Chef in the Apocalypse

Jayce opened the door to his residence and looked around. Everything was where he had left it almost a month ago. It was almost surreal, like nothing had changed since he was gone.

However, that was not the case. In the past month essentially everything had changed.

Earth’s evolution, Rubick’s allegiance, the machinations of the system, his relationship with Lianna, not to mention the Laws which he had discovered.

While it felt as if everything had happened so fast, Jayce finally felt as if he was beginning to unravel the mysteries of the world. If in his past life he was just a spectator, in this life he was one of the main figures, a pioneer of sorts.

This brought with it a tremendous pressure that threatened to crush him if he made the wrong move. With one mistake he could doom the whole world to be destroyed, reaping millions of lives through his actions.

His grand ideals and goals for uniting Humanity had also put significant pressure on Colin, who had taken his role as his right hand man very seriously.

Jayce appreciated him greatly, not blaming him for acting as he did. After all, human’s on their own were fickle existences. It was only when they banded together that they were unstoppable.

Using himself as an example, with his class skills assigned by the system there was no way that he would be able to survive as a solo player. If it weren’t for his faction, Jayce would have likely died many times over.

Jayce shook his head, removing these thoughts out of his brain. Despite it being evening, he was not tired. It was currently mid-morning in North America where he had just come from, which meant he would have to get acclimated to the time zone over the next few days.

With nothing else to do, he removed the jacket which now had Colin’s dried tears and snot down the front of it and sat upon his bed. He had been so focused on strengthening Leah and Lianna that he had neglected his meditation over the past couple of weeks.

He wasn’t sure if meditating would change or improve anything, but there was no harm in trying.

Although he planned on getting everyone to replace their mana with Inner Qi in the future, he still had to make sure that there were viable ways of getting stronger, which meant using himself as the guinea pig.

From his hopeful understanding, there were two ways which he could pursue strength outside the system. One was comprehending the Laws, which he believed would increase based on the current level of one’s understanding.

The next was to emulate the Eastern Cultivation path, which meant strengthening his body and Inner Qi to such a level that he could be likened to a super human.

Being an avid reader at a younger age in order to escape his reality, Jayce had read many Cultivation and martial arts novels. While many of them had different themes, they all bore the same concept of building up ones Qi by extracting it from their surroundings.

There was also the route of opening ones acupoints in order to allow the smoother flow and absorption of Qi. The problem was, Jayce was not knowledgeable about acupuncture, nor was he confident in opening the correct points.

However, due to acupuncture being rooted in Chinese culture and medicine, he was hoping that someone in Bastion would be knowledgeable enough to impart their teachings to him.

He would have to put the word out tomorrow, which meant that tonight he would be trying to absorb the Qi in the surroundings.

Without further ado, Jayce closed his eyes and entered a meditative state, emptying his mind and trying to sense the energy within his surroundings. After a few minutes he felt as if there was something brushing against his skin.

It felt like a light breeze which caused the hair on his body to rise in response.

’That must be Qi...’ Jayce thought inwardly. He wasn’t exactly sure how to absorb it into his body though.

The next few minutes he tried a few things, yet nothing seemed to be working. He tried activating his Dantian, increasing the flow speed of his Qi, even trying to breathe it in through his mouth.

Feeling himself becoming frustrated, he opened his eyes. If his emotions were not in check, it would be counterintuitive trying to meditate properly.

Jayce let out a sigh. Of course he didn’t expect to succeed right away, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little disappointed about the difficulty.

In comparison, the system seemed like a much easier and straightforward way of getting stronger. Merely kill monsters and gain exp to increase your level. There was a sense of instant gratification in such a systemic way of growth.

He was also worried that people could get annoyed or impatient with sensing and absorbing Qi in the surroundings. Then they might blame him for forcing them to replace their mana with Qi.

There had to be another way of absorbing Qi that would be easier and more efficient. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Jayce wracked his brain for a while, opening up his inventory for some inspiration.

’Could I absorb the Qi within rare items?’ He thought, producing a glowing kitchen knife within his hand.

Once again he tried to enter a meditative state, trying to absorb the energy within the knife. Yet it was apparent pretty quickly that such a thing was impossible. Perhaps it was the wrong kind of energy, or the energy had been sealed too tightly to be absorbed.

"Ah, what about mana stones?" Jayce almost slapped his forehead in annoyance at himself. How could he have forgotten about those?

When he had been mining these stones, he had felt a slight resonance when he collected them in his hand. This was especially so for the higher quality mana stones.

Jayce tried to calm down his rising excitement as he produced a mid-tier mana stone within his hands, instantly feeling the resonance from the energy within.

He closed his eyes once more, and almost instantly felt the energy rushing into his body through the pores on his skin. Jayce felt the energy rush into his meridians, moving straight towards his Dantian.

The energy began to mix with his Qi inside the vortex, slowly turning from a light blue into the same color yellow as his Inner Qi.

Before long, the mana stone within his hand crumbled, turning to nothingness.

Jayce’s eyes snapped open, filled with excitement. "This is it!"