Who could've known that circulation of my energy using only a single pathway would give me such an insight of my own cultivation? I guess sitting down and actually training has benefits on its own!

As I dive deeper and deeper in feeling my own energy, I suddenly feel a hand on my back! It takes me a while to realise that I didn't feel the direct touch, but rather sensed a foreign energetical entity closing on my own flow!

"Can you feel my hand?"

Disturbed by the sudden change, my minds surface from the flow of the energy, allowing my natural senses to reach my mind once more.

"Yeah, it's warm."

Thank God I heard her! If not for this sudden action of hers, if she were to speak to me before that, I would just plainly ignore her! Since she is trying to act tough right now, I don't even want to imagine what kind of ordeals she would put me through for that!

"Stupid, I don't mean in the physical sense! Can you feel my hand with your energy?"

Oh, so that's what she means? It seems there was no reason for me to be startled. Since that's the case, I focus and dive back to the sea of my energy.

This time, instead of refusing this new entity in my imagined view of the energy realm, I allow my energy to flow through it. As soon as this idea appears in my head, I can feel the pathway between two of my acupoints closest to Eves hands change, making my energy flow through her hand!

At this moment, I feel like a whole new world opened for me. Like if I had my eyes closed for my entire time, only to open them in front of a beautiful landscape. The moment that I allowed my energy to mix with the one already present in Eve's hand, I suddenly felt as if our minds connected!

In that instant, I could feel her body, hear her thoughts, live through her emotions… I don't have the right words to express how it feels. The closest way to describe it is as if our bodies, minds and souls connected but didn't merge. We still kept our egos separate, while being tightly and intricately connected at the same time.

"Can you hear me?"

Instead of talking, I can hear her thoughts directed to me as if she was writing them out in my mind. But how can I respond? Well, I can only follow my intuition in this kind of moments.

"Yes, loud and clear"

Instead of breaking my mind while looking for a way to do it as I should, I just imagine myself talking to her through a walkie-talkie. Most of the novels I read back on earth showed the main character using his experiences and imagination born back in his first life to subsidise for his lack of knowledge or skill.

"Good, try to push away my hand then."

Wow! It actually, really worked! Aren't I awesome? If those suggestions from the earthy novels work, does that mean that their authors actually were reincarnated from a magical or cultivation worlds to earth? That would put quite a twist on the entire novelist community!

But for now, I push away those unnecessary thoughts and try to figure out how can I repel Eve's hand. There is no saying that leaning with my real body forward or jumping away is a way to cheat the system, but since I'm trying to learn something about cultivation, I guess I need to find a way to do it with my energy only!

Wait, I managed to connect with her by allowing my energy to flow through her hand, so what would happen if I force it back to use my internal paths only? Since no one will answer my question, I try my idea in an instant.

Contrary to my expectations, as soon as I attempt to force my energy out of her hand, a concentrated surge of energy suddenly push inside my flow, greatly disturbing it! With my mana knocked out of its normal way, an insane wave of pain overwhelms me as the energy starts wildly crashing through my internals!

This kind of suffering is incomparable to everything that I suffered back on earth in my short time in this world. It's like every single of my organs started to melt in acid while being burned and sprinkled with salt!

With this outburst of pain, my mind enters a panic mode and forces all my energy back to its original pathways! Instead of slowly increasing the flow and pulling more energy into it, my entire mana gets slammed against my acupoints in an attempt to force the wild energy out of my insides!

With a feeling of a miraculous and gentle might sweeping through my insides, I can feel…

ROAR!

In a flash, my body explodes.

While it does not happen literally, that's how my mind perceives the situation. In that single moment, my physical senses connect with my energetical imagination. Opening my eyes, I can see the sphere of mana forming a ball all around me and repelling everything that stands in its way!

Like under a shockwave, the grass, various decorative plants, Eve and all the free energy in the air gets blasted away under the immense pressure of the outburst of my aura. At this moment, I feel my body being lifted up to the centre of this disaster, unable to control it at all!