“Did… did you do that?” Sophia asked, walking up and touching the handprint.

It wasn’t deep by any means. Maybe two or three centimetres, which didn’t sound like a lot. But when put into perspective, Leon guessed that an axe wouldn’t be able to go any deeper than he had, and that would still take over ten to twenty swings with his full body weight behind it. The ancient tree was massive, its inner trunk solid like metal.

It was nothing like a normal tree back on Earth, but that made sense when you accounted for the aura that suffused it. The thing was probably thousands of years old, bathed in an endless tide of aura from the day it sprouted from a seed. There was simply no comparing a tree from Earth with an ancient monolith like this.

“Yep, that was all me!” Leon nodded. “New skill I just came up with. Thank you for the inspiration, Claire.”

“You just came up with it?” Claire said, also touching the handprint with awe. “Like… poof. You thought about it and just did it for fun?”

“Not for fun, my friend. I intend to use it to kill things.”

“What rarity?” Claire muttered, her shoulders slumping forward.

“Pardon?”

“What rarity is the skill?”

“Hold on, let me check. I haven’t looked at the notification yet.”

[Congratulations! You have created the skill: Palm Strike (Rare).]

[Palm Strike (Rare): Concentrate your Qi into a solidified layer of pure force. Once disturbed, the layer will erupt into a directed wave of force that will travel up to five metres, the skill breaking down along the way. Force of attack is multiplied by 2x your Body stat.]

Leon nodded, glad that he had created another rare skill. The force multiplier was also quite nice. Qi Bullet had the same effect, but it wasn’t doubled and was instead dependent on both his Mind and Spirit stats. He originally thought that effect was only present because Qi Bullet primarily relied on his mind and spirit to work, but it seemed that more was going on that he didn’t understand.

“Rare.”

Claire sighed, raising her hands in surrender. “Alright, I know when I’m beaten. I give up.”

“You don’t want to learn Qi Bullet?”

“No, I do. I give up competing with you. I knew you were a freak but I didn’t expect you to be this much more talented than me.”

“You just haven’t found what you’re good at yet. Give it some time and you’ll overtake me before you know it, I swear.”

Claire shook her head and smiled. “Let’s just get on with this.”

Leon felt bad so he went to help Claire with her training. It took two hours for her to learn Qi Burst even with his direct assistance, which shocked Leon. If she was the most talented in a group of soldiers and middle-aged adults, and he was even better than Claire, did that mean he was gifted?

Leon didn’t believe it. Besides martial arts, he wasn’t good at anything else. He wasn’t even that good at his hobbies. He could whip up a tasty curry and play a sick riff on his guitar, but he wasn’t even the best cook in his household or the best guitarist at his school. He wasn’t very academic, either.

Then again, who said cultivation talent even existed? Leon spent every waking moment thinking up different ways to create skills or manipulate Qi. Perhaps it wasn’t that he held some kind of innate gift, but that he was simply throwing things at the wall and forcing them to stick. Claire was almost shocked that he had attempted to make a skill, treating it as if it were some mythical process that had to be sketched, checked thrice, and certified by an engineer before she even dreamed of attempting it.

In Leon’s mind, cultivation was a very personal and emotional act. It was like music in that regard. Keeping time on the beat was hard, but feeling the music and falling into the rhythm naturally? That was much easier. So while he was making more progress, maybe Leon simply had a better mindset on how to approach cultivation.

A thought pattern based on feeling and action rather than deep planning.

Once they were done, Leon went off to bathe until dinner was ready. He ate the stringy squirrel soup made by Claire with gusto. He was both happy to have a full stomach and extremely proud of what he had achieved so far. His advantages were piling up by the day, and soon enough he would escape this mythical pocket world and live the high life.

He didn’t even care that the soup was watery and tasteless.

Once he was full, Leon cultivated the same method as before. He condensed and infused his Qi into his left shin bone and a little less than two hours later, he was using normal Qi to nourish his right shin bone. Tomorrow, when he finished coming up with the improved version of Empower, he would test the durability of his bones the hard way.

By kicking a tree.

He wasn’t looking forward to it, but there was no other way to verify if the new method actually improved his cultivation. For all he knew, it was actually making his bones into brittle chalk. The human body was extremely delicate, after all. Messing with a nearly automatic process like passive cultivation could result in unintended side effects. If he wished to continue living, it was up to him to verify that those side effects were good for him.

Leon finished his cultivation session. Once he checked that his shin bones were different, he stretched and snuggled up in his sleeping bag, falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

***

The next day, Leon forced his way through the next barrier between dimensions. It was the thirtieth pocket world of the day, and just like the rest of them, it was another damn forest. There were ancient ruins to explore in every few dimensions. If only one of them was anything other than a road or stone wall, Leon would be thrilled.

But there wasn’t anything interesting to explore so he spent half of the day chatting with Claire and Sophia about cultivation while he used the other half to think about how he could improve Empower. The main issue was that Leon didn’t like Claire’s version, and the other issue was that her method raised an interesting question.

