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I breathed in deeply and slowly, letting the air settle in the lower part of my belly. While checking that the Chi was gathering in my stomach, I slowly exhaled. I repeated this several times until my lower abdomen filled with Chi. Puffing my chest, I allowed the warmth from deep inside to flow throughout my body and focused my awareness on the area between my eyebrows.

With a light exhale, I kicked off the ground toward the perceived target, closing the distance in a flash, almost as if I were flying. Then, I struck the target lightly with the bottom of my palm.

The moment my palm made contact, the target exploded with a roar. Its hard exterior shattered and scattered violently, with fragments slicing into and gouging nearby trees. The forest was torn apart, debris flung in a wide arc from the explosion.

“Phew! They blew up surprisingly easily! Hehe!”

Despite my cute gestures, the destruction remained unchanged. The forest in front of me had vanished in a fan shape.

Forest Giant. A creature more than five meters tall that lurked in the forest. It used its long, club-like arms to strike prey. Its thick, bark-like skin blended well with the trees, and ordinary swords couldn’t scratch it. But I had just obliterated ten of them, trees and all.

“I knew that it would be way too overpowered if I put Chi into it… I overdid it.” I put my hand on my forehead and shook my head.

I’d been so upset during dinner that I couldn’t stop crying. Trying to calm myself, I had come into the forest to stabilize my mind through breathing exercises and Chi training—but somehow, it had turned destructive.

I just couldn’t relax.

In any case, this would be the last time I came this deep into the forest before the ceremony. Tomorrow, I planned to rest in my bed. That said, after I finished tonight’s training and made my usual rounds, I’d end up spending the night outdoors again, just like always.

(After all, if my mind is disturbed, then letting my body run wild too should help keep things balanced. And it’s better for my mental health, right?!)

I’d already come up with an excuse, though I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to give it to.

It had already been ten months since I first arrived in this forest as Susie. In just two more, it would be a full year.
The place I stood now was the same watering hole where I had spent the final night of my first survival experience here. Before I realized it, I’d made this spot my base. I came here almost every night to test my skills and improve control over my strength.

I thought I’d made progress in controlling it, but just a bit of extra power led to a huge mess.

(I really should learn how to suppress my underlying strength…)

Right now, I was able to stop my power from leaking out and was circulating it inside of myself, storing it there. And because the internal pressure from it was high, it made sense that controlling the external output was difficult.

(Rather than thinking of this as an ON and OFF switch, I should think of it as a volume knob.)

With that thought, I turned my attention inward.

◆◆◆◆◆

Over the past ten months, I had spent a lot of time examining my skills. My first goal was to understand what skills were available to me, along with their power and accuracy.

After all, it wasn’t just one character’s abilities; I could access the skills of every character I owned. So I began by checking the basic ones, one by one.

Eventually, a question surfaced in my mind.

(Why can I use these skills? How do I know them? When did I learn them?)

It might’ve made sense in a game context where characters just learned a new skill, but I had a real physical body now, not just data. So, where did that knowledge reside?

I had no memory of learning these skills. I didn’t even know how I was able to use them. Yet I could still activate them.

Could it be that there was some kind of memory storage area for these skills and the way to use them? If so, where was it?

Thinking about this, I formed a hypothesis.

I could read information from people I focused on, those I recognized. This was a standard feature in games. Seeing a target’s name, level difference, and sometimes even more. But that was supposed to only be possible because it was a game. So why could I read other people’s information now?

After asking myself that, I remembered. There was a means of reading another person’s name and information.

That was the Ether Scan. The art of reading information from the etheric body.

The etheric body was like a storage medium that held information about the physical body gathered in the material world. By focusing on someone, I was likely subconsciously using Ether Scan to access that storage. Had I always been able to read etheric data?

If I could read others’ etheric information, then of course I should be able to read my own. My theory was that all skills were accessed through one’s etheric data and activated from that stored data.

Skills weren’t stored in the brain or body as memories. Each time a skill was used, the body pulled that information from the etheric body, and the skill was activated. That would explain why I had no memory of learning the skills and why I didn’t consciously know how to use them.

Once a skill was activated, it was difficult to alter mid-movement. I could increase or reduce its power depending on how much Chi I used, but I couldn’t impact it using my physical body. In other words, my body moved automatically. You couldn’t tweak a skill’s force or aim with subtle precision. Honestly, I’d never tried, since I usually blasted or slashed through things when using skills. But if I ever needed to use one against a human… holding back would probably be impossible. Not that I ever wanted to test that on a person. Still, I wanted to learn how to control my skills.