The Feng Clan Cultivation Method's motions at the Core Formation realm were about moving qi through his body in specific patterns. It was just like when Shen had broken through to that realm by moving qi in a way that tightened his meridians, except now he was strengthening the core's walls.

Well, he had finished strengthening his core's walls.

Shen had probably done it in record time, but it wasn't his merit. The air was filled with so much qi that it felt like cultivating while consuming the best resources. Or so he believed from what he recalled of his time watching other geniuses and dreaming of being one of them.

He felt a pang in his heart when he remembered his people and thought how the excess qi might have to do with the world having no cultivator to use it for thousands of years.

Shen shook his head, clearing his mind of stray thoughts.

He couldn't see into his body, only feel it. The core's walls had once felt as elastic as any meridian, but now they felt like solid rock. The next step was using it to refine his qi.

There were three ways of refining qi.

The impossible way required a lot of knowledge on the Laws of Reality and applying it to the qi in ways Shen couldn't even start to guess.

The hard way was finding an object created by one of those people that did it for him.

And the easy way required compressing qi hard enough to squish the impurities away. Of course, that wasn't enough; he also had to move qi through his body in the correct mystical pattern.

That's what he was doing now. He pulled qi from the environment and pushed it into his core. After it got full, he kept going. His core's walls were put under heavy strain but held—the reason he had to strengthen them in the first place.

Meanwhile, he also circulated the qi in his body. It formed a symbol that resonated with the Laws of Reality.

When a cultivator newbie like him pulled qi, they also pulled different energies. The warmth he felt while pulling qi into himself was proof of that; pure qi was not thermal energy and should feel neither cold nor warm. That didn't matter for him to use the average technique, but his cultivation technique needed it to be as pure as possible.

Shen kept pushing qi into his core while moving some of it through his body in the correct pattern.

In the middle of his body, the area around his core heated up as the unwanted energies were released. They impacted his body in ways that would cause damage if he didn't have a well-built body by now.

The willpower to keep focusing on a few things simultaneously was significant but manageable. When Shen had enough qi, he pushed all the qi but the pure one from his core and put the latter to good use.

He needed to form a mystical symbol with it.

Now, the specifics of how patterns and symbols resonated with the Laws of Reality was beyond him like everything else. Its gist was that placing the correct runes at the suitable materials at precise gaps would produce the desired effects.

In this case, the material was his core's wall. Or, to be more precise, his refined core wall. This next step wouldn't work if it wasn't hard enough, thus not adequately prepared by his previous cultivation sessions.

The runes and the distances between them came from his memory. Now that he thought about it, using a Skill Slot for his cultivation method might help prevent many mishaps in his cultivation...

Shen shook his head again and focused harder.

Pure qi was needed because the materials used for a mystical symbol also mattered. In this case, it was pure qi. The reason why was beyond him.

First, he turned the qi in his core into forming the symbol he remembered. Manipulating qi into a form without seeing it was hard to do, but he could feel the qi precisely enough. Then he very carefully placed it on the very particular place he had to put it on.

The qi stuck, which meant the core's wall was refined enough, the symbol was well-made enough, and the qi was pure enough.

And that was it for now.

The books didn't say which of the three symbols he would place in his core did what—formation mastery wasn't part of the Foundational Knowledge. He only knew what the final effect would be.

For now, that rune also did nothing. The entire formation needed to be inscribed for it to activate and work.

Shen had no willpower to keep going though. He had a headache and trouble focusing on such a tedious task. He would come back to it once he rested by killing some foes.

So he stood up. "Let's go," he told Alicia.

Alicia nodded and stood up from where she had been sitting.

The Techmages were the familiar thin werewolves, except they wore three runes-filled bracelets on each arm. The F-ranks had silvery bracelets, and the E-ranks, golden.

The runes reminded him of the one he had just placed in his core. Maybe qi would affect the bracelets the same as mana, or perhaps runes were tailored for the energy they interacted with. Shen didn't know, had no way to find out, and didn't waste his time thinking about it.

What he thought about was how to approach this.

The minotaur middle boss—Shen had forgotten his name—could use magic to stop Shen in place. If this happened here, he might die. No matter how fast he could free himself, a split second mattered when there were dozens of projectiles coming your way. But he wouldn't know if they could freeze him unless he attacked.

Shen had to go ahead filled with qi again if he needed to use it to break free. He only hoped his F+ resistance would give him enough survivability to not die and flee if something went wrong.

"Sit out of this one unless it's perfectly clear I'm not going to die," Shen warned Alicia.

"Okay," she said. Say what you would about Alicia, but she was great at heeding instructions.

He put the backpack and extra spear away, clenched his F spear, and rushed at his enemies.

The first thing the enemy did was take flight.

Out of the ninety F-ranks, seventy took two bracelets from their arms, threw them on the floor, and stepped on them. A moment later, they were taking to the air and surrounding Shen in a way mere ground enemies couldn't do.

The second thing they did was defend themselves.

All the twenty F-ranks still on the ground rose their arms in front of them, and their bracelets floated out. Of the six bracelets each one of them had, three positioned themselves as the edges of triangles. Their runes shone blue, and a triangular transparent energy shield came from them. The other three kept floating ahead of the triangle, with small circular energy shields of their own.

