// The morning after the Upheaval (Upheaval day), POV Jasper Jensen //

I wake up as usual and get a video call from my girlfriend while eating breakfast. She seems a bit worried, but also relieved when she sees me. When I ask why, she tells me to look at any news site - The world has suddenly gotten bigger and there have been sightings of what can only be called monsters. So it wasn’t just a storm tonight, huh.

For an event some people call apocalyptic, it didn’t really affect us all that much, and I bet there’s some people who didn’t even notice anything. I relax for a little while before heading to the gym. Now that it’s summer vacation I’m going there every day, not just the days when school starts late.

Having jogged there I am nice and warm, so I immediately get to work on the usual all-round training regimen. When that’s done I take a longer interval of rest with stretching before heading to the open room to practice my moves. I’m not great at aikido or taekwondo, and it’s just a hobby I do for fun with Stian. Nevertheless it’s important to practice.

What they’ve come to call the Upheaval didn’t really change much. Sure, there’s magic now, but for some reason I can’t use that. Stian even got to learn from that wolfman, Lars something or other, and he has no idea why I can’t use magic. I wonder if even the wolfman knows.

It’s not like society collapsed, or even was that affected. It’s more the opposite. With less populated areas having grown more than the populated ones, there’s now more farmlands. Well, a lot of the extra land area came in the form of deserts and mountains, and the oceans were affected a lot.

I’ve talked to the others in the martial arts groups, and it seems I’m not the only one who can’t use magic. I checked online and while no one knows for sure, the amount of people who can’t use magic seems to be less than a percentage. In my martial arts groups it seems to be about fifty-fifty, though.

Not like I can do anything with that. Not like anyone really understands how magic works or anything.

The reason we can’t use magic is because we have something else. My aikido sensei found out how to use breathing techniques to gather essence and is teaching us how to do it. When I learn [Breathing Techniques] I get that weird feeling of the [System] or whatever telling me that I now have the ability and it sorta pushes me to fix some of my mistakes. It’s really weird how it does that.

The week after that I learn [Essence Gathering] from the instructors of the taekwondo class, with some of the other students also having the ability from before. It’s kinda like the breathing techniques, but you pull in this ‘Essence’ with your breath.

In the following aikido class our japanese sensei, explains in his odd accent that it is the essence of all living things, a lifeforce of sorts. While the west has more of a focus on ‘magic’ there are some places in asia which talks about ki instead. Or chi or qi but it’s the same thing, really.

After the Upheaval, as they call it, it seems to have become real. Of course there are those that say it was always real, but even sensei says it was more of a spiritual thing and about the mind. No one knows exactly how it works, but magic works a lot like how the stories say it should, and it’s probably the same for ki.

Sensei says you take in the essence of the world, the essence of life, by breathing. Eventually you will find your essence heart and reach the next stage. At that point you will learn [Essence Manipulation] like him. By circulating it through you body you will temper your body, and may unlock the secrets to ki. But he admits doesn’t know how that works, or if it is even possible.

The next few weeks go much the same way as a normal vacation. Well, ignoring the magic. I also practice ki ‘cultivation’, soon reaching the second stage. By that time sensei and one of the taekwondo instructors have learned [Essence Conversion] which converts essence into ki.

They were good before, but now their body is stronger and harder than before. Not that I’ve ever stood a chance in a fair fight. Or if I used dirty tricks, for that matter. But sensei patiently teaches those with the ability and desire, and after a couple months I finally get the ability.

At that point sensei has steadily improved his mastery over the mystical energies of essence and ki. After forming essence channels from the essence heart and throughout their body one of the taekwondo instructors broke through to the third stage.

Sensei says that was reckless, and that he will eventually regret pushing through without properly tempering his body and getting used to his new powers. I’m not sure, after reaching the third stage he got stupidly strong, being able to easily lift an adult with one hand. But on the other hand, what sensei says makes sense, and he seems to know what he’s talking about.

What you see when you walk the streets is slowly changing, too. At first it was just the wolfman, and maybe a couple others, but now you can regularly see people flying through the sky or with strange forms. There’s even a subculture that calls themselves ‘kemo’ that change their bodies to have animal traits like cat ears. The wolfman must be raking in money for all that.

