Dangerous Stimuli

The cold cut like glass that night. No sound but the wind. Not even the animals dared to move. Yet Mo Han was awake. Sitting in the corner of the stable, his body trembled—not just from the cold, but from a determination that surpassed fear.

It was time for the experiment.

Over the past few days, he had gathered enough data. Muscle reactions, spasm frequency, how pain behaved in response to different postures. Every small variation was a piece of the puzzle.

But something was missing: extreme stimulus.

If he wanted to understand the limits of his body—and what he now called his "adaptive channel"—he would have to go beyond controlled pain. He needed to provoke a real response. Something that pushed his body to the edge of collapse.

He waited for midnight. Waited for the eyes of the clan to shut to the world.

Then, he moved.

He crawled out along the side of the stable. His limbs ached. His body protested. But he pressed on. He reached the abandoned well near the training grounds, where the wind blew stronger and the temperature dropped even further. There, he undressed.

Naked, sitting on the stone, he let the cold bite into his flesh.

The shock was immediate. His body tried to respond with tremors. Then with spasms. But Mo Han didn't flee.

He breathed slowly. Rhythmically. Activated containment runes in his mind. Visualized internal heat patterns, even if they didn't exist. He was training his mind to induce reactions, even without traditional resources.

Minute by minute, the body weakened. But his consciousness remained intact.

Pain is the threshold. The line between control and collapse.

When the first hallucination came, he knew he had crossed the line.

He saw himself, standing tall, wrapped in golden lines of calculation—as if he were a puppet of threads.

And then, he collapsed.

He awoke hours later, covered in a thin layer of frost. But he was alive. His body failed to move, but his mind... his mind was clear.

Something had changed.

He couldn't explain it. But he felt it. As if he had touched an edge. As if, for a second, he had seen from the inside.

He crawled back to the stable. Left trails of blood in the snow. When he collapsed again onto the straw, he smiled.

This is only the beginning. Now I know I can cross the line... and come back.