The second attempt hurt just as much as the first.

  The third wasn’t any better.

  Each time I tried to push even the smallest fragment of the singularity through the boundary of the soul, the result was the same.

  Pain.

  Withdrawal.

  Failure.

  I would instinctively pull the fragment back before it could fully pass through.

  Then the aftereffects would come.

  A wave of nauseating vertigo.

  And the faint hissing of psychological static inside my mind, like radio noise that refused to disappear.

  This continued for several days.

  Attempt after attempt ended the same way.

  Yet something slowly began to change.

  The pain didn’t disappear.

  But over time, it became… familiar.

  The human body is never truly silent.

  Every moment, countless signals travel through the nervous system. Tiny pressures in the muscles. Subtle movements of organs. The faint stretch of tendons and skin. Even the steady beating of the heart sends waves of sensation throughout the body.

  If the mind were forced to acknowledge all of it, every second would feel overwhelming—like every muscle fiber and every organ itching at once.

  But the brain doesn’t allow that.

  It filters.

  It chooses what matters and discards the rest as background noise.

  Most people never notice the weight of their clothes on their skin after wearing them for a few minutes. The constant pressure fades from awareness.

  The feeling of the tongue resting in the mouth disappears unless attention is drawn to it.

  Even breathing becomes something the mind ignores until someone consciously focuses on it.

  The signals are still there.

  The brain simply stops paying attention.

  Slowly, painfully, my very being was learning to endure the strain of the singularity pressing against the boundary of my soul.

  The moment it touched the boundary of the soul, the pain still erupted—like a steel drill rod being forced into my head while my nervous system stretched across an impossible distance.

  But now the reaction was different.

  Instead of instinctively pulling back, I could endure it for a moment longer.

  The fragment of singularity hovered at the boundary, no longer forced back immediately by reflex.

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  The pain was still there.

  My very being no longer recoiled from it as strongly as before.

  It was learning to treat the agony the same way the brain treats the countless sensations inside the body—

  As something that could be ignored.

  Days passed like this.

  Pain.

  Endurance.

  Another attempt.

  Nearly two weeks later, something finally changed.

  Before attempting the spell, I completed every calculation.

  The exact coordinates of the destination.

  The spatial alignment required to connect them.

  All of it existed as a prepared structure, held together by mana. A complete framework waiting to be used.

  But it was still incomplete.

  It lacked the one thing capable of actually bending space.

  The singularity.

  Without it, the spell was nothing more than a carefully constructed design—stable, precise, but powerless.

  The final step required projecting a fragment of the singularity outside the vessel, my soul.

  Deep within that vessel, the infinitesimal point of infinity rested in silent stillness. It simply existed there, contained within the boundaries of the soul.

  Slowly, I pushed a fragment of it toward the boundary of the soul once more.

  The familiar pain erupted instantly—

  But this time, I didn’t retreat.

  I held it there.

  The fragment forced its way through.

  For a brief instant, the boundary of my soul tore open as the singularity passed through it.

  The moment it appeared in real space, the prepared framework reacted instantly—like a key sliding into the final lock of a mechanism that had been waiting to activate.

  Space bent.

  The fragment of singularity was consumed as the spell forced two distant points to collapse together.

  The space between them folded into a wormhole.

  There was no visible buildup.

  No gradual distortion.

  One moment I stood beside the bed.

  The next moment—

  I was already five meters away.

  Then the pain arrived.

  It tore through me immediately after the shift.

  It struck without warning, like my very soul had been violently torn away.

  My legs lost their strength.

  I collapsed on the spot.

  The sensation was disturbingly similar to having a limb severed—an empty, phantom absence where something should have existed. The boundary of my soul had been forced open when the fragment of singularity tore its way out.

  But my soul did not remain broken.

  Almost immediately, it began repairing itself.

  The torn boundary slowly knit together, restoring its structure as if invisible threads were stitching the wound shut.

  Unfortunately, the regeneration was no gentler than the damage itself.

  The pain burned through my consciousness, raw and relentless, like a limb being torn off and then forced to regrow at the same time.

  I lay there quietly, waiting for the storm inside my soul to pass.

  After several breaths, the pain finally subsided enough for my thoughts to settle.

  Another pain to get used to, I thought silently.

  I remained seated for a while, letting the trembling in my limbs fade.

  The teleportation itself wasn’t the problem.

  Distance hadn’t been the issue. The fold in space occurred instantly, regardless of how far apart the coordinates were.

  Space folded smoothly, almost obediently, once the singularity was formed.

  What truly carried the cost… could be how many times I can project the singularity.

  The singularity did not simply appear outside my body.

  It passed through my soul.

  Each time it manifested, it tore open a path through the vessel before anchoring itself in reality.

  The pain earlier had been the evidence of that passage.

  I exhaled slowly.

  My soul had repaired itself this time.

  But repair did not mean it was unharmed.

  There had to be a limit.

  A number of times the vessel could be punctured before it refused to mend.

  Until I discovered that number…

  Every teleport would be a gamble.

  __

  A letter from the North arrived that afternoon.

  Raine’s coming-of-age ceremony.

  She was one month older than me, so naturally her ceremony would come first. The date was set for a week from today.

  House Aquilon ruled the northern frontier, masters of water and ice. Their soldiers guarded the empire’s frozen border, holding the line against the monstrous creatures that prowled the wastelands beyond.

  Past their fortresses stretched an endless expanse of snowfields and jagged ice valleys — territory claimed by no kingdom and ruled only by monsters.

  Which made it the perfect training ground.

  Perfect timing.

  While attending the ceremony, I could quietly mark a location somewhere near the frontier.

  Not beyond the defensive lines — that would attract unnecessary attention —

  After returning to my territory, all I would need to do was wait for nightfall.

  Teleport. Cross the northern border.

  I could test the Singularity there without worrying about disturbances. The frontier was vast, and beyond the northern defenses stretched nothing but frozen wilderness.

  No curious nobles. No patrols wandering too close.

  Just empty land… and monsters.

  That was ideal.

  And if things turned dangerous…

  I could simply teleport back.