"Ki core?"

  The words felt strange, echoing the term Father used for the source of a mage's power – the very thing this body lacked. But Ki wasn't mana. It was internal, self-generated.

  "How does that even work? Ki doesn't need storing like mana; it doesn't run out as long as I'm breathing."

  Alina let out an exaggerated sigh that ruffled the fur on her chest, pausing her meticulous grooming. "Honestly, kid, sometimes I wonder if that knock on the head scrambled more than just your memories." Those golden eyes, far too intelligent for a cat, fixed on me.

  "Think of it like this, smart guy. A mana core? Just a container. Magic floating around, gets concentrated in a baby's chest while it's doing nothing useful, hardens up, makes a little bottle for holding environmental mana." She sniffed. "Simple. Crude, really."

  She hopped onto the rough table, tail twitching impatiently. "Your Ki flows like a river, sure. Constant. But it's a wild river. Uncontrolled. No reservoir to hold extra when you need a bigger surge, no refined center to draw from or direct with precision."

  "A Ki core?" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Same basic idea as a mana core, but using your internal energy. Concentrate your Ki, focus it relentlessly, let it solidify near your heart. It becomes a vessel, yes, but also a focal point, a control center."

  "But... why?" I pressed, the 'dam' technique still fresh in my mind. "I can control the flow now."

  Alina actually laughed, a dry, breathy sound utterly unlike a cat's purr. "Control the flow? Like putting a rock in a stream to divert it? Cute." Her voice dripped condescension.

  "A core gives you volume. Capacity. Think bigger, kid! More Ki concentrated in one spot means more raw power you can pump into those muscles without shattering them. Stronger amplification. More devastating force behind those fancy punches of yours. It's not just about control; it's about density. Amount. A deeper, more potent well to draw from when you really need it."

  It made a twisted kind of sense. The dam technique regulated the river, but a core acted like a pressurized reservoir. Logically, a denser source would mean greater output, even with the same level of control.

  "Okay," I conceded slowly, the fighter in me instantly grasping the advantage. "How long? To form one?"

  "Well," Alina stretched again, that unnerving blend of feline grace and ancient wisdom in her eyes. "A mana core takes about three months while you're floating around in your mom's belly, doing nothing. But you," she pointed a sharp black claw right at me, "are ten years old – yes, I know your exact age, stop looking so surprised all the time – which means you can actually concentrate. Plus, you already have the Ki; you're not trying to suck it out of the air like mages do."

  She paused, tapping her claw thoughtfully on the wood. "Hmm. I'd say… maybe a month? Give or take. If you're as talented as you look, anyway."

  A month? After spending years honing my physical body in my past life, a month felt impossibly fast for such a fundamental change.

  "How do you even know about Ki cores? The books Father had… they barely mentioned Ki, let alone cores."

  She waved a dismissive paw. "Oh, please. Those dusty village primers? Barely scratch the surface of real knowledge. Long before mana became all the rage on this continent, Ki was the main power. The real masters? They formed cores. It’s ancient history, mostly forgotten now. Especially here on the Eastern Continent."

  My eyes widened slightly. The map… the implication… "So, the Western Continent… they knew more?"

  "Let's just say some parts did," Alina confirmed vaguely, her tone hinting at vast knowledge deliberately withheld. "Magic-wise, East and West are pretty evenly matched these days, though. Your strongest nation here is that charmingly aggressive Silberstrom Empire, isn't it? Ruled by your 'God-Emperor' Konig?" She rolled her golden eyes dramatically. "And out West, you've got the elf city-states, Aurea. Their big cheese is Silvana, the 'Mage God'."

  Aurea. Another name absent from the village maps. God-Emperor, Mage God… Titles dripping with arrogance. Then again, my fighting moniker back home had been ‘The King’. Maybe it wasn't so different after all.

  "Anyways," Alina interrupted my thoughts sharply, hopping gracefully off the table. "Enough history lessons. Time is wasting. Your Ki core isn't going to form itself just sitting here." She trotted towards the wooden wall opposite the cot, her tail held high. "Follow me. We're going to my personal training space."

  Before I could even frame a question, a shimmering, rainbow-hued light pulsed from her small form. It wasn't like mana gathering for a spell; it felt deeper, stranger. The light coalesced, distorting the air, and the solid wooden wall in front of her seemed to melt, rippling away like disturbed water to reveal a swirling vortex of iridescent color. It pulsed, alive, opening like a liquid gateway not to the outside world, but someplace… else.

