When Jack woke up to the sounds of a vicious battle, everything had changed. The first thing he noticed, was that his senses were considerably more acute.

All of them.

He could feel individual blades of grass on his skin. The sounds of the rushing river and battle were clear and distinct. His vision even seemed to come into focus faster than it would have before.

Although, the most pronounced change, was not to his five normal senses, but to his supernatural ones. His third eye seemed to have been expanded greatly because he could easily make out the minds nearby where before he only felt vague presences. Jack could tell that his chakra had evolved as well, and it would be much easier to tap into and wield it.

Though it was his sense of qi that seemed like it had evolved the most. Jack marveled at how much deeper his perception of the energy of the universe had become. For all of his senses, it was as though he had been wearing a thick veil that he hadn’t even known was there constantly muffling everything.

And now that the veil was removed, he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed it before. This was especially true for his qi sense.

The village wall was the thing that grabbed Jack’s attention first, even over the battle of powerful beings nearby. The massive marble structure had always radiated a baffling amount of energy, but now it was as if the power had something like a taste or a flavor to his evolved sense.

The wall gave Jack the feeling of absolute sturdiness, as if it could repel the assault of a planet-sized heavenly body without suffering so much as a single crack. It was like the structure was made with an oath that it would not be moved. Jack could not imagine the expense of maintaining the giant array.

On the other hand, the ambient qi was flavorless to his new sense, like fresh water in his mouth. It surrounded and permeated everything.

The bird beastkin’s energy was a strong gust of wind carrying thousands of razor-sharp blades and Emrys’ power an extremely sturdy tree covered in long and piercing thorns.

This new perception of qi was immediately fascinating to Jack. He wanted to explore it and experiment to discover exactly how many flavors there were in the world. Unfortunately, he would have to put that desire on hold.

As he was coming awake, he had an acute feeling that he was being observed. It was very much like the intuition that someone was staring at the back of his head, but rather than a subtle instinct, this was a visceral and physical reaction. He knew he was being observed.

After a moment, this sensation became so intense, Jack looked around for the source and slowly realized what it was. It was the feeling of having his spirit studied by other beings.

He caught Gadnuk and Emrys glancing at him out of the corner of their eyes during their battle and he got the feeling that they were surprised by what they found. Their attention reminded Jack of what had just happened and he cast his newly enhanced perception into himself.

He stood up, and lifting himself to his feet was easier than it had ever been. Jack knew that his body had to be much denser than before, but on picking himself up off the ground, it was as if he weighed nothing at all.

Feeling his own spirit for the first time was certainly a novel experience for Jack. Zachias had simulated what his core would look and feel like after it was formed, though that was nothing compared to the real thing.

He marveled at the sphere sitting at the center of his body. It was relatively small—only slightly bigger than a regular marble—but that did not detract from its power or beauty. It contained more matter than the rest of his body combined.

As he held it in his perception, Jack felt the little ball crackle with tiny arcs of light blue lightning. The channels that ran through the core we’re in the shape of a thousand-petal lotus flower blooming from an endlessly branching bolt of lightning.

At the center of that lotus pattern was the hollow space where most of his qi was held as a super dense mass. It was currently bursting with the power of Jack’s qi. There was more energy in his core now than he had ever absorbed or used in the entire six months before he’d advanced.

Zachias had always told Jack that the difference between mortals and spiritual beings was as night and day. Every step in advancement represented exponential growth in power. It was only now that Jack was beginning to understand that in truth.

He gathered some of the qi in his core and circulated it through the freshly forged channels. His energy surged through the tiny veins within the small sphere in the complex pattern of a technique weave. As the lightning spun through the channels of his core, the qi of his aura moved through the same circuit at the exact same time.

Jack only needed to manifest that pattern to bring the technique to life. It was so much easier now that his aura was sturdy and permanent and he had a core to control it.

As a mortal, he had always been forced to project a field of qi around himself to create a bastardized version of a true aura. It was far from ideal, as it put a considerable strain on his previously very limited mental capacity.

Now, his aura was a perpetual part of him. It was a thick field of qi that orbited Jack’s core in every direction, forming another, much larger sphere around his body. The field moved not just through the air, but also through the ground and everything else, including the most solid matter. Particles of qi were so incredibly small, they would float right through even the hardest metals like wind through a chain link fence.

As his attention moved out into his aura, Jack thought he understood why Emrys and Gadnuk had seemed surprised when they’d scanned him.

