you crying?"
He called out to her stubbornly.
"Ivan, just listen to me. Go to your room okay? I'll be right there and answer all your questions in a bit."
But Koji, in this situation was a stubborn child. How could he submit?
"No!"
But then, the door swung open and their uncle walked in; his expression showed pure rage. If one were to be asked to guess what he was mad about, they would think someone just killed his wife.
But no, he was angry at Koji's sister for sneaking out!
That simple act had caused him to completely lose composure.
"You little whore! What did I tell you about sneaking out?"
He walked over to her, his steps being heavy and fast; he reached his big, fat hand and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards him.
He then slapped her as hard as he could.
She slumped against the wall, her eyes being devoid of any happiness at this point; they were like an abyss of pure hopelessness.
"Little girls like you need to be taught a lesson sometimes."
In the memory, Koji, who was Ivan at the time had to watch his uncle abuse his sister in multiple ways.
Koji felt great sorrow at seeing this, his own sister treated like an object in front of his eyes.
But he couldn't lose focus, he couldn't!
This was just a memory, a thought. How could a thought cause his downfall?
He had to completely calm himself, he had to let go of his anger towards his uncle and his love for his sister.
This seemed hard, but given the circumstances he did not have too much trouble.
It was not as if he didn't feel sadness at the memory, in fact he missed his sister a good bit. But the pain he just experienced was much worse than seeing someone else experience pain! How could his downfall be caused by pain that wasn't even inflicted upon him?
So he endured it, clearing his mind and calming himself even as he watched his sister be violated.
As he heard her screams they could not waver him.
As he heard his uncles laugh it could not waver him.
He was only focused on his own survival, on becoming a Transcendent!
96%.
98%.
100%!
He had done it, he became a Transcendent!