A Hand-Woven Universe 45 45. Progress

The silhouette of a man flashed upwards by several meters followed swiftly by the clang of steel piercing into stone. The metal point of the pick secured itself into a solitary crack that had been only a few inches wide, the only crack in nearly 20 meters of sheer cliff face. The weight of the man holding firmly onto the end of the pick's handle lodged it into the wall.

There was no pause in his next movement and the vertical momentum of his leap was carried through. Every muscle in the man's body flexed tight, from his fingers to his toes. He took a sharp breath and pulled his body up with immense strength, lodging a foot into the crack and jumping even higher.

He pulled the pick out of the wall smoothly with practiced form, leaping with complete verticality. The wind brushed against his face which was only a few inches from the sheer cliff wall. Another several meters crossed in seconds.

This cycle repeated a few times, and each time the point of his pick expertly found the weakest portion of the stone - small cracks and centimeter thin crevices could not escape unscathed. Weirdly enough though, Noone wasn't even looking at the place where his pick struck. He didn't need to.

Although dozens of small maneuvers needed to be done in complete precision, each jump only took a matter of seconds. Although any small mistake would mean plummeting down the cliff face, and probably death, there was no hesitation in his movements. His eyes merely looked up the cliff. Seemingly at nothing of note, however he did not waver, and neither did his gaze. His mind was calm.

Small stones and dust fell below scattering in the wind falling thousands of meters in the shallow ocean below. The sun was high and there were many hours left before nightfall.

After a few minutes Noone had scaled the sheer edge and stood above. His body wedged itself into a crevice barely wide enough to support him. Around Noone's waist there was a rope which extended down into a freshly cut cave. Tucked inside was a person sized steel-fiber woven pack and a tarp full of cooked bird.

Noone hoisted the rope up bit by bit - first spooling up the slack, and then lifting the pack and tarp out of the cave. His feet dug firmly into the crevice and his body didn't waver under the weight. After a couple minutes, his pack was once again on his back, and the bird meat was hanging a few meters down from his waist.

6 months of climbing and Noone had gradually learned techniques to make the trip a bit easier. Not having the pack on at all times was one of the first things. The freedom of movement he gained when freeing himself from the unwieldiness of his equipment made climbing sheer portions of cliffs a relative breeze.

At other times, he would wear his gear, so he wouldn't need to stop every hundred meters to hoist the bag up.

After the first few weeks, he found that he had fallen in love with the feeling of scaling the cliff face. It had turned into a routine, a cycle. One which he gradually lost himself to. At the end of each day he would relish the feeling of his sore body growing stronger. Although he wasn't too interested in becoming crazy strong, he loved the feeling of being able to do something one day which he wasn't able to do the day before.

Not only did he fall in love with it, but his body had begun craving the feeling. Something inside of him yearned for a harder climb at the beginning of each day, like a muscle that grew stronger the more it was worked out.

It was euphoric.

Although his progress had been consistent, Noone had gained a number of other benefits through the trial already.

He looked down at the ocean below and out to the horizon. Being against the face of the cliff made estimating distances exponentially harder. This was even more so when he looked up at the featureless curtain of white clouds above him. His eyes strained to pick out any discernable feature they could latch onto, but this only gave him a headache when he stared at it for too long, being unable to latch on to any feature that would help him identify just how high he had climbed. Or how much higher he had to go.

Eventually though he just sighed and closed his eyes, reaching out from the crack his hand latched onto a protruding section of stone. His muscles in his forearm bulged and his body pushed out and up. His feet easily found steps to put his weight on and his other hand moved instinctually to the next grip.

When he had begun climbing half a year ago, he was running on pure adrenaline. It was a never-ending struggle. Although he had the muscle, it felt exceedingly unnatural. In the first week he felt as though his understanding of his own body was gradually changing. No longer was he being bound to gravity and that which his legs supported him.

The type of movements necessary for climbing forced him to be on edge and overly conscious of everything he did. He learned a lot over time.

How to adjust his center of gravity to stay close to the cliff.

How to use his arms to support his weight.

And how to keep moving to conserve energy.

These things came gradually, and naturally. In the first week at the end of the day he would be exhausted, but over time he gained endurance, as well as learning how to use the least amount of energy possible.

He began to get up earlier before the sun, and climbing later into the darkness. As long as he slung a sun-stone around his neck he was able to continue. His eyes easily learned to distinguish the shadows cast by the sun-stone with the grips in the cliff face.

After a couple weeks of climbing from the bottom he stopped and over the course of three-days he smoked and cured the bird meat, so it would last longer.
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He carved a large cavern directly into the face of the cliff, and finally let his body relax.

Over those first few weeks he felt his body changing, as well as his mind. It wasn't clear in that moment, but he could feel it clearly when he was climbing. However, he did not have the time or the ability to fully immerse himself into thinking about it while climbing. Now though, he had three days to spare.

In some portion of his mind he was careful to always remain conscious. He could not forget about the fact he was constantly climbing on the verge of life and death. One slip up on his part would most likely mean death, unless he got supremely lucky. Even if he got lucky though, and somehow survived, it would put him back by weeks.

Noone sat down on the ledge in front of the cavern, looking out towards the horizon. The sun was still just above the cloud-line. It would descend in a few minutes. He breathed in a deep breath and held it, exhaling out his exhaustion from the day only after a few moments.

His thoughts drifted back to his time in the mines, and times spent with Elder Azelle. Throughout the years Noone had spent endless hours with Elder Azelle sitting in silence enjoying the soothing atmosphere within his personal garden.

Noone would often ask what the elder was doing. He was always able to sense something was different in these moments. The elder would be sat quietly, alone in front of his pond. His breathing was steady and consistent. However, when Noone looked at him it was almost as though Elder Azelle had disappeared into the surroundings.

Noone could consciously see him - sitting there in silence. Breathing with closed eyes. It was like his mind was telling him the elder was no different than the pond in front of him, or the stones around him, or the trees in the garden. This created an odd dissonance.

Despite the dissonance though, Noone never felt uncomfortable. The atmosphere of the area would change with the elder and Noone found it exceedingly calming. He always a.s.sumed it was just a product of the elder's attunement.

The elder too was intrigued with Noone's perception of his cultivation. He often explained to Noone that he was attempting to experience the small changes in the world around him. This would help him understand and discern things about his own attunement.

"However," He would say. "To experience such minutia, it was important that you don't become an obstacle to yourself in the process. The conscious thought is the enemy of intrinsic and universal order."

Noone could sense the profundity in the elder's words, but he never fully understood what the elder was getting at. Eventually he a.s.sumed it was just another attuned thing he wouldn't ever realize for himself.

Despite this, he sometimes was overcome with curiosity and would ask the elder about what he could feel, and why he did things certain ways.

…