"By the time you've cultivated enough cores for your second element," another spirit added, "you'll have experienced enough battles and crises that elemental infusion will seem less important than immediate survival concerns."
Jack didn't respond to their pessimism. They could believe what they wanted. He knew his own capacity for long-term planning and resource accumulation. If the path required years, he'd find a way to make it months.
Kael had been watching the exchange with his characteristic neutral expression. "We're almost there. The Soul Well lies just ahead."
The obsidian landscape began to change as they walked.
The perfectly smooth glass gave way to rougher terrain, cracks spreading across the surface.
The void above seemed to press down with greater weight, as if the space itself were condensing around a central point.
Then Jack saw it.
A pillar of energy erupts from the ground ahead, rising into the void above in a column of concentrated spiritual power.
