Time passed quickly. Day after day, Ullach trained madly, as if this was my last opportunity to get stronger. Power was something we had to fight for, and not sit and wait for it to fall in our laps.

Two years had passed since I began my training with Althaea. I now could do a few things with soul power, and could even manipulate the natural mana around myself to some extent. The training was hard, but the more I practised, the more powerful I became.

I was standing on a field on the lost garden. Across me, Althaea stood. She was waiting for my attack so that we could spar.

I gathered my soul power and ordered the nature around me to form a rock lance and threw it at her. She didn't even lift a finger, and a transparent shield protected her from the lance.

It was as if the lance encountered an invisible wall, stopping completely on its tracks. After throwing the lance, I advanced and condensed the soul power in my hand, making it glow in azure colour.

I approached her and punched her belly, or at least tried to. Just before my hand connected, her wing moved from her back and blocked the punch, pushing me away from her.

Stumbling a few steps back, I looked at her and saw that she pointed her hand at me, making the clouds above condense a lightning bolt and attacking me with it.

Seeing the lightning descend, I condensed all my soul power in my legs and jumped back, evading the attack.

The lightning hit the ground with such strength that the rocks on it were blown away and burned my skin.

I fortified my skin with soul power and resisted the attack while controlling the natural mana to form a wind slash and threw it at Althaea.

The shield appeared again in front of her and blocked the wind slash. Roots burst from the ground and constricted me. I reinforced my body and tried to struggle, but it was to no avail.

"I guess I still have a long way to go," I said to her.

"You are advancing pretty quickly, but you are still limited to the use of soul power, we have to find another way so you can achieve more than this."

The roots around me returned to the ground and freed me. I stretched my arms and began to prepare dinner.

Soul power had some special techniques to strengthen the body. The body was the vessel of the soul, and if my soul grew stronger, the body would follow it. During these last two years, my bodily strength grew enough so that I can rival a tier 2 ki user. Of course, we are only talking about body strength without the use of special techniques or mutations.

Althaea had passed a technique that would quicken the process of body strengthening. I felt that I was on the verge of birthing life force as well.

I had a crazy idea in my mind since more than a year ago and was working on it with Althaea, and if it worked, a new path would appear in front of me.

We were researching the many aspects of natural mana and the affinities that each individual had for them.

Natural mana was all around us, and it gave the world the source it needed to sustain itself. But the natural energy had many variations. It could be divided into elements, laws, and aspects.

The main ones were four elements, four laws, and two aspects. The four elements are water, air, fire, and earth. They had many variations and combinations, but all the others came from the main four. The four laws are space, time, light and darkness. The four primary laws existed everywhere, unlike the four main elements, the only exceptions were light and dark, because where one lived, the other vanished. The two aspects were the hardest ones to grasp, and they were life and death.

Between these ten main variations of natural mana, the affinity for the four main elements was the most common. Ullach's clan had an affinity for the element of wood, that was a variation between earth, water, and life. It was a powerful variation that made the clan have a high stand among humans.

I was training with Althaea for long now, but even so, I haven't discovered my affinity. It looked like something was blocking it away from me. I have an average talent in controlling the elements, and can somewhat control them through soul power.

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Every time I tried testing for my affinity, the instrument used to verify it was destroyed. My only hope now was to have an ancient creature testing it for me. By what master told me, she knew an old dragon that could help her, by paying a specific price, of course. By the end of this month, we will depart from the lost garden and search for it.

Eating the food with Master, I looked at her and said. "My body is on the brink of producing life force. I think I can have this breakthrough tonight."

She looked at me with a surprised face. "Good! We can finally begin seriously training now. Producing life force is but a step on your journey."

There were some herbs that Althaea prepared for this moment since I began to discuss my idea with her. In the beginning, she couldn't consider it properly. But after pondering for a bit, she saw the potential in it.

After finishing dinner, we went outside, and I seated on the grass while meditating. I looked at the dark sky and saw that the stars were so bright today that even the mist couldn't contain the light that they were emitting.

After a bit, I saw master leaving her house with a pill in her hand. "I used the herbs that we collected to concoct this pill. It should have enough potential to make your breakthrough."

"Thank you for your support," I said.

"Everything in this world happens in a circle Ullach. What I am doing today is not only for myself."

"What are you talking about?" I asked her with a puzzled face.

"Nothing to worry about. Now, let's proceed with your breakthrough." She handed me the pill and seated across me.

