chapter 21 complete

world/magic/exploits-log.md

@@ -241,7 +241,9 @@ Every exploit Phelan uses, logged for continuity tracking.
   - Book 2 Ch02: 13 seconds (accuracy work, sustained thread at chalk target, 12 paces — ugly, 50% success rate)
   - Book 2 Ch07: 13 seconds (ugly but stable, absorbing instead of correcting — "almost gone")
   - Book 2 Ch08: 14 seconds (ugly, unstable past twelve, targeting drift only in last half-second — full second longer than previous ceiling. Key change: absorbing through instability instead of correcting)
-- **Key limitation:** Targeting locks in at ~9 seconds. Environmental disruption before that window causes compensation rather than absorption. The ring's micro-pulse (~1.3 second stabilisation rhythm) saturates instinct past 12 seconds, causing handoff to conscious correction which overcorrects and introduces drift.
+  - Book 2 Ch12: 15 seconds (integrated, ugly, unstable, holding — absorbing through instability continues as the dominant technique)
+  - Book 2 Ch21: **15 seconds plateau confirmed and acknowledged on-page.** The absorption-through-instability has smoothed to absorption without instability at some point in the last week without Phelan noticing. The ugly has smoothed. The ceiling holds. Phelan reaches for the sixteenth second and cannot find a gap in the ring's recovery cycle that would let him thread through. Leon names the ceiling out loud: *"You're not going to get sixteen out of Carterson's ring."* Plateau acknowledged as plateau, not as a setback — **primes Book 3 for a new ring or secondary focusing tool.**
+- **Key limitation:** Targeting locks in at ~9 seconds. Environmental disruption before that window causes compensation rather than absorption. The ring's micro-pulse (~1.3 second stabilisation rhythm) saturates instinct past 12 seconds, causing handoff to conscious correction which overcorrects and introduces drift. **Ch21 canon: Carterson's Ring has a hard ceiling at fifteen seconds.** The gap for a sixteenth second that Phelan had been feeling for does not exist in the current ring's recovery cycle — no flaw to thread through. Any further extension requires new hardware, not new practice.
 - **Training method:** Leon provides variable-timing heat pressure from off-angle during sustained thread exercises. Tests structural absorption vs. reactive compensation.
 - **Significance:** The ring's original specification (Ch13) was 15–20ft range. Sustained channelling extends this to 25–30ft trained, 35–40ft theoretical maximum. The 3-month training arc moves the ring from a range multiplier to a sustained combat tool. Full technique documentation: `/world/magic/fire-magic.md`