He offers tutoring and magic items too. Not that copycats don’t pop up to mimic whatever he does within a week. I think Stian mentioned he’s in a chat group with him. I’ve been thinking about maybe contacting him and seeing if he knows more about… things, like ki and such, or maybe even knows a way to teach me magic, but I don’t have a lot of money to pay for that.

I bring the idea up to Stian next time we meet for aikido practice. He waves my worries away, laughing and saying that if he doesn’t already know he’d probably pay me for teaching him and doing some experiments.

“If you want this thing, good idea.” Sensei says, peeking into the changing room. “But hurry now, starting lesson.”

“Are you Jasper?” Says a soft, melodic voice.

I turn to the speaker, finding what can only be described as an angel with two pairs of wings of dazzling crystal-like feathers. Shapeshifter… Wait…?

“Uh, are you Lars? Eikeli?”

“Yep.” She(he?) says, before looking down her toga-covered but clearly well-shaped body. “Well, maybe ‘Lara’ in this form. There was a shapeshifting competition so I decided to showboat a little,” she says with a gleaming smile.

“Oh, uh, well you… look good, I guess.”

Her laughter sound like tinkling of bells as her wings retract to her back. “I might’ve gone a bit overboard with the dazzle magic. If you want I can change back to my normal form or something.”

Dazzle magic? That’s a thing? “Uhm, no, I mean, is that form this pretty?”

She blinks at this, looking thoughtful as she cutely tilts her head and taps her hip. “Maybe? No, probably not. I mean that’s subjective, but my normal form, while improved, is kinda averagely well-looking?”

She stands back straight and puffs her chest with a pearly smile. “Well, tell me if you get too distracted.”

Aren’t you distracting me now? I retort in my mind, not daring to say it out loud in case she’ll turn me away. Before I can formulate a proper plan, however, she takes the initiative.

“I talked a bit with Stian, and you’re a qui user, right?”

“Qui? You mean ki?”

“If that’s what you prefer to call it, and I take that as a yes. According to Stian you wanted to know if it’s possible to ‘switch’ to using magic?”

“Yes. Or at least I want to know more about ki and using it.”

“I don’t know if that is possible, but my running hypothesis is that you can only have mana or ki because they interfere with each other. Work kinda like oil and water, see. Given that, it should be possible to purge the body of ki and replace it with mana.”

“Oh. Is that… safe?” I ask, trying to not pay too much attention to the parts that sway as she gesticulates. Is she doing that on purpose?

“Maybe, maybe not. I figure it might involve some minor mana burns, and it will depend on how much ki you have.”

Thankfully they’re not so big that you can’t not notice them and the loose fabric helps too, but damn. “Well, I don’t have any ki. Just essence.”

“You mean inner power?” She asks, and it feels like something wraps my entire body, like the light pressure of heavy air.

It fades and she seems dissatisfied. “Hmm, no, I’m pretty sure you have ki. Though it’s not much, I can push through it really easily.”

I must look confused, because she elaborates: “I should… Yeah. Like oil and water, right? Well, both mana and ki makes a sort of passive defence again other energy. The ki-users I’ve met can’t project it outwards, but both mana and ki can be used to actively strengthen that resistance.”

She continues. “Because I’ve tried to be stealthy when testing and the the military won’t loan me their ki-users for experimentation I haven’t gotten to properly test things so I don’t have the entire picture, but to get ki you first do breathing exercises and draw in essence, correct?”

Or maybe she just likes talking. I nod. “You can’t convert essence into ki until you are close to the third stage, though.”

“Oh yeah, there was something about that. Middle to late second stage to learn [Essence Conversion], hmm?” Another nod. “All right. Are you familiar with inner power?” I shake my head.

“Right. Inner power can be used by ki-users. I suspect it has something to do with essence in some way, but… yeah, I dunno. Anyway, can you sense essence? Like in the air and stuff?”

“Kinda, it’s not like [Mana Perception] or what it’s called that Stian has, but when breathing I feel how much essence there is in the air.”