I looked at the pill in my hand and thought about the difficulties I have passed until now. Even birthing life force that was something natural for those with innate mana in their bodies was difficult for me. Using soul power instead of mana to strengthen the body was much harder, even though my body was as strong as a tier two warrior, I still haven't given birth to life force. When an average person uses mana to temper their bodies, the moment they break through to tier 1, life force is born. It was the first time in history that someone had used soul power to forge the body to give birth to life force; after all, everyone else could use mana to do it.

I breathed deeply and adjusted my mindset and my body. I could feel my body wanting to form life force, but each time, the power was not strong enough to complete the process.

I looked at the pill in my hand and put it in my mouth. I swallowed it and began to use my soul force to circulate the energy released by it through my body. The energy released was gentle and powerful at the same time. It didn't harm my body, only tempered it.

I could feel my cells saturated in energy. Each and every part of my body was trembling, it was as if the process in which life force was born was forbidden to happen if there was no mana in the body, but even so, I was destroying this shackle.

"AHHHHH"

The energy in my body began to get heavier and heavier. My body was being destroyed and reforged by so much energy. The process was excruciating, but nothing that I couldn't handle.

Althaea looked at Ullach and saw that there was a green aura surrounding his body, the green aura of life force. Even though it was not complete, it was beginning to surge.

I concentrated my soul force in my body and began to guide the energy and distribute it evenly. It was a hard thing to do, but not impossible.

Minutes passed, then hours. My body was slowly absorbing the pill, and by now, it looked as if it's going to burst any time.

I concentrated, and just before my body crumbled, a different sensation assaulted me. It was as if my cells began to emit a different kind of energy. Instead of only reinforcing themselves using the energy, they were now processing it and producing life force. It was a magical sensation, very different from the feeling of soul force.

Soul force was something that every living being had but didn't cultivate. But life force was something that only began to exist after training hard. The life force began to strengthen my body, riding me of all impurities that were left in it and making it perfect.

After bathing in this sensation for a long time, I opened my eyes. I saw that Althaea was looking at me with shock in her eyes.

"Your life force… it is in another different tier… " She said.

"What are you talking about? Lifeforce does not have tiers." I answered.

It was a common knowledge that life force could be accumulated and didn't have different tiers. The reason why Ki users fused life force with mana to have Ki was this.

"Yes, it didn't have. But it seemed that we were wrong, life force can have tiers. Look at your life force and see the difference from the ones described in the books."

I sensed it with my soul and body. The life force in me had a deep green colour. The life force commonly described in books usually had a light green colour, very different from mine.

Even the density and quality were different from the ones described in the books. I could feel that my life force could regenerate my body much quicker than the one described in the books as well.

"It looks like today we have broken many concepts that were solid." I laughed.

"Nothing in this world has a limit. It's the beings that live in this world that form boundaries to control everything around them." Althaea said. "Now that you have life force, your body will be strengthened much faster than before, making your soul force grow faster as well."

"Yes, and we can try to implement the plan that we formed as well."

"No. Now is not the time. First, we will awaken your mutation with the life force. After that, we will continue to train your life force and soul force. We have to see the limits that your life force can achieve. After that, we can consider it." Althaea said with a serious face. It looked like there were many more things to be done. "Use the method to awaken the mutation first."

I nodded to her and controlled my life force. Usually, when someone births a new force or energy in them, it takes a long time to control it properly. However, I was an exception to this. My soul power was strong enough that compared to controlling natural mana, controlling something that was part of me was a piece of cake.

I controlled my life force and began to concentrate on specific parts of my body. The method to awaken the mutation was smooth and hard at the same time. Easy because the process itself was not so complicated once you knew how to properly control life force, and challenging because if you didn't get the hang of it, you wouldn't awaken anything.

I gathered the life force from all my body in my heart. After doing it, I resonated with my heartbeats. It was as if the energy was resonating in the same frequency as my heart, making it pulsate and emitting a pulse all over my body.

I felt as if something was awakening within me. My body felt stronger, my blood was flowing faster within me, and my senses were hightened.

The life force was used to awaken this strength and change my body. After the transformation was complete, I got up and looked at my body. My muscles were much better defined then before as if each muscle worked out individually, but it was not big or monstrous, it had only an athletic look. My skin was much whiter than before, almost pale. I felt something else, and invoked a wind slash with my soul power and scratched my arm. The slash barely scratched the skin. I raised the force and slashed again. A more significant wound was made in my arm, but it quickly closed, and any sign of it existing vanished. Even the blood that escaped returned to the injury.

I went to the well and looked at the water. Seeing my reflection, I saw that my iris were now red, like a ruby.