Aaron was still running when the world turned yellow and a deafening thunder made the Red Forest tremble once again.

A quick glance backward revealed dozens of lightning bolts coming from the area where the bird was and striking the symbols in the sky. Aaron didn't stop to see what was going to happen, he just kept moving. Shortly afterward, the shockwave of an enormous explosion hit him in the back and pushed him to the ground.

The bird let out a loud, long, and high-pitched cry that made Aaron's eardrums ache. Then came the silence. He looked back again, and this time he saw the beast flying away. But more important than that were the things he didn't see.

He saw now spell on the air, for it had been annihilated by the bird's attack. He saw no trees, grass, or insects either, for the same attack that had destroyed Lana's spell, had disintegrated everything around it. It had left an enormous crater on the ground that ended just a few feet away from where he had fallen.

He had narrowly escaped death once again. Lana, who had fallen to the ground a few extra feet ahead, was pale as she looked at the result of the explosion.

"Lana!" Aaron shouted.

She didn't listen. After so many loud noises, not even he was hearing his own voice. So he stood up, went to her, and shook her. She turned to him with a look of astonishment and confusion.

"Alys!" he shouted, pointing at the fallen Sorceress. "Alys needs healing!"

Lana's eyes widened, then she stood up and ran to her friend.

Only to fall unconscious midway there.

There was only enough Holy Energy inside her for Aaron to know she was not dead. She had emptied her dantian in the laser skill though.

Aaron barely stopped himself from facepalming. What kind of stupid healer used all their energy to kill such weak beings, holding nothing back to heal their allies afterward? He would have a serious talk with Lana about resource management later.

For now though, he carried the two girls to a tree and placed them sitting against the trunk. He then concentrated on feeling Alys' energies and aura. By his estimates, she would die in twenty minutes.

He considered becoming a Vitamancer to heal her, but he would need at least half an hour to cultivate to Two Star Vitamancer, which he estimated to be the minimum required to stabilize such severe injuries. Therefore, only Lana could save the Sorceress. And for that, he would need to resort to extreme measures.

He crouched in front of her and shook her a second time that day. When she didn't wake up, he used a skill for the first time in that world.

Qi Medicinal Arts: Forced Awakening!

He held Lana's head tightly, controlled his breathing, and shook her again. This time, he vibrated her head precisely, making specific points of her brain hit her skull.

Lana woke up with a deep breath as if she were drowning. Her eyes dangled, lost, unable to focus. Aaron stopped shaking her head but continued holding her tight, forcing her to face him.

Qi Mind Control Arts: Hypnotic Induction!

"Lana," he said. His voice was both deep and firm, yet also smooth. He controlled its frequency precisely by using Qi on his vocal cords. "Lana," he repeated. "Lana."

Finally, her eyes focused on him, barely. Besides the dizziness caused by the brain hitting the skull, she was energetically drained. On the bright side, that made it easier to hypnotize her.

"The Laws of Light are as uncertain and trustworthy as the Light itself. Wave and particle merge in the spectrum of the invisible to form the visible that shapes our perception of the world," he started teaching her.

All nine energies could be found in the environment in different ratios. The environment itself affected those ratios; Fire Elemental Energy would be much more abundant in a volcano, for instance. But what mattered was that Holy Energy was in the environment too, in very tiny amounts.

The mystical symbols formed by Lana's skill had been meaningless, but he had detected fragments of the Laws of Light in the Holy Energy itself. He didn't know how to force her to refill her dantian with energy. In fact, he didn't even know if Devouts could fill their dantians by themselves, considering their gods leveled them up at their leisure. But he could force fragments of the Laws of Light itself to enter her soul, and by consequence, her spirit and dantian.

In this world, fragments of the same Law could be in distinct energies. Thus, the fragments of Light would come enveloped by many types of energy. Even Time Energy had small traces of some concepts it shared with the Laws of Light, utmost among them the physical limits of light speed. All those energies, except the Holy Energy created by her goddess, would be kept outside her dantian by the dantian itself. Holy Energy compatible with it would enter and fill it.

The way to accomplish that was by forcing her to attune herself to the Laws of Light. Strictly speaking, he was teaching her a temporary soul-attuning technique. The more profound his teachings, the more she could attune to the Light. Since there was way too little Light Holy Energy around them, for her aura to attract enough fragments of Light, the attunement had to be deep.

So deep, her mind forgot about it a moment later, for it was incapable of digesting it.

Worse still, his teachings overwhelmed her mind with minute understanding, followed by awe, followed by confusion. There was even a tiny possibility she would go crazy, and an enormous certainty that she would be unable to anchor her mind in the physical world for a few weeks at least.

Well, there was also the possibility that her mind would absorb some of that knowledge instead of coping with it through amnesia. That would be an enormous boon to her. However, Aaron didn't believe for a moment that it would happen. Not to Lana. Her belief in the Goddess of Light was too deeply rooted in her being, and it would interfere with her understanding of the truth.

Either way, that was for them to find out later. Now, he focused on compressing the most knowledge into the shortest time possible. That only made things worse for Lana's mind, but Alys was dying. Mind injuries, if any, could be treated later.

Fifteen minutes passed, and by then, there was a small energy vortex in the area. The Laws of Light flooded Lana and her surroundings, illuminating her in a way that any mortal would call holy.

Her dantian was half-filled by then. It should be enough.

"Lana," Aaron said. "Cure Alys. Now."

She nodded with an airy mind, looked to her side, and touched Alys.

