Okay, what just happened? I died? Reborn? Was that really a god?

Quan tried to make sense of everything he’d just experienced. Nothing in his previous experience had remotely prepared him for this. He tried to move and again found his body beyond his control. It seemed like he wasn't yet fully settled in this body he was tied to, parts of it too young to accept his mature soul.

How is this possible, he thought? Am I dead? Is this hell? Heaven? If I believe the crazy god, this is reincarnation, sort of. I'm repeating myself.

Pain wracked his infant body, interrupting further thought. He turned his attention to the cultivation method that Manu had shown him. He couldn’t calm his mind or meditate at all, but he still managed to draw in a whisper of Ki. He immediately lost control of it as it reached him, doing nothing.

He kept the Divine guidance in his mind as he tried again. After a few fumbles, he was able to hold the Ki long enough to direct it internally to his body and then spread out to the tiny limbs until it touched everything. From the knowledge implanted in him, he knew that the amount he drew in was minuscule, even microscopic, to the method promised. What can you expect? Apparently, I’m a god damn baby!

Quan reached out with his mind, an odd feeling of using senses he didn’t recall ever having before this life. His soul, for lack of a better term, seemed to be separate from his body. He felt the connection, but it seemed tenuous, and he feared to reach out to it lest he damage it. He may not like being in the body of an infant, but he was pretty sure the alternative was death.

He had a wild moment of wondering if he’d be given a better body if he just let this one die. Something had put effort into moving him here. Surely, they wouldn’t let it go to waste so soon. It wasn’t a gamble he was willing to take.

Quan concentrated on understanding the knowledge implanted in his mind by the strange man, god or being that had visited him last night. Improving his absorption of energy and seeing as it flowed into the tiny form he was tethered to, slowly, he felt his vitality improve by minute amounts. He kept his focus on that effort, not yet wanting to let his mind dwell on the insanity. Live first, freak out later.

As he felt he had a good flow of energy moving through him, he inevitably began to consider this new reality. He was dead, or close enough. His home, his loved ones were lost to him. He pushed that thought away for now. He had the feeling that time had passed while in that place of in between, but he knew not if it was mere minutes that felt like years or years that felt like minutes. He thought he remembered Manu saying he'd chased him for years. Trying to focus on that time in between was like trying to grasp a slippery ball, and if by a miracle he was able to hold it, it burnt his mind until he flung it away.

He had no choice in this. He had been thrust into this with no options at all. He had nothing except the desperate need to keep this body alive and hopefully regain enough health and age to resume life. He had the sense he was in another world, both from Manu’s comments about a prime world and the sensations he could recall between bodies.

Am I still human? He could not force his body to move to inspect himself visually, but with his senses, he reached out, and it felt normal. Compared to what, I never had this sense before. Maybe that's why I have it now. I’m something else.

As he was pondering this, the big issue pushed its way front and center. The loss of his life and all he cared about demanded his attention. His parents, siblings, friends, loves past and present, all forever taken from him, their fates unknown. He began to mourn his loss. The infant’s body began to cry as the man’s soul receded into his memories.