Shen was already on the first werewolf by then. He thrust his spear at the triangular shield to test it and was surprised by the three small shields quickly getting in the way. His spear broke through two of them with ease, but they decreased his thrust's speed. The third shield resisted for an instant but gave in. Shen's weapon had gone through the middle of the three bracelets by then and kept going.

However, his spear was moving only half as fast as the beginning by then. The tip of his spear hit the triangle, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on it.

The energy shield held.

Then the enemy acted on the third step of their strategy. The three bracelets on Shen's spear yanked hard to the right. He almost lost his balance, but his qi-filled body was just enough to prevent that. He resisted and stepped back, taking his spear from their middle, and they blessedly didn't follow.

By then, his enemies were already enacting the fourth step of their plan. The flying werewolves were attacking him.

They were using two bracelets to fly, and the other four started floating vertically in front of them. Their runes shone, and from each of them came a different attack: a fireball, a sharp ice shard, a rock, and a bright light.

Shen was prepared to protect himself from many things, but light was not one of them. The unexpected focused magic flashes from seventy bracelets temporarily blinded him because he had been looking at the enemies at the time, waiting for their move. Blind while under a barrage of attacks, he did the only thing he could:

He turned to the exit, covered his head with his arms, and ran full speed ahead.

Some attacks hit his arms and body, but they luckily missed his legs. Shen realized then a terrible issue with the health points system: he couldn't really tell how bad his injuries were without sight. He would need to find a way around that.

For now, he focused on fleeing. His sight returned a few moments later, and he breathed more easily when he saw he had over fifty health points remaining. Running without thinking twice had saved him.

The attacks ceased not long later. Shen turned to see the werewolves positioning themselves back into a row on the ground as if he had never approached.

Shame filled him.

He was just an inconsequential, minor note in their history.

"Are you alright?!" Alicia asked anxiously when he approached.

During the short exchange, she had stayed in place, and her eyes were wide in surprise. Shen checked his arms and saw turn skin and raw flesh. No broken bones though.

"Yes," Shen replied. "That was a bit scary," he admitted, "but at least now I know what to expect and how to protect myself."

He sat to wait for his healing to complete, which would take hours at 12 HP per hour. He asked Alicia to tell him about the mortal world in the meantime.

"Before that," she said, "I... I want to ask something, but I understand if you can't do it. Like, it's totally alright. I have to ask because it would be awesome, but I don't want you to hate me because of it."

It was his first time seeing her so insecure. It was endearing but also suspicious. What could she possibly ask that would make him hate her?

"Go ahead," Shen said.

"Can you... teach me to be like you? The cultivation thing? Please? I mean, it's alright if you can't, but it would be awesome if you could. I can swear any oaths you want and all that. Please?"

"Oh," he replied. "That's impossible." Her face fell. "It's not about you; it's about the Guardian System. Mana and qi are incompatible. Don't you remember reading it in the Guardian Store, in the nanobots' description?"

"What? Guardian Store." She read from the invisible box in front of her. "There's nothing here."

"Then it might only appear for cultivators. I'm sorry, but the system told me before that using AP to increase my max health or mana points would make me incapable of using qi. The store also says nanobots are incompatible with qi."

Her face fell even more, and Shen considered his role in this new mortal world. The Eternal Empire was gone, but its rules stated he was to teach the Imperial Cultivation Method to any mortal who asked.

He... he felt uncomfortable about ignoring Imperial law. It would make things worse. More real.

So he said, "I could try teaching you the Imperial Cultivation Method, but I won't be held responsible for any issues. To be frank, I would not do it if I were you. Unless you understand a lot more about magic and its limits than me, of course."

Alicia's head was so lowered in defeat, she was straight looking at the ground. "Oh. I... Alright, I guess. Magic is cool too."

Shen smiled slightly. "Magic is more suited for you," he said. "You hate close-range fights, and qi can only produce fireballs at a much higher level."

Alicia raised her head and widened her eyes in realization. "Yes, of course. It's just... You survived that. You run so fast you become a blur. I wanted to do that too, but I can barely deflect a few dozen stones."

"And I wanted to be able to throw fireballs at a thought," Shen countered. That would be so useful. "But we must each tread our Paths. In the future, your Path might even lead you to give up on magic and cultivate, but that's not to be for now."

"Is that cultivator philosophy or something?" she asked, obviously interested.

Shen's smile turned sad despite his desire to hide his feelings. "When I was eleven, I messed up big time. My teacher at the time said she couldn't understand my specific situation, but she would tell me the same thing she told her children when they messed up in anything."

Shen looked to the heavens as he quoted the Keeper of Knowledge.

"Accept what you have, do the best with it, and move forth. Regret your bad decisions but don't dwell on them. Seek the best but don't envy what you don't have or can't achieve. Never compromise your morals for anything. Acceptance, purpose, and honor are the keys to a fulfilling life. A Path without any one of them leads only to ruin."

"Oh, that's deep," Alicia said with surprise.

Shen didn't reply. His thoughts were on the past as much as in the shameful way he had run from his enemies. Even though his teacher was long gone, she lived on in what she had taught him. And the things she had taught him so long ago, historically speaking, were still relevant to make him feel better and not stray from his Path even today.

He closed his eyes not to tear up and promised himself to heed her words.

After he got more emotionally stable, he asked Alicia to go on with her explanation of the mortal world. She complied, and time flew by.

Then, finally, his body healed, and it became time to redeem himself from his shame by obliterating his enemies.