Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse

The pressure slammed down on him like the weight of multiple entire Folds condensed into a single point. Noah's knees buckled because the fundamental structure of his legs simply couldn't support the impossible weight anymore.

He crashed to his knees, the impact sending cracks through the ground beneath him despite its reinforced nature.

His body wanted to collapse further. His existence screamed at him to release the pressure, to accept defeat, to acknowledge that this was too much too fast!

Every particle of his being was being compressed, refined, tested against forces that would have unmade lesser existences entirely.

His fingers, pressed against the ground, couldn't even twitch. The simple act of breathing became a battle requiring conscious effort and determination that bordered on the absurd.

It was impossible to stand.

It was impossible to move.

It was impossible to exist like this.

'Good', Noah thought through the pressure that threatened to crush his very consciousness.

'Impossible is my specialty.'

HUUM!

His eyes flashed with tyrannical defiance, blazing with determination that pressure couldn't dim.

His mouth opened, and despite the tremendous effort required, despite the way his jaw muscles burned and his throat constricted, he bellowed!

"I! AM! NOAH! OSMONT!"

The words echoed across the Cultivation Citadel, carried by will more than sound.

His muscles undulated, pulsing with power that refused to accept limitation.

His Heart of an Early Creature blazed within his chest like a furnace that remembered it was supposed to burn through impossibilities.

His Citadels hummed like engines being pushed past their recommended limits.

Who was he?

He was someone who had faced down Early Creatures. Someone who had survived traversals to the Earliest Folds.

Someone who carried the weight of protecting his family, building his Civilization, defying the natural order of existence itself!

How could simple pressure make him kneel when he had so many other weights already bearing down on him?

'Rise', he commanded his body.

His muscles screamed in protest.

'RISE', he commanded his existence.

His bones creaked under impossible strain.

'RISE!' he commanded reality itself.

HUUM!

And slowly- painfully, gloriously, impossibly…he began to move!

His left hand lifted from the ground. Just an inch. Just a single inch, but it was progress measured against forces that said progress was impossible!

|EFFORT DETECTED|

|Current Action: Attempting to rise under 10x pressure|

|Assessment: Tyrannical|

|Assessment: Foolish|

|Assessment: Magnificent|

|HARVEST ACCUMULATION ACCELERATING|

His right hand followed, pushing against ground that felt like it was made of condensed concepts rather than simple matter.

|+0.00001 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.00001 Quintillion Purity|

His back straightened fractionally, vertebrae stacking despite the weight trying to compress them into powder.

|+0.00002 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.00002 Quintillion Purity|

His legs began to unbend, muscles firing in sequences that required coordination his body barely possessed under this pressure.

|+0.00005 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.00005 Quintillion Purity|

Sweat poured down his face, not from heat but from sheer effort. His entire body was trembling, every muscle group engaged in the impossible task of standing upright.

This was the weaponization of effort and harvest.

This was what it meant to turn suffering into strength, struggle into advancement, impossibility into inevitability.

|ADAPTATION BEGINNING|

|Physical Structure: Reinforcing under pressure|

|Existential Framework: Condensing and strengthening|

|Mana Circulation: Pathways widening to accommodate resistance|

|Principle Integration: Deepening under strain|

|The Early Creature, Osmont, demonstrates the fundamental truth of cultivation:|

|That which does not kill you makes you stronger|

|That which should kill you makes you transcendent|

|That which transcends killing becomes the foundation of glory|

Glory.

Oh, glory!

Noah's lips pulled back in a smile that was equal parts agony and triumph.

"More," he whispered through gritted teeth.

HUUM!

"MORE."

|EFFORT INCREASING|

|HARVEST ACCELERATING|

|+0.0001 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.0001 Quintillion Purity|

|+0.0002 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.0002 Quintillion Purity|

|+0.0005 Quintillion Complexity|

|+0.0005 Quintillion Purity|

The numbers climbed steadily, each moment of strain translating directly into advancement. This was different from the harvest of Inevitabilities or the cultivation from Sacred Herbs. This was pure, distilled growth born from refusing to accept limitation.

This was his Way.

He straightened fully now, standing upright under pressure that should have been impossible to bear. His body still trembled, still screamed in protest, but he was standing in the crater.

And if he could stand, he could move.

And if he could move, he could train.

And if he could train under this pressure...

The smile on his face widened as he contemplated what would happen when he finally adapted to this level, when the impossible became merely difficult, when the difficult became routine.

Then he would increase the pressure again!

---

Meanwhile, in the Earliest Folds...

The glacial region had transformed into a sea of Mana so dense that it had taken on physical properties. Blue-white waves of pure potential lapped against crystalline shores that hadn't existed before Noah's declaration of his Way.

Noah's body, this iteration of him that existed eons in the past, stood at the center of this transformation, breathing out visible clouds of concentrated authority that dissipated into the surrounding atmosphere.

Two days.

He had been in the Earliest Folds for over two days now, which translated to mere hours in his current era. This was the longest Temporal Traversal he had managed before being forced to leave by circumstance or discovery.

The possibilities were intoxicating.

The dangers were even more so!

His other counterpart, Ozymandias, was currently rampaging through the endless forests of the First Folds, experiencing The Way of Hunger with enthusiasm that bordered on gluttony.

That body was devouring everything it could find…beasts, plants, even the conceptual essence of places themselves, growing stronger with each consumption.

If any of his bodies was going to be forced to leave the Earliest Folds early, it would be Ozymandias. The trail of devoured existence he was leaving behind was subtle but noticeable to anyone looking carefully enough.

But here, in this glacial region transformed by his declaration of Mana's supremacy, Noah had time to think. Time to plan. Time to consider possibilities that existed when one had access to the past itself.

The most obvious application was spreading the Sparks of his Way of Mana throughout the Earliest Folds. He had them flowing freely across the Transcendent Folds of his current era, subtle seeds of his Way that let him grow his Civilization's influence without direct intervention.

But doing that here, in the time before THE Loom, before the structures of power had fully crystallized...

'They would find me immediately', Noah thought, his analytical mind running through scenarios.

THE Living Paradox. THE Living Emotive.

From THE Dead Order, he had already seen how quickly such beings could track him the moment he entered the other side of The Veil.

If he came under the direct scrutiny of any of THE Living Existences in their prime, when they walked freely through the Earliest Folds without constraint...

All his plans would end before they truly began.

But the possibility of growing his Civilization from this point in time, of nurturing something that could span eons, that could exist as a force from the past to the present...

It was too tempting to dismiss entirely!