A few more days drifted by. I focused on keeping my mirror Qi inside for a good part of it. Bit by bit, I was getting better at it.

Having two types of Qi also helped. Since my golden Qi was still enough to completely cover my body, there wasn’t technically a need to have any mirror Qi on the outside. Kind of like putting a cap on a bottle.

I smirked at the comparison, slowly cycling my mirror Qi through my pathways. It was something I’d recently figured out, and it helped quite a bit with keeping it contained. Keeping it cycling would draw in the small tethers that wanted to leak, drawing them back into my core.

Of course, it would still get tiring, keeping it circling all the time, and doing it the way I was would usually be idiotic. After all, this would still leave my skin vulnerable to erosion by the outside energy. But with that covered by my golden Qi, this was a decent exercise for manipulation.

It did mean that my cultivation staggered a little. I could feel voyage in my chest, wanting me to continue. Exploring areas I had never been in was perfect for advancing it, yet I couldn’t quite get around to it yet.

At least we had been getting attacked by monsters much more rarely, now. There were still multiple encounters with bornins each day, but the groups that attacked us were much smaller, and occasionally, we would even get the drop on them.

When we had the element of surprise on our side, the battles were more like swift bloodbaths. Liam and Marie could oftentimes take out any scouts, clearing an easy path for Matt, Emilia and me to come in and take any of the melee fighters. Ann and the twins were usually on defense, just in case.

She grumbled to me sometimes in the evenings, about wanting to blow up a few monsters with a sizable fireball. Each time, I reminded her that we were in a forest, and it would be an exceptionally bad idea.

The fire would probably be smothered, since the plants here had some small amount of Qi, too, preventing them from catching fire as easily. Still, the smoke would definitely attract more monsters, maybe even ones we couldn’t handle.

Each time, she’d sigh exasperatedly, then lean back onto her sleeping bag. Of course she knew. Instead of actually using her magic, she was left practicing it for hours on end.

While walking, I would see her manifest magic circles, then break them down and restructure them over and over. Some would be larger, some smaller, and each of them was horribly intricate. They were nice to look at while I couldn’t cultivate, at least.

Five days passed without much changing about my routine. I would keep my Qi circulating and contained, keep it up for as long as I could without throwing up or slowing us down, then march on a little more. I used the downtime where I felt crappy to cultivate, at least.

Keeping it contained during battle was the hardest part. It already forced us to stand still for a while, and could easily draw other monsters to us, so it was even more important for me to keep the mirror Qi contained, while at the same time using my golden Qi to fight.

Little by little, I improved, until, on the fifth day, there was an acknowledgement about my abilities.

[Aura Suppression [New!] (Low) (Keeping your Qi contained inside your body allows you to appear perfectly ordinary)]

I was truly glad for iron will and mirror mind, now. Having those two allowed me to progress it much faster than I reasonably should have been able to. Matt had demonstrated it to me two more separate times, and each time I used mirror mind to help me understand it faster.

That talent was genuinely insane, and similarly exhausting to use. I felt it now, a distant strain in the back of my head. It was so stuffed full of half-digested information that it always felt like I was on the verge of a migraine.

If I used it again without giving my brain a bit of a break, there was a decent chance of doing some rather uncomfortable damage. But it was fine, since I now had a new technique to help me out.

I activated [Aura Suppression] in the way that I usually did unfamiliar techniques, and felt it take hold in myself. There was a degree of control that I didn’t get when I purchased new abilities with contribution, but since I’d earned it myself, I knew how to direct it. I gently directed the ability at my mirror Qi only.

Then, it took hold. There was a short moment where my vision lurched and my heart skipped a beat. The ability definitely worked a little differently from how I’d done it. Activating it felt like a punch to the stomach, as my mirror Qi immediately stopped, as if held in place by an invisible force.

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Slowly, bit by bit, I willed the ability to let up, feeling my breathing become easier again. Ann saw me stagger, and reached out to help me, but by that time I’d already caught myself again, putting one foot in front of the other. I grit my teeth a little, forcing my control over the technique.

This wasn’t what it was supposed to be like. Maybe it was doing things suboptimally because it was only at "low", but still. I willed it to let my mirror Qi move a little, having it slowly circulate through my pathways. The technique seemed to fight back at first, but I imposed my vision of what it should be over what it was, and its rules bent.

It adjusted itself. With every breath I took, a little more of my pathways grew accessible to the Qi, until the ability had retreated to just my skin.

