Ethereal body

Below the banyan tree

Mage Lia removed her golden framed spectacles as she started her lesson.

"Listen up!"

"The first lesson, the energy source."

"This world is filled with a certain type of energy which we call 'source energy '.

All over the world, from deserts to oceans, mountains to abyss. It's omnipresent. Even in the void. It's the energy of creation, the source of our universe."

"'Mana' which is used by mages, 'Internal energy' which is used by Martial artists and 'Qi' which is used by Weapon wielders or Knights. All of these are mere variants of this source energy."

"Did you get it till that, Jay?"

"Yes."

"Good, so how do we derive the energy source into these variants? Make a guess."

Mage Lia asked Jayce. He thought for a while and then answered in an uncertain tone.

"By separating it into different forms or ways?"

"Very good, but not exactly. We derive these variants by the way we control them."

"Control? Teacher, you haven't even explained how we sense them."

Jayce questioned.

"It's because we can't! W-"

"We can't?"

He cried out.

"Let me first finish my sentence, you brat."

"We can't sense the source energy naturally. We need to go through a process which we call 'awakening'."

"What exactly is this process?" (Jayce)

"As I said, we can't sense this energy as it is much less control them. In order to sense them, we first need to awaken our 'spirituality' or, rather, as what the mass call it, 'soul awakening'."

"Awakening one's soul is not that difficult of a process. One just has to let them spend a period of time under the influence of concentrated source energy, which will in return awaken their spirituality, and they will form their 'Ethereal body'. The ones who succeed are called 'Awakeners'."

"Ethereal body..." Jayce muttered to himself.

"It's nothing much, just the manifestation of your soul."

"Once your ethereal body awakens, you could be called an 'apprentice'. After that, you can start to walk on the path that you have selected. But beware, just awakening your ethereal body alone doesn't matter much. What matters is how you breakthrough to the next realms."

"Coming back to your question, how do we control them? It is by the way or method we use them!"

"Mages create mana circuits in their ethereal body in which, when the source energy flows, it will change into mana."

"Martial artists deploy their ethereal bodies and merge them with their corporeal body, turning the source energy to work as internal energy, which will help them to refine and strengthen their body beyond the limits of humans or even any living organism which is born in this world."

"Finally, the weapon wielders. Actually, unlike internal energy and mana, Qi is an invention of our humanity. We studied it in history, remember?"

Jayce nodded his head.

"So, both mana and IE (internal energy) cannot take physical shapes but qi can. It can have attributes such as elements and can even be used to improve sharpness or heaviness of a weapon."

"A discovery which is the pride of our human race!"

"Teacher, you are mentioning it as a discovery now. Weren't you saying it as an invention all that time during our lessons, in fact, even just before the last sentence?"

"Oh, right. As I said, the qi is indeed an invention yet a discovery for humans. Confused?"

Jayce nodded his head again. Invention means creating something new which doesn't exist. Discovery is just finding things which already exist. How can one be both?

"Perk up your ears and listen carefully."

"Qi is not the name we used when we found its existence. The records aren't clear what the earlier name was as it's been thousands of years since."

"Qi is also a variant of source energy, it exists in the atmosphere. If you go to the ocean you can see an abundance of water qi, in a place with volcanoes you can see fire and earth qi. At a burial site, you can see death qi. In fact, in a place that is filled with humans there will even be 'human qi'."

"But all these are naturally formed. When we humans discovered this qi in the atmosphere, for a long time, we couldn't find any ways to use it directly. That is until he, 'Qi Li' found out the method of manipulating source energy to directly access this variant, which he later named as 'Qi'."

"In order to derive it, we actually have to go through a process which awakens the elements of our soul."

"Our soul has innate elements?"

"No, but just listen until I finish this."

"After the elements are awakened, you dispatch your energy over your body like a coating, which will be turned into qi when it exists your soul/ ethereal body."

"I see, but where exactly is this energy stored?"

"Did I not mention that before?"

Mage Lia tilted her head as she asked him. But, Jayce just shook his head in response.

"No, you didn't."

"I think I said it. You must have not listened carefully!"

Mage Lia was staring straight into his eyes. Jayce blinked his eyes as he thought.

'When did she mention it? Is she trying to gaslight me... again?'

Even though he thought that, he, in the end, relented as the staring competition between them continued,

After all, this isn't the first time it has happened in their lessons. She would do it often to make sure he listens and understands the lessons which she teaches him and, at the same time, also give him training on why he should always be aware of what he hears and speaks.

A lesson on gaslighting indeed...

According to her, it's two fruits in one stone.

"Maybe... I think I might have... missed it."

Jayce squeezed out those words.

"See, that's why I said you should listen carefully."

Jayce rolled his eyes at her words.

"Ahem...so, 'As I said before', everything in this world contains source energy. And our ethereal body is just a manifestation of our soul. So, it also contains source energy within itself and that is what we use as mana, internal energy or qi."

"So, does that mean if we overuse the energy in our soul, our soul will dissipate?"

Jayce asked in a tone that was filled with uncertainty and slight fear.

But, hearing that, Lia's face became incomparably solemn as she stared at him in his eyes for a while, before saying,

"Yes!".

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