  Resonance? Is this that power?

  "What the hell is that?" I breathed, staring, unable to comprehend the shimmering portal hanging in the air.

  "Less talking, more walking," Alina instructed curtly, stepping nonchalantly into the swirling colors without a backward glance. "And stop asking questions you aren't ready for the answers to. Get in here and start meditating."

  Hesitantly, heart pounding with a mixture of apprehension and burgeoning excitement, I followed her through the shimmering gateway. The transition was bizarre, like pushing through thick, resistant syrup, colors swirling past my vision, then bursting out into…

  Paradise.

  I stood blinking, the small wooden room gone, replaced by a vast space easily the size of a gymnasium from my past life. Yet it felt impossibly open, airy, alive.

  Soft sunlight streamed down from an unseen source high above, illuminating a landscape of vibrant green grass stretching in all directions. A crystal-clear river snaked through it, cascading down a small, picturesque waterfall at the far end, its gentle murmur filling the air. Birds chirped from invisible branches, and the air smelled sweet and clean, like damp earth and wildflowers after a spring rain.

  In the middle of the river sat a single, flat-topped rock, looking perfectly placed, almost inviting.

  "Alright, rockstar," Alina's voice echoed slightly in the enormous space. She was sitting primly on the riverbank, watching me. "Park yourself on that rock in the river. Nice and serene. Perfect for concentrating."

  Still reeling from the sudden shift in reality, I leaped across the smooth stepping stones leading to the central rock and settled into a cross-legged position. The stone felt cool beneath me.

  Just before closing my eyes, I saw Alina pad back towards the spot where the portal had been. It rippled once, then solidified back into a featureless expanse that blended seamlessly with the distant greenery, leaving us enclosed in this impossible, hidden sanctuary.

  Guess she's serious about this.

  A thrill, sharp and potent, cut through the lingering disorientation. A Ki core. More power. More control. The fighter in me surged with anticipation. But first… I had to form it.

  I closed my eyes, shutting out the impossible paradise, turning my focus inward.

  The familiar river of Ki flowed within me, potent, steadier now thanks to the 'dam' technique, but still just a single powerful current. Alina's words echoed: No reservoir, no control center. How could I gather it? Concentrate it in that spot near my heart where a core should be?

  I searched, pushing my awareness deeper, tracing the Ki's flow, seeking more than just the main channel. The books… the diagrams of mana veins… this body had them once. Dormant pathways for a different power. Could they still exist? Could I repurpose them?

  Amplifying my Ki slightly, using the 'dam' to keep it controlled, I let the energy illuminate my internal landscape like a soft light. And there they were. Faint, almost invisible channels, disconnected from the main river of Ki, like dried-up tributaries. Remnants of a system built for mana.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  One pathway lay tantalizingly close to the main Ki flow, separated by only a thin, almost imperceptible barrier.

  There.

  With intense focus, gathering my will, I directed a tendril of Ki, a probe of pure energy, towards that barrier. Pushing. Gently at first, then harder, willing my internal power to bridge the gap, to reclaim that dormant channel.

  For a long moment, resistance. Then, a sensation like cracking ice, a sharp internal snap. The barrier gave way.

  Euphoria.

  Ki surged into the dormant pathway, flooding it, revitalizing it, a torrent rushing into a dry riverbed. It wasn't just one river anymore; it was a network. My body responded instantly, instinctively producing more Ki, amplifying the flow to fill these newly opened channels. It felt like a reservoir expanding, my internal 'tank' suddenly growing vastly larger.

  This alone was a massive breakthrough, a fundamental shift in my internal landscape. But it wasn't the core. Not yet.

  Alina said a month. Gentle focus. Patient coaxing.

  But she also said I had more concentration than an unborn child. And my power source was internal, not drawn from the outside like mana.

  What if brute force worked? What if pressure was the key?

  I took a deep, centering breath, steeling myself. Then, I unleashed the floodgates. Not fifty percent. Not the eighty percent that strained my limits against the mage. Everything. One hundred percent.

  My body lit up like a nova from the inside, the white aura exploding outwards, so intense it threatened to overwhelm my senses. Instead of letting it dissipate, I fought back, gritting my teeth against the mounting agony, and forced all of it inwards. Compressing. Focusing that raging, internal inferno towards the empty space near my heart, the spot where the core belonged.

  The pressure was immense, a physical agony unlike anything I'd ever felt. My muscles screamed, seizing up under the strain. My vision tunnelled, black spots dancing at the edges. Every nerve ending felt like it was being simultaneously crushed and ignited by raw power.

  This was stress beyond physical exertion, beyond any fight I'd endured. This was forcing creation through sheer, brutal will.

  But the logic held. Compressing more Ki, denser Ki, into that single point under unbearable pressure… it should form a core. A powerful one.

  If I could just bear it. If my will didn't shatter first. If this body didn't simply disintegrate under the strain…

  Hold on…

  Alina watched from the riverbank, curled into an unassuming ball of black fur, her golden eyes narrowed, radiating an unnerving concentration. The sheer intensity pulsing from the boy on the rock made the air hum, tiny pebbles vibrating around her paws.

  Well, well. He figured out the pathways already. Faster than expected. A flicker of genuine surprise, rare and fleeting, touched her ancient consciousness. Repurposing dormant mana veins for Ki flow… clever. Instinctive, perhaps, driven by the lingering imprint of that other life he carried, but impressive nonetheless.

  Then came the surge. Not the controlled fifty, not the desperate eighty he’d flung at the ice chucker. This was everything. Raw, untamed power lighting him up like a miniature sun, the sheer internal pressure threatening to tear his young body apart.

  And now he’s trying to compress it all? Into the core point? She tilted her head slightly. Ambitious. Reckless. Suicidal, maybe.

  Most would focus gently, patiently coaxing the energy over weeks, months even. This brute force method… it could forge a powerful core, yes. Denser, higher capacity right from the start. If he survived the formation. If his will didn't shatter under the agonizing strain.

  She felt a familiar weight settle upon her, the quiet burden of observation, the eternal gamble of intervention. Is he the one?

  The signs were there – the impossible power, the unsettling maturity warring with childish vulnerability, the sheer, stubborn, almost infuriating will radiating from him even now.

  Perhaps, she thought, a rare tendril of hope unfurling within her guarded mind as she watched the boy tremble visibly under the strain, sweat plastering his blond hair to his forehead, his small face a mask of agonizing concentration. Perhaps this one really could save us all.

  A MONTH LATER

  Endurance. That word hammered itself into my soul.

  A month ground by in Alina’s impossible little pocket world, one day bleeding into the next, measured only by the constant, crushing pressure I kept locked inside me. I stayed planted on that rock in the middle of the river, a living statue fueled by pure stubbornness, forcing my Ki to its absolute breaking point, day after relentless day.

  It was an inferno turned inward, focused razor-sharp on that spot near my heart where the core was supposed to form. Every second was a fight against just falling apart, against my own body screaming to unravel under the impossible strain.

  But somehow, it held. The destructive backlash I’d half-expected, the kind that had shattered my arms before, never came in the same way. Using those old, repurposed mana pathways let the Ki spread out, flooding the network instead of tearing my muscles apart from the inside.

  The pain was still there, deep and grinding, fraying my nerves raw until I felt like screaming, but it wasn't the sharp, bone-breaking agony from the forest. This felt… useful. Like steel being forged in a furnace. My body, pushed harder than ever, was changing, strengthening in ways lifting rocks never could.

  Then, after what felt like an age trapped in that internal pressure cooker, something gave.

  Not slowly, but with a sudden, deep thrum that resonated from my chest. It wasn't a sound, more like a vibration deep in my bones. The pinpoint focus of all that Ki pulsed, not just holding against the pressure, but… hardening. Becoming something.

  My eyes flew open. The impossible, serene landscape of Alina's training room swam back into focus as my own aura exploded outwards, uncontrolled. It wasn’t just white anymore. Veins of blinding, dense light pulsed through it, radiating a power so real it made the air shake.

  The wild river of energy inside me finally had a source, a swirling vortex anchored near my heart. It felt… solid. Complete. Real.

  Exhilaration hit me like a physical blow, warring with a bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to pull me under. I tried to push myself up, to stand. My legs, locked in place for weeks, screamed in protest, trembling like overstrung wires. My balance vanished. I pitched backward, bracing for the cold bite of the river.

  Instead of water, something solid but yielding caught me. A chair. A crude thing, formed right out of the dirt and roots of the riverbank, materialized beneath me split seconds before I hit.