The original Empower was designed to infuse Qi into the blood, forcefully carrying it into the body’s tissues. Claire’s version went a step further. She somehow enhanced the skill, changing the way it functioned. In the original, Qi remained infused into the blood and left muscle tissue as quickly as it entered. This made the skill quite Qi intensive and meant it could only be used for less than ten minutes before the user’s dantian ran dry.

Claire’s new version filled the body with Qi, but instead of being pulled out and expelled, the tissue acted to keep the Qi to stop it from being wasted. Not only did the cost massively reduce, but it also enhanced the effect of the reinforcement. From ten percent, it rose to a continuous boost of twenty percent that wouldn’t burn through a person’s supply even if they used the skill for over half an hour.

How had she done this? With some pointed questions, Leon figured out that she was imagining the process in her mind. The Qi would detach from her blood once it was inside her muscles and bones. She didn’t admit it at first, claiming that she wasn’t picturing anything at all. They went back and forth until he asked her to use Empower, and Claire paid close attention to what she thought about, she discovered that she was imagining the process in the back of her mind.

Without knowing it, Claire was using a visualisation technique.

She couldn’t teach him the uncommon version because she didn’t understand how she was doing it. Leon tried to copy her visualisation but it simply didn’t work, the skill failing or breaking apart and giving him a headache. Admittedly, she wasn’t describing it very well, leaving him to fill in the gaps of her imagination that she couldn’t verbalise well enough.

He soon gave up. While her skill was all well and good, he didn’t want a general empowering effect. When the technique said it enhanced everything, it meant everything. Strength, speed, healing, cognitive abilities; everything. Leon didn’t need slightly faster healing or a better brain. At least not in the heat of battle, he didn’t. A ten percent boost to a normal person’s healing was nothing. For example, it would reduce the time to heal a cut from a month to twenty-seven days.

That was effectively useless, so why not redirect the wasted energy and do something else with it?

An hour later, Leon believed he had figured out how to create the uncommon version of Empower that Claire designed. The trick was to imagine that his muscles and bones would only allow the Qi to enter and not leave, forcing the mist to stay locked inside until it was used up. He managed to get the technique going for a second before he cut off the flow. He didn’t know if learning the skill would make it harder or easier to upgrade, so he decided to leave the weaker version of Empower alone and save his Qi for when he needed it.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

On the fifty-second world, Leon stepped through the transparent membrane and immediately froze. A deep, rhythmic sound echoed throughout the forest, almost as if something was being frantically scraped. The sisters walked in behind Leon, prompting him to raise a finger to his lips. They both nodded, mimicking him as he crouched down in the tall red and gold stalks of grass.

A few minutes later, Leon found himself staring at a giant panther, its fur the colour of wine. The beast was scratching at the wooden floorboards of a destroyed home. He examined the beautiful creature before him, silently shocked at how big it was. The beast easily reached his chest, a good foot taller than the big cats of Earth. And that wasn’t even mentioning its massive claws or the rippling muscles hidden beneath its wine-coloured fur.

It probably weighed as much as a small car.

The panther went back to scratching at the floor like a regular house cat, stopping every so often to walk around a particular spot and sniff between the cracks with its big wet nose. It appeared to be looking for something under the house. Could a small animal have crawled under the foundations and died? Or perhaps it was in the process of hunting something, the creature hiding for its life.

Leon searched for clues when he noticed that the unremarkable wooden floor was completely undamaged. There wasn’t a single scratch on the wood, appearing as if the panther wasn’t even trying to damage the floor despite its incessant clawing. That, however, was farthest from the truth. The ancient pieces of rotting furniture were shredded to pieces. The last wall also held a tapestry of deep furrows, each the size of the beast’s paws. They sang a ballad of chaos and anger, hinting at the emotions of a desperate creature inches from its prize yet unable to seize it.

Sadly, that wasn’t a Leon problem. That was a half-ton murder cat problem, and he was ready to retreat when Claire leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“This is one of the creatures that lives in the Central Plane. I’ve never seen one so far out, let alone in an entirely different pocket world. It must be looking for something.”

Nodding, Leon turned back to admire the creature one last time. So dark as to be called black, its fur shone in the sunlight as if the beast were a tall glass of red wine. It had a beautiful and sleek body, looking majestic in a way that made the big cats of earth look like they were trying, and failing, to mimic the panther. Leon felt a distinct urge to give it a pat on the head, but on second thought, he would rather keep both hands now that he had them back.

His paltry elixir most likely couldn’t regenerate limbs.

Turning away, Leon barely noticed the panther lowering its head in his direction. It was stalking them. The beast had been aware of them the entire time, pretending not to care so that it could surprise them if they dared to attack. Leon remained casual and pretended that he was moving away, but he was really watching it out of the corner of his eye, Qi flowing around his body.

