The Weight of Legacy

Remaining focused on the subject of her meditation was a bit more difficult than she previously anticipated, as ambiguous topics appeared too ineffective. At least the activation of the Skill had been stunningly easy.

And as much as Malwine wanted to multitask raising attributes with cultivation, the couple attempts she tried to get rolling were… off. They didn't actually feel dishonest, but she really couldn't think of any other way to describe it. Ever since concluding she had to truly mean it for anything to work, every part of her experience seemed to abide by that.

She somehow knew it wasn't about the chance of receiving extra attributes being small in the first place, no. Pondering the raising of an attribute, just for the sake of raising an attribute, was almost aggressively unsatisfactory. There had to be at least some minimal depth to it.

Reaping benefits from this Skill was still infinitely easier for Malwine than the whole clear-your-mind version of meditation, however.

Its effects on [Integrity] and [Toll] were by far the most palpable, seemingly disconnected from whether or not she achieved anything on the session. Very on-brand for the system so far.

A part of Malwine was somewhat worried, however. What happens if I half-ass something? Do Skills just start failing? Life always came with situations in which you had to do things you didn't necessarily want to do, but still had to. If this was how things were going to work, that could spell bad news.

She shivered. Having to adapt to a new world was one thing, but being expected to develop better work ethic? That was terrifying! Oh, who am I kidding, responsibility's inevitable. Malwine wanted to think she could push herself to perform any task if she really had to, but her views on herself were complicated.

There was a phrase she vaguely remembered, something about how even things you forgot you did could have been life-changing for somebody else, how you could have made a massive impact on somebody else without remembering or even having known it.

Malwine wondered what she'd done in her own past life, that made her confidence on herself as a capable person coexist with this primal distrust of herself following things through.

[Cool Head on Your Shoulders] helped her center herself, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it only helped her rein turmoil in after it had started. It did nothing to prevent negative emotions or even the occasional intrusive thought—and so, spiraling into the occasional crisis of confidence remained inevitable.

With a sigh, she checked the [Recently Exited Stasis] buff. 2 hours…

She'd cleared her [Toll] and gotten some sixteen points back on her [Integrity], sure, but she was close to complaining about how unproductive these past couple hours had been. Wow, I'm growing spoiled. Still, the idea of just taking her time bothered her. [Unpacifiable] remained somewhat hushed in the background of her mind, not giving her any reasons for immediate panic.

Malwine didn't want to be at ease. It was almost a ridiculous stance to hold. In less than half a day, she'd gotten plenty done. But with the buff keeping her from even growing tired, the combination of having limited space as well as limited things to do irked her.

And so began her twenty-first—twenty-second?—attempt at cultivating. Don't overthink it…

This time, Malwine tried to imagine herself on a beach while pondering about mana. She hazily recalled some of those guided mediation things that never worked always having coastal-type soundtracks with the crashing of waves thrown in. Maybe those DVD people had been onto something.

Do I just start assigning variables or however that's called? Malwine wondered. Maybe she was sitting in the lotus position next to the water in this imaginary beach, and the mana she needed to cultivate with was the ebbing of the tide… The waters, she couldn't quite touch.

The sand had to be wet, of course, because even inside her mind she didn't want to deal with actual dry sand. Her figure was thin, olive-skinned, and in possession of only the bare minimum amount of flexibility to strike such a pose—a middle-aged version of the widow. Pretending the sun was too bright for her to get a good view of anything else saved her some effort, plus it gave her an excuse for why this imaginary version of herself would close her eyes and start meditating.

Imagining the noise was somewhat harder. She thought of rippling and splashing, the to and fro of waves, but if she focused too much on it, it tore her immersion to shreds. Even in her own thoughts, she found herself unable to replicate that to a satisfying degree, so she pushed it to the background.

The [Meditation] Skill didn't mention anything on the subject, so it struck Malwine as quite strange, but the scene's clarity was superb. Cultivation thing?

Malwine didn't dwell too much upon the specifics, instead focusing on the waves themselves. She reached for them, trying to touch the refreshing waters she could almost feel. She envisioned their power, remembering the thrill of channeling mana for [Write Anywhere], minuscule as the amount channeled seemed in hindsight.

Slowly, the scene dimmed, leaving only Malwine's senses and something just within her grasp. She pulled, and her hands tingled in anticipation. Aware of where she had to push her thoughts to make {Legacy} come to her, she thought of some assorted discoveries and the sharing of them.

