It was weekend. Tristan stood in front of a huge mountain that had a shield all over it. The mountain was extremely tall and one could only climb it from a small door on the base. This place was inside the Vast Expanse Secret World.
Several people had gathered here, to see the performance of White Star, one of their new upcoming stars in the guild. He had performed several merits recently, though his activities were classified, his meteoric rise was not hidden from his place.
Today, after two years, the Pressure Stairway had been opened up for this individual and members were interested in seeing how he performed.
The stair was ready, White Star nodded at everyone and then walked into the door leading to the stairs.
Tristan wanted to use this opportunity to compress his aura, but he was worried about ??? condition for S grade. Tristan had read a bit about aura compression and even asked Neffy about it.
Aura compression was a rare direction to pursue Aura into, it's purpose was to increase the density and thus the power of the Aura, but the actual quantity would reduce, meaning it would be impossible to cover the enter body in a cladding until the new high density aura could be grown to that point.
He had also figured out the basic technique. Tristan had condensed all the aura in his body into a ball around his heart. Then Tristan climbed the first stair. The pressure was negligible.
Tristan steadily began climbing the stairs. On the 10th step, Tristan felt a modicum of force equivalent to entering water in the sea. Tristan continued climbing. When he reached the 100th step, Tristan felt like he was submerged on the sea bed and an immense pressure was put on him from all sides. Till now he didn't feel any mental pressure.
Tristan's speed of climbing slowed, but he was still steadily climbing. When he finally reached the five hundredth floor, he felt his Aura finally begin compressing. His skin was red and he was sweating heavily. He also began to feel a slight mental fatigue. The force had finally reached the level of walking into a wall.
He was no longer just being compressed, but actively pushed backwards. Tristan slowed down again. However he continued climbing. It took almost an hour to reach 500 steps, but it took five more hours to slowly crawl to 1000 steps.
When he reached 1000 steps, he felt his knees buckling like he was holding a gigantic stone. He was being crushed and his mind was also extremely exhausted. His aura had compressed by about 30%. He still hadn't achieved even F grade, but his mind was already struggling.
Below, people had been keeping note. They couldn't see him directly, because of the shield, but on the gate the number of steps were displayed.
"He's reached 1000 steps. But it seems he is at his limit."
"The record is 7532 steps. I think he can go closer to the record at least."
"Let's see, his body seems to be taking it, but his mind seems to be his weakness."
Tristan continued moving, one small step at a time. He moved even slower, but he never lost his balance of step. He was oozing doles of sweat. With each step now, he could feel his Aura compress a little more around his heart. The more the Aura compressed, the little bit, it became easier to climb another step, before the pressure increased again.
This cycle continued until he reached the two thousandth step after another 10 hours. His mental energy felt like it was being ground in a grinder and it was extremely painful. His mind felt raw pain like his soul was burning. He felt an incredible itch, but he controlled his heart and willed to move forward. Aura had now compressed to 50% on the counter.
Below people continued to observe. "Two thousand has arrived. He might be slow, but his step is still steady as ever."
"Like I said, it is his mind that is the weakness. Right now he must be feeling the unbearable itch of the soul, it really is a question of will, how long can he tolerate it?" An elder of the Vast Expanse said.
Tristan continued walking. After an entire day of climbing. Tristan had crawled to the three thousandth step. His mind energy was growing quite rapidly now, but the soul itch was only increasing more and more. Tristan could not ignore it no matter how much he tried. The itch only continued to shadow over his mind, but he would constantly force his will to stand.
Aura was constantly compressing as well. It had compressed by 60% now and each step was compressing it further. The pressure on his body was incredible. It was as if Tristan was lifting a skyscraper into the air. His bones were creaking and his legs were tremoring a bit, but the stress was still less than the rabbit exercise.
"Three thousand steps. He has chosen the tactic of advancing slowly and steadily. This is contrary to my expectation. I thought he wanted to forge the mind, then wouldn't rushing be a better tactic? The slower he goes, the more his soul itches."
"It was our mistake, we failed to tell him that going slower would be counter productive."
On the stairway, Tristan, continued walking, very slowly. He had taken an entire day to climb 1000 stairs and with the increasing pressure he became even slower. Still, it was his mind that was in trouble. He had always thought his willpower was strong, yet he couldn't even bear this itching of the soul.
As he was climbing he suddenly felt a cry through his connection with the Matrioshka Egg. It was hungry. Suddenly, he didn't feel as hopeless as before and smiled. He took out the Matrioshka egg and fed it a fragment of its energy, before returning it to the storage.
However, while the egg was happy at being full it did not fall asleep. It could feel the distress that Tristan was facing as their minds were connecting. Suddenly it sent caring feelings towards Tristan. While it did not help his soul itch, he did feel better and spent the time climbing talking to the egg.