Chapter 21: Yuan Qi

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Yuan Qi

Michael sat cross-legged on the stone platform of the Astral Space, his palms resting loosely on his knees. The System’s earlier advice still echoed in his head: sync with the dragon bloodline now. His original plan—hoard Growth Points and force the gene to maximum rank later—had collapsed the moment he learned that dragon genes ignored conventional upgrades.

Since this was now the case, his only option was to sync with the rune now. He shut his eyes and tried to use the gene-sync method he had learned back at the academy, but nothing answered.

Usually, in the case of a gene enhancement, one would first integrate it, then sync with it whenever they saw fit. The process usually only required channeling spirit into the gene mark, but there was no such mark inside of it.

A low curse slipped out under his breath. Less than a month with these abilities, and everything already demanded improvisation. The System, of course, had gone completely silent the second he needed actual guidance.

Michael forced his focus deeper.

The instant his attention sharpened, a cold current raced through his veins—clean, sharp, almost icy. His thoughts cleared instantly, and with that clarity came an understanding of how to sync with his dragon bloodline.

It was as if the knowledge had always been inside him, and he had simply happened to remember it now.

’Is this... Dragon’s Intuition?’

A small, satisfied smile tugged at his mouth. ’Finally. An ability that actually works when I need it.’

He relaxed his posture, then turned his awareness inward, visualizing the core that had formed after his awakening. The image grew clearer with each breath.

As soon as it became clear enough, he tried circulating his spirit around it. Circulating energy inside the core itself was unheard of, but Michael strangely felt that it could work.

With a loud boom that exploded light all around him, his energy stirred, then surged.

His core, which had been the size of a marble, began expanding.

And expanding.

Until panic flashed across Michael’s features.

Sweat began beading across his forehead, and his eyelids twitched hard. With his jaw clenched, he tried to rein the flood back in—to compress it, to stop the energy from overloading his core.

Yet nothing worked.

Crack!

The core kept growing larger and larger by the second, filling his entire abdomen until something deep inside him simply gave way.

Boom!

The core detonated.

Michael’s eyes snapped open as he immediately coughed up a handful of blood. With a strained movement, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, breathing in ragged gasps.

"What the fuck..."

His palm pressed against his abdomen. The familiar weight of his core was gone. Completely.

His face immediately went pale as pure dread flashed across his features at the frightening thought of spending the rest of his life as a cripple.

Before the fear could fully settle, the System’s voice cut in, calm and almost amused.

[Relax, Host. Can’t you feel it?]

Michael opened his mouth to curse the System out, but the air that was dragged into his lungs felt strange.

It had... energy?

The feeling was similar to spirit, but not quite. It felt like something else entirely, and it flowed into him—steady, natural, no longer blocked by any barrier.

The ambient power of the Astral Space that he couldn’t sense before, and that had previously ignored him, now poured inward without resistance.

Michael floated upward without meaning to. His legs kicked once in surprise as a column of pale light burst from his chest and carried him higher.

For a brief moment, everything went white.

When his vision returned, he was seated on the platform again, cross-legged, breathing as if he had just finished a long sprint.

For a moment, he thought everything he had just witnessed had been a cruel dream.

But when he placed a hand on his abdomen, he froze.

"My core, it’s—"

Michael held back the panic surging through him and quickly closed his eyes—pulling himself deep into his own consciousness.

Just as he had seen before, his core itself was absent from where it should have been.

Yet he could feel energy surging through him.

Michael frowned deeply, unsure how exactly to make sense of this bizarre turn of events, when he felt his consciousness sink even deeper into himself.

Past flesh and bone.

Until an entire landscape unfolded before his sight.

One that made his breath, if he had one here, hitch.

Endless clear water stretched in every direction, reflecting a star-filled sky. White lotuses drifted across the surface, each petal edged with shifting colors. At the absolute center rose a massive tree of light blue wood, its branches heavy with quiet power.

Michael’s eyes went wide as he simply floated there for a moment before finally gathering enough courage and awareness to drift a little closer.

