Chapter 122

  The icy cw descended towards Michael. It was certain death, and he knew it. Still, he stared at the monster in hatred and defiance, refusing to acknowledge that this was the end.

  Suddenly, the monster shuddered. For a moment, Michael thought he had done something, but then he saw a stone-covered hand emerging from the creature’s stomach in a deafening sound of shattering ice, followed by a guttural scream as the hand was pulled back. It revealed a hole that went from side to side, and through the hole, Michael could see Dave’s form, covered from head to toe in ptes of solid stone. With one final shudder, the monster fell to the ground and exploded in shards of ice, no longer kept together by whatever magic and will had been animating it.

  The moment it died, the whole room was once again just a regur ice cave.

  There was a moment of silence, during which Michael stared at Dave. The old man radiated a powerful, solid aura of strength and dominance. He nodded wordlessly, then fell to his knees.

  Michael rushed over, bnketing his mentor in healing energies. Without the room’s suppression, he was once again able to use all of his skills. His body was already regenerating. His stats were once again effective, and only now did he notice that they had slowly been weakening as he fought the monster. As strength returned to him, his healing skill revealed extensive internal damage, which he healed immediately. Dave, too, was cured, but he did not immediately get up.

  It took two more hours for him to recuperate, after which he got up with a groan.

  “I think I pulled my magic muscle, Mike. You never told me it was a thing,” Dave compined.

  “I didn’t think it was possible,” Michael replied. “Are you okay?”

  Old Dave groaned again as he summoned his stone armor and dismissed it. “It’s getting better by the moment. Ah, so this is a True Silver aura. Not bad.”

  Michael felt the old man experiment with his newly upgraded aura as he spoke. While his control was rudimentary, there was no denying the power behind it. Standing tall and proud, Old Dave seemed to have lost twenty years of age. He rolled his shoulders, massaged his neck, and flexed his arms. Then, his fist shot towards the ice of the cave without warning, shattering the ice and embedding itself in it. There was barely a thin film of stone covering Dave’s hand, but the monstrous power behind the fist was all his.

  “Not bad,” the old man commented. “Still not quite there, but it’s a start.”

  Michael smiled. He pointed at the center of the room, where Dave had been sitting. “Your reward’s there. Why don’t you pick it up?”

  “Reward?” Dave asked as he walked towards the small heap of coins and skill stones. “Would you look at that! More stone abilities, just what I needed.”

  He started absorbing them, but after the first, he began frowning. “Feel overcrowded in my, what do you call it, skill sanctum?” he mumbled.

  Michael squinted. Dave’s aura parted before his magic sight, and he quickly realized what the problem was. “Yeah, looks like you are reaching capacity,” he confirmed.

  “Huh, that sucks. How do you deal with it?” Dave inquired.

  Michael told him about the sundering process he used to make space in his Sanctum by removing the unnecessary skills. When he saw Dave’s eyes light up, he made sure to underscore just how painful the process was and the risks involved.

  “I still want to do it,” Dave decred. Without waiting for Michael, his eyes gzed over as his consciousness dipped inside his Sanctum.

  Michael saw the moment Dave sundered whatever skill he didn’t want anymore because the old man suddenly clutched his head while falling to his knees. Yet, he did not scream. He did not convulse. He simply endured while on the ground.

  Michael could have waited until Dave was out of the daze on his own—he had no doubts David was strong enough to do it—but he didn’t.

  Consider it retribution for not warning me, he thought with a smirk as he activated [Candle Light].

  It took twenty minutes for Dave’s eyes to regain crity. “I had it handled,” he grumbled as soon as they did. There was a trace of annoyance in his voice.

  Michael shrugged. “Consider it payback for ranking up in the middle of the fight. Seriously, couldn’t you wait five seconds for me to kill the monster? I spent hours getting flung around like a ragdoll!” he excimed.

  It was Dave’s turn to shrug now. “I knew you could handle it, what can I say?” he quipped.

  Michael stared, but when he saw the glint of mischief in the man’s eyes, he couldn’t help but smile. Then his own eyes turned mischievous. “You did? Well, it’s my turn now. Defend me,” he challenged.

  Before Dave had a chance to say anything, Michael plopped down and closed his eyes, deep in meditation. David didn’t miss the fact that Michael only sat down after giving the room a sweep with his senses, and after shrouding himself in a cocoon made of his own aura that was so dense he doubted even his mightiest attack could penetrate it. With a sigh, the old man began pacing around the room, much like Michael had done when the roles were reversed, trying to digest his own gains.

  He had a complete Stone-attuned magical kit now, having discarded the other skills he’d had. Michael had given them to him back when they had to fight against Carme, but they had been just random skills that sounded cool and were only somewhat useful. Back then, their understanding of magic was shallower and their selection of skill stones much smaller. He’d had to make do.

  Now instead, with the skill stones he got from defeating the monster, plus whatever stone-attuned skills he already had, he felt that his magical kit was perfect for the current him.

  He accessed his Sanctum without closing his eyes. Even though he doubted any harm would ever befall Michael with all his aura protection, he would never lower his guard in a situation like this. It was harder to access the Sanctum with his eyes open, but not impossible. There, he saw the sundered [Water Whip] skill and shuddered.

  The process had not been pleasant. He had endured it, and he might even have come out of it with his mind somewhat intact—eventually. But had it not been for Michael, who knows how long it would have taken?

  And yet, Michael did it on the fly while fighting. Monstrous.

  Dave knew he was monstrous himself, with his past and what he had to go through, but someone who was barely out of his teen years being able to outdo him like this? Resilience statistic or not, Michael had managed to develop an iron will. No longer was he the weak, trembling, directionless fool that had walked into his pawn shop.