  Gasping, I looked up. Alina. Perched on the bank, those unsettling gold eyes fixed on me. The usual smart-ass amusement was there, but underneath… a flicker of genuine shock.

  "Jeez, kid," she drawled, hopping lightly onto the armrest of my instant earth-chair. "Figured you had something cooking in that scrawny frame, hiding all that potential. But that core…" She stared hard at my chest, like she could see right through skin and bone. "Let’s just say it's… dense. Real quality formation. Haven't seen one that good in… well, a very long time."

  She tapped a claw against her chin, thoughtful. "Still just a Dull tier core, though. Rough as a damn cobblestone."

  Slowly, carefully, testing every muscle, I pushed myself up again. My legs shook, threatening to give out, but they held. One step. Another. Weak, shaky, but moving. The exhaustion was profound, digging into my very marrow, but the steady hum of power coming from the new core was intoxicating.

  "Dull tier?" I repeated, carefully stepping across the stones back to the bank. "What's that mean?"

  Alina sighed, like explaining things was beneath her. "By The Five Gods, the education in this era is pathetic. Those books you found didn't cover core smoothness, did they? Figures." She flicked her tail, dismissing centuries of human knowledge.

  "Look, both mana cores and Ki cores have… levels. Refinement. Smoothness, get it? Think of a brand-new core like yours – rough, lumpy rock. That's Dull tier. Barely works, chaotic energy flow, leaks like a sieve."

  She started ticking points off on her claws. "Training, meditation, focus – that smooths it out. Dim tier, it starts to glow a bit. Radiant, gets steadier. Brilliant, real power kicks in. Ethereal, shines like a damn star. Transcendent, nearly perfect. And the top dog, the Mana or Ki Singularity – perfectly smooth, flawless. Processes energy like a dream, regenerates faster. Got it?"

  I nodded slowly, the pieces clicking into place. Made sense. "Ah, I see. So, smoothing it out is next? Focus Ki around it, fill in the pits, polish it?"

  "Bingo," Alina smirked. "Better control, more efficient, holds more juice… the whole package. Takes time, though. Lots of boring-ass meditation."

  Something else surged through me then – not the raw power humming in my chest, but the fighter's itch. The need to test, to understand the limits. A grin spread across my face.

  "Can I…?" I gestured towards the waterfall, the memory of that explosive power still buzzing in my veins.

  Alina sighed dramatically. "Sure, knock yourself out. Like I said," she waved a paw vaguely, "this room resets every time I leave anyway."

  Resets? What did that mean? Another damn riddle wrapped in fur and sarcasm. I pushed the thought aside. The urge to feel the difference, the reality of this new power, was too strong.

  I turned to face the waterfall, the roaring curtain of water a perfect target. Let's test a shockwave with this new power. As long as I don't make contact, my arm should be fine.

  Drawing my right arm back, I pulled Ki deliberately from the new core. The response was instant, powerful, yet smoother than anything I'd felt before. It flowed through the pathways I’d forced open, gathering in my fist with a density that felt solid, real. Not a wild surge, but a directed, pressurized force.

  I punched.

  The motion was faster, sharper. More explosive. A shockwave, visibly denser, more focused than anything I'd managed before, ripped through the air with a sharp crack! It hit the waterfall dead center.

  The water didn't just part. For a split second, it seemed to freeze, suspended by sheer concussive force. Then the rocks behind the waterfall imploded. Shattered into dust and fragments, leaving a deep, concave scar blown into the bedrock. The boom slammed back through the quiet sanctuary like a physical blow, echoing off walls I couldn't see.

  A low whistle sounded behind me. "Wow," Alina murmured. She was on my shoulder now, her voice lacking its usual bite, replaced with genuine awe. "All that from just a shockwave. You got some serious juice now, kid."

  She tapped my cheek lightly, her claws retracted. "But listen up." Her tone sharpened instantly. "That power needs training. Control. Don't want you accidentally blowing some poor bastard's head off 'cause you tapped him too hard, get it? Or worse," she added, her golden eyes narrowing, "shredding yourself from the inside out again because you misjudged the flow. Get used to it. Learn its limits. Understand?"

  I nodded slowly, the thrill of the raw power warring with the weight of her warning. The core felt like a contained sun in my chest – powerful, yes, but steady. Waiting.

  "Right…"

  The real training starts now.