That morning I woke up to Alice pulling me out of bed. I had expected to spend more time trying to work through my issues but when I got to the dojo I was met with Johann standing there, hands on his hips and a stern look.

“Today we will have you attempt cultivating.” He said clearly, as if my prior issues had suddenly vanished in the night.

Speaking of the night, I know a certain fairy who disappeared in the middle of the night. I felt her leave my arms for quite a while.

“I corrected Johann’s view of you. He didn’t think you were strong mentally, but I know that is not the case. You are one of the strongest.”

Smiling at me, Alice proves to be the best friend I could ever have.

Johann harumphs at that.

“She was right, I didn’t know everything and made a judgement. If what she says is true then cultivation might be within your reach.”

Johann then has me sit down and shut off my thoughts. He then spouts some mumbo jumbo about feeling the world around me and creating an image in my mind.

I try to not let my comparison to a hippy yoga class cloud my thoughts as I close my eyes.

“Reach out with your mind and grab ahold of the world around you. Not the air or the light, but the fabric of the world around you.”

I try and try but every time I feel like I am getting a grip, the sensation slips through my fingers.

“It wont stay!”

“Then use that mental willpower your girlfriend told me about, take the world and make it your own.”

I blush rather strongly at his choice to refer to Alice as my girlfriend. We have not talked about anything like that yet and that kind of thing scares me more than facing down the whole world.

Shaking off more ridiculous thoughts, I have the idea to use my mana to grab ahold of the fabric of reality.

Just as the mana starts to stir and leave my body I suddenly get yelled at.

“Using mana will just make you like all the other humans who use Qi. That is weak! Cultivation is about taking a piece of reality and making it your own. Becoming a part of the world. Only then can you truly create your own Qi!”

Reeling the mana back in, I relax my body and let the whole world fade around me. Seeing only with my non physical senses. Just me, and the fabric that makes up the world.

I can somewhat sense a bend around where I am. I cycle my mana for a second to notice that the bend gets stronger the closer it gets to my mana. No wonder I could not touch it! My whole body runs on mana at this point.

Realizing this I grab ahold of my mana and compress it to the absolute limit. I can feel my body strain as I take away the power keeping me moving. However, I ignore the languid sensation and reach out for the world around me with my right hand.

A strange pressure pushes back, but this time I can feel a real grip on the surface of the world. I grab ahold with all my strength and rip a chunk of that world for myself. It bends and stretches as the blob of reality comes undone.

“Good, now take that reality and make it yours. Connect it to your body and break through to the realm where your soul resides.”

Listening to Johann's advice I let the power flood into my body through my hand. It tries to escape but I keep it locked in. I can feel a migraine and a powerful vertigo as my body bends and stretches along with the piece of reality.

Finally, after a sensation worse than all the stabbings I have been through and more uncomfortable than when I had my mind merged with another’s, the reality merges with my flesh.

Bang!

Before I can even celebrate my victory, I feel my mana core shatter and the pieces melt into my body.

My vision cuts off and I black out.

…

..

.

“Ugh… What the hell-”

I can’t think straight. Everything feels strange and overwhelming.

“About time you woke up, sleepy head.”

I can hear Alice being sassy but there is a hint of worry in her tone. I go to open my eyes and look at her only to feel like someone poured cold water down my spine.

“I… I can’t see.”

Nothing, just darkness. I can’t make out any shapes or project my vision like I used to.

I reach out for my magic and realize I can’t sense it at all!

“Alice! I can’t use my magic!”

I feel myself panicking. Blind and powerless was not how I wanted to end up. I worked so hard to get stronger and now I am useless.

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“Calm down. You should still be able to use your magic, you just can’t rely on your mana core anymore.”

Alice’s words help me, but the blindness and weakness is terrifying.

“Why no- Oh. It broke.”

That is when I remember that I felt my mana core shatter. That thing is a part of my spinal cord. It breaking would kill any normal human.

“How am I alive?”

“The core broke, but thankfully your body does not really care about the spinal cord with how blended your insides are. We put you out in the sun and watered you twice a day and you were as good as new. Better even!”

“Don’t treat me like a house plant!”

Even in my blind state, Alice’s sass is really comforting. I can’t help but smile at her antics.

Johann finally decides to cut in before we can get lost in a tangent of bickering.

“Getting back on topic. Your eyes were leaning on the mana core to function and now that it is gone and the channels don’t exist… well it can’t access your mana or activate the spell to produce vision. This however is something you can fix. It will take some time though.”

That has me confused. If they used my solar regeneration to heal me then why don’t my eyes function as well?