His stomach sank at the realisation. He had judged the panther based on how smart a big cat from Earth should be, but that was based on his own preconceptions. This was a creature touched by powers he barely understood, making it something well and truly superior to a normal animal. Leon’s heart began to thunder in his chest as he prepared for the worst. Barely maintaining control, his deep breathing helped to push an abundance of Qi into his hand.

Something shifted in his periphery. Leon couldn’t see the panther but he knew it was coming. Spinning on his heel and standing up, he turned to face the beast. It moved like a bolt of lightning through the air, leaping straight at his face. Its claws glinted in the sunlight, sheathed in a layer of sharpened, bloody Qi that nearly doubled the length of its long claws.

Worst of all, it was already mid pounce.

Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Leon watched in horror as its paws turned inwards, claws reaching out to sink into his waist and take hold. Halfway through forming a Qi Bullet, he realised it was too late to use the skill. He jerked his hand back and flattened the half-formed Qi into a pattern he had learned the day before.

The panther was around three or four metres away and only getting closer. Without thinking, Leon acted on instinct and also triggered the uncommon version of Empower. A headache blossomed behind his eyes, but he was forced to ignore it as death loomed over him. Leon’s speed picked up, and as he moved to crouch beneath the panther’s leap, he realised that he was still too slow. Its claws would merely sink into his neck and shoulders rather than his waist.

Notifications flickered into existence, but he pushed them all away.

He was about to die. Staring into its snarling face, Leon noticed his own reflection in the beast’s massive fangs. There was no time. He needed to be faster. He pictured a surge of Qi flowing into his muscles and organs, only instead of empowering everything, it moved with an unerring purpose. The desire for power was instilled into the Qi, and it danced to his call as it pushed his body beyond what it should’ve been capable of.

His tendons and bones became denser, his internal organs toughed up, and his muscles visibly expanded as his body filled with strength. Leon sped up as he practically threw himself into the ground. More notifications flickered to life but he ignored them as well, the panther’s claws glowing red as they scraped across his skin.

Scraped… and slipped out of the soft flesh in his shoulders.

Leon ducked beneath the beast and looked up while it flew over him. He moved, and his arm exploded with speed. His palm flew out as a blur, the layer of Qi erupting before he could even see his hand reach the panther’s stomach. A wave of force smashed into its abdomen.

Turning around, Leon watched as the beast flipped head over heels, careening through the air until it slammed into a nearby tree. A sickening crunch echoed throughout the forest. The panther was obviously injured, but it appeared that he wasn’t the only one full of adrenaline. Ignoring whatever damage he’d done, the beast all but ricocheted off the tree, bounding through the underbrush before pouncing at him once more.

Hearing the fearful gasps beside him, Leon jumped to his feet and stepped forward as he cycled for another Palm Strike. The skill clicked into place a moment too late. The panther landed on his chest, its claws devoid of the glowing red energy. It pinned him down with just its body weight. The several hundred kilograms was enough to make his ribs creak, but with his body enhanced by Qi, the damage stopped at some light fractures.

The panther opened its mouth and tried to bite down on his neck. With his arms free, Leon slammed the palm of his hand into the beast’s chin, smacking its jaw closed so hard that some of its teeth cracked. The panther growled in pain as its head was thrown up from the force. Leon prayed that it was stunned, but as he gathered power for a Qi Bullet, the beast lowered its head and nearly bit down on his neck.

He would be dead if something hadn’t crashed into its side.

The orb of Qi detonated, breaking down into a wave of force that ripped at the panther. It roared in pain as chunks of fur and skin were ripped out of its side, blood streaming from the wounds and soaking into the grass beneath it. Once the explosion died down, Leon found Claire standing about ten metres away, Qi swirling around her outstretched hand as she worked to form another Qi Bullet.

The young woman’s expression was dark. It changed every few seconds, swirling high above him like a vengeful storm. She looked pissed off and embarrassed, and then those two emotions made way for a mixture of fear and sadness, the two only serving to fuel the raging storm hidden within her.

Leon felt a hint of pride, silently wondering how she managed to get the skill to work when she had repeatedly failed before, but he refocused when the panther snarled in his face. Waves of bloody Qi erupted from its body, the tide moving so far as to burn Claire’s outstretched arm. Leon cried out along with her, the Qi burning his clothes and melting his skin.

But as he began to lose consciousness, the panther lunged at his face. Leon raised his hand out of instinct, shoving his own Qi Bullet into the panther’s mouth. It jumped off him and hissed as the Qi burned its insides. It tried to throw the orb back up, but its stomach and chest bulged as the technique ruptured inside of it, the attempt to save itself destabilising the skill before it should’ve blown up.

Blood spurted out of the beast’s mouth and nose as it crumpled into the grass.

Seeing it was dead, Leon pulled out a bottle of healing elixir and downed the entire thing before pouring another over his face and body. The red Qi was still burning the ground around him, melting away any part of him that came into contact with it. He moved to stand up and get away when a cluster of headaches blossomed behind his eyes.

Leon fell, his hands and knees sinking into the acidic grass as his clothes fell off in pieces.

Well, the parts that weren’t melted into his skin, that is.