After resting for three hours Mack already felt less sore in the legs but he didn't risk running again, because he knew he probably won't make it to the next safe zone, if existed a next one.
So he chose a risky strategy instead.
He knew that every time he took a step outside the safe spot the gravity would increase, but once he came to the safe zone, it was like it would reset to the beginning.
So instead of dumbly running while betting with his life on the line, he thought over the matter of this test and the test before. He was guessing the goal of this test was related to the will too, but he was not sure how, probably related to strengthening his body or something like that.
Thinking over all this, Mack came with a plan, a safer one, at least.
He would use this safe zone as a training ground.
He still didn't have a single clue about using this 'will' thing, but he was determined to learn even if was just a little.
"How?" Mack asked himself, while pondering the best way to do it, and after a few minutes, he walked off the safe zone and felt the gravity again. He then started to walk in a small circle in front of the safe zone, to increase the gravity slowly while also being close to the safe zone.
After a few minutes, he reached his limits and felt the pressure stifling him. It was hard to even breathe. Then the humming mantra-like phrases came out of his mouth.
This time, instead of just humming and just doing nothing, he closed his eyes and focused on his legs. Just like a football player would do before kicking a ball in a stadium.
He focused on the pain he was feeling in his legs, In how the muscles were contracted, In how his leg bent a bit to support the pressure.
He opened his eyes. He knew there was essence around him because he could see when opening them. Even in this tunnel, devoid of light, he could see clearly.
If he could see, why could not he feel and use it? Thinking of that, an idea popped into his mind.
What if what was increasing was not the gravity?
"Ohhh my, how I did not see this before! It's not gravity force. Its essence concentration!"
"I'm actually feeling it in my body right now."
Mack needed to admit his ancestor was batshit crazy, but was a genius. How could someone teach another person without teaching him? This way. Exactly this same fucking way.
"Crazy, but a genius. That guy must have been a monster."
After this realization, Mack closed his eyes again and focused on feeling the pressure in his body. It was not like he had a mountain over his shoulders, but more like every single part of his body became heavier.
"If every single part of my body can become heavier, then every single cell can contain more Essence?" Thinking about this, Mack moved two steps and went inside the safe zone again.
The pressure caused by the essence concentration was gone.
He sat on the floor and put only his arm outside the safe zone, and hit hard on the floor. The pressure came again but only affected his arm outside the safe zone.
He focused on his arm, trying to feel any differences and even after several minutes in this same position, he could not figure out anything.
~sigh~
"And here was I... Thinking that just dumbly running would solve everything"
His ancestor was truly a cruel one. To put riddles inside riddles. What a crazy bastard.
Mack thought about asking the Arcane for some tips but knew that while doing a test she would not help. At best, she would just ignore him, at the worst, she would make him suffer even more.
"What should I do?"
"The book phases are supposed to strengthen my mind and will."
"The tattoos are some kind of spell or keys that connect me to this place and the Arcane..."
"The breathing technique I only used to break the nine gates in my body that locked essence inside me and converted the outside essence in mine."
"What I'm missing?"
Mack pondered over and over and over. He thought about being able to see in the dark and how this was subconsciously done by him.
He thought about the nanobots in his eyes and how easy was. They are probably connected to his brain somehow. That's the only conclusion he came to.
'My own cells and everything else in my body is also connected to my brain...'
"...but is always like my subconscious is controlling what I do. Like... Like boxing!"
"While learning any martial arts... On the first day, everyone sucks because his body is not used to do such movements and can't recognize or do what the brain asks. So..... we do over and over again until our body can do what our brain asks.... creating what they call as muscle memory..."
Mack pondered over the matter, but still could not pinpoint how to do it. It's not like just dumbly staying saturated with essence would solve.
He needed to get or stronger, or faster, or cancel the influence of the surrounding essence.
Thinking of this, Mack looked at the line drawn on the floor that separated the safe zone from the rest.
~slap~
He slapped the floor right in the middle of the line. Half of his hand was inside the line and half outside.
He raised his hand and put only one finger outside the line and touched the floor.
"Shit. What am I supposed to do? Become the Hulk or learn how to fly? Is that it?" Mack cursed, seeing the pressure returning when he touched the ground with the softest touch possible. There was no way to trick the floor.
He hoped it was easy as just dumbly running, but alas, his ancestor was a cruel one. A genius in how to make other people suffer.
The Sloth Gate of Hel floor was not only a metaphor for physical laziness but also for the laziness of one thinking, but Mack was ignorant of all of this and only followed his extremely inquisitive nature.
...
After a few hours with no progress, Mack took a pause to rest a bit while eating.
He took an alien dried fruit that looked like a banana but was pink and had some small lumps. If Mack was not completely sure that this came from the food category from the cube, he would probably think it was some alien sex toy.
Mack looked at the banana thing for a few seconds and a message in the right corner of his vision appeared.
(A Scurata, common grade, made by Cube Inc)
"At least I'm getting the hang of these nanobots." Mack said, already putting the suspicious food in his mouth.
