Otherworld Adventure

Nature mana or Life Energy, as what the ancient book described, was actually the life force of every living being. It was different, yet similar to mana that was the fuel or energy that sustained all the lives of every organism on the planet.

Mana helped strengthen and nurture the environment and organisms on Alterna. Life Energy was similar, but the sources of these two powers were different. While Mana existed in the environment and everywhere on Alterna, Life Energy was something that existed only from within a living being. Only those who cultivated Life Energy were able to manipulate and feel it.

Each living being's Life Energy is unique and not one would be similar to the other. Mana had different elements that differentiated their types, but Life Energy was entirely different from one organism to another.

The reason why Cecil had mistaken the life energy in the trial grounds with normal mana was because he hadn't known of its existence yet. The ambient Life energy came from the World Tree, Urrugdrasil.

Since the trials were located inside the area of the World Tree, the life energy it emitted was naturally more abundant in the air. It began to mix with the ambient mana and that's why Cecil had mistakenly thought that the unique energy was nature mana, which the elves exclusively had, when it should have been Life Energy.

Although they had mixed together, but mana was mana and life energy was life energy. The two were different. While one originated from the environment, the other originated from a living being, in this case, the World Tree.

The elves had been living in the vicinity of the World Tree so they were more sensitive to life energy than most races. The elves weren't aware of this, but they were born with the ability to sense life energy right from the start.

There were no records of life energy cultivation so they had mistakenly thought that the unique energy was only the blessings from the World Tree. They ignored cultivating it and only opted to cultivate mana instead. They then mixed the mana and life energy together to form nature mana which was used in the unique elven nature magic spells.

This combination of life energy and mana wasn't yet at the step of creating ether, but it was close. If the elves were able to balance the life energy and mana then they would be able to successfully create Ether.

They had such an overwhelming advantage against the other races, but it was too bad for them that they had no knowledge of it.

Cecil's Blessing where he was given the ability to control vines and branches was a form of life energy manipulation, but unlike the elves' nature magic, his vine manipulation wasn't formed through the combination of mana and life energy to conjure a spell. He merely manipulated the vines and branches in the surrounding area to his will.

Let's say the area was barren of trees. Then it was only natural that his plant manipulation skill would be rendered completely useless since he had no plants to manipulate. Life Energy was only present within LIVING beings. This meant that the dead didn't possess this unique energy.

Cecil could freely manipulate live plants, but there was no way he could manipulate a dead tree or something similar.

The ancient book had a complete description on the difference between mana and life energy. Life energy or Ki, for short, originated from the very soul of a living organism. Normally, one wouldn't be able to feel or cultivate Ki until they reached the Perfection Stage in the present era.

However, during the ancient era, it was much more common to find people cultivating both mana and ki at the same time. The two energies were virtually on par with each other, not one being more important or stronger than the other.

Cultivate Ki from within and Mana from without. The two cultivation systems complemented each other and the energy that resulted from the perfect combination of the two was called Ether.

Ether was also the ultimate form of energy that the current era's Transcendent-level characters cultivated.

While everyone else was still stumbling with Mana Cultivation, Cecil had just found a new path for him to tread.

"Ki! I'll definitely cultivate this!" He exclaimed in excitement.

Similar to Mana, Ki also had only 4 stages of cultivation which were Ki Formation, Ki Condensation, Ki Crystallization, and finally Ki Transformation. Once one was able to finally cultivate all the way to Ki Transformation, they would then be able to merge Perfected Mana with Transformative Ki together and produce the higher form of energy, Ether.

"This Ether...sounds pretty powerful..."

Cecil spent some time reading the book. After the section that had the World Tree's Ki Cultivation Technique, Cecil continued reading and finally found the healing arts of Ki. Life Energy or Ki was really only good for healing. There were no offensive skills or arts inside the book.

There was however some explanations and details to the proper usage of Ki other than for using it to heal yourself or someone else. Ki originated from the body, so naturally Ki could be used to strengthen the body.

By strengthening the body, it wasn't the temporary body enhancement of body strengthening skills, but a passive, more permanent type of enhancement.

Cultivate the Ki and let it settle and permeate inside all of the organs, muscles, and cells of the body. Cecil's body was permeated with mana throughout all of his muscles, organs and cells. Ever since he got the Mana Circuits, Cecil hasn't once stopped baptizing every organ, tissue, and muscles inside of his body with mana.

His affinity with mana naturally grew with each passing mana baptism and he did feel an improvement with his physique, but for some reason it wasn't like what he had hoped. His physique had largely improved in regards to mana affinity, but there was no qualitative change that directly strengthened his physique's power and strength.

At least, not until he experienced his second Marrow Cleansing, he finally understood what catalyzed his Marrow Cleansing in the first place. The first time he had experienced Marrow Cleansing was during his excursion to the Mining Valley and after facing off against the Oroboros.

He had overused his leg's mana pathways and had directly ruined them. The medicine he drank from his foster mother didn't stimulate his mana and cause the Marrow Cleansing, but the medicine instead had stimulated his Ki and this was what caused his first cleansing. The Ki was also the factor that had helped heal and transform his Mana Circuits!

"Mother's a genius!"

