Excitement and giddiness find every crack in my will and simply overflow, no matter how much exhaustion drags at me each and every single time I use the slightest bit of Qi in this place.

It was an extremely important discovery and likely would have taken a prohibitively long time without making use of the special characteristics of this place. But just because there were ‘clearly’ delineated lines and limits that stop me from accidentally falling back into using the much easier and more familiar Mana, it doesn’t mean the system also didn’t tie giant rocks to my arms every time I try using even a little of my Qi. Its prejudice against it is even larger than my use of Vigor, though not quite at the level of Mana.

Given that I also don’t receive the customary help from the system as I do for proper mana usage, the results are even more lackluster than I expected, but my very connection to the formation of this new resource has its own upsides, and I’m not left too far behind.

Luckily, the system’s restrictions on Qi are a little more relaxed compared to mana and I also don’t have to worry about it stealing my Qi whenever it suits itself.

As I get used to it, It feels possible to get close to the level of my control with Vigor, though it still should take a while. That other resource took me years to learn properly. I just hope my experience will give me a leg up because I didn’t think I had a decade to slowly train it up instead of the myriad of other aspects.

With a skip in my step, the last few minutes of my self-imposed hour long break pass and I prepare to let out a single spark again. After a few tries, I can more properly focus on the power and intent and I do exactly that, squeezing a single and short burst of will into an infinitesimally small spot just in front of my chest and covered by my hands. I fight off the system’s interference and bring to life a single spark. A little larger and brighter, almost a proper spark, roughly what you would see when flicking a lighter.

The only difference and the very reason it is still sad, is its lack of friends. The minute shard of qi flies off a couple of inches alone before the air sucks away the heat not even leaving the smallest of metal shards behind as it would have if it was real flint.

Each time I exert my will, I not only get more used to it, but I also learn the differences between both resources. Qi and Mana feel and even look similar on the surface, though Qi feels it will have a different color. A theory that is hard to prove while I’m inside the trial grounds. I will wait till I leave to test that. For now, throwing out qi into the air would be useless with the limited control I have.

Just like the dichotomy and interrelationship that Vigor and Stamina play, as I use my Qi, I feel my mana pol slowly dwindling. At least I won't have to build Qi reserves by themselves. I just wonder how they will interact with runes. Is it interchangeable with mana or….

I shake my head given I can’t exactly test this here without dedicating more time than I want right now and move on.

The books had a tremendous amount of information on magic, some foundational things, like proper charts ‘mapping’ the more common types of magics and even a brief explanation on the healing ‘aspect’ and its counterpart: decay. Though even that terminology was debated. Too bad there was nothing about how to generate or aspect your mana and that takes that option out of the view for now.

There is also not even a hint about resources beyond the system like my Vigor and Qi. Even if my own book discussed a few aspects related to Aether occasionally, even there I find no mention of anything beyond the standard system triad of resources. Health, mana and stamina are ubiquitous and universal if my book is to be believed.

It seems that either these didn’t exist in the system or the information was not common knowledge, it might even be highly restricted. And a desire to learn about this isn’t what is stopping me as if the question was just idle curiosity. It is something dear to my heart and every time I open my book, it is one of a small set of questions burning in my mind.

I wonder if I stumbled on something nobody else had before but I’m distracted by the muted feedback of my body. The more I get used to this second resource, the more I feel something is off.

The rest of the day develops and by the time I’m about to sleep, I cannot ignore it any longer.

This isn’t like hunger, something that came and went regardless of whether you eat or not. This is walking on an injured foot, the longer it goes on, the worse it will get.

So far it is not too bad, just an annoyance that most people wouldn’t even notice. A few extra grams on a shoulder, or an occasional rub against my skin, but I feel the imbalance within myself. If I don’t take care of it, eventually the wart would grow into a tumor and warp my posture and spine into something irrecognizible, maybe so much that even crawling would be out of the question.

The only thing that makes sense is if the lack of a third resource of my own to complement both Vigor and Qi is causing this.

Would I have to stop using my Qi while I didn’t get the equivalent of Health unlocked?

It took me months inside both trials trial and even a few long select meditation sessions to working exactly on this outside the trial. Would I be a two legged stool for months until I manage to unlock the Health resource and take a step to achieve balance?

I sit and meditate instead of heading to sleep trying to answer this question. With a good schedule, skipping today won’t even leave me sleepy or tired, but I shouldn’t abuse this.

During my usual three hour break, I simply explore my body and whatever is causing this feeling. Pocking and prodding from every imaginable angle, I cannot come up with any other reasonable explanation for my impression.

So far the change is minimal, if still noticeable for someone like me. Just a fly buzzing around if even that.

But if I let it go on, it will become a stinging bee, then a wasp and so so on until I’m eighter poisoned to death by a scorpion or crushed under an elephant’s weight.

Wait? Can I even be crushed by just three tons?