’What is this place?’ he asked, addressing the System.

The System, however, remained silent.

It wasn’t like before, when Michael could sense its presence and knew it had simply chosen not to answer. This time, it felt like the System was truly not there.

With no one to answer him, he decided to explore the strange landscape, starting with the huge tree that was clearly at its center.

When he reached out and placed a hand tentatively against its trunk, a golden light suddenly shone from within it.

Golden Chinese characters shimmered into existence above the highest branches.

"Huh? Chinese characters?"

Michael ran his gaze over the words. Because of his insane obsession with novels back in the day, he had learned a bit of Chinese and Korean so he could read new Chapters of novels and manhuas before their official releases.

Even after coming to this world, he had continued practicing them after discovering that this world contained higher cultivation realms. Plus, his appearance resembled that of an East Asian. It seemed that knowledge was actually paying off.

[Yin and Yang are one; the world is formed.]

[Those who own their own worlds are gods without limits.]

Reading the words written on the tree, Michael leaned back in the air, one hand rubbing his chin.

"Wait, isn’t this one of those..."

He rubbed his temples, searching through the countless cultivation novels and manhuas he had consumed in his past life.

"Yeah... those seas of consciousness?"

His eyes narrowed as he looked around again.

The enormous tree.

The endless body of water stretching beyond his vision.

The strange sensation of existing somewhere deeper than his physical body.

Although he wasn’t a hundred percent certain, from what he could remember of cultivation manhua illustrations, this looked almost exactly like the legendary seas of consciousness he had seen countless times.

Michael frowned.

If this really was a sea of consciousness, then there was one massive problem.

How the hell had he formed one?

He wasn’t even a cultivator yet.

And even if he were, wasn’t something like this supposed to appear much later, after reaching a certain level of cultivation?

He stared at the endless water beneath him, his expression becoming increasingly confused.

’Well, I’m mostly dragon now, so I guess anything is possible.’

That was the only explanation he could come up with.

Michael scanned his surroundings once more before slowly lowering himself toward the water.

The closer he got, the more strange he found it.

The surface was impossibly calm.

Not a single ripple disturbed it.

Yet beneath that stillness, he could feel something immense.

Something ancient.

Something so vast that his senses couldn’t even begin to measure it.

Michael stopped just a few meters above the surface.

He hesitated for a moment before stretching out one finger.

The instant it touched the water—

Boom!

Warm energy surged into him.

Michael’s eyes widened.

It didn’t feel like spirit energy.

It wasn’t mana either.

It was purer.

Heavier.

And somehow... more fundamental.

The energy flowed through his finger, up his arm, and into his entire body. His mind suddenly became clearer than it had ever been, as if a veil had been lifted from his thoughts.

Understanding flooded into him instantly.

Michael’s pupils trembled. "This is..."

His gaze slowly lifted toward the endless horizon.

The water stretched farther than he could see.

There was no shore.

No boundary.

No visible end.

Only an endless sea of golden-blue energy quietly flowing beneath the enormous tree.

His breathing gradually quickened.

"This is a Yuan Qi sea..."

For several seconds, Michael simply stared.

Then the realization finally sank in.

This entire place...

All of it...

Was his.

An endless expanse of energy!

He took several measured breaths to calm his racing pulse. Once he felt calm enough to speak without his voice trembling, he took one last look at the blue tree and the drifting lotuses before pulling his awareness away from the space.

In the next instant, he found himself back in the Astral Space, with the System window hovering directly in front of him.

[Host? What happened? You weren’t answering.]

Michael pushed it away. "Nothing important."

He rose to his feet and stretched slightly. "Okay, System. Send me back."

[...]

[Of course.]

[Initiating return.]

As his body began glowing before breaking into fragments of light, Michael suddenly remembered something.

"System! What’s my rank now?"

A short pause.

[Congratulations, Host.]

[Current Rank: Qi Refining — Stage 1.]

Michael froze.

"..."

