(Altura-MC)

I had to stop myself from asking him about the old ways. If only I didn’t have a limited number of questions. There were so many other things that I wanted to ask.

“The ward as you put it, though it is more of a spherocentirc illusion mechanism, is failing. It's been a active way past its usual expiry date anyway, really, you are lucky you got this much out of it. Though I suppose what really worries you is the beasts in the forest. And you should worry, any of them would be pleased to eat you and your little valley just for the fun of it.” the man explained.

Sphero-waht? Does that mean that it was an illusion with an area of a sphere? How did an illusion ward off beasts? Did it make them think there was nothing there? Or make them imagine some great beast.

“I must say, you have yourself a fine levelling ground. With the beasts coming in on regular intervals you could easily deal with them and level up. There would be fatalities, but many would kill for such a chance. And you needn’t even worry about the fall accelerating, those ‘first settlers’ of yours built redundancies into the mechanism, it would appear that they wanted to give you lot a chance at surviving.” the man said.

“Now, what is your second question? Do try to be better at asking, we don’t want to waste any more questions do we?” The man said, making a cup of…something green appear in his hand. “Now, do be quick about it, I have other things to do, you know.” the man said.

No time to think, huh?

“Qi. Specifically manipulating it. What can you tell me about manipulating Qi that would be important to me?” I asked, hoping this didn’t turn out to be poorly framed too.

The man’s eyes lit up at the question, smiling widely he said, “Ah something good! Though you did one mistake dearie. I don’t know what would be important to you. So perhaps you can tell me?” The man said, smirking.

Ugh. I hadn’t specified because I had no idea what would be my best avenue to improve. But since it was compulsory…

“Qi cost, more aptly, ways to cast spells and the way to cast Qi. Tell me all you can about that.” I answered, still hitting what I hoped was a lot of information.

“Oh? And what ways are you using? Remember, your question is about what would be best for you. I can hardly judge that without knowing more.” the man replied.

Uh oh. Why do I think the second question would have been a better one to ask? But…live and learn right?

“I use threads to control the Qi.”- I demonstrated by summoning a thread-“ These then form shapes and spells.”- I turned the thread into a snowflake.- “So, what do you think?” I asked.

The man looked at me for a few seconds before slowly saying, “What do I think? I think that this is one of the worst methods of manipulation that I have seen. And I have seen many. Let me show you why.” — A single green thread suddenly appeared before me. The strangest thing about it was that it was visible to me. As far as I knew, Qi threads were only visible to people that cast them.

“Now watch, this is how you are converting it into a shape”- the thread moved towards an empty area slowly, and then, as slowly as before, burst into a snowflake. Yet unlike before when the spell was instantaneous, this speed was very slow. Slow enough that I could see it happen. And see just how much Qi was wasted. Almost all the Qi was gone. On a guess I would say that only 5-10% of the Qi remained.

“Do you see? That is the amount of Qi that you could be using. Instead, you are practically wasting your Qi. Now to answer your question. Their are very, very few techniques that use a hundred percent of one's Qi. And each and every one of them is tailored for one person.”

“There are two ways I can help you now. Either give you a place where you could get a better method. It has an efficiency of 70%, 35 times the Qi you use now. Or I could teach you the way these people used to get their abnormal methods. It is fairly common, if you weren’t from such a rural area then you would already know it. But as it stands, it is a satisfactory answer to your question.”

“I have personally tried the method and can tell you that it is next to impossible to get a perfect method. I myself found myself bottle-necked at 90%. So, what do you choose?”

And the humor was gone. The last part was decidedly businesslike. But I suppose I was being irritating. Beyond even that, the man’s motivations were unknown, there was no way for me to know why exactly he was doing this. Yet, the fact remained that he was, and thus I could gain from it. Now to choose between the methods.

The choice was actually easy. The 70% percent would have been enough, if it wasn’t merely the location where I might get the method. The location could be anywhere in the world, and I doubted I could get there. Besides, it was only 20% more than the incantation method.

Furthermore, growth skills were always, without question the most OP. I think the choice was already done.

“I think I will take the growth one.” I replied.