Getting my line of thought back on track and setting aside the curiosity and changes in my vitality strength and endurance stats provide for the toughness of my bones aside, I need to come up with an answer soon. Otherwise, I may be forced to stop training, if it is the addition of Qi that is causing the imbalance.

I spend the next two days running a ‘trial’. I don’t even touch it. Although I have the impression that the pressure and imbalance continue growing, it is much slower.

Glad that I can at least delay it, I truly start my earnest work on Health, the only thing I believe has a real chance of working.

As the end of the first month arrives and the last of the large loaves of bread the system provided is gone, my fat reserves start to dwindle. Having gotten a little more for the last couple of weeks and making sure to store all that fat away, I can push myself a little more than usual, but even the largest store will eventually run out.

I go back and forth between the puzzle in the corridors and the central chamber while mapping the rest of the place and everything goes smoothly. In just over a month the familiar blue crystal shows up atop the table in the central chamber. After that all my senses return to full bloom, While I’m inside the central chamber, but I don’t leave just yet still wanting to complete the map and make use of time.

It takes me another 2 weeks and a half or so to complete a cool 49 days to complete the map.

I have gone over just about every single inch of the place with my perception field. I have perfectly nudged each of the puzzle pieces around until they lock into place and even my work towards controlling Health seems to have had some progress, though I’m still a good way off.

I put my hand on the Blue crystal fairly trusting that I won’t be simply sent out of the room given the way it worked last time.

Class trial - Second entry – One with the world

Time: 49d 19h 1m 26s (1d 9h 34 m 05 s instance time)

Congratulations, you have passed your class trial.

Passing scores:

2 Puzzles unlocked: Class loses one rarity ranking.

5 Puzzles unlocked: Class maintains rarity ranking.

18 Puzzles unlocked: Class increases one rarity ranking.

Full puzzle unlock: Chance to try the next tier trial.

Do you wish to exit or move to the next trial?

Note: Player protections on the life of the system user will be lifted. Continue at your own risk.

Exit Next trial

I grin at having achieved a full puzzle unlock again, though even as the feeling bubbles up, there's a hollowness behind it, something incomplete. Before I hadn’t paid any attention but looking at the entire list just fuels my doubts.

Why didn’t I just finish the last trial, or at least pushed myself for a little longer?

Could the result just be this? A larger and more intricate version of the first trial or is there some secret behind it all?

This is essentially the same trial I remember after choosing to enter the second trial months ago. The map is not the same, but it had grown to the exact same size and followed the same rules.

But as the thought comes to my mind, I start spotting inconsistencies in my memories.

At first just small details. I stopped sleeping more often and for longer, my strength and speed seem diminished and I was slowly losing coordination as time passed.

Suboptimal movements and decisions puzzle me and I halt in my tracks. Moving back, I sit on the ground.

I know that after spending all the sugar in my blood and liver and running out of food it is normal to step down my rhythm down given the slower process of breaking down fat into glycogen and other important biochemical alchemy that needs to happen in the body, but not by this much, not even at the end of the second trial.

So it wasn’t just a sudden weakness that is to be expected under certain circumstances.

Walking my memory palace back and forth, I find the yellow striped dorrs that had been taken from me by the system and analyze their contents for well over an hour in deep meditation.

I try to find peace in the frustrating exercise, but each little inconsistency dumps a few calories heating my already boiling blood. The system hadn't just stolen away my memories, it had rifled through and ‘curated’ them.

This is a whole new level of invasion. Something that I cannot put into words.

After the initial shock wears out, a cold and simple focus snaps into place. The System is a machine, a cold and unfeeling machine, unlike the friendly neighborhood automaton.

My brief smile fades and reality reasserts itself. The System has done this and likely much worse. That is something I will come across in the future. It is not even surprising after learning about what it is doing to the goblin’s entire planet.

Feeling like myself again, I leave the long corridors of the memory palace and simply meditate and not just for an hour or two but for the entire day.

With my metabolism slowed as much as I can without lowering my core temperature to dangerous levels, I don’t even have to worry about reducing the active time I have in the trial that much with this pause.

With a focus on what I’m to do with the information I now have on top of the hints I got from the last attempts, I focus fully on my next actions.

I frame the question correctly in my mind:

“Will I leave things as they are?”

After asking the right question, the answer is a natural consequence and there is only one.

NO.

No, I will not, not in a million years. There is something here still and even if I only have another 5 days or so before all my fat is gone and my body starts to break down muscle, bones and organs for fuel, at least if I keep my jogging pace.

Getting up, a commensurate increase in blood pressure, adrenaline and epinephrine company me. My blood vessels dilate, my limbs limber up, and finally, energy begins to move around once more.

Having lost just about all my fat, my skin went from a thin layer to almost paper thin, and even in the faint light of the blue crystal, I begin to see my bones. All that however doesn’t compare to my goal.

There is something hidden somewhere in this place and I know the exact place to start. The outside borders. It is the only thing that made sense.

At a slow jog, even slower than usual I head for the closest edge of the map in search of…something.