People all over the world were confused, scared and angry. The game's maintenance update was at the end of the week. During the Friday/Saturday break, the app was down as well. People couldn't trade with others.

  The Mystic Research Forum didn't have that problem. They were a discussion forum featuring screenshots of gameplay.

  Luther, of course, asked for help and shared his findings.

  [Qi] has similarities to [Mana], but that's because [Qi] is a combination of [Mana], [Other], and [SoulSpirit Energy]. When he showed a recording of him absorbing the Spirit Stones and taking it's energy apart, the whole forum went crazy.

  \But, how? We always were under the assumption that they were the same just used in different environments.

  \No, this makes sense. Mana has always been light and airy, Qi was fluid. Mana was too impermanent to be used in cultivation. By itself, anyway.

  \Isn't this Other the stuff that came from monster pearls? Beast cultivators, how you purify their cores?

  \We don't. When we cultivate using beast cores, our bodies adapt to the Qi, we don't make the Qi adapt to us.

  \Yoo! This guy is a ★★ MASTER Mage guys. And his playtime is less than a week.

  \Congratulations man.

  The kept congratulating him a little bit longer before continuing their dissection of Qi in the game.

  \I'm curious about this SoulSpirit energy. Even when is was purified and condensed, like a core I might add, it just congratulated him and moved on. I can't be the only one that noticed the World Announcement. The one that said someone found True Soul magic and we need to block access for updates and maintenance.

  \Bro, I think you found something you weren't supposed to.

  \I just realized that. He made a core. Could he find a way to cultivate?

  \No dice. I tried. The Mage Occupation prevents cultivation. We don't have the bodies for it.

  \Maybe that's what the update is for...

  Luther left the conversation shortly after. He turned to see his Father leaning on the door case.

  "Y'know. Most people play to just play." Alex had a smirk on his face, almost laughing. "You made the game go into maintenance after Two days!" He barked out a laugh.

  He walks over to his son's bed. "Come on, tell me everything."

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  The first thing that was told was his new teaching job, which lead to another loud laugh. When he explained spells he printed a couple for his dad to see. Alex, who worked in construction and played Second Chance at night noticed similarities. "Holy shit! Turning archetecture into magic is awesome."

  "What do you mean?" The [Barrier] Spell was taken and placed on the dining room table. He came back with a blueprint.

  "These are the building plans for the community center down the road." He placed them next to each other.

  The community center was a dome shaped building. It's walls were in an almost spiderweb shape. But, a thought occurred to Luther and he took a picture of it. "Hey, Dad."

  "What's up?" Alex mumbled as he looked at the other spell maps. His company was in construction these spells actually looked like good blueprint ideas. When his son wrote the names down for each spell, he was curious as to the difference between 'Wall' and 'Barrier'. 'Wall' had two less lines than 'Barrier'. But, what difference did that make really?

  "While it does look similar to 'Barrier', The building blueprint is more complicated. Do you think I could use this to make a new spell in the game?" It was a longshot, but worth it in Luther's opinion. Especially since he was going to be a spellcraft teacher. Damn it.

  It was amazing, actually. Luther had used his burgeoning architecture skills to edit spells in the game. But Real World architecture showed similarities to In-Game Magic. It was worth exploring.

  The day was spent bonding. Alex found this pizza place recently that he decided to show his son. It's was honestly a relief for both of them. Alex and Luther worked almost entirely throughout the day at their respective jobs, and at night when they were supposed to be sleeping, they were having their own adventures.

  Taking a break from everything to explore the little hidden gems of their town was needed.

  The Five Leaf Clover was a small pizza place, it only had 4 booths and 4 tables. It used to be a bakery before it was bought by Lionel, an old college friend of Alex. They sat in a booth and split a whole large pizza as they talked about the soul magic.

  "I wonder why I didn't trigger the update to be honest," Alex said as he dunked his crust in a little cup of extra sauce. "The [Alpha Warrior] class gave me wolf abilities and being Aerith's Champion turned me into a beastkin, a wolfman. what made you different?"

  Luther froze mid bite on his slice as he thought about it. "Because my [Dragonsoul] is mine." He swallowed before explaining. "I checked my notifications after every big thing I accomplished."

  "When I first clicked the [SoulSpirit Energy] into place, my notifications said they my soul got a little stronger. And then I got another one when I etched Dragon Essence into my soul, and another when the Dragons gave their blessing, confirming my Dragonkin transformation when I log back in."

  "So the problem is that my Soul is augmented, but not strong enough to trigger the maintenance update?" Now that the pizza was gone, he drank the sauce leftover in the cup. "How do I get that?"

  "Well, it depends really. Can I crystallize to SoulSpirit Energy at all? Can I crystallize it fast enough before it gets absorbed? I don't know know what I'm doing most of the time."

  Alex just patted him on the back. "My son is a capital Genius. You'll figure it out on your own time."

  That night was what everyone needed, even if no one will admit it. It was the first time in years that many players from around the world had real sleep. They dreamed of new adventures, fierce battles, and love.

  Luther's dream was slightly different. He stood on a floating island, surrounded by other floating islands. Infront of him was a large Silver Dragon. One eye was blue, the other green. He started to see two images superimposed on each other. Him as a human, and him as a Dragon. They bled together until he was an electric blue haired, Silver scaled Dragonkin. He looked around, beyond the sky was a blue ring, beyond the gaps between islands there was a green ring holding everything up.