He inhaled deeply.

The experience had been surreal. His mind had entered a strange state as soon as he read the Verses available for him, and everything had turned clear. It had been as if a sixth sense he never knew existed had been amplified to the utmost extremes.

He exhaled the air.

The pain of sore muscles all came back to him at once. Whatever that moment had been, it was truly over.

Ricardo didn't allow his body to crouch as it wanted. He forced himself to stay upright and looked around him. What he saw surprised him.

He looked at his shelter and he could think of dozens of ways to improve it. He looked at the ground and he could barely detect the imperfections and predict where rainwater would accumulate. He looked at the edges of the bridge, and he could see a way to make sure the concrete debris wouldn't fall to a powerful wind.

The knowledge of these specific things hadn't been put in his mind, but the way he looked at the world and processed the information had changed. His logical mind had been enhanced and could reach new conclusions on these topics. His eyes could see hints of the environment he previously hadn't been able to.

The Verse and the Class had changed him.

A single Verse wasn't enough to level up his Power. He needed three for that. But now that he thought about it, maybe he shouldn't focus on his Power, anyway. He opened his Experience Window.

Experience Module

Total: 21,312 points

Power:

G-2 » G-3 — 5,994 XP

Lifespan:

F » E — 1,057,342 XP

Regeneration:

G » F — 117,482 XP

Talent:

D » C — 12,688,099 XP

The many injuries in his body made it obvious how important regeneration was. It was better to save XP to improve it first, especially because if he leveled up, he would get less XP from killing beasts.

The only issue was if it also required Verses. But even if it ended up requiring lots of them when he finally had the XP, it wasn't as if the accumulated XP would go to waste. He could still improve his Power with the saved XP.

The XP required to improve his regeneration was a high enough amount that he would need some time to get that much. But it was also low enough to make it reachable.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

He was a Hunter, and Hunters survived.

That same sense of survival told him he was nowhere near ready for another foray against the outside world. The only thing he could do until he healed more was to observe, which was actually an excellent idea even if he could leave.

For a Hunter knew how stupid it was to rush recklessly at the enemy knowing nothing about them as he had done. How did the beasts behave? What did they eat? What were their sleeping habits? Where were their territories? How far from their territories did they travel? Were they aggressive? Did they attack even with a filled belly? Did they attack, submit, or flee when provoked? Which of their senses did they use more?

Knowledge of the beasts would allow him to counter their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses. He could plan, make traps, counterattack better.

Better yet, while observing, he could also focus on other things that required his attention. From moving his shelter to a puddle-free area to trying to understand how to level up his Intimidation skill to trying to feel qi.

He had determined how important qi was, but he kept finding more important things to do than try to understand it.

That had been a mistake.

He was in a fight against the beasts for adaptability, and it wasn't limited to the physical and mental changes they had gone through. The first to adapt to qi, to learn how to harness it and use it in their attacks like the system had said Martial Artists could, would have an advantage.

With his seven and a half liters of water remaining, he would have no trouble comfortably surviving three or four days. If he weren't attacked by a beast much stronger than him, that is.

So, he would stay in his bridge for two days and then leave it to forage. That should be observation enough for him to determine the best time to leave, and it was how much time he had remaining on his Interactive Tutorial. It should also allow his arm to heal to a point he wouldn't almost faint from pain every time his stump touched something.

Speaking of healing, it was possible the qi in his body was strengthening his regeneration without also making it "smarter." It was time to take off his shoes and straighten his toes as best as he could to avoid them becoming crooked.

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This would also go well with his aim of feeling qi. He could try to focus on the healing on his toes and compare it to the healing of his stump. Maybe, just maybe, he could feel qi that way.

He removed his right shoe with some difficulty, seeing the damage for the first time. Except for his big toe, all his others were twisted, and moving them hurt like hell. None of his bones had cut skin, or maybe it had been healed by the qi already.

The pain made him take an awfully long time to straighten all his toes. He left them to rest on a loose piece of concrete that had fallen from his shelter and was lying about. Some bones had already set wrongly, but nothing that should affect his balance if the rest healed correctly, or so he hoped.

It might backfire on him, but he decided not to put his shoes back unless he was about to leave the bridge. He would constantly check his toes and keep them straight instead. Losing his foot or balance on top of his hand would be the death of him.

He briefly checked the surroundings but saw no beast threatening to attack right now. Then he sat down.

It was finally time to feel qi.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and alternated focusing on his feet and his arms. He was trying to feel something similar in both his stump and his broken toes, while also trying to feel something different when comparing them to his healthy limbs.

It was hard.

He had been more affected by the last few days than he thought. His mind constantly drifted towards his fights, his poor decisions, and especially his near-death experience. He did his best to muddle through it, but everything annoyed him, from the uncomfortable sitting position to the heat inside the alligator hide to the brightness of the sun.