Johann explains that the regeneration was not based on mana but on light itself so it became a permanent part of my body after my last ascension.

I know my body runs on mana and that if I am still alive that means I am producing it somehow. In a rush to get my vision back I reach into my heart to access the mana there. This however, turns out to be a terrible idea.

I feel my chest wrench as I nearly pass out when trying to move the mana away. There simply is not enough mana for anything other than running my heart.

Falling back into the bed I heave breath after breath to let myself calm down while I am scolded by Alice.

“Let us finish explaining you idiot!”

It takes a few minutes but I get myself back under control enough to ask how I can see again.

“No one has ever used both Mana and Qi before so I can’t guarantee anything I say will work for you. But you should be able to recreate the mana channels in your body, if they are not there already. Your body is actually perfect for such a task with how malleable it is!”

The biggest problem with this however is that I don’t remember what most of the channels look like though. I got far too complacent with the spells that I had already created. They were so complex I will have to start from scratch with most of them.

“It should come naturally if you have used it enough. You may even find remnants of the spell channels in your body after it absorbed the remains of your mana core. For now you need to cultivate and then rest more.”

And so I did just that. For the next three weeks I cultivated every second I could. Pulling in more of the world around me to widen the hole to my soul.

And the whole time I did so blind.

I was allowed to stay longer because Johann had taken an interest in my condition, that, and he felt bad.

Alice had to help me out with a lot of things. But as I cultivated and got closer to feeling my soul through the reality I had merged with my body, I began to sense the mana building up in my body again. My body had felt so sluggish due to the small amount of my soul I could access. Breaking your mana core when your body runs on mana is apparently a terrible idea.

Who could have guessed?

As I channel more bits of reality into my body I can feel myself generate more Qi. I remember that Helimos was a Qi user but since he still had a mana core that means he was doing things the human way. Pulling in Qi with mana and placing it directly in the soul instead of merging it with his body.

Johann says such a method is far inferior to cultivation and prioritizes short term gains over long term strength.

I wonder what the people back in Carrion City think I am doing? I hope they are not planning on me coming back any time soon.

I shrug and decide it is not my problem. I can’t even see right now so no way in hell I am going to somewhere as dangerous as a human city.

I push and pull on the mana flowing through my body as I sit in the center of the dojo. Alice is in my lap to help me when I need anything.

It is supposed to be like riding a bike.

Breath in, breathe out.

I let the mana thread extend from my heart to my eyes then out into the world.

As I continue this training everything begins to regain color. The darkness recedes and I can finally see again! It is blurry, upside down, and backwards. But I can see!

“Alice, I can finally see again! Ish…”

I feel like jumping for joy but I don’t want to move the fairy from my lap so I stay put.

“Nice!”

I get a hug from Alice, who has gotten even more clingy since I lost my vision. Not that I mind such attention from her.

“The problem is this is eating up all my excess mana just to maintain… My core merged with my body, I felt that. So why can’t I use that power it once had at all? All that power in a Class 2 core can’t just disappear.”

I have been contemplating this for a while but I could not find any trace of the power in my body. A few broken mana channels here and there but none of my prior strength was to be found.

“Took you long enough to ask that question!” Appearing out of nowhere, Johann excitedly examines my mana and cultivation status. Not caring in the least about how it feels to me to have someone pop into my vision like that when I just got it back.

I glare at the blurry figure before me. “You know, I learn better when I don’t have to wait weeks to ‘ask the right question!’”

He simply shrugs and waves off my annoyance.

“This is how I teach. Get used to it.”

Grumbling, I settle down and get ready for him to explain.

“Now, the reason you can’t feel that power anymore is because of several reasons. First, with both Qi and Mana in your system the two parts are fighting against each other instead of working together. Second, Without a physical connection to your soul through the pressure of the mana core, you will find little mana generating in your body. And finally third, The core was not Class 2. Your soul was. The crystal just acted as a gateway.”

That leaves a lot of room for thought. If my mana and Qi are fighting each other then I should be far stronger right now than I am currently. I just need to get my Mana and Qi working in sync. Lucadon had pointed to my double helical soul thread and said it had perfect space to store my Qi but I doubt that it is currently in the place the demon imagined. I will need to work on that.

“Ok, how do I rearrange the Mana and Qi to work together?”

Johann takes a few minutes to think before sitting down across from me with a serious look on his face.

…

“No idea!”

The worst part is the smile I can barely make out on his face.

Lua, the eternal science experiment… What happened to my being the Demon Lord?

I sigh and get ready for what I likely to be a long and painful process.