Chapter 65

  Time lost its meaning to Noah as he lay in his forced rest. Occasionally he noticed when the harsh rays of the sun transitioned to the soft light of the stars but he could never be sure how long it had been. The only true disruptions to his meditation were the daily visits from the healer and her team, who spoke of nourishing him with their magic. They also bathed him, changed his bedding, and tried to make him comfortable. The first few times he felt he would die in embarrassment, but it had since faded into the background. He now found their care heartwarming and considerate, a pleasant disruption to his otherwise lonely existence.

  His inspiration grew with each passing day and he knew it was only a matter of time before the breakthrough came. His body didn’t appear to recover as the time passed, but his hope never wavered. If there was one thing he could count on the System for, it was impossible outcomes. If it wasn't this breakthrough, he would push through to the next until his body finally caught up. He encouraged himself in this way, but the ever-present deadline still hung over his head.

  Inspiration as he called it, was a spark of life similar to those ‘ah-ha’ moments where everything made sense. When enough of these sparks accumulated they would merge into a kernel of understanding. So it had been in his first experience delving into the Gates back on Earth, and likewise when he advanced again on the mountain. He wondered how the System quantified inspiration. Was there a genuine threshold of understanding that all people had to reach before unlocking the next Gate? Or perhaps there was a relative scale depending on the person. In the six months of preparation he had had on Earth, he studied the teachings of the monks and their concepts of understanding or dao. They believed that through meditation and exposure, one could grow to understand the very nature of any given thing or being. One might endeavor to master the dao of the sword, learning to harness its nature in their every action, or perhaps grasp the concept of healing and endow their understanding into their daily practice. When he reached the first gate he had thrown out all of these ideas as worthless, as they had not helped their practitioners reach the advance to the first gate. Now however he wondered if he had gotten ahead of himself. From his understanding one had to progress through the gates sequentially, building precept upon precept. So it was theoretically possible that the earthen practitioners had failed to advance due to the order of their focus.

  His study revealed that they often sought to be rid of one’s self, to deny one’s self, or to change one’s self. This however worked against the progression of the gates. The first Gate was about accepting oneself and having an accurate revelation of who you are. The path is not to deny or be rid of but to acknowledge and recognize. If the monks had gone this route, perhaps they would have been the first to reach the Gate on their world. This however was the crux of the matter for Noah. He had thrown out all of their teachings due to their initial flaw. But was that the right move? Was it possible that they were correct about the later elements? Could he somehow gain inspiration relating to his hammer? Or perhaps the concept of vitality? He grinned internally. For some reason, the idea was exciting to him, a welcome interruption to his grandiose meditations on the significance of the world around him. He felt so out of his depth in his attempts to understand the new rules of the world he lived in, just like he had failed to discover the purpose of essence before. For all he knew he could be about to awaken some ancient bloodline like the stories of old. Deciding to risk wasting a bit of his time he cast his attention around the room. One advantage of his debilitated state was the ease with which he could use his domain. There were no enemies rushing toward him to divert his focus. He searched the room for any object that caught his attention but came up empty. Finally, his gaze landed on the bed. Oh, how he loved the bed.

  Feeling ridiculous, like a kid pretending to be a wizard, he honed his entire awareness on the bed. It's soft, welcoming, inviting. Warm–though not warm by itself. It insulates, comforts, holds, and heals. It is an object of rest and recovery— His thoughts continued, and he felt himself enter a trance-like state. It wasn’t until the healer entered sometime the following day that his reverie was shattered. What just happened? He quickly pulled up his status, hoping to see some kind of update. There was none. Something had definitely happened though. As the healer lifted him off the bed he felt a pull like magnetism, not physical per se, but tangible nonetheless. The source of the strange force was the bed. His internal forehead bunched in confusion as he considered the possibilities.

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  Did I gain the dao of the bed? He shook his head. No, it wasn’t that. When the healer set him back down in his resting place, he felt a resonance in his inner world, as if reuniting with a friend. It was as if he had developed a great awareness of the bed, like a small part of its nature had been exposed to him. Oh. A flash of inspiration shot through him like electricity. Of course. To understand the whole you must understand the part. He had spent all of his focus on understanding the world around him in its entirety, as a uniform entity. He had yet to endeavor to understand the individual components that made up the whole. He felt silly at his mistake. It was the same riddle as the prior gates, he had to know himself to know how he related to the world. So he had to know the portion of the world to know its relation to the whole.

  With renewed vigor he sent his awareness through the room, choosing the next object of his obsession. How minute do I go? The blanket is not the bed, but it is part of my understanding of the bed! What about the feathers in the pillow? Are they goose feathers, was the bird treated well? His thoughts became a whirlwind of useless speculation. After long and exhaustive speculation he finally managed to focus his attention. The bed is the bed, the chair is the chair, any deeper and I don’t care. He chuckled and regained his composure. I can do this.

  Noah’s day passed quickly, and he felt his spirit soar with every new object added to his internal world’s friend list. Another week passed, nothing more than a blur to Noah as he became immersed in the world around him. He had moved on from his main room and was now absorbing the contents of the bathroom into his consciousness. He could feel the sparks of inspiration coalescing into something more, but the progress was not linear. After completing the main room his understanding jumped, as if he had reached a minor threshold between gates. Every new object since then had barely registered to his inspiration meter though. After another several days, he received his next bump when the bathroom was fully within his awareness. That appeared to be the end of his current development though. He was not familiar enough with the surroundings outside his room to truly know them, and so he changed his strategy once again. It was time to form a whole from all the parts.

  He had been optimistic for the first few days, but after a week past, worry began to creep in. His deadline was less than a week away and the ‘pop’ of insight eluded him. He approached it from every angle he could conceive of, and yet nothing worked. After a day of mentally bashing his head against the wall, he decided that his restless attention wasn’t getting anywhere. He permitted himself to rest, just one day without any further meditation. His thoughts drifted listlessly and he did nothing to stop them. His mind was tired from the constant strain and he gladly rode the waves of subconscious thought.

  He wasn’t sure when it happened, perhaps sometime in the night but as his mind drifted a powerful sensation of wholeness rippled across his being, consuming every bit of his attention. He felt a deep sense of familiarity and peace as if he was finally home again. As the rush began to fade into the background a familiar notification filled his vision.

  [Congratulations. You have reached the third Gate. Choose a reward.]

  Immediate

  Progressive