After a few more minutes of rest, Mack decided to take things step by step. He would focus on small gains, and the first thing for that was to know his limits.
He wanted to see the exact number of steps he could sustain outside the safe zone.
Having made his mind, he walked of the safe zone and kept walking in circles close to the line drawn on the floor.
"Twenty." Mack said, counting the steps.
...
"Two thousand twenty-five"
Now Mack already felt sluggish and difficult to even raise his foot.
...
"Two thousand thirty-three".
~plop~
Mack fell with his knees on the floor, and to make everything worst another increase was made when he touched the floor again.
Mack did this close to the safe zone exactly because he could feel safe going to his limit. Worst case, he would drag himself along the floor to the safe zone.
Seeing he could not take anymore, Mack threw his upper body to the right side and fell inside the safe zone, with only his legs remaining outside, but he quickly pulled his legs with his arms. And the area outside the safe zone came to normal again.
Reaching his limit was important to measure his own progression in the days to come.
"What should I do now?"
Mack knew that will was the key to everything, but it was a strange thing. It was the same thing as trying to control his heartbeat or the feeling of having an invisible arm.
"At each step, a new test." Mack said, while remembering what was written on the sign close to the door.
"Maybe the step is not only referring to the literally steps taken, but it's referring to the safe zones too?" Mack asked himself, but he was not sure, and glanced behind him, looking at the dark and long tunnel that had no end in his view.
"Should I gamble on that?"
He had no way to know for sure if there was another safe zone, and if had one, he had no way to know if the next safe zone would be close enough for him to reach it.
"Two thousand thirty-three steps... this safe zone is around two kilometers away from the entrance door."
"If the next one is like 4 kilometers from here, I'm screwed. Nahh. I'm dead. As dead as an apple pie thrown from the 10th floor of a building can be."
~sigh~
"I wish I had some actual knowledge about this stuff."
At that moment, Mack remembered something the Arcane voice said to him on the previous gate, '...and this is a low-level usage of will...'
"Right! Let's do that. First.... Let's improve what I can do! I'm going to use my eyes until they bleed or until I get the information about everything I see instantly." With that said, Mack opened his backpack and took out everything inside, and grabbed a small fruit that looked like an apple but was orange instead.
After a few seconds of glaring at the fruit, a message popped in his eyes.
(Maskita Ananas, common grade, made by Cube Inc)
Mack took another fruit and did the same.
Mack was training his will to instantly communicate with the nanobots and provide him with information about everything he looked at. If he could achieve this. It means he improved somehow.
...
Two days later,
Mack had no way to know how much time passed because in this tunnel there was no sunlight and the sense of time passing got messed up, but his body asked for sleep and eat and he figured it was approximately two days since he entered this tunnel.
Mack looked at his backpack, and a message popped almost instantly. He was proud of his progression, and just like a child would learn how to walk step by step, it was time for Mack to take his first step in becoming a true Warlock.
Having made his mind, Mack moved to the next phase of his experiments.
First, he needed to increase the essence density, so after a few minutes of walking in circles outside of the safe zone, he stopped.
'A thousand steps should be enough for tests,' thinking of this, he put his right hand behind his back and took a knife out, and with the knife, he made a long and thin cut in his left hand.
Blood dripped on the floor, increasing the essence density at each drop, but Mack was already expecting it and ignored.
Seeing the long cut in his own hand, Mark moved a little and put his hand right above the safe zone line. Half of his hand inside and half outside, and the same for the cut he just made with the knife. Half in and half out.
Mack then just looked at the cut and waited.
...and waited.
..and waited.
After a long ass time, the cut in his hand stopped bleeding, but nothing else happened. So, he just waited.
While waiting, he thought about several things, but his genuine concerns were in front of him. If things didn't work as he was expecting, he was doomed, and if they worked, he was even more doomed.
Mack could only picture shit days ahead.
...
After a few hours, few very boring hours.
"Just as expected. It influenced my body in positive ways." Mack said, while cleaning the dried blood over his hand. The half that was outside of the safe zone looked as if it was fully healed now, but the part inside the safe zone, the part that was not affected by the increased essence density, looked almost the same as before.
"So..... Somehow, my regenerative abilities are improved with the increase in essence density."
After pondering for a few minutes....
~sigh~
"Lets get this done already!" Mack said, removing his clothes, all of them, while holding a knife with his mouth.
Fully naked, with a knife in his mouth. Mack went out of the safe zone again and walked until the limit of his body, and when he reached his limit, he fell to his knees.
Struggling to even breath, Mack grabbed the knife in his mouth, and lunged it in his other hand, then on his feet and arms, and on the skin over his chest.
Blood gushed from him, forming a pool around Mack, and darkness come to embrace him one more time in his life.
Mack fell to the side, his face, now red from his own blood, was pale as a ghost while blood kept flowing out from the holes he made in his own body.
[What a crazy bastard. To think of this way to improve faster, he deserves the result of his own actions.] Said the Arcane Legacy, but did nothing to change the man's situation.
Mack's fate was only bound to his own actions.