Chapter 104: Confidence

An hour passed without Jaxir moving, followed by a second and then a third, until even the faint rise and fall of his chest had become difficult to notice. The Sparkle Sensory Bead remained buried inside his forehead the entire time, feeding him more information than he had ever possessed about his own body, while the silver-blue pathways spread through his awareness until there was almost nothing left inside himself that he couldn’t feel.

When Jaxir finally moved again, it happened in a single fluid motion.

His hand entered his Inventory and returned with Luxy’s ancient scroll while a low hum rolled through his body, deep enough to make the stainless-steel floor beneath him vibrate. The distinction between the whites, irises and pupils of his eyes had completely vanished, leaving behind 2 solid orbs of silver-blue light that pierced through the worn parchment the moment he opened it.

The faded magic circle answered.

Silver-blue light flooded into lines that had nearly disappeared from age, tracing every fractured curve and incomplete connection until the entire circulation pattern shone brighter than the parchment carrying it. Jaxir barely had time to register the change before the circle peeled itself away from the page, hanging in the air while the ancient scroll collapsed into dry fragments between his fingers.

Jaxir’s gaze darted across the floating pattern, catching details faster than he could have consciously named them, while the circle seemed to draw closer with every section he understood. It wasn’t physically moving at first, but the distinction became harder to make as his comprehension deepened and the pattern began resonating with the pathways mapped throughout his body.

Something buried beneath memories that still didn’t feel entirely his own stirred with recognition.

Methods like this had once allowed Naturals to kill gods while remaining mortal.

Not through Divinity bestowed by worshippers, belief or the emotions of countless people, but through strength dug out of the foundation of one’s own existence. The body became the vessel, Mana became the hammer, and comprehension decided whether the process created something stronger or simply destroyed what was already there.

That was also why the method had never been simple.

Perfect comprehension meant nothing if the body couldn’t survive the baptism, while a body capable of enduring enormous amounts of Mana would still gain little if the Mana itself lacked sufficient Grade and purity. Even possessing both meant nothing without enough magical talent to control that Mana through the smallest pathways, reaching places inside the body that most people would live their entire lives without ever realizing existed.

Jaxir understood all of that the instant the pattern began resonating with him.

But he was not a Natural.

Whatever impossible memories occasionally surfaced inside his head, he was not a god either. Right now, he was an extremely mortal human whose real body had spent several years being treated badly enough that walking across his own house had once been difficult.

The Sparkle Sensory Bead made the consequences impossible to ignore. Jaxir could see every weakness.

His physical vessel could withstand a baptism using Common-grade Mana, but even that sat close enough to the edge that a mistake would probably kill him. Uncommon Mana was beyond what his body could handle, and the uncomfortable truth was that even if he’d entered Divinity in perfect physical condition, he still would’ve fallen somewhat short of surviving it.

That should’ve bothered him more than it did, but instead, something arrogant settled comfortably inside his chest.

He was confident that he could fix that later.

"For now, Common is enough."

Silver-blue light began leaking from his eyes, nose and mouth before spreading through every pore across his body. Jaxir followed the Natural circulation pattern inward and began stripping away everything that didn’t belong, cleansing the neutral Mana and the residual traces of Twinkle, Sparkle and Glimmer that had accumulated throughout his channels until only his Light Mana remained.

Then he purified that too.

Jaxir compressed it again and again, discarding anything unstable until what remained was the cleanest Common-grade Light Mana his current control could produce. The mass separated under his will, first becoming several dozen thin needles, then hundreds, and finally thousands suspended throughout the internal world the Sensory Bead had opened to him.

There should have been a limit to how many he could control at once, but Jaxir never found it.

Every needle settled over another pathway, muscle, vessel or hidden circuit while the Natural method continued feeding structure into his thoughts. His eyes shifted constantly beneath the silver-blue glow as he made tiny corrections, refusing to begin until every single piece had reached exactly where he wanted it.

Then Jaxir drove all of them inward.

Pain swallowed everything.

His entire body convulsed hard enough to lift him from the floor, and his heart missed one beat before failing to find the next. Every muscle seized as thousands of threads of Light Mana tore through him at once, forcing themselves into structures that had never carried Mana before.

His heart stopped.

For one terrible stretch of time, Jaxir remained rigid against the steel floor while something cold pulled at the edges of his awareness. The internal world revealed by the Sensory Bead began darkening, silver-blue pathways going dim one after another until only a handful remained.

Then his heart came back angry.

BOOM.

The first beat shook the room.

BOOM.

The second sent silver-blue light racing through every pathway at once, and Jaxir’s body jerked as his blood began moving again. The thousands of Mana needles dissolved into the structures they’d pierced, becoming countless tiny circuits that crawled beneath his skin in branching lines of Light.

The room grew brighter.

Silver-blue light flooded outward until every stainless-steel wall reflected it back at him, and somewhere inside the glare, Jaxir felt his body changing around the circulation rather than merely surviving it. His muscles tightened, his bones hummed and Mana moved through pathways that hadn’t existed several seconds ago, connecting everything into a single structure.

Then it all vanished.

The light snapped out so fast that darkness seemed to swallow the room, and Jaxir gasped as his eyes returned to normal. He planted one hand against the floor and surged upright, breathing hard for several seconds before realizing that the movement had felt effortless.

His eyes widened.

Everything felt effortless.

Jaxir flexed his fingers, rolled one shoulder and took a step, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face. His body felt lighter without being weaker, while Mana moved through him with a smoothness that made what he’d considered normal only minutes ago suddenly feel crude.

"Oh, that’s nice."

He couldn’t wait any longer.

Jaxir pulled up his status screen, silver-blue light unfolding in front of him as his eyes immediately dropped toward whatever the Natural reforging had changed.