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I got up pretty early the next day.

I had a few things that I wanted to do today, one of them being what I’m doing right now.

While sitting the same way that I did when I first sensed the world’s essence, I was continuing with the training.

Now that I knew how I could properly interact with the energy inside me, I was trying my best to recall that feeling again. The jolt that I felt when I touched it.

Although fuzzy, the sensation is clearly there, and with the help of my newly levelled up [Awareness], I was trying to sense it around me.

Qi may naturally flow through me, I can feel its properties very clearly, but this isn’t the same. It may be in my body, but I don’t think it flows like Qi does, rather my Qi circles around it in a way that it is trying to contain it.

Contain?

What if the void that I found in me was never there? I mean I’ve concentrated trying to control my Qi before, so why wasn’t I able to feel it?

All of these times I’ve manually flowed the cycle of regeneration, I’ve never felt it. That means it wasn’t actually there before.

But that begs the question, when did it appear?

It was at this time I recalled something.

The rank-up…

During the rank-up when my status changed, it said something along the lines of my status not having the WE stat, didn’t it forcefully add it?

If I think about it, the reason it only has one point in it may be because the rank-up couldn’t progress without the stat and that’s why it was forcefully added.

If I had this stat before level nine then maybe raising a thousand points in it wouldn’t be this hard.

If I’m right and my Qi is containing it, then the void is nothing but the repelling force that is created because it repels Qi. But I’ve observed if the Qi is strong enough, then maybe I can control and mould this too.

[Qi Manipulation] also crossed level five when I touched the essence with my Qi, meaning I’m going on the right path.

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I immediately pushed my Qi throughout my whole body, the reason? I wanted to feel the repelling force outside me.

Since my Qi can’t leave my body, all I can do is push it as far as I could and hope that it helps me do what I’m trying to do.

I keep the [Awareness] as high as possible and soon I feel something, not much but a faint feeling of being pressured, it’s like being underwater, not too deep, just lightly below the surface.

After a few minutes of me trying to remember the feeling, I was tempted to open my eyes, I don’t know why but after spending the minutes feeling it I was very curious to see if what I was sensing was also visible, because whatever it was, it felt very tangible.

Slowly I opened my eyes with Qi still flowing throughout my body. What I saw before me was… magical to say the least.

It was as if the air itself had become visible. It didn’t have a colour or much of a presence but I knew it was there, I could feel it there, the variable feeling on my body also told me it was flowing.

“So this is world’s essence…”

But what now…?

I now know how to sense it. But I still don’t know how I can use it.

I try to move my hand across, and feel the energy. As it moved it moved the energy with it, displacing it as if it were water.

I can increase my total Qi by training my skills, but how can I increase this?

It was then that an idea came to me.

I tried moving my arms around again, but this time I moved the Qi from where I wasn’t using much of it and towards the arms since they were the ones interacting with the essence.

Every time I activate a skill the Qi moves around in my body so it doesn’t get a chance to interact with this energy outside, but if I coat my skin similar to [Stone Skin], I can actually interact with it.

As soon as the Qi came in contact with the outside energy, I finally felt it. The jolt that I felt the first time I touched it in my body.

The main difference between this and the energy inside is that it is too violent, unlike the previous jolt that only felt like a quick and didn’t actually hurt, this felt like touching an open socket.

I instinctively let go of it.

I was surprised but I was also very happy.

“I can do this…”

But the happiness didn’t last long, it was quickly replaced by worry. I don’t know why, but I suddenly recalled the guy in the white robes who attacked me in the forest.

I don’t know him, be he knew me, and was clearly out for me.

I have enemies here…

I cannot forget that fact.

I actually forgot with the quiet and peaceful atmosphere around me but I actually do have enemies. But then there are also people like the old man who helped me.

Even though he helped me, I don’t know the first thing about him, so I might as well consider myself alone.

I don’t know my enemies. And I don’t know my allies, if I have any. It is not a good situation no matter how I think about it.

I do know one thing though, and is that I can only rely on myself and no one else.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to earth or not. If I end up staying here, then I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running away from people I don’t know.

Today they’re after me. Who knows what they’ll tomorrow? Them attacking the entire forest and sending someone that strong after me, it is clear that my opponent is not some nobody.

They have power and are not afraid to use it.

But since they’ve made an enemy out of me, I am not going to let this go. The day that I’m able to, I’ll make sure they pay the price for what they’ve done.