For a single moment, time remained frozen. The heat in my chest bloomed, my two cores suddenly growing searing hot, sending waves of agony through my broken body, until, with a pop in my ears, they suddenly changed.

  The searing heat colpsed into two singurities, then suddenly froze, as an icy chill spread from those two locations. A moment ter, the freezing cold turned into an invigorating, cool breeze, blowing away the absolute agony from the heat.

  And that same instant, Qi bubbled forth from within my wellsprings - for that is what they were now, no longer cores.

  Within a moment, the golden Qi rushed to my hand, reinforcing my arm, letting it move the faint few centimeters sideways it still needed.

  Olivia’s rapier bit into my flesh, then broke through the bone of my palm, stabbing right through my hand. With all the golden Qi I could muster, I drove my hand upwards.

  The power of the attack drove my hand up against my head, the bde digging deep into the flesh on my forehead. It cut through my eyebrow, barely missing my eye itself, then scraped upwards against my skull, all the way until it exited at my scalp.

  I roared out a pained scream, blood oozing from the wound, blinding me in my left eye- the one I’d almost missed. With my other hand, the mirror Qi moved, shifting the gss underneath my skin.

  With newfound mastery, I stabbed forward, my weapon whistling through the air.

  [Swift Spear has reached (Intermediate)!]

  The metal bit deep into Olivia’s outer thigh. The woman - not used to pain like I was - instinctively let go of her weapon to grab at the wound. The sword was still stuck in my hand, now pulled down by gravity, and sent new waves of bzing hot pain through my body as the wound worsened.

  Despite that, I was left not a moment of respite.

  There was a whisper in the air, something that I barely detected because I was drawing all the Qi in the area to me. I activated [Reflection] for the attack, shifting its energy with another twist of my already strained mind.

  My wellspring had just bloomed, and the technique was hungry for Qi, though, so it didn’t work entirely.

  Instead of reflecting the attack, it was more like a deflection, and an icicle dug into my right side from my back, stabbing through muscles and injuring organs, but not puncturing my lungs as it would have.

  Another scream tore itself from my hoarse lips as I fell to my knees. My muscles, barely refreshed from my ascendance to another realm of cultivation - twice at that! - convulsed with the pain of the enlightenment I had felt.

  My spear was so comfortable to me now, the weapon resonating with my very soul, and yet I could do little more except let go of it and drop to the floor. I twisted my head a little and, yes, there he was. The damned old mage from Olivia’s party had shot an icicle into me.

  The woman who had just almost stabbed my brains out was still screaming, but I filtered her voice out. Deep within me, Qi bubbled from my wellsprings, desperately trying to fill my… well. My wells? Maybe I should still call them cores.

  A moment ter the extraneous thoughts faded away. [Mirror Mind] still ran, and I remembered patterns. How people shifted Qi in their bodies. My master… his technique was incredible. Evershifting, staving off the effects of age, increasing blood clotting on wounds, making him faster, stronger, and even increasing his regeneration…

  It was unbelievably sophisticated, and a more pure expression of his mastery than almost anything I could come up with. It was also far too complicated for me to mimic, even with the help of my talent.

  Instead, my mind turned to Matt. A prodigy, seemingly always a step ahead of me, with unbelievable skill and incredible talent to boot. His cycling technique was good, very good even, and I mimicked it for a moment.

  Fkes of gold suddenly hovered around my body, tearing apart the icicle.

  I almost passed out from the pain, and dizziness as I started losing blood, but then I blended the methods. [Golden Body] - which I now knew was simply a method to circute Qi - mixed with Matt’s petal manipution.

  The fkes of gold settled down on my wounds, stopping the flow of blood, and the gss underneath my skin roiled, somehow helping me turn more water into blood. My skin virtually sucked my sweat back in, even absorbing some of the bloody ke water I id in, and more blood was made.

  Smaller parts of my skin cracked from the ck of moisture, but despite the wounds, despite the fact that there was quite literally a hole about three inches deep and one wide in my back, I moved.

  My hand dug into the muddy ground of the keshore, each muscle in it burning with agony. Then I pushed my upper body up.

  The entire area around me was still under my will, the Qi obeying me, and so, when another icicle came flying, I leaned to the side until it missed.

  When I was sat up, I moved some more. My right hand went over to my left, then pulled Olivia’s sword out of my palm. I tossed the rapier onto the ground with a grunt. By now, the woman had long since stopped screaming.

  In fact, despite the fear in her eyes, she came at me, trying to kick my face.

  Instantly, I drained my mirror well empty again. The Qi flooded into my circuit, demanding the gss underneath me move, and I dodged back by simply a hair, her boot brushing by me and missing my chin. She lost her bance because of the injured leg, slipping and falling onto the shallow kebed.

  My well started filling up again, Qi bubbling forth, but my eyes bled more. My mind pounded, my head aching as if my brain was trying to escape my skull, from the exertion of the manipution. Still, I breathed, scraping Qi from the world and into my wells. Because it was mine.

  Slowly, guiding the gss under my skin, I got up. Shakily, I stood, then caught another icicle with my bleeding hand.

  My eyes had bled so much they were both blind, so I shut them, and simply relied on my sense for Qi.

  [Aura Sense [New!] (Low) (Perceive your surroundings by being in touch with the energies suffusing them)]

  I breathed. I dropped the icicle, stained red in blood. I tried to speak, but only gargled noises left my mouth; my throat was filled with blood. Ah, damn it.

  With another twist of Qi, because, really, I was already bleeding everywhere, and my aching mind seemed to ck care for whether it would ache more, I burned away the blood in my throat and lungs. Some of my pain faded, but new pain blossomed to repce it, like a carefully cultivated flower of misery.

  I spoke, though, my throat hoarse and wounded. “Stay the fuck out of my way.”

  A moment ter, I cut off Olivia’s right hand. My ears had bled so much, and my eardrums might have ruptured… again… so I didn’t hear her screams.

  The mage was too far away. I simply looked at where I thought he was, over the ke. I had my eyes closed, and [Aura Sense] only let me see a few meters around me, so I just guessed where he was.

  No more icicles came.

  Then… I walked away.

  All of this for a meagre two fish… well, and a human hand, but I wasn’t about to eat that, so I just left it.

  - - -A/N: Think i briefly uploaded the wrong chapter today, my bad!