Chapter 280: Magic and Qi.

Haru took a few weeks to settle back down at home. He was constantly kept awake due to nightmares about what happened that day in shanghai.

Haru felt like he could change everything if only he had the chance to go back and do it all again, but he saw his worries as pointless as time went on.

There wasn't any way he could go, and he concluded that he was holding on to a dream, a dream that could never come true. He felt sick of wasting his time and energy on things that had already happened and decided to take his mothers advice.

Living in the past wasn't good for his mind. He was running in circles, and he would never be able to grow if he carried on, so he buried the thoughts deep into his mind so they couldn't see the light of day again.

Although it hurt for him to give up on everything that happened in China, it hurt way more to continue living in pain, and it was the better of the two options. He was no longer there, and it was all in the past now.

It took a few weeks for his mind to settle down to the point he could think straight, and that was when he realised that on the day that Suyin had died, he had subconsciously used healing magic.

It should have been impossible from what Li Jun said, but it still happened. Magic and cultivation went hand in hand, so it was only natural to assume that you could either have one or the other, so he didn't try to use it even once during his time in China.

But it got him thinking.

'What if I was able to use it all along? I know some pretty powerful spells. Maybe I would have been able to help out more if I had just known.'

It soon became another insecurity until he managed to forgive himself. But that didn't stop him from playing around with magic in his spare time.

It felt like a godsend that he could use magic once again.

Although cultivation was the clear winner when it came to overall strength, if he combined them together, it made him stronger than ever before.

Cultivation mainly strengthened the body and came with the ability to control Qi. The essence of all life.

But magic came with the ability to make the impossible possible. Mana was simply the realisation of the imagination.

But that wasn't something he knew right away. Haru was always under the impression that mana was the life force of all living things during his previous life, and it wasn't until Li Jun explained otherwise that he found out he was wrong.

The more a person was able to imagine, the more they would be able to store mana within them, and all the training that he did as a child to build his mana pool was just a result of his imagination.

It was a confusing concept, but with his heightened intelligence from cultivating, he quickly understood many things about magic that were previously unknown to him.

Like mana contained small traces of Qi within it, and if he amplified the Qi, it would result in an even more powerful effect.

Haru used all of his resources to try to understand how he was able to use magic and cultivation simultaneously, but each and every time, he came up blank.

It didn't seem like it was caused by a specific event, so Haru thought that he must have been able to do it all along and just didn't know about it as he didn't try to use it while he was cultivating.

Haru sat down in the backyard and watched as Saki pushed a ball around the grass in front of him as the sun beamed down upon them. Luke and Krista were sitting in the shade underneath the apple tree in the far corner of the yard and watched as Haru experimented with magic.

Flames flickered from Haru's hands as the mana began to increase in the sounding area. He looked down to see the flame in his hand was no stronger than a regular campfire. It was nothing compared to the flame that he could produce using Kun's power. He laughed to himself slightly as he injected it with Qi.

The flame changed shape from a regular flickering flame into a glowing ball of light, almost like a flame that was being supplied with gas. The heat also increased tenfold as it glowed brighter and brighter until Luke called out from the shade.

"Be careful with that. You might hurt your sister." He warned Haru as the flame began to get a little bit unstable.

"Okay, I will," Haru shouted back before suddenly taking all of the Qi away from the flame before it suddenly vanished into the air.

'Hmm, So even though it only makes up a little bit of the actual flame, Qi is essential for magic to exist? So doesn't that classify mages as cultivators in their own right?' Haru thought to himself as he concluded that mages subconsciously controlled Qi on a day to day basis while using magic.

He felt like a new world was opening up to him as he found out that Qi really was the energy of life. Nothing could exist without it, and even magic would shrivel up and die if the Qi was taken from it.

'That makes a huge difference here in Japan, I don't have to worry about cultivators attacking here, but I can stop magic attacks before they even happen by taking the Qi away from them.' Haru thought to himself before laying back on the grass.

"Ahh!" Saki screamed out before jumping on Haru and wrapping her arms around him.

"You want to play?" Haru asked as he looked up at her as she waved her hands in front of him.

"Yes, Play!" She shouted with a smile on her face.

"You've got it," Haru replied with a smile before surrounding her body with his Qi before making her fly up into the sky as he used his Qi to make sure that she didn't fall.

"Haru! What have I told you? Keep your sister's feet on the ground. She isn't old enough to fly on her own, so you shouldn't be encouraging her to do so." Krista scolded Haru for playing with Saki with a smile.

She couldn't bring herself to punish him for spending time with his sister seriously, but she also didn't want anything to happen to either of them, so it was better for her to warn them to be safe and let them go on their way.

She didn't know what she would do if any of her children got hurt, and she didn't want to find out. But she knew that she could trust Haru with his power. He had never let them down before.

Haru spent the rest of the day out in the sun with his family before they all gathered around to eat barbeque as the sun began to set. Luke sat down with Haru and seemed like he had something to discuss.

Haru looked at him with questioning eyes, so Luke decided to take the chance to speak his mind.

"Hey, I know that you are still recovering from what happened. But your mother and I think that it might do you some good to get out of the house every once in a while.

I know that you don't really have any friends and you don't really like socialising with new people, but I think that you should drop by the cafe some time and help out. I will pay you for it of course, but I think that it might be good for you to speak with other people.

So what do you say about working behind the counter?" Luke asked with a smile on his face. When he opened the cafe after he left the army, he hoped that one day it would become a family business and not just a place to create passive income while he stayed at home.

But that is what it turned into as he left all of the work to his employees to help Krista raise both Haru and Saki. He sacrificed his dreams in order to raise his children and let his wife follow her dream and continue to work even after childbirth.

So when Haru came home, he spoke with Krista about having him help out in the cafe. At first, she seemed against it and thought that he would need time to heal. But after a few weeks and watching him become more stable, she finally agreed that he needed to socialise with more people.

She didn't want her son to become a shut-in, and even if they kicked him out and forced him to work, she knew that he had enough money to fund himself without working for the rest of his life.

So she hopped on board with Luke's plan and wanted him to work alongside his father. At least he wouldn't be in an unfamiliar place and get fired if he made any mistakes. It was also a safe environment where she wouldn't have to worry about him getting hurt.

It took Haru a few moments to think about how to respond since he was happy with his day to day life. But it had also been a while since he got out of the house. He didn't need to leave, and if he needed to buy anything, he could get it delivered with just the click of a button.

But he could see that it was starting to get unhealthy as he felt his heart race at the thought of interacting with people outside of his family.

"Okay, Sure, I think I would like that." Haru smiled as he thought about it. The only people he had spent time with for close to a month were his immediate family, and he was running out of things to talk about with them. At least he could tell them about work if he helped out at the cafe.

"Really? You will do it!?" Luke asked with excitement in his voice. He never expected that he would agree so quickly. But he was happy that he did. His dream of starting a family business was finally starting to come true.