Chef in the Apocalypse

Seeing that he couldn’t use a skill from the system anymore, Jayce let out a deep sigh, but he did not despair just yet. There was one other possibility that he needed to test before he could decide whether this was a blessing or a curse.

He once more held his right hand out, gathering his Qi within the palm of his hands. He began to try and convert the Qi into flames, the same way he would with mana. Yet no matter how much he sped up the friction of the Qi, nothing happened.

"F*ck!" Jayce cursed loudly, but in the next moment he almost slapped his own face.

He wasn’t using mana anymore, so why should the same rules that worked for mana work for his Inner Qi? Perhaps there was another way of converting his Qi into the elements.

Jayce began to swirl the Qi within his palm, trying to think of possible ways he could achieve this. After a few moments he still didn’t have any ideas, so he just decided to blurt out the word.

"Fire." The Qi within his palm stopped moving for a moment, giving Jayce a shred of hope. Yet after this short pause, they continued what they were doing, as if they had only stopped to get a good look at the idiot that was shouting at them.

Feeling a hint of embarrassment, Jayce quickly looked around the room to make sure no one had seen what just happened. A hint of frustration crept into his mind.

"How about you just blow yourselves up." He said, flourishing his wrist in annoyance.

As the words came out of his mouth, the Qi within his palms began to self-immolate, causing huge plumes of flames to shoot upwards. It was as if a molotov cocktail had been set off in his small cottage, quickly setting fire to the wooden furnishings.

"Oh Shit!" Half excited, half panicked, Jayce quickly looking for something that could put out the flames.

After a few minutes, he finally managed to put out the fire. Yet there was a satisfied smile on his face.

"It looks like it’s possible to use elemental power with my Qi. I just need to slowly learn the laws. It seems that the law of Fire first begins with Ignition." Jayce said, a wide smile forming on his lips.

The moment his Qi exploded, there was a feeling of insight, as if by attuning his Qi to the elements he was able to understand their properties in more detail. The word "Law" crept into his mind, giving him some purchase for thought.

He felt that if he was able to master all the laws of fire, then he would become something akin to a fire god. One with complete dominion over fire and all of its power.

Jayce’s face fell for a moment, "Did the Dryad’s also have knowledge of Law’s? Is that why they were able to subdue Leah and Lianna so easily?"

At this thought, Jayce felt as if his mind was spinning out of control. "If Dryad’s could learn laws, what about all the other monsters?"

Come to think of it, Jayce had never wondered if monsters had a system or not, let alone mana. He had fought some monsters that controlled the elements, and they were always much harder opponents.

Could this be a coincidence, or was it something more? What had he just stumbled upon?

There was also the question of Inner Qi. Why was martial arts built on the foundation of Qi when it was not possible to use it in the modern world. Was there a point where human’s had access to this kind of power? If so, what happened to it?

Jayce’s questions seemed to continue to grow as he learned more and more. It was like their was a constant veil that was in front of him, just out of arms reach.

Unfortunately, he was dead tired right now, probably due to the effect of losing all of his mana. While his meridians had been filled to the brim with Inner Qi, his body had still not yet adjusted to it.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to his training spot in the forest and try out some melee attacks, but that would have to wait. Perhaps he would have to settle with training during the trip into the tree tomorrow.

Either way, he needed to sleep. The emotional roller coaster of the past twenty or so minutes had really taken it out of him.

With that, Jayce crawled into bed, falling asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. His dreams were filled with fantastical scenes of flying swords, jade beauties and cultivators fighting grand battles for their favor.

***

The next day, Jayce woke up feeling fresh as a daisy. However the first thing that assaulted his nose was the smell of burnt wood, bringing him into the present. Looking around, he saw the burn marks left by his flammable outburst last night and felt a little guilty.

"Hopefully Tony doesn’t blame me too much." He let out a chuckle, hopping off the bed lightly.

Heading to the bathroom, he quickly took out some fresh water from his inventory and splashed it on his face. This was something he had done almost religiously since regressing.

He looked at his body in the mirror and almost let out a yelp of surprise.

"W-What the hell?"

Jayce looked at his figure which almost seemed more reflective than the mirror itself. His pure white skin was now painted with toned muscles. It seemed as if every millimeter had been carved by a master artisan, giving him a flawless look like a Greek god.

While he had always been quite fit and strong, he had never been this... outrageous. He looked like he had walked straight off the catwalk and into the bathroom.

After a few minutes of staring at himself blankly, Jayce finally decided to put some clothes on and meet up with the others. As long as he was able to fight, he didn’t care too much about his exaggerated figure.