Cecil couldn't help but reevaluate the genius of his foster mother. There was no doubt in his mind that his foster mother, Anna, was a Transcendent. She just had to be! Considering that she was able to brew medicine that could directly stimulate one's Ki.

"Her knowledge in this aspect must be pretty high since she could concoct medicine like that! I should ask more from her later!"

There's no way a person like her wouldn't be a Transcendent and even if she wasn't, Cecil concluded that she at least had to be infinitesimally close to that level and was most likely just a small step away from achieving it.

Cecil finished reading the book and immediately tried to cultivate his Ki. He first calmed his mind and readjusted his posture. He sat down cross-legged and tried to feel the Ki inside of him.

It didn't take him long before he could feel it.

'Is this it?'

Unlike with Mana which was located in his mana point on his navel, Cecil was able to locate his Ki in the center of his chest.

'It's faint, but it's there.'

Cecil's 'faint' wasn't faint at all. The amount of Ki he had inside his body was in fact very abundant. He did after all receive the World Tree's Blessings. It was also due to the blessings that he was able to quickly feel his Ki.

The only reason why Cecil felt that the Ki was 'faint' was because he was only able to locate the Ki in his chest. The chest area where the Ki Point was located at was the easiest place to initially feel out one's Ki. If he was to concentrate hard enough and turn his attention to other places inside his body, Cecil would find an abundant amount of the white colored 'light strands' everywhere.

In fact, the amount of Ki inside his body was already enough for him to reach the second stage of Ki cultivation, Ki Condensation. All he needed to do was gather up all the strands of Ki inside his body and condense it at the spot in the center of his chest, close to his heart.

Cecil tried to manipulate the Ki inside his body and began circulating it around the Mana Circuits inside his body. Despite being called Mana Circuits, Ki was able to move just fine inside of them.

"Hmm...Calling them Mana Circuits seems a little off. I'll just call them Energy Circuits instead. Sounds more general since eventually I'll be using Ether after I combine Mana and Ki together," Cecil hummed with a nod.

Cecil couldn't help but notice that his small strand of Ki was growing bigger and bigger with every cycle it ran through the Circuits. He noticed that numerous strands of Ki would abruptly jump inside the Circuits as the strand of Ki ran through it and combine together.

After 10 cycles, the strand of Ki was no longer just a strand. It was now pretty thick and long. When Cecil tried circulating it inside his Circuits, both ends of the long strand were able to link up together.

When he continued to circulate his Ki like this, the Ki began leaving his Circuits and slowly gather into the center of his chest.

"...isn't this the sign that I'm stepping into the Ki Condensation stage?" Cecil said in confusion.

He didn't stop the circulation and finally all the Ki in his body had gathered at the center of his chest and condensed from the light strand into a white liquid, similar to Cecil's golden liquid mana in his mana point.

"Okay...that was easy."

Without him doing anything, the Ki began to spread out throughout his body. The liquid Ki settled in every part of his body.

Cecil suddenly felt really lively. His senses had once more sharpened. This time it wasn't the subtle sharpening, but more like a direct enhancement. Everything looked clearer in his eyes and when he concentrated, he could hear things that he couldn't have before.

He felt like he could actually hear the breath of the World Tree, slowly inhaling before exhaling a deep and gently breeze of Ki into the air.

He could even feel the subtle vibrations of the air on top of his skin. He never felt more at 'one with the world' as he did now.

Cecil while feeling the gentle caresses of air that wrapped around his body, the boy exerted both his mana and ki, he felt like he could manipulate this air. When he punched out, Cecil manipulated the air around his body to flow along with his fist.

FWIP

FWIP FWIP

He tried the same while kicking. The speed of both his punches and kicks were lightning fast. Only a blur resulted when he repeatedly punched and kicked. He had even kicked up a small whirlwind just from just this!

"WOW! This is great!"

Cecil laughed happily and continued experimenting with his newfound powers. The Ki that had settled inside his various body parts had enhanced his body and senses. He hadn't even activated his Mana Burst, yet his attack speed was already so high!

Not to mention his body seemed impervious to low level attacks now. He was even able to emit a transparent barrier around his body using only his Ki. Cecil wasn't sure how strong it was, but he reckoned that he'd be able to stop numerous mid-ranked magic spells with this barrier alone and maybe one or two high-ranked spells if he layered his mana barrier on top.

What he found most astonishing was the rate of his mana replenishment. When Cecil had begun cultivating Ki, he noticed that his mana recovery had grown exponentially. He began circulating his mana in accordance with his family's technique while also activating Mana Burst.

He was surprised to find his mana replenishing at nearly half the rate it was being used up! He continued circulating his mana at full power for over half an hour, but he still didn't feel strained at all.

Normally, it'd only take him 10-15 minutes of using his mana this way before he would nearly zero out his mana.

"This is great! Hahaha!!"

Now he never had to worry about zero-ing out his mana if he pushed his Mana Burst or skills to the limit, not like he had to worry anymore in the first place, but since the boy still didn't know the more amazing benefits of cultivating Ki, he still didn't know that he no longer had to worry about being driven into madness from mana deficiency.

"Alright, I should go back and rest up~" Cecil smiled. He quickly opened the door and walked out of the library. "Ah! I should also tell my friends about this once they're all done cultivating~"