"Goddess of Light," she said with a drunk-like voice, "we beseech your mercy. Lady of Light, we beg for your glory. Divine Light, we ask for your love. Third Degree Holy Skill: Transcendental Healing."

Holy Energy left Lana's body and entered Alys.

The black crust of seared flesh in Alys' body cracked and started falling as new, pinkish flesh grew beneath it. Soon, all the blackened pieces were on the floor, and fat started filling the correct places in her body. Finally, her skin also grew anew, completely covering the fresh flesh.

But that was not all. The internal damage caused by the electrical discharge was also healed. Her internally burned muscles recovered, her nerves were revitalized and reconnected to her mind, and her heartbeat, which had been beating irregularly, returned to a healthy rate. Her almost inaudible breathing relaxed.

She had been completely healed, physically. Aaron had no idea how deep the mental scarring from the torture would run though.

"Sleep," he ordered Lana, still using his hypnotic induction, and she obeyed at once.

Aaron looked at them both in deep thought. In this world, his clan had not existed for even a week, and yet, he had already failed to protect its only two members.

That was unacceptable.

He needed to adapt. He couldn't keep using only Qi, he needed the versatility that only using energy outside his body could provide him with. It was time to cultivate a secondary energy.

But he couldn't cultivate here, while he was alone and surrounded by the beasts and carnifexes of the forest. If an average cultivator were interrupted while leveling up, it would impact all their future attempts at it. In Aaron's complex cultivation, interruption could lead to the explosion of his dantian and death.

He would take care of it tonight if Lana were conscious enough to keep guard by then. Otherwise, he would do it the next day, in Red City.

After making that decision, he climbed the tree on which the women were leaning and focused on healing while watching the surroundings.

Three hours later, when he had completely healed — an hour beyond the two he would have needed to kill the elementals — none of the girls had woken up. He took each one under one arm and started running.

He didn't stop until Lana woke up the next morning.

- - -

"Hello, handsome," Lana said, talking like a drunk person. "You are handsome, you know that?"

"Thanks," replied Aaron.

She laughed and said, "But I can't be yours, alright? I must be a good girl. I must obey my..." She suddenly stopped talking and jumped. "Butterfly!" She shouted and ran after a cluster of fragments of Light a few meters away.

The Laws of the universe build reality. Everything was made of these Laws. Ordinary people couldn't detect them, but those with great knowledge could feel the Laws they were most intimate with. And those who reached the top could see the Laws as a kind of bright blueprint superimposed on reality.

The rising sun was bathing everything with the Laws of Yang, Fire, and Light, but Lana's current understanding did not allow her to see it all. She could see only sporadic clusters of fragments of the Laws of Light surrounded by Holy Energy, the Laws and energy she was attuned with. Even that was a wondrous feat though. If someone said that fifteen minutes of listening to Aaron allowed one to reach such a level of understanding, albeit temporary, no one would believe it.

Lana laughed wildly as her hand passed through the small floating lump of Light Holy Energy. Her dantian was already full, and she was not absorbing any Holy Energy, so the compatible energy didn't react to her touch.

Aaron had trained himself to feel the Laws surrounding him with accuracy instead of seeing it. It was more comfortable that way. But with Lana in that state, he had opened his metaphorical third eye slightly to better understand what she was talking about.

He approached and pretended to grab the lump with the hand that wasn't carrying Alys.

"Got it!" he said.

"I want to see it! Let me see it!" Lana insisted, jumping on his arm.

The Holy Energy was occupying the same space as his body, so Aaron used a little Qi to split it apart and dissipate it. Then he opened his hands.

"It's gone!"

"Where is it? Where is it?!" Lana laughed. "You are bad sometimes. I don't like it." She shook her head exaggeratedly, then made a 'small' gesture with her fingers. "But I like it a teeny weenie bit when you're mean to others. It makes you look soooo strong and powerful." She brought her lips to his ear and whispered, "It makes me silly."

Aaron shook his head. Lana's mind had lost touch with reality. Her superego was in tatters, her ego was overloaded, and her id was trying to break free.

He nuzzled her away. "Did you know there are butterflies in Red City?"

Her eyes widened. "Really?! Really?!" she shouted and started jumping while clapping. "I wanna see it! I wanna! Can we go see it? If you take me, I'll kiss you once! No, twice! Three times!" She did a number three with her fingers and looked at them for almost a full minute. "Does Bread City have three butterflies?" She made a four with her fingers. "Four?" Then she turned to Aaron. Her voice trailed off and her pupils dilated. "Hello, handsome."

Aaron couldn't help but laugh while guiding her forward.

- - -

Sometime later, they found something unique.

"Doggie! Meowie!" shouted Lana excitedly and ran ahead.

Two beast cubs, a black panther and a white wolf, were lying next to a black and white sprout, all surrounded by an energetic dome. They were sleeping while energy of their respective colors, visible to the naked eye, came out of the bud and enveloped both.

The sprout was a miracle of nature. Yin and Yang, Fire and Water, Light and Darkness, Life and Death, all the elements, the entire duality of the universe, were perfectly balanced within it.

But even more incredible than all that was the energy Aaron was feeling leaving the bud and enveloping the puppies.

Divine Energy.

Pure, raw, unadulterated Divine Energy.

That should be impossible. All the Divine Energy in that world was automatically dissolved and converted into one of the nine energies. Yet, it was happening right there, undeniably, in front of him.

And in the exact same spot where he had cultivated the dawn after he left Red City.