now, before adding any more props.


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    slow, crushing pressure. It felt as though millennia were collapsing in on him, the weight of mountains pressing down, the profound, unutterable stillness of being buried deep within the earth.


    seeing images, but feeling the essence of the wood''s transformation. The slow, molecule-by-molecule replacement of organic fibre with mineral. The leaching away of life, replaced by the cold permanence of stone. The crushing weight of sediment accumulating above, layer by patient layer, over epochs. The damp darkness. The utter lack of change or event, a stillness so profound it bordered on non-existence.


    being there, an unthinking, unfeeling support. He felt the constant, downward pressure of the shelf above, the weight of the rocks and crystals it held, an unchanging burden borne with the infinite patience of stone. He felt the damp seeping into its stony pores, the dust settling, the faint vibrations of footsteps passing nearby – countless footsteps over generations, none paying it any mind. He felt the slow decay of the Repository around it, a process happening at lightning speed compared to its own transformation, yet still achingly slow from a human perspective.


    thud of the shelf settling firmly onto the flat stone he’d wedged underneath broke the spell. The physical jolt, the completion of his action, severed the involuntary connection.


    It happened again.


    was this? A curse? A mutation of his soul? Was he losing his mind? The sect elders spoke of cultivation deviations, of Qi poisoning leading to hallucinations, of demonic influences preying on weak minds. Could this be one of those? The intensity, the sheer reality of the experiences, felt far beyond simple imagination.


    knew. He had felt its history, its transformation, its long, silent endurance. He had, for a moment, been the unthinking stone.