He eventually gave up on feeling the qi and started sorting through his feelings instead. While he wasn't an accomplished meditator, everyone in California nowadays seemed into yoga and his sister had imparted on him two techniques when he last visited her.

The first was to breathe correctly, the second was to accept any stray thoughts that came to him and kind of "observe" them in a detached way. He should let them run their course, accepting them as part of him but also understanding that they weren't him. They were a byproduct of his mortality, but they shouldn't define the immortal soul inhabiting his body.

At least that's what he remembered of it.

The detached observation together with the acceptance would ultimately lead to peace of mind. He hadn't tried it for more than five minutes and didn't know if it worked or not, but he would find out now.

Breathing correctly was the simple part. Distancing himself from his thoughts? That took a lot of work. Thinking of his mistakes brought him a lot of shame, while thinking of his near-death experience made him scared.

He forced himself to keep going, and sometime later, he distanced himself enough from the thoughts to realize how small and even harmful they were.

Yes, he had almost died, but thinking about it over and over wouldn't help.

And then, he also realized how distracting even his self "pep talk" was.

The goal of that kind of meditation wasn't coming to terms with himself by facing his past. It was to accept himself by letting the past go and focusing on his present. Even his future, or the "what ifs" about his future, didn't matter as much as the present.

Isolated, that concept was dumb. The always-prepared Hunter within him refused to just ignore the what-ifs of life.

But that same Hunter was placated by the need of training how to think of the present and nothing else. Many times during a hunt, absolute focus on now was a matter of life and death. He could see the wisdom in getting used to the feeling.

And so, he observed his thoughts and feelings like a king watching particularly boring court jesters. Then he allowed them to dismiss themselves when they realized they were overstaying their welcome.

He felt something unique. A comfortable emptiness. A clear mind focused on the now, with a dismissal of all his issues as mere unwanted parts of the mortal coil.

Without warning, something tugged at him from the edges of his consciousness.

It felt like something he was trying to recall, something at the tip of his tongue. Like the feeling of someone behind you, but when you turned back, there was no one. Like seeing movement in the corner of the eye but looking at it and finding only some clothes hanging from the door.

Likewise, Ricardo tried to focus on that tug in the corner of his mind, only for it to disappear.

He cared little about it. Why should he? Curiosity was another thing that only distracted his mind from the now.

A few moments later, the feeling returned. This time, he didn't focus on it, just let it run its natural course of fleetingness, like most things mortal. Indeed, it disappeared after a while, only to return not much later.

It came and went repeatedly. Sometimes he tried to focus on it, only to fail. He didn't feel disheartened by it, for what use was worrying about that which he couldn't control?

In fact, his nonchalance led him to find the entire thing amusing, as if he were a cat following a laser dot. An instant later, even his amusement was observed and let go.

After some time, when the tug came again, it felt more solid. More detailed somehow. Enough for him to recognize it.

The last time he felt it had been in the cold loneliness that left his body to build a pillar for the road in his soul. The first time had been right when the system came, in the icy wave that washed over him an instant before it destroyed all technology.

Those, he realized, had been qi.

The very same qi he started feeling with unexpected clarity.

It was in his stump, in his foot, and in a smaller amount all over his body. It was in the air, in the ground, all around him.

He breathed and felt his body filling with it. He exhaled and qi left him. Everything was qi, and qi was everything.

And with the realization came an uncontrollable desire to own it.

Qi represented the potential to accomplish his goals, to survive, to grow powerful. It was the life essence of his fate. And it was plenty available, within reach, just waiting for him to make it his.

He pulled instinctively, with the appetite of a thirsty animal who had seen water for the first time in years. With all his might, he willed the qi to become his even more than he wanted his hand, a part of himself, back.

The qi obeyed.

When he breathed, even more qi came from the outside and filled his lungs. At the same time, tiny motes of coldness crawled inside him as if the qi didn't want to move but had no choice but to obey. Qi from all around his body moved towards the center of his willpower, which was pulling it. To his surprise, it didn't move towards his brain, but his heart.

But it felt wrong somehow.

Thinking about it for a moment, he realized the reason. This qi of loneliness and healing was cold, but what about the warmth of stability and the vibration of movement?

No, something was missing.

He focused, remembering the feeling of warmth, and soon enough he felt it right beside the cold qi. No, that's wrong. The coldness and warmth were only parts of the same thing, of the same qi. The qi felt whole, better, mightier.

As he pulled that qi to his heart, he searched for the vibrations but found none. He refused to let go, as the vibration qi was the primary part of his road. How could he not find it?

Minutes became hours during his search, but in the end, he failed to find the kind of qi he wanted.

With a sigh, he let it go and focused on the qi he could feel. When the qi inside his body reached his heart, it just stood there, with nothing happening, so he also pushed it away and moved it around his body.

It was slower than a snail, but it was an exciting experience, energizing. It was marvelous, and he wanted to lose himself in it, maybe try to speed his healing even more by focusing on his injuries.

That's when a wave of dizziness abruptly hit him.