On advancing to the Spirit Realm, most people developed auras that were only slightly larger in diameter than their own height. He was a little over six feet tall, so his aura should have been about seven feet across. A diameter of eight feet would have been on the high side of what Zachias and Jack had been expecting in most simulations.

His actual aura was almost twice that wide, measuring around fifteen feet.

It was certainly not unheard of for the disciples of the Universe’s elite beings to forge auras so much larger than their bodies, but for a backwoods nobody like Jack to do it must have been extraordinary.

His mind went back to the last thing he had heard Zachias rumble before he’d passed out: “Bitter always turns sweet by perseverance.” As Jack took in the massive improvements to his body and spirit, he was forced to agree with that sentiment.

A shockwave-throwing boom sounded in his ears and Jack looked up to where the battle between Emrys and Gadnuk took place. It was getting progressively more difficult to follow their fight with his eyes due to the quickly growing forest of wooden spikes blocking his view. But from what he could sense of their minds, they were both getting very serious.

This was the first time Jack had witnessed Emrys’ path. It was the most impressive use of qi that he had seen so far. Jack didn’t understand how Emrys was creating so many spears of wood without running out of energy.

His qi reserves must be massive Jack thought to himself as he watched a veritable forest of long wooden stakes bursting into existence every second.

Suddenly, Jack received the now familiar feeling that indicated his spirit was being observed. He used his mind’s eye to trace the sensation back to the third presence in his vicinity.

Jack turned to the left to meet the slitted eyes of the reptilian beastkin he had taken to calling Lizzie in his head. She glared coldly at him as she studied his new core and aura.

He expected to feel a sense of dread from her, but the longer she studied his spirit, the more Jack got the feeling of her firming resolve. Apparently, she still wanted the smoke. Was everyone in this world a damn battle maniac? Even the normally chilled out Emrys seemed like he was having fun in spite of the mortal combat.

That was fine with Jack. Maybe he had found a world where he could actually fit in. He was dying to take his brand new spirit for a test drive. Zachias had once told Jack that he wouldn’t get a new body from advancing, but Jack certainly felt remade. He couldn’t wait to see what he was capable of now.

As the human and the female beastkin stared each other down, their qi churned within their spirits like street racers revving their engines at a red light. Small sparks of blue lightning crackled over Jack’s skin while the humidity in the air seemed to condense into droplets of water on the Lizzie’s hide.

To his enhanced qi sense, her power felt like a raging ocean current desperate to rend flesh apart. Jack assumed that her path used the kinesis of Ripping. It would explain why every time he had come into contact with her technique in their earlier battle, it had felt like his skin was being torn rather than cut.

Jack hadn’t been able to use kinesis as a mortal, but now that he had leveled up, his chakra should be refined enough. Zachias had attempted to simulate the experience of wielding it for Jack, but some things were difficult to understand before advancing.

He mentally reached out for his chakra and prepared to summon kinesis for the first time. Chakra, the second of the three fundamental powers, was the ability of consciousness. Every sentient entity could use it, granting them the power to move things with their minds.

Kinesis was simply a specific method of manipulating that telekinetic power to add an extra physical effect to a being’s workings. It would eventually become an essential part of Jack’s path.

He had already decided that he would first attempt to produce the kinesis of Force. It was the easiest and most commonly used aspect, as Jack had already witnessed.

The madman, Janus, had wrapped it around his cane to make his strikes more powerful. Diana, the self-proclaimed goddess of hunting, had coated her arrows in the kinesis of Force to give the simple wooden projectiles the ability to punch craters into the ground. Emrys’ silent druid companion had incorporated it into his Path of Crushing Timber.

As the name suggested, Force kinesis would add blunt impacts to Jack’s body or techniques. If he infused it into his qi, Jack could throw a lightning bolt that would strike with the force of a sledgehammer. Or he could combine it with a physical blow to greatly enhance one of his strikes.

He stared his opponent down and focused on his chakra, wrapping it around his right fist and willing it to take the form that he wanted. He imagined his energy taking on an aspect of unstoppable momentum. Nothing happened at first and Jack’s eye twitched as he applied more of his mental faculties to the working.

It felt like he was pushing against a rubber wall with his mind. The obstacle bent with the force of Jack’s will but it refused to break. He pushed even harder, with almost all of his focus and the strain surely showed on his face.

The wall finally gave in and Jack heard a whoosh. He looked down to see that his hand was seething with a clear, hazy energy like the air just above the asphalt on a hot day. He anchored the shimmering field of force to his fist so that it would move with him.

