Reaching partial equilibrium was something she could accomplish on her own after 6 goes at this. Of course, no equilibrium is ever absolute in a moving system of mana charges. It was just infinitely close to the real thing. Almost indistinguishable.

Reason being that you would need to scatter all your consciousness away to get to absolute equilibrium. And that was impos-

A sudden burst of energy and then the complete lack of it. The temperature in the room started to go down.

She started to suck in mana and send it out at the same rate.

Absolute equilibrium.

"CRAP SHIT! YOU GOT TO ABSOLUTE EQUILIBRIUM YOU DUMB COW!" Being behind her, I placed my hands on her nape and started sucking away her mana into my body.

This is the precise reason why I didn't let her do this on her own. If she didn't mess up the equilibrium in one way, she would mess up in another.

The idiot probably didn't have a lot of consciousness, so it was easy to scatter away.

As I sucked in more mana that the environment injected in her, one thing became apparent. It felt as if I was in the middle of a raging river during a storm.

Compared to the calmness outside her body, the equilibrium inside wasn't peaceful at all.

Instead of a simple exchange, it was a tug of war to maintain this exact stage. But with every moment the battle got colder. If this battle ever became peaceful it would mean that Yuuno would have turned into a shell.

Although I describe all this as something really dangerous, I wasn't all that taken aback. She would be fine since I was here.

I needed to break the equilibrium as quickly as I possibly could. Meaning that I would have to change the rate at which she was absorbing mana.

You need more force to break static friction than friction on a moving object. Yuuno's mana had become one with her surroundings. I needed more force to break out of that. A force greater than the one her body was producing to maintain the equilibrium.

It was hard, even for me. But I did a study on how to do it.

My body felt heavy as all this new mana went to my core.

I didn't want to use this particular method. I really didn't want this output, but god damn it! It looked like I don't have a choice.

I opened the tiniest of mana pores in the tips of my finger. Not enough to let mana out but enough to let mana in. And in did mana go.

I started sucking the environmental mana she was taking in right into my body.

I started assimilating her mana into mine. My internal mana was that of a demon lord.

Mana inside a body is a function of the body's soul. My soul was already enlightened. My capacity was an endless pool.

So I just sucked it all away. The rate was nearly not high enough but it gradually increased as more went in.

Now the tips of my finger felt like a floodgate and before I knew it she broke out of the equilibrium.

As I said, I wouldn't let her turn into a rock just yet. I needed her to maintain the status quo to prevent war after all.

That was the only reason. Yes.

Right after she popped out of her little trance Yuuno turned around. Now multiple strands of her hair glowed differently.

"!! What are you doing, you idiot? Why didn't you let me finish?" The numbskull turned around but my hands stopped her. "Oi… why're you grabbing my neck? Why is your nose bleeding?" I slowly let my hands loose. "Oh I see… I wasn't expecting you to do something perverted when I was doing this. Is my nape that sexy?" Why would a kid's neck ever be sexy?

"Shut up- I didn't do that. You wench... just be thankful you aren't dead." I fell forward onto her back. I wasn't hurt or losing consciousness. I was just a little tired.

She sighed… This ungrateful little-

Her eyes looked rather understanding for a second. Must have been an illusion.

"I guess you're right about that. You are probably asexual anyways thinking about how often you say that proud demons don't have sex." And then she went back to being annoying.

"That's because it's true!" DEMONS DON'T HAVE SEX!

"Whatever… Just rest for now. When you have a nosebleed you tilt your neck down." She grabbed the top of my head and pushed it down onto her lap. Which was really bony. Because she was 8.

These are the times I miss Mom. Her lap pillow at least felt like a pillow. Right now I felt like my head was on top of a pile of fish bones.

Her hand hovered atop my forehead and started cooling it down.

It felt nice. But I would be in trouble if she found out why my nose bled in the first place. Especially if she realised that I was able to open some of my mana pores.

But I should be fine. I only opened like 10 out of a billion or so mana pores.

It did baffle me how much mana I could take in from just 10 pores. I was incredible.

"So what happened to me?" She finally asked.

"Well, you almost literally scattered your brain and turned into a statue after reaching absolute equilibrium."

"That stuff happens?" Yuuno looked at me critically.

"Of course it does! Have you heard of monks who died while meditating and continued to meditate?"

"Yeah, those urban legends…"

"Urban legends my ass. Monks also try to look for absolute equilibrium. They call it inner peace. They treat it as their salvation. But once they do reach that, they turn into statues like you were about to." I explained.

They took a life worth of practice of achieving oneness to get to the state of equilibrium. So it didn't make sense to me that Yuuno could just do something like that 6 days after starting. I would need to recalibrate her mana senses since now she knew what absolute equilibrium felt like.

Now that I think about it, Buddhism got really close to Dark Breath of Mana Inductance. They didn't achieve partial equilibrium which was one step away from Mana Inductance. And they approached enlightenment the wrong way. Instead of knowledge they went for understanding the being.

If they went a step further, every Buddhist would be an A class warrior equipped with The Dark Breath of Mana Inductance.

"Why didn't you tell me something like that was possible?"

"Becauseee I knew that you would say yes either way. And because I was confident that nothing would happen to you if I was here. Also you should check your mana leve-"

"HOLY SHIT THIS WAS LIKE A YEAR OF NORMAL PRACTICE! WHEN DO WE DO THIS AGAIN?!"

"Never again... it was too dangerous." I didn't want to open any more of my pores.

"But the results!"

"Those don't matter you might die while doing this."

"What if I just accidentally hit absolute equilibrium?~"

"I would leave you there."

"UUU So then how did you stop me?"

"I-" Wait I can't tell her I absorbed all of her mana and opened some of my pores! Then she would know how I can regain all of my strength! She might even try getting into absolute equilibrium even more often to draw that out of me!

No! That was detrimental to my path on becoming a useless man in the modern world.

"I just dispersed some of your equilibrium while got heat into my head and gave me a nosebleed." I 'BS'ed.

"Ah! I see." She believed.

Phew! Crisis averted.

My internal energy linked to my soul was inevitable. I was far too strong of a being to be contained by this pathetic body. Of course the huge pool of mana would want to leak out. No matter how much I tried to suppress it the mana of mine will open externally by the time I turn into an adult.

And when that happens I will become the strongest being on the planet again.

All I can do now is suppress it best I can. Yuuno's little incident sped up the process quite a bit so from now I should avoid any strong mana stimulus. That would slow my growth down as well.

I will remain weak for as long as I possibly can! But deep down I knew that it was inevitable for me to not turn into the Godly being I was in my previous life.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Yuuno leaned over and our eyes met. Her light blue eyes with patches of light gold.

Within those glossy eyes I could see. I could see the reflection of a handsome young man. Powerful beyond measure. The best thing to ever exist on this existential plane.

I sure did love me. But sometimes I was too perfect for my own good.

"Hmph… I wasn't thinking about much. Just about how pretty that reflection in your eyes is."

"I almost got startled by the compliment but I'm sure you're talking about yourself." She blushed before getting a little angry.

"You do get me after all."