Three days passed in the white cultivation chamber. Three days of enforced isolation, of suppressed power, of forced meditation. But Marcus wasn't meditating in the way that Orlov thought he was. He was using techniques that Alexei was feeding him through the faintest traces of white energy, techniques that didn't require active power, only will and intention.
The first technique taught him how to map the boundaries of the white cultivator's cage by observing how his own consciousness pushed against them. The second technique showed him how to find the fault lines that Alexei had been creating over three years of careful, imperceptible work. The third technique was the most dangerous: it showed Marcus how to build a psychological construct within his own mind, a place where he could hide