Everyone needed context for anything they wanted to understand, at least in some ways. More than once, the older version of Malwine had found herself making a breakthrough on her research, such as finally connecting a family with their origins abroad, only to remember she had to ease her audience into the subject when publishing the facts. To her, it made perfect sense to simply say she figured out the connection of an immigrant to the town of their birth, and she'd be overjoyed to learn the life and further origin of their ancestors were astoundingly easy to track.

But others might have no idea who the hypothetical immigrant even was, let alone care for their newly discovered ancestors. If she was to make the information comprehensible, she had to figure out how to explain that first, in a way that would be palatable even to someone completely unfamiliar with the subject, should they happen to read her work.

Malwine didn't quite understand cultivation beyond broad strokes, didn't know anything about how this particular variant even functioned. What she would have dared say she understood enough of was {Legacy}. The widow, for all her accolades, wouldn't have come even close to absolute dominion of the subject, and neither would Malwine—something that broad wasn't meant to be embodied by anyone.

Still, the vanishing waves sparked the thought. Not standing at the edge of the coast didn't mean the scene wouldn't play out—you just wouldn't see it, wouldn't be focused on it. Even gone, the widow had left her mark, had become the one who was now Malwine. Changed, by her own conclusions. {Legacy} could be a part of her, always there, merely waiting to be summoned.

She had merely lacked the context that would make this make sense to her.

Her form shook, both the visualized widow and the real Malwine. Her choice of mana circulated without aim, answering Malwine's call. She felt it on her wrists, moving through her instead of going to any Skill. It made her flinch, the sensation somehow tickling her from the inside. It flowed through veins that weren't veins, almost a previously unknown part of her physical form.

By when it reached her tiny elbows, it took Malwine active effort to not resist it—it was too new a sensation. Only [Unpacifiable]'s silence convinced her to let it keep happening. It felt as though everywhere it touched were growing lighter, almost itchy. She gasped when it started climbing up her neck, but was soon distracted by how it burst behind her sternum.

It was a force beyond words, a crystalline shade of pale citrine settling on the spot where her nascent core would fit, a single tiny root of the same shade low in its center. The crystal dissolved to vapor, sinking into the root, before a bubble-like energy surrounded the now-floating root.

The [Meditation] broke off abruptly, and Malwine stared into the darkness above her in utter confusion.

Malwine steadied her breath, only now aware that she was panting, and that it was annoyingly taxing to pant as an infant. She felt too small for anything, let alone the weight that now warmed her chest.

Did I just fuck up? Oh, no.

But the pressure eased, slowly. She took deep breaths, resolving to stay calm as [Cool Head on Your Shoulders] backed her up. She frankly had no idea what she'd just done, but something told her, it probably had something to do with the fact that she was, truly, beyond her current form.

It wasn't even something she thought out of arrogance, just realism. The fact that her image within that imaginary meditating spot of hers had been a younger version of her past self told her as much.

That didn't change the fact that this might be a problem. Malwine hadn't exactly minded levels before. She could hide them, after all. [Reveal Nothing] should cover her ass, but did increasing the overall stage itself carry any consequences? Please don't do anything dumb like extending my life from this point onward, no no no no.

She hadn't expected to jump several—five?—ranks in one session. On the other hand, her accrual of [Toll] had seriously overcome the effects of [Meditation] itself, so perhaps progressing at this rate wouldn't be sustainable. At least she'd confirmed the Early Esse had a final stage rather than going on indefinitely. Surely it would be the same for future stages? Her curiosity warred with the part of her that told her pushing that too hard at her current age would be unwise.

Come on, Malwine, you already learned enough about it… the rest can wait…

Malwine still took a few moments to try and look inwards again. Not through [Meditation], but just by setting her… not-gaze to the core she'd felt. It remained as it had been when her core stage improved, an iridescent bubble with strong overlays of light yellow, surrounding the citrine rootling of {Legacy}. It was… interesting, if a bit bizarre. Poking her own chest, she felt nothing, but she could almost hear the core rumble.

I think that's enough cultivation for a day… week?

She'd have to actively suppress the urge to retry any of this too soon. Perhaps even until she grew older. Or maybe just for a week or two. Malwine was patient enough to wait a week or two, definitely.

Desperate for something else to do, she opened her attributes panel. Her new 2500 unassigned points had her frowning with her inability to spend them evenly. I should just wait til they're 3k again…

Malwine wasn't quite ready to strategize over the distribution of her attributes, so keeping them balanced if only to slowly mitigate the curse-given penalty felt like the safest choice.

Then again, Resilience being at 1620 while there are others at 1370 ruins things…

And so, though bemoaning it all the way through, Malwine assigned the points.