He slowly turned his head toward the System. "Qi Refining?"

A beat of silence followed. Then his pupils widened.

"Wait! Qi what?!"

.....xXx.....

[Meanwhile, back in the Sovereign Realm.]

"Alright! Time to find where you’ve hidden this prince charming!"

Seraphine’s cheeks still carried a faint flush, yet her eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. "Enough jokes, Luci. Leave my territory now, or I’ll make you."

Lucifera gave an exaggerated shrug, lifting her small hands in mock innocence.

"Why chase me out when I’m already here?" A sly smile curved her lips as she tapped one finger against her cheek. "Or is it that your hubby is just that ugly?"

She let out a dismissive scoff. "Don’t worry. Even if he’s too hideous, I won’t tease you too hard. Everyone has their own... special tastes."

Seraphine’s expression turned completely cold.

Then, a faint, dangerous smirk replaced her earlier fluster.

She couldn’t quite understand the strange feeling surging through her. It was unlike anything she had felt before. All she knew was at this moment, all she wanted was to brag a little and face-slap this bitch.

Seraphine tilted her head slightly, a soft smile appearing on her pink lips. "Fine, then. You can go find him."

Lucifera’s eyes widened in pure delight.

She quickly snapped her head toward a large pile of collapsed stone and timber that had once been part of the mansion. The debris had settled together in an almost tent-like shape.

"I can sense someone!"

She shot forward, her small form cutting through the dust, curiosity sparkling in her eyes.

As she landed in front of the rubble, she grabbed the debris and tossed it aside with surprising strength, revealing the inside of the tent-like structure.

"Hehehe... Let’s see the ugly mongrel who made Seraphine this flustered."

Inside the dark pocket of rubble, Michael opened his eyes to the smell of crushed concrete and dry dust.

He shifted, preparing to push the debris above him aside. However, before he could, the stones in front of him lifted, and light spilled in, causing him to squint slightly.

He immediately pushed the rubble overhead aside, clearing the rest away as he climbed out.

Michael found himself standing amid the ruins of what had once been Seraphine’s estate.

The sheer scale of the destruction made him frown.

’Who the hell did she fight?’

His gaze soon found Seraphine standing some distance away.

She was watching him with an unmistakably smug curve to her lips—yet her eyes were fixed on the space directly in front of him rather than his face.

Michael tilted his head slightly.

Then he looked down.

A small cute girl was staring up at him, her eyes wide and her cheeks burning a deep, vivid red.

Her lips moved soundlessly for several seconds.

Then, at last, words spilled out.

"Uh... uh... uh!"

Her eyes suddenly widened like saucers. "Oh my God~!"

Both her small hands flew to her face. Her eyes turned glassy, as if she were already trapped inside a delusional daydream.

Then she suddenly shouted.

"Where did such a handsome man come from?!"

She reached out and laid a small palm flat against the hard lines of his abdomen. Her eyes sparkled. A second later they narrowed with open interest, as she ran her tongue slowly across her lower lip.

"Hey, sweetie. Where did you come from? Did you see anyone ugly around here?" She shook her head hard enough to make her twin pigtails bounce. "No, forget that. Do you want to come home with Mommy?"

Michael’s expression darkened.

He stared at the girl who stood a head shorter than even his baby sister and was currently calling herself "Mommy."

He slowly turned toward Seraphine. "Dean. Whose child is this?"

Seraphine covered her mouth with one hand, her shoulders shaking with quiet laughter.

Lucifera’s face went from flushed to murderous in a single heartbeat.

"I am NOT a child!"

She planted both fists on her hips, chin lifted high. "This venerable one would have you know that she’s older than even your Dean!"

Her voice dropped into an exaggeratedly seductive tone, though the effect was completely ruined by the deep red still staining her cheeks.

"I am Lucifera Harkness."

Michael’s eyes widened a fraction. "Lucifera... Harkness?"

She looked thoroughly pleased with herself, even as the flush refused to fade.

"Now show some proper respect."