After Liam's departure and the maid's curt command — "Let no one in" — Reinhard was left in tense silence. The room returned to stillness, thick and heavy like stagnant water deep within a cave. He walked slowly toward the bed, cast aside the blanket, and sat at the edge. After a brief pause, he folded his legs into the lotus position, his spine straightening with mechanical precision. His fingers glided toward his chest and interlocked over the heart.
— Now… is the time.
The battles he had endured had not merely been arduous — they had left marks on him deeper than ordinary wounds. Damaged meridians, torn nerve threads, a disrupted natural flow of mana. In a world where healing magic and potions could mend flesh and stabilize organs, no remedy could restore the energy channels that connected the soul to the body, like a bridge between matter and essence. This was a sacred domain — invisible, yet decisive — and if left broken, one could never regain their former strength.
In his past life, he had faced this many times. As the Emperor of the Sword, he had not only passed through the crucible of a thousand wars but also through torments unfit for lesser men. He had lost limbs, been burned alive, shattered into pieces by curses, and yet… survived. Where elixirs were powerless, and even high priests stood helpless, he relied only on himself. On his will. And on the technique he had named the Method of Qi Channel Resurrection.
It did not heal, like a spell. It rebuilt, weaving the fabric of the energy body anew — thread by thread, pattern by pattern. It began with concentration — a summoning of one's mana in its most primal form.
He closed his eyes slowly.
Within, his inner world was dark, viscous — a night without stars. Deep inside, he saw the scattered currents of mana, like breathing tendrils of energy pulsing through his veins. Some were torn, others thinned, and in places, completely dried out like scorched roots of a tree. He began to breathe in a steady rhythm, directing his attention inward. The flows began to move, spiraling slowly around a point at his solar plexus — the core.
This world, like the one before, was made of mana. Everything — earth, air, fire, flesh, metal — all of it was threaded with different forms of it. But mana is not uniform. It divides into structures. Each form of mana had its own network, its own geometry of energy patterns. One could imagine them as snowflakes — equally beautiful, yet each one unique. Some were born with water mana: flexible, soft, yet powerful. Others with fire: aggressive, boiling. There was nature, metal mana, lightning, mist, void. But beyond the common ones, there were unique types of mana, birthed once in a billion lives.
In his past incarnation, his body housed two such anomalies. Dark Metal Mana — heavy, viscous, and capable of melting the structure of other manas. And Fallen Star Mana — destructive, unpredictable, like a shard of a star, stripped of order. These two manas clashed in eternal conflict, and it was through their collision that he forged his meditation technique, one that reconstructed the Qi channels from nothing, weaving them into a new, unique pattern.
— But what flows through me now? he whispered. What mana lives in this body?
The answer would reveal itself on its own, through deepened focus.
He began to draw out his mana, as though pulling it from the depths of his own heart. It rose… and for the first time spilled outward, sparking a strange resonance. The inner world quivered. The mana currents, instead of flowing smoothly, began to tremble, sparking faintly as if clashing with unseen obstacles. And then… they ignited in a pale-blood glow.
Reinhard opened one eye slightly.
— …This…
He could feel it. The structure of the particles… was unfamiliar. Not metal. Not flame. It was deceptively fluid, yet carried something cold, distant, eternal. It did not surge like fire, nor stretch like water. It watched, as if mana itself was looking back at him.
He returned to his inner perception. Now he understood — his new unique mana was unlike anything he had ever known. It was the Mana of the Blood Sky. Terrifying. Wrathful. Eternal.
He expanded the internal channels. The mana began to flow through them, like water through a network of ancient pipes, flushing out the remnants of poor circulation, stagnant blood, old trauma — everything that disrupted the wholeness of the flow. It began to heal the channels, strengthen the meridians, restore the damaged nodes.
Every second of meditation stretched like an hour. His body ached, but the soul was cleansing. At one point, the flows began to spin faster, and he felt a lightness, as if his body had become lighter than air, as though he sat in the void. All thoughts disappeared. Only the pulsations of energy remained, the slow rhythm, the restoration.
And then, he said within himself:
— Now… only one thing remains: to reclaim my former strength.