The man smirked at my choice and said, “Ambitious, are we? Good then. The process is very simple. Will the elements into the shape. No not as thread, but as a shape. Easy, yes? But that is not the only thing. Each element has its own emotion, its own characteristic. And each characteristic is unique to the person. Another may have the same Snowflake Ice as you, but that Snowflake Ice will not behave the same way as yours.”

“Some people prefer to will it into shapes with emotion, others by pure logic, some even by imagination. And you will have to find what works for you in particular. What makes your element react and follow your will.”

“Now, what is your third question?” the man asked.

And that was a very confusing answer. I was not sure what I was supposed to do? Just summon snowflakes directly? But that seemed to have some issue? I had to figure out whether to use imagination or emotion? Has this man ever tried to teach someone before? Because I had understood nothing.

Ugh. I think I have come to hate my inability to ask follow-up questions. Back on Earth, I had never appreciated teachers for taking doubt classes but I sure did appreciate it now. I needed a doubt class on everything I was just told.

But there was one question that I needed to ask.

“As Archduchess over this valley, what do you think is the thing that I should absolutely know?” I asked, feeling smug at the question.

The man’s eyes seemed to twinkle at the question, his interest apparently deepening, “An interesting question for sure. A very wide scope, but that was your intent, wasn’t it? Then I suppose I shall satisfy you. I shall tell you a story, a story that is something everyone in the world should know. Let me tell you, Altura, about how the System came about.”

The surroundings suddenly changed, replaced with what seemed to be a normal forest.

“Many many millennia ago, when I was still a simple tree that had just gained sapience.”- my eyes widened at the revelation. The ‘man’ I had been talking to was a plant beast?- “Oh don’t look at me like that.” The tree in human form said, “Some of us do gain sapience you know. And it was easier back then. Every tree with some Qi had some form of it.”

I was not convinced. But I also had no option but to sit and listen. Being weak was getting old fast. And the beast had yet to show anything but courtesy and had been kind enough to help me. It would be unethical of me to think otherwise.

“Back then there was no System, no magic. There was only Qi. And people practiced the old ways to gain power. But then there was a battle. "

The surroundings changed again, we were now in space, looking at two humanoids floating. And neither of them seemed to be dead despite the apparent lack of space suits.

Two creatures of great power clashed in the sky

As we watched, the two humanoids fought, sending huge attacks, each likely millions and billions of kilometers long if the way these attacks cleaved asteroids was any indication.

"For seventeen days they fought, and the sky was a plethora of colors moving at speeds greater than our eyes could see. And then, it happened. "

One of the humanoids stopped fighting, summoning a very large, even by the standards of the earlier attacks, conic structure that hurtled towards the other humanoid. As the cone progressed, it narrowed, seemingly concentrating its power.

The attacking humanoid then fled away as the other attempted to dodge the cone. After some chase the other humanoid executed a sudden dodge and extended its palm towards the cone. The cone then changed trajectory and hurtled directly towards… the second planet in the solar system. The planet I was on.

The cone, now small, tore through the atmosphere, piercing deep into the planet, seemingly all the way to the core.

"The attack ruined this world. It created a massive hole in its fabric, a hole through which Qi left in spades. But the creature was not without pity. It summoned from within itself a single seed and threw it into the hole. And within seconds a tree grew where the hole was, large, towering over 10,000 kilometers, it cast an immense shadow. "

"But the creature's work was still not done. For the world was in chaos. The Qi was unbalanced, far too much in some places. Too little in others. And it was changing, its very nature being altered by the tree’s presence.”

“To cure this, the creature initiated what has become the System. Or ‘a variable moditive mana complex based on reactitive algorithms’ as he called it, Those words are ones that have puzzled me greatly, but I have been able to guess their meaning.”

“The System then grew. And with it the world changed. The old ways no longer worked and killing was the only way to power. Qi became regulated by the system and magic was born. According to the final words of the creature, he had substituted the energy of his planet, something called mana, into Qi. to be exact, what he said was.”

‘I have done what I can to heal the wound that was inflicted upon your society by me. Sadly, your ways no longer work, that path is forever closed to you, but I hope that the ways of my planet shall serve you well. I am happy to say that the System was able to alter your Qi enough that they work. Goodbye’.

“And with that, the era in our history that was henceforth called the Great Change ended. The creature has been my motivation to do this, to help the geniuses of the world the little I can. Now, it is time for you to choose your weapon and be on your way” the man finished.