Randidly carefully lowered himself into the mixture of corn starch and water. His movements were slow and controlled, as he was still keeping his heart rate extremely low. He hadn’t quite been able to get down to three beats a minute consistently, but he was confident that he was below five.

Perhaps anticipating the true motive that Randidly had requested corn starch, Tatiana had sent up a large tub with the barrels of the stuff. And she had the presence of mind to send up a tub that seemed to have been made on the scale of a swimming pool, so Randidly truly could completely submerge himself and float down to the bottom. Which was exactly what Randidly wanted; for this to work, the non-Newtonian had to completely surround his body and suppress the worst of the vibrations.

Non-Newtonian fluids were those that did not follow Newton’s law of viscosity. That meant that its resistance to pressure did not stay constant depending on pressure. For the combined corn starch and water, an increase in pressure against its surface would cause it to harden into something closer to clay than the runny liquid it normally was.

Randidly remembered quite fondly playing with the liquid in elementary school. He also believed that with the liquid’s properties, it would be easier to isolate his physical body and the reverberating polarity that was radiating off of him. Because the speed of his current training was frustratingly slow with the Aether Mines’ effect on him. So he was willing to try something a bit strange to jumpstart the process.

Truth be told, Randidly had been slightly misleading about the effect that three Danger Zones' worth of Aether Mines was having on his body. Despite the fact that Randidly's body was literally a world, even he could barely deal with the exponential increase in the pain as the Aether Mines gathered to form more powerful arrays.

But the pain was honestly secondary. Randidly had endured pain in the past. And, in his secret heart of hearts, he had to admit to himself that he liked a certain amount of pain. It helped focus him. It kept Randidly's mind from wandering away from the immediate problems to the looming emotional ramifications of some of the actions he had taken to survive in the System. The pain was a constant grind on his focus, but it was still within acceptable limits.

No, the problem was the jolts of polarity. For someone who was trying to master the limits of his physical body, the jolts made it all but impossible to control his muscles consistently.

It was due to that inconsistency that Randidly had been intermittently spasming while reaching for that strange mental veil and release a thunderous boom. The first time it had happened, Randidly had frozen for several long seconds and tried to figure out exactly HOW loud the noise he had just produced had been. When he didn't receive any questioning message from Tatiana, he sighed and believed that he must have simply misunderstood how loud his mistake had been. After all, he had briefly lost control of his body. That loss of control probably added to the abrupt and powerful impression Randidly had of the movement.

Perhaps he was completely off base with his memory of the noise released.

So Randidly had continued his training without thinking much of it. However, the more he moved, the more spasms had wrecked his carefully controlled form. Some of the unexpected movements were relatively harmless, such as a leg or an arm straightening of contracting at the same time.

One spasm, however, had been Randidly straightening a leg in the middle of a step with such force that he had catapulted himself perhaps a half-mile directly up into the air. If his island hadn't been steadily absorbing the power of the moonlight spirits and Randidly's images, the thunderous force of that step would have likely shattered the ground beneath him and collapsed the former island on top of Kharon.

Just to be safe, Randidly had controlled his island to float a little bit to the side of Kharon as he continued his training, just in case.

The reason that Randidly had continued his experiments was that the process was working; because the veil that Randidly had determined was mental kept being shattered by the unexpected spasms. Since the veil was based on Randidly's expectations, the uncontrolled motions were something of a boon. And every time Randidly ripped through the veil, he felt it growing a little weaker. No longer did he need to rely on an image to forcefully push himself past it. Even keeping his heart rate low, it was within his reach.

Still, Randidly couldn't just flail around for much longer. His progress was inconsistent at best. Which was why he had switched his focus from destroying the veil to improving his body. So he had lowered his heart rate and narrowed his consciousness until he only sensed his own muscles. Then he gradually began to spread his Willpower through every inch of his physical body.

Of course, he had quickly encountered a problem with trying to manipulate his physical body. All of the major functions of Randidly's body were fine, but some of his exterior and less well-developed muscle groups had experienced the buzzing of the Aether Mines for so long that they were lulled into a senseless numbness. For a while, Randidly fought against the polarity released by the Aether Mines, but it was a force that shifted to the area of least resistance.

If Randidly concentrated on his leg and drove the polarity from that area, the pressure his arms faced would increase. If he focused on his arms and his legs, the surface of his skin radiated waves of energy into the air. And as soon as he relaxed his guard, that energy would come surging back to attack any weaknesses.

So Randidly had the idea of the non-newtonian fluid. Mostly as a way to isolate himself, but he hoped that the fluid would react to the reverberations of the polarity and harden to reflect that energy back into his body. Because until he could pin the energy down, he couldn't do anything to it.

