“I’ve already reached the early middle stage, and I’m the youngest person in my family to learn the Spirit Vision Skill! I’m also very, very, very close to mastering the Spirit Shield Skill, so you count on me! You must already be an amazing warrior to save two people from a dungeon and capture two pixies!” Rose declared with her arms crossed confidently.

“You can teach me about core cards and cultivation?” Micro asked hopefully.

“Of course!” Rose replied.

“But where shall we begin? Hmm… Your core doesn’t seem stable, does it…”

“I was told I need to find a master to help me strengthen it before it bursts.” Micro agreed.

“It’s patched up for now, but I need to learn to repair it myself.”

“How did it get so…” Rose mimed an explosion with her hands instead of finishing the question.

“Apparently the magicians meant to summon a different shaped soul, so mine doesn’t fit properly.” He replied with a shrug.

“For it to be bursting at the seams like that means it isn’t just the wrong shape. Your soul must be a little different than most! But that’s not a big deal.” Rose reassured him.

“Refining your core is one of the first things a cultivator learns! You keep refining it again and again until it can’t be refined anymore!”

“That’s how you get to the Amber stage?” Micro inquired.

“What? You make it sound so easy!” Rose laughed.

“Even the sect leader hasn’t broken through to the Amber stage yet, and he’s been refining his core for longer than both of us have been alive put together! Of course, there are ways to quicken the process, but that’s not what our sect believes in.”

“You don’t want an Amber core?”

“It’s not that we don’t want one.” She replied quickly.

“But chasing higher realms before perfecting yourself in the first one isn’t in line with the sect leaders’ teachings. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about all the powerful sects out there in the empire. Things around here can move a little too slow for me. ‘Slow and steady’ is what they always say, though I feel like it’s about time somebody did make it past the advanced Jade level, but that’s not important right now. Your core is barely holding itself together at the lowest level!”

“It does feel better when I eat these…” Micro mumbled as he stuffed the last honey into his mouth.

“Well, that’s definitely not a good long term plan.” She chuckled.

“Alright then, listen carefully. To refine your core, you have to break it down, get rid of as many impurities as you can, then put it back together again. Do you understand?”

“I have to take it apart, clean it, then reassemble it.” He recited back to her.

“That’s…” She stuttered.

“Yes, that sounds right. However, if that’s all you did, you’d just be making it smaller, and that wouldn’t be very useful! The key to refining your core is in the energy all around you.”

“You mean like in the rain?” Micro asked.

“Trying to use rain directly would be suicide. Never try that.” Rose warned.

“Volatile energies can cause some serious damage, so focus more on collecting ambient energies. The air is full of energy, for example.”

Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“It’s full of elemental energies.” She whispered.

“Fire, air, water, even some light energy… The cultivators in our sect tend to have a stronger affinity to fire compared to the other elements. That’s why they’re always looking for fire element dungeons.”

Micro closed his eyes and entered the familiar place where only the energy he could focus on shone, but he couldn’t sense it at all.

“Where is it?” He asked in disappointment.

“You’re looking too hard.” Rose replied.

“It’s not something you see. It’s much too weak for a novice to detect with your senses. You have to stop focusing altogether and let the energy make itself known to you.”

“I have to stop thinking?” Micro asked.

“Clear your mind of all distractions.” Rose continued.

“That’s the first step to-”

“Oh, I feel it now.” Micro announced gleefully.

“It’s warm, but it’s cool. It tickles sometimes.”

“What? How did you…” Rose stammered.

“Did you already know how to do that?”

“No, I just followed your instructions.” He replied.

“You achieved a perfect state of mental clarity after hearing it described five seconds ago?” She asked in disbelief, using her Spirit Vision Skill to discern whether he was being honest or not.

“I’m used to not thinking.” Micro shrugged.

“I’m still new to it, really. It feels strange…”

“Forgive my disrespect, then.” Rose nodded.

“I forgot you were a master in your own world.”

“So, now what?”

“Next is to allow your core to expand very slowly.” Rose explained.

“You need to do it slowly, so that your soul and the energy contained within it don’t come pouring out all at once. That’s the trick to refining your core, you see? It’s like taking a cup apart and putting it back together again without spilling any of the water inside.”

“Take it apart, but don’t spill anything…” Micro repeated.

“Yes, but don’t worry about it too much.” Rose smiled.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Beginners with new cores barely have enough energy to fill their cores. Even a naturally powerful soul like yours probably won’t expand enough to cause you any problems. Just focus on relaxing your core until it reaches a breaking point.”

“Relax it… Expand it…” Micro looked back at his own core, and did as he was instructed, allowing the core which he felt he’d been trying to restrain to relax and expand.

“Once your core starts to dissipate, that’s when you want to squeeze it back together again, taking as much ambient energy with you as you can.” Rose continued.

“My father told me to think of it like making a snowball out of snowflakes you caught in the air.”

“Expand… Disassemble… Reassemble…” Micro mumbled as he focused his attention on the task of transforming the shape of his core. He pulled at it with his hands at first, but realized its shape seemed to respond to his will more than to his hands. He visualized it growing in size, and it did. The green, gem-like core began to look more transparent, like a thin film of energy wrapped around a bright light.

“I think you’re doing great!” Rose cheered.

“Now just-”

BOOM

Rose was barely able to erect a defensive aura in time to protect herself from the shockwave that flung everything in the room against the walls and blew out the door and glass windows with the force of a lightning strike. She tumbled out the splintered door and barely grabbed hold of the steps protruding from the cliff face before falling down the side of the mountain.

Glass and dust rained down on the buildings below as she crawled back up onto the ledge, her ears ringing and her face stinging. In a daze, she tried to look through the chaotic storm of energy and debris swirling around in the room, but all she could make out were flashes of light. She noticed the taste of blood in her mouth when a voice suddenly brought her back into the moment.

“Rose! What happened here?!” Kel screamed as he flew up the steps, followed by a dozen disciples, including her sister Tae.

“Where is he?!”

“He… We were…” She stuttered, her voice barely audible over the storm raging in the room.

“What did you do?!” Tae screamed over the noise of the storm.

“I showed him how to refine his core…” Rose mumbled.

“Just the most basic technique… Even a child could…”

“You fool!” Kel screamed as he rushed into the storm, leaving Rose and the other standing outside.

Tae braced herself and followed him into the room, but no other disciple felt confident they would survive the storm if they entered.

“Master!” Kel shouted.

“Are you there?! Can you hear me?”

“Kel…” Micro said with a strained voice barely audible over the storm.

“This is harder than I thought…”

“Young master!” Tae said as she grabbed Kel’s shoulder to stabilize herself in the wind.

“His core is completely gone! The dungeon guardians’ oaths are the only thing preventing his internal energies from consuming him entirely…!”

“No…” Kel replied in horror.

“The sheer amount of energy… This isn’t something we can handle ourselves.”

“Indeed.” The sect leader said, having suddenly appeared beside Kel.

“We’ll need more hands to contain this power.”

“Understood!” Tae replied quickly.

“I’ll summon the strongest disciples available!”

Tae ran out of the room and down the stairs to the courtyard immediately, leaving Kel and his grandfather alone in the storm.

“You would risk everything for this boy, Kel?” The sect leader calmly asked.

“You needn’t ask!” Kel shouted.

“Then stand over there.” The old man nodded as he raised his hands in front of him.

“This is no different from helping any new disciple form a core for the first time. We’ll just need to work a little harder than usual…”

Following his grandfather’s lead, Kel also raised his hands, as if trying to push against the wild aura pouring out of Micro.

“Now, Kel!” The old man announced, and the two men began to emit their own green auras, forming a shield in front of them that allowed them to repel Micro’s own.

They struggled for a moment to move even slightly toward the boy at the centre of the storm, but soon other hands were added to the effort as stronger disciples entered the room one by one, seemingly aware of what was required. As the number of small aura shields increased in number, they began to contain the storm, eventually growing to form a dome around it.

“We need to move quickly now, or the boy won’t survive.” The sect leader declared.

“With me, now!”

All at once, the sect leader, Kel, and a dozen disciples pushed with all their strength toward the centre of the room, condensing the wild energies more and more until finally, Micro’s form was visible again, kneeling in a state of meditation, but with a strained expression.

“Kel?” He called out.

“We’re here now, master!” Kel replied, his own voice strained as he and the others struggled to keep the aura from exploding outward.

“Can you see your energy, master?”

The normally dark world that Micro looked around felt like a tornado was sweeping through it. His consciousness drifted here and there as he tried to focus on his own energy, but he eventually noticed a circle of light around him.

“Is that you?” He called out from the darkness.

“We’re holding your energy together right now, master!” Kel replied.

“But we can’t do this for long! You need to form a core around the energy before we run out of time!”

“I see…” Micro replied as he focused. He could feel the pressure of the cultivators against his own existence, holding it together in one piece. As he observed the place where his core should be, he understood what was happening.

Two rings, placed there by the dragon and the turtle, were wrapped around a small light that flickered as a storm of energy swirled around.

“You should be able to see your soul now, young one.” The sect leader suddenly declared.

“The energy contained within it is too much for this vessel to accommodate, so you must form a strong core around it. If you fail to contain the energy, your soul will be extinguished as your vessel is consumed by it. Do you understand, young one?”

“I need to make a new core…” Micro repeated.

“But this time, master…” Kel added.

“You must ensure that it fits your soul! All souls are unique in shape and size, but yours is very different from anything we’ve seen. Be mindful as you-”

“I’m trying to concentrate, Kel.” Micro mumbled.

“I’ll be silent, master.” Kel replied quietly.

“Thanks, Kel.”

Micro stood before his soul for a moment, trying to discern its shape. He looked closer and closer, until he realized he was standing inside of it. It was blinding at first, but as his eyes adjusted, he began to notice something familiar about it.

He was in a seated position, his back against something soft but not too soft. His feet were resting on a harder surface with a rough texture. His hands were in front of him resting on something thin and round.

“I’m inside… myself?” He thought quietly as he looked around and recognized more and more indicators that he had somehow found himself inside the cab of a Micro truck which could only be described as his very own body.

“But I also, am myself…?”

His mind began to feel like it was being stretched to a breaking point as he reconciled his current state, unsure whether he was looking at himself in the rear-view mirror, or at someone else entirely. The whole truck was shaking, as if it were driving at a high speed down a gravel road, with wisps of blinding light flying through the cab now and then. He shook his head, though he was unsure if he really had one, and tried to focus on the task described for him by the cultivators around him.

He looked out the window and saw two giant rings, one of fire and one of water, orbiting his truck at different angles. They were alarming at first sight, but they made him feel safe and secure after looking at them for a while.

“Okay, I need to make a core to put my soul in…” He thought as he looked around.

“I think this is my soul, but… Oh, I see.”

Realizing something, he opened the door and stepped out of the truck, then walked several paces away from it. Around him and the truck was a storm of light that he now understood to be his own internal energy.

“So I have to build somewhere safe to park this. And it needs to be big enough to store that extra energy.” He thought. Then, he nodded.

“This should be simple enough.”