“Hmm…” she says, taking a thinker’s pose while levitating in the air. Does she not notice that? They’re not big, but when she squeezes them from the sides like that…

“So you can only detect it inside your body, but you can use that to indirectly get the local density, gotcha. I can work with that. Oh, Stian mentioned you were worried about a price, but since I don’t really have anything to offer unless you cooperate I don’t need to take payment for this.”

“Oh, that’s good.” And she stopped squeezing them too. Why does she have to levitate so that her boobs are at eye level…

“Right, so I have a couple ideas to test. First off I’d like to push past your defences and see if you can sense mana indirectly. But before that, are you okay with potentially switching over to using mana? Not that it will happen, but just to make sure.”

“If it’s safe, then sure.”

“If it’s so easy that I can do it accidentally then it must be safe. Probably. I mean, if it’s not I can get you to the hospital in five minutes and I got healing magic. But it will probably be fine.”

That’s not really reassuring…

“Anyway, I will tell you clearly what I intend to do for each step and just tell me to stop whenever. We should find a place with good essence, but this first test we’ll just do here.”

She puts a hand on each of my shoulder, finally having lowered so we see eye to eye. “I’m gonna just push into your arms with mana and you tells me if I need to stop or pause.”

“What’s the difference between ‘stop’ and ‘pause?”

“Well, one means aborting the experiment, the other is just temporarily pausing until you decide to fully stop or to continue.”

“Oh.” I say, and immediately feel that pressure again, but much stronger and only on my arms. It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t really seem to affect me besides being a bit uncomfortable.

The feeling settles in both of my arms. “So, how does it feel?”

“It’s a bit uncomfortable. Kinda like something is squeezing my arms.”

“Okay. I will continue and do the same to your legs.”

She does so, and then my head and then ‘connect’ the five areas, before slowly filling in the gap.

“Are you done?”

“How does it feel?”

“Well, the part in the middle feels different. Not so uncomfortable.”

“Should be, because there’s something there that pushes back. I have a pretty decent amount of mana for not have [Mana Condensation], but that resistance is just too much. I bet that middle part has ki. Try getting a feel for it.”

“Can you let go so I can move around?”

“Sure.” She says, taking a couple steps back. The pressure is still there, though.

“Wait, why were you holding me to begin with?”

She shrugs. “Makes it easier to overcome defences.”

I do the standard first breathing technique, but don’t really feel anything special from it. It’s a bit… to the side(?) of my essence heart, though. “Could you move it a bit up and to the left? Ah, there, stop. A tiny bit to the right- and forwards a teeeeny- stop.”

I do the breathing technique again. “Nope, I got nothing.”

“No shortcuts in cultivation, huh. Well, that’s fine.”

The pressure relents and she continues. “Next up we should find a place with a lot of essence. Do you know any? What kind of places have a lot of essence?”

“Well, places with lots of life. The little park in the city center, and there’s a lot less in the metro tunnels and where there’s fewer people.”

“Lots of life, hmm… I think I have a place, but… no it should…” she mutters to herself before speaking up properly. “It’s a distance away so I’ll have to carry you to get there fast, but I got a good place, I think.”

After a short, but seemingly effortless flight we land in an oddly purpley part of the forest. As soon as I take my first breath after landing I can tell that her guess was spot on; the air here is so dense with essence that it feels like fresh mountain air to the city’s stale air.

For the next test she simply want me to do the usual exercises and tell her if it’s any different. The exercises go swimmingly, though it is a bit embarrassing to do so under her intense gaze. “That was… amazing. How far from the city is this?”

“Ehh, somewhere between twenty and thirty kilometers, I think?”

“What? But it took us like five minutes to get here!”

“Moving at something like two hundred kilometers an hour, yes.”

“Damn, and this place is so great for practice…”

“Ask the instructor of your aikido group to contact me and I’ll give a group transport deal for cheap if I can watch. I bet he has deeper knowledge than you. That said if my suspicions are correct I have an even better place for you to train, but you gotta learn some tricks first.”

“Oh.” That’s rather… helpful of her. She’s not even asking anything in return. Well, she’s using me like a test subject, but I think I kinda like that. “So, what next?”