I let out a deep sigh when it finally adjusted itself to fit with how I’d been doing the suppression. Adjusting to new abilities wasn’t supposed to be this uncomfortable, but then again, this was a very specific one, aimed at doing something rather unnatural.

“You alright?” Ann asked me once I’d found my footing again.

“Yeah, got a new ability. It wasn’t quite cooperating for a bit, but I’ve got it adjusted now.”

She gave me a crooked smirk at that. “I get that.”

I knew she did. Mage abilities were often quite horrendous on their first use, due to how directly they affected the mind. I was there when Ann first used [Parallel Thinking], and had held up her hair when she spent the next half hour vomiting.

That’s why we usually only used new abilities in a safe space, but iron will helped bend that rule a lot. It meant that I could grit my teeth through almost every discomfort and keep going.

At any rate, with the ability now running, containing my aura became a lot easier, almost like there was an invisible hand helping me guide my Qi. It was almost a shame, getting used to the way my Qi flowed had done wonders for my manipulation. I could feel myself getting close to taking that next major increase in the stat. But at the same time, getting to actually cultivate was just as important as increasing my Skill with Qi.

After two more days, I’d broken through with voyage, raising my golden core to the 4th step. As always, advancing filled me with a rush of ambient Qi, and left me feeling reenergized. I grinned as I noted how much more Qi I had access to, now.

By then, the trees had thinned. We were being attacked a somewhat normal amount, and even fought some monsters that weren’t bornins. Namely some drytz, the critters that attacked from underground, and some jills, little rock-things which could manipulate the earth.

Since the jills, themselves, were made from stone, though, Emilia was able to very swiftly smash her way through them, breaking their body apart with her Qi. They were very tedious to fight if you didn’t have someone able to manipulate rocks in your party, so having her around was always good when they showed up.

After another two days, we were finally out of the forest and onto the plains. We were slowly tracking upwards, and the air had cooled down very noticeably. By now, most of our breaths turned into white fog, despite the hardy grass still covering the landscape.

This wasn’t a territory I’d spent a whole lot of time investigating. Luckily, that wasn’t my job, either.

“Alright, everyone, we’re in the plains now,” Marie told us the obvious first. “Most common native monsters are kamaitachi, weasels with wind magic and blade arms, sylters, snake-things with great camouflage and the ability to grow wings, and lirers, large mice who eat metal. Few dangerous birds, at least, since the sylters often snatch them out of the air.”

“Most of the creatures here lunge at you. Keep your throats and faces protected,” she advised.

All of us nodded.

Despite the fact that I usually liked to cultivate while travelling, there were more and less appropriate times. We were mostly used to the monsters that roamed the forest near Renvil, since we’d been there a few times now, but this was new territory, and the monsters seemed quite dreadful.

I’d been hoping that scouting would be easier here, with the wide open space, but it seemed that ambush predators reigned supreme in the high grass. Well, at least they were dominant. Marie hadn’t given us the full list of monsters. It was impossible to watch out for everything, after all, so it was much more important to protect against the most common threats.

Not an hour later, we got ambushed for the first time.

A grey-brown snake with a massive pair of wings seemed to just appear in the air in front of Reya, lunging at her. Somehow, Liam and Marie both had missed it.

The wings weren’t small, either. They were made from pristine feathers that seemed white, but covered in a slick oil, with iridescent rainbow light dancing off them. Strangely, they weren’t even connected to the body of the snake, and were partially translucent. Despite that, with a flap of them, the sylter had already latched onto Reya’s neck.

The priestess let out a muffled gurgle as the fangs dug into her skin, and half a moment later, Liam appeared from her shadow, grabbed the thing, and ripped it away.

Its fangs had been buried into Reya’s skin, and with the rather rapid removal, some of her flesh was still stuck to its fangs. It was already bending up to bite Liam, so he swiftly threw it, but the thing caught itself in the air a moment later, sprouting a second pair of wings and hissing at us.

It flapped them both and blurred through the air, trying to get at Liam, who dodged out of the way.

Eric had his hands next to Reya’s wound, glowing with divinity as blood kept pouring out. It didn’t seem to slow as much as it should. There must have been some kind of anti-clotting agent in the sylter’s venom.

From behind Liam, it turned and flapped its wings again, heading for Eric this time, only to be intercepted by Emilia’s shield, bouncing off it. Marie sliced its head off mid-air while it was still dazed.

All of it had happened before I even had a chance to intervene. Maybe I’d need those health potions earlier than I’d thought.