Now that the kinesis had taken form, it was easy to hold it in place with his mind. Apparently, it was only the act of creating it that was difficult. This was good news to Jack as he had begun to think that he might have to abandon kinesis entirely in this fight if it took so much of his concentration.

He sensed a spike from Lizzie’s spirit and looked up as water formed around her green, armored hide and began to swirl around her in the same pattern as before. The thin streams spun in a circuit that looked like the outlines of a full-body suit of chain mail with teardrop shaped links.

The lines of water moved slowly at first and then gained in speed until they could tear through flesh like a soft cheese. It was the same technique that she had used in their fight earlier.

Jack was surprised to see that the working did not end there. He felt another surge in her spirit as she tied in a second weave. She held her palms out to either side and two thin, flat disks of water formed on them spinning like saw blades a foot in diameter.

The spike of energy in her spirit flattened out somewhat as she switched to maintaining the powerful techniques.

As he witnessed the impressive spiritual feat, Jack had a realization.

“She wasn’t really trying earlier was she?” he asked his mental passenger.

“I did not want to burst your little bubble,” Zachias began smugly, “but no. When fighting someone significantly weaker than yourself, it is common to limit your power to their level and defeat them in a contest of skill.”

Jack thought back to their battle, remembering her snarling reptilian face. “So that’s why she was getting so angry.”

“Correct” the blue-skinned hulk rumbled. “Every blow you landed was a wound on her pride. The point is to lower yourself to their level and still dominate your opponent not lose to them.”

“I was never going to win that fight was I?” Jack asked.

Zachias chuckled. “Even if you had stabbed her in the neck, her inherent protections would have stopped you from leaving anything more than a prick even with the spear. Her ally only stepped in to spare her the shame of taking a would-be vital blow from an inferior foe.”

Jack mentally nodded and laughed.“Thank you for making my impotence so painfully clear.”

“Think nothing of it” Zachias responded graciously. “The important thing is that you now have the tools to win. Focus on that rather than the fact that she could have slapped you around like a schoolchild just thirty minutes ago.”

That sounded like good advice, so Jack refocused on his reptilian enemy. Her techniques had finished forming and she struck an intimidating figure with streams of sundering water flowing over her body and two thin liquid disks spinning in each hand like saw blades.

To Jack’s spiritual senses, she was even more frightening. It was as if he was standing in front of a sea of ripping, tearing waters. To brave those currents was to court a painful death.

Jack glanced at the shimmering, clear energy surrounding his right hand and realized that the kinesis would not be nearly enough to win this battle. His mind went back to his training with Zachias and he went over the patterns that he had learned. It was much easier to recall them now that he had advanced. Even his memories were more vivid than they had been as a mortal.

Jack went back to his very first lesson on techniques in his mind. He had sat in the lotus position on the thick sapphire grass in Zachias’ simulated world with the brightly colored moons shining down while the blue-skinned warrior lectured.

“To form a technique,” Zachias’ deep voice boomed “you must circulate your qi in specific patterns, or weaves, which you will then manifest. It probably will not surprise you to learn that these patterns always take the shape of three-dimensional fractals.”

As he said this, Zachias gestured behind him and many complex shapes drew themselves in the air in different colored lines of light. The patterns made Jack feel dizzy the longer he looked at them.

He interrupted with a question that had been on his mind for quite some time. “Why fractals? What makes them so significant?”

Zachias nodded sagely as if he had been expecting the inquiry and answered with a question of his own. “Do you know the shape of the central nervous system? Or what the individual neurons in your brain look like?”

Jack thought he remembered some diagrams of neurons from one of the science classes that he hadn’t slept through. “Yeah they look kind of like a tube with two root system—oh I see” he interrupted himself.

Zachias nodded once again. “Yes. Your brain is made up of billions of fractals that come together in a web of branching, interconnected pathways that form one whole. This is why the symbols of power are always different forms of fractals. Because they are the shape of thoughts.”

“Think of it like this” he continued. “When we use our qi to produce techniques, we give form to thought, which then brings thought to form.”

Jack had felt that there was a great profundity to this teaching so he had taken pains to commit it to memory.

Now, as he stood facing a deadly enemy, her spirit churning with two deadly techniques, Jack could not help but think back to that first lesson. It weighed heavily on his mind as he considered all of the weaves that he had memorized. Which should he use first?

He did not have much time to contemplate as Lizzie was beginning to stalk towards him with the flat circles of water revolving on her palms like saw blades.

It was clear that this battle would be another melee, so Jack knew that he would use a body enhancement, but he hesitated to activate the same kind of pattern as before. That had been a weave designed entirely for speed, and he needed to be more than just fast if he wanted to win. He also needed to be strong. Only when speed and strength were combined would they become power.

Luckily, power was the signature of lightning.

Jack gathered his chakra once again and used it to take control of the qi swirling in the center of his core. He pulled on the matter and tied it into the weave that he wanted. The energy responded to his will and streamed into the core’s channels in a circuit that formed a complex fractal. Immediately, the qi of his aura began to move in the same pattern at the exact same time. Jack felt a jolt as the thin lines of energy rushed through and around his body for about fifteen feet in every direction.

Sensing the surge in his spirit, Lizzie snarled and sprang toward him swinging one of her water saws at his neck. With a smirk that said ‘too late’, Jack manifested the weave and the technique came to life. Blue lightning covered his body like branching blood vessels and they glowed so brightly, the individual streams of lightning could be seen even through his clothes. Jack took one small step backwards to dodge.

The next thing he knew, he was looking at a small pillar of grass and dirt rising from where he had just been standing a dozen feet away. Taken aback by the unexpected movement, Jack hesitated as he watched Lizzie cut through the air where he had just been standing. He had only meant to move just enough to dodge her attack.

He almost thought that his senses had failed for a moment, as they had when he’d used the sensory boosting tattoo on the back of his neck, but Jack had been very careful to not run any qi through it. It was likely that he could use the tattoo to no ill effect now that he had evolved, though he thought that mid-battle was the wrong time to test that theory.

He quickly realized that his senses were working better than they ever had. He had just moved so fast that they couldn’t keep up. Jack looked down at his arms, eyes wide. The surprise almost made him lose concentration on his workings.

Unfortunately, Jack hadn’t had the chance to test out his new physical abilities after advancing. He had no way of knowing how much of this power was him and how much was the technique. His inherited physique gave him physical might beyond the norm, so it was likely a mix of both.

Jack had memorized dozens of weaves in the months that he had spent studying under Zachias. Most of his training had focused on the theory behind technique fractals and how to build them, but that still required him to know many of the basic patterns.

For this battle, he had chosen to use the body enhancement weave that Zachias had always recommended. It was one of the first ones that he had made Jack learn. Jack figured that if it was good enough for the pseudo-divine being that lived in his head, he should probably give it the old college try.

Apparently, this was the right instinct, as even his lizard-like opponent seemed surprised by the casual power Jack had just displayed. Maybe his chances in this fight were better than he had assumed.

He had spent so much time getting his ass kicked in one hopeless battle after the next, he hadn’t recognized when he’d taken the upper hand. Jack smirked and entered a fighting stance as slowly and gracefully as he could.

With Zachias’ body technique active, Jack had all the power and agility that he could handle. On the other hand, control was a bit of an issue. The weave seemed to support only the most explosive movements. Every casual motion was amplified tenfold.

A small step back became a groundbreaking leap. Even taking a fighting stance was difficult for Jack when his every move was so jerky. He was worried that he would try to scratch his nose and accidentally gouge his own eyes out.

Lizzie had recovered from her shock and was stalking towards him once again. She held the water saws that were just over a foot in diameter in either hand and the thin flesh rending streams still covered her hide.

She had to be spending her qi freely to support the two techniques. Jack knew that stalling for time was probably the best strategy. If he avoided her attacks for long enough, Emrys could help him finish her off after he won his fight with the avian beastkin. At this point, the druid’s victory seemed inevitable with the size of the forest of wooden spikes growing at the top of the hill.

However, playing for time was not what Jack wanted to do. He didn’t want to wait for a stronger ally to come and save him again like the quintessential damsel in distress.

He wanted to win. By his own hand and no one else’s.

Jack could feel Zachias’ approval of this desire in the back of his mind.

This time, he engaged Lizzie first, exploding towards her with his right foot out in a side kick. It was extremely difficult to keep his limbs under control while compensating for the added power of the body technique. His every movement had lost all grace, but the power he had gained more than made up for this deficiency.

Jack’s right foot slammed into the lizard beastkin’s stomach so hard that his shoe was torn to pieces by the shockwave. The bare foot that appeared was covered in branching streams of lightning that looked like glowing veins flowing across his skin.

Lizzie’s eyes bulged as she was thrown back by the kick. Both of her legs left the ground. Instead of landing on her back and sliding across the ground, she slammed her tail down and back flipped to land on her reptilian feet. She allowed one foot to slide back and took another graceful fighting stance with her circular blades held to either side.

Jack kept his attention on the proper circulation of his qi to maintain the body technique, as well as on the kinesis wrapped around his right fist, and on the enemy in front of him. He was amazed that splitting his focus so many ways was not straining his mind. Only earlier in the day, this would have been unthinkable for him.

He could not believe that one advancement had improved him so much. Would the other two stages of the Spirit Realm come with such drastic upgrades as well?

Zachias caught this passing thought and laughed in his mind. “This is nothing. If you can ascend beyond the Spirit Realm, you will only then understand what radical growth truly means.”

Jack wanted to pull on that thread, but his enemy closed with him once again and he was dodging her deadly water disks with his jerky, lightning fast movements. He still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of controlling the power running through his body. Every time he tried to retreat half a step, the ground crumpled under his feet and a cloud of grass and dirt exploded into the air.

Then he would take a small step forward and launch himself ten feet past his goal. He had to compensate by giving himself room and moving widely around Lizzie’s liquid saws. One wrong move and she would take his head before even she could tell what happened.

He knew that the only thing preventing that from happening was the unpredictability of his movement. This body enhancement technique was contributing greatly to the chaotic nature of Jack’s new fighting style. How could she predict his moves when even he didn’t know where he would be from one moment to the next.

Her style depended on the fluid grace of a dancer, with every motion flowing to the next perfectly. It must normally be a devastatingly effective fighting tactic, even against multiple opponents. But Jack was not being a good dance partner. His style was the antithesis of Lizzie’s.

When Jack saw that this strategy was working, he doubled down—launching himself back and forth across the battlefield like a hurricane—kicking up dirt and grass with each subsequent step.

Even though it was working, he quickly came to the realization that he needed to accelerate his victory as much as possible. He was spending energy far too rapidly. Despite the fact that she was maintaining two powerful techniques, Jack worried that he would still burn out first. Endurance was the great weakness of lightning after all.

Another contributing factor to his dwindling qi, was the damage that Jack received every time he landed a hit. The tiny streams of water rushing over Lizzie’s green, reptilian body with tearing force ensured that all of Jack’s strikes came with a painful cost.

However, he had noticed that the lacerations the lizard’s chain mail technique inflicted on him were smaller after advancing. Jack assumed that it was because of the increased density of his flesh making him tougher.

Still, as his injuries accumulated, so to did the amount of qi that his healing physique expended to restore him. He needed to win before he ran out.

Jack exploded past her like a bolt of lightning and then turned and slammed his left elbow into the back of her head. The hit stunned her enough to make her techniques stutter for a brief moment, the disks and streams of water on her body starting to fall to the ground. Then, Lizzie came right back to her senses and the liquid saws and armor reformed before they could fall apart completely.

He grit his teeth from the pain in his elbow as her chain mail tore his flesh open and his healing physique began to stitch it back together. There were many such injuries on his limbs all drawing qi to heal him.

Still, Jack grew excited as she stumbled forward. The last exchange had given him hope for victory. It was the first time one of his blows had seemed to have a real effect on her. She had managed to shrug everything else off without suffering much visible damage.

Jack continued to tear across the battlefield chaotically with the speed of Zachias’ body technique. He faked a strike to the right and came back in from the other side with a left hand punch that he landed on Lizzie’s chin. She dug into the dirt and dragged two trenches with her feet as she slid backwards.

Instead of the expected snarl of rage on her reptilian face, she smirked. This expression confused Jack until he cried out in pain. Blood sprayed from his left shoulder and he glanced down in shock. There, on the side of his arm, was a six inch long gushing, bone-deep wound. Jack had to struggle with himself to keep his focus on the battle, but even then, his technique still stalled for a brief moment as he nearly emptied his stomach.

The nauseating injury would be repaired by his physique of course. But it forced Jack to accept that he was out of time. She had managed to not only predict his attack, but also counter. If he allowed that to continue, her saws would tear him apart like tissue paper.

He looked down at his intact arm and saw that the shimmering mass of blunt force kinesis was still there. He had purposely refrained from using it in the fight as it was his greatest weapon at this time. If he fired that shot and missed, his odds of winning dropped like a stone.

Lizzie saw what Jack was looking at and narrowed her eyes. He saw the calculations taking place behind those slitted, orange pupils and worried that she had already solved his fighting style. Could she predict his moves in advance now?

But that was not a useful thought, so Jack set it aside. He already had his cards and it was time to play his hand or throw it away.

He refused to fold, win or lose.