At the bottom of the swimming pool of corn starch and water, Randidly released a breath. His heartbeat remained in its reduced state, only releasing a few strong beats each minute. Then Randidly reached out with his Grim Intuition and began gradually controlling the disparate strands of muscle in his body.

Randidly freely allowed the Aether Mines to float through his body so they were as far apart as possible. Which meant that there was a rather uniform level of pain and vibrations throughout his body. As he had hoped, the fluid around him hardened under the radiated energy from Randidly's skin, reflecting most of it back into his body. Which increased the pain Randidly had to experience but at least meant that polarity could be trapped within the confines of his body.

And that made him wonder if he should wait on the muscle control for a bit. What if he could completely keep the polarity controlled within his body…? At the very least, it would increase the effectiveness of the training he was about to do. With a grin slowly spreading across his face, Randidly reached out and focused on his skin. For this to work, the initial step would be the hardest.

Human skin served a lot of function, but it was ultimately more of a wall than a garrison; it couldn’t do much in response to external threats. It could send signals to other parts of the body to receive the right sort of help, but that wasn't useful for Randidly's purposes. With the non-newtonian fluid around him hardening, a lot of the polarity was bouncing back and forth across his skin. He needed to cut off the avenue of escape for that energy. Still, even if his skin couldn't tighten and become more rigid to resist the energy on its own, Randidly had some ways of cheating.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Phoenix (T) has grown to Level 220!

A wave of gravity spread outward, focusing on Randidly’s skin. The dark edge of the egg of depression appeared above Randidly’s head. In the darkness at the bottom of the mixture, there was no light to bend, but Randidly could feel the corn starch and water shiver around him. But he ignored the influence of his image and focused on his skin.

Although it was painful in its own right, Randidly used gravity to press his skin into a tighter, denser form. Gradually, the polarity stopped radiating outward from his skin into the mixture. The mixture stopped hardening and began to ooze closer to his body. Growling, Randidly increased the pressure with gravity. His skin needed to be so dense that the polarity couldn't find purchase within it.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Phoenix (T) has grown to Level 221!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Phoenix (T) has grown to Level 233!

As Randidly increased the pressure, his skin began to shift to form a cage around the energy of the painful vibrations of the Aether Mines. Unfortunately, the solution appeared to be far more damaging than the problem. His skin began to tremble and tear beneath the powerful forces of gravity. The egg of depression pulsed gleefully, sucking in the spurts of blood that escape through the tears. But just as his skin was about to be ripped to shreds, the warm and reassuring golden light of Yggdrasil spread out to cover his body.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yyrwood Flesh of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 244!

It was like rain over a land that had been wracked by famine for far too long; the restorative energy simply vanished into his skin at first. For a while, there were no grand effects. But gradually, the Vitality and Endurance Randidly possessed began to show their value. The small tears in his skin were repaired, forming an even more powerful seal. The compression absorbed the vital energy, strengthening the skin.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yyrwood Flesh of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 245!

Eventually, Randidly's grin was fully formed; he had completely sealed the polarity within his body. The waves of force bounced back and forth, ravaging his muscles and causing pretty consistent twitches. Then his attention could turn inward to the real work.

Because, as Randidly had theorized before he started, he was effectively giving the Aether Mines a smaller space to work with by keeping the polarity from seeping out of his body. It had increased the pain until it was nearing Randidly's limits. But he couldn't stop here; his real goal was to gain control of his muscles, in spite of the surges of polarity from the Aether Mines. This was just some extra training pressure.

He couldn't stop now. Randidly’s monstrous Control reached out and imposed his will across his body.

Every space within Randidly’s body was a battlefield. First, it was surface muscles, then the large muscle groups, then across the veins and tendons of his body until finally, Randidly arrived at his inner organs. Each area had to be carefully and evenly controlled, pushing the painful vibrations out. Each success meant that the road ahead was that much harder. Each portion of his body that he reclaimed also needed to be carefully defended to neutralize the increased pressure for the trapped polarity to expand.

Two things kept Randidly fighting, even as the pain began to feel like a white-hot knife of pain being driven into the base of his skull.

First, his physical Skills rapidly began to earn more and more Skill Levels. Yyrwood Flesh had already grown to Level 257. Meanwhile, as Randidly had moved through his muscles, Monstrosity's Appalling Physicality had started growing and now reached Level 290.

Second, his heart rate began to slowly increase. And with each beat, it seemed to grow more powerful.

BA-DUM........BA-DUM........

Within the sea of seething polarity, it was a steady pulse that was gradually ascending toward dominance.