  Pride welled up in his chest. Old Dave was proud of Michael. Of course, he was.

  With a smile, he felt for his skills. Now, his life could begin anew, and it was all thanks to Michael.

  Meanwhile, Michael was sitting in deep meditation. Ever since he got access to magic thanks to the dungeon, he had discovered many ways to grow stronger. Sometimes it would be insight gathered over many months of practice and study, like when he grew his mastery over Ice to the point where he almost felt ready to incorporate it within his aura. Other times, growth came from understanding himself and his deeper purpose. He felt like he was struggling with both these things tely, but they had undoubtedly been a catalyst for growth in the past. Then there was exposure to new things that could be studied and learned, as well as dungeon loot.

  There was another way to grow powerful, however, and it was one that had made Michael grow the most. Insight. An epiphany right when things became dire. Michael had almost died against the unnamed monster of the ice cave. What was supposed to be just a mini-boss fight had almost turned disastrous. Right as he was about to die, inspiration had struck him. He had seen Qi for what it was.

  He snorted inwardly. Such inspiration, right before I died. It would have been hirious had it not been for the fact that a dead man can’t really ugh at the absurdity of his own death.

  But he did not die. In a twist of fate, and the fact that Fate was a facet of Unity wasn’t lost on him, he had managed to survive. Old Dave had completed his tier-up right at the st possible moment and saved his sorry backside, and afterward, he hadn’t even teased Michael too much about it, a thing he was very grateful for.

  Qi. The strange energy that was supposed to be at the base of the Silver Tier and yet eluded Michael much more than the gold-ranked Intent ever did. Where did it come from? What did it do? How did it act?

  So far, Michael had only tried to manipute Qi like he was handling mana or Elemental Energy. And why shouldn’t he? In his mind, Qi was just another type of magic, nothing strange. It didn’t even register that he was treating Intent way differently because, in his mind, it was obvious that Intent was different, while Qi was not.

  He realized the error of his ways. Even though he tried to be scientific, he had fallen into a trap. He had assumed Qi to be like mana and had never bothered to check whether his assumption was true or not. As a consequence, he had been held back from understanding what the silver-tier energy was really about.

  “If I were to describe Qi, I would say that it is… unscientific. Same stimulus, different responses based on a myriad of factors. Mood, the location, mental focus, the image, the position of the sun… anything could be a factor.”

  He felt his understanding deepen.

  “The lower energies are more ordered, more grounded in reality. The elements are many, and they can do a great many things, but only when coerced by my reality-bending aura. An elemental stone and a circuit that activates it is as reliable as a ticking clock. Chi will always become Jing and strike your enemies when sparked by Intent. Were there no Intent, it wouldn’t know what to do. Mana obeys its own rules, does what it can do, and doesn’t do what it can’t do. Can it do everything? Maybe, but there are always rules. Mental images, cost proportional to effect, other things we don’t yet know. Qi…”

  “Qi is not about rules. It’s about understanding. At the Silver Tier, things start to look esoteric and holistic. No more is it about systems within systems, but strange things at the edge of the real world. Qi might be reliable, but it’s finicky, must be subdued, coerced or convinced. It’s not empty, waiting to be used. It has a will.”

  Suddenly, his eyes shot open. Not to the real world, but to his inner self. Michael did not behold his Skill Sanctum, but a space parallel to it. There, he saw reflected in negative all the veins that covered the walls of the Skill Sanctum, but instead of mana, they carried Qi.

  They were his meridians.

  A network of veins superimposed over his body, reflecting the disposition of the mana veins in the cavernous Skill Sanctum, but transted into his fleshy body like a map distorted to fit a new projection method. At the center—

  There wasn’t one, but three centers.

  “I understand why Qi is used in the east, the nd where disciplines of mental strength and crity were born.”

  Three Dantians glowed at the center of his meridian system. One in his head. Another at his lungs. And yet another at his navel.

  Something clicked. Immediately, Michael felt the foundation of his True Silver aura deepen. If before he thought he was at the apex of stability, now he realized the folly of his thinking. He was a house of cards yet he believed himself to be made of concrete. As his aura deepened, he sent mental probes to his Dantian cores. Two were dim and did not respond to him, but the one in his head was lit by traces of Qi.

  When his mental probe reached it, it was promptly ejected. Frowning, Michael tried again, but no matter how much he tried, no matter his angle of attack, he could not gain purchase.

  Then, struck by inspiration, he ced Intent into his mental probe and felt the upper Dantian respond.

  [Magic Manipution] reaches level 11, overcoming its final bottleneck. You can manipute, store and project any magic that you understand, up to energies equivalent to the rarity of this skill. Your proficiency is proportional to your understanding and to the strength of your Aura.

  Known magic:

  Elements: Fire (Aura), Ice (Master)Chi and Jing (Beginner)Mana (Intermediate)Qi (Beginner) -> Qi (Intermediate)Intent (Beginner) -> Intent (Intermediate)

  Your Qi reserves are no longer tied to your mana reserves.

  You have created a new rare skill: [Cultivation]. By using Intent, you can guide the Qi into your Dantian and cultivate your mind, body and soul.

  Mind: Qi Gathering 1Soul: lockedBody: lockedDespite the enormous gains, Michael still felt like something was missing. But he could not act upon that feeling, for he felt that his mind was growing tired and his Intent and willpower were waning after the titanic effort of locating and activating one of his Dantian cores. With a sigh, he opened his eyes to the real world, but he found himself immediately blinded by its new radiance.

  When the gre receded somewhat, he discovered that Old Dave was gone.