The journal was unlike the Codex.
Where the Codex was ancient, deliberate, and distant… this was raw, messy, and painfully human.
Elior sat at his kitchen table, the journal spread open beneath a dim lamp. His notes—scribbled napkins and post-its—lay scattered around him. Cold coffee. Twitching fingers.
The first pages were ramblings.
Dates. Dreams. Panic attacks. Symbols repeated again and again.
"They say the first ring is vision."
"The second is will."
"The third… I've never seen it and I'm afraid to."
But further in, the writing sharpened.
Diagrams. Sequences. Descriptions of internal gates—centers of perception that weren't physical, but energetic, hidden along the spine and base of the skull.
One passage stopped Elior cold.
"If you have the mark, you can open the first ring.
But if you try without centering your spirit flame, you'll burn from the inside out."
He didn't know what a spirit flame was.
But as he read on, he felt it.
That subtle pressure in his chest—the same pull he'd felt in the warehouse, and during his first breathwork meditation. A sliver of something alive.
Waiting.
He cleared the table.
Dimmed the lights.
Sat cross-legged on the floor, the journal at his side.
And began to breathe.
Not just for air. For presence. He traced the path the journal described—breath into belly, lifted through ribs, guided between the eyebrows, then dropped into the spine.
On the sixth cycle, he felt it.
A flicker.
No longer warmth—but heat.
Somewhere deep inside his gut, something caught fire.
It didn't hurt.
But it was alive.
The spirit flame.
He focused.
Gently.
The journal warned: Don't push. Let it dance.
He drew the energy upward.
The flame licked through him like liquid light—following a curved path behind his navel, rising along the spine toward the base of his skull.
His palm glowed.
The three-ring symbol on his hand pulsed, and for a moment, Elior saw them—inside himself.
The rings.
They weren't flat symbols. They were layered structures of light and sound and intent. Spiraling around a dark center.
He reached.
The first ring opened.
A snap echoed in the room. A wind that came from nowhere blew out every candle.
Elior gasped.
He could see everything in the dark.
Not with his eyes.
With something else.
Every object glowed faintly with presence. Lines of invisible energy hung like threads between walls, windows, and people outside. He could hear footsteps two floors down. Feel the beating of a neighbor's heart. The static hum of someone arguing on the phone next door.
The first ring grants vision.
And now it was his.
But it wasn't over.
From deep inside, a whisper rose.
Not in words.
Just urgency.
As if something had seen him open that first gate.
And had noticed.