The most crucial factor in my plan was the neutral Arcane Element.  No matter where it was, Arcane mana was always easy to find.  It was the most plentiful and because of that, it was totally underrated.  Fire could burn people, Nature was mostly used for fancy healing spells, Darkness was all icy and stuff… Basically, every Element had their own niche, which attracted cultivators for various reasons.

However, Arcane was neutral.  It didn’t really ‘do’ anything; it was just ‘there’.  Since it was so omnipresent, Enchanters and Inscriptionists tended to use it as fuel.  It could be turned into any other Element pretty easily, but there was always a cost.  Efficiency-wise, it was always faster and more effective to just go with the Element you wanted from the beginning.

Like I said before, most people just don’t have the Innate Talent required to fool with more than one Element at a time.  Although, the most important factor was whether or not they had the proper Cultivation Method or Manual.  If they didn’t know what they were doing, they could die while experimenting.

Anyway, remember that rubbery transparent bubble separating the liquid Darkness from that blinding Light?  Well, that was super-dense Arcane mana.  I obviously wasn’t expecting to be able to create something like that right away, but that was one of my far-off goals.

I sighed dramatically as I watched most of the green gas within my Dantian rapidly vanishing.

“L-Levi, wha-what are you doing~?!” Xiaotong was the first to notice the cataclysmic loss of Nature Qi.

Even Legion roared “Stop!  Bad!  Why?!” The two of them were panicking because I was basically just throwing away their food.  Well, the little Demonic Thunder Spirit was genuinely worried about me, but the cockroach swarm literally only cared about eating.

“Don’t freak out, I just don’t have enough room in my Dantian for so much Nature Qi… I’m going to start refilling it in a moment though, so neither of you should be affected.” After making that announcement, I stopped pushing out the green gas.  Then I quickly used my ‘real’ eyes to look at the back of my right hand.  My level dropped down to zero, but I was still technically an Apprentice.

In case you don’t already know this, when you use mana or just lose it, your level will drop.  The Stage has to do with the Dantian organ itself and the state of your body.  If you released ‘all’ of the Qi in your Dantian, you might drop down a Stage after a certain amount of time passes and the muscles atrophy.  The point is that as long as you take some pills, eat some fancy food, drink some medicine or do some kind of ritual, there isn’t much danger in dropping down to level-zero for a few hours or even days.

Xiaotong murmured “I-I’m so-sorry for yelling… I-I just thought you ma-might be in danger.”

I snickered, whispering “Sorry for not warning you ahead of time… I’ve decided to change my cultivation up a bit.  You should still have plenty of Nature Qi though, so you can go to back to sleep if you want.”

She giggled, muttering “No, I wanna watch… Maybe I could help you somehow?  I don’t really know that much though…”

When I returned to my Dantian, the green fog had shrunk to the point where it was only a hundred times larger than the sphere of really thick crimson gas.  As I breathed in, I could see loads of different Elements starting to flood the area outside of the green orb.  In comparison to the Nature Qi, the new mana was super-thin and intangible.  It was almost all transparent Arcane Qi, with a few clouds of aquamarine floating around.  I kept the clear stuff and pushed out the rest.

Xiaotong asked “Levi, what are you doing with all that tasteless junk?  Shouldn’t you just get rid of it?”

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, then I started compressing with all my strength.  I held it for three minutes, then breathed in again.  It was a really slow process, but within an hour, I had managed to create my first ‘bubble’.

“Welp, now it’s time to start phase two!” Honestly, the first part was pretty simple and easy compared to the second.  Also, Xiaotong went to sleep about five minutes into watching me cultivate. “I kinda wish that I had more than one Dantian though…”

My legs were getting cramps, so I stood up and started pissing off the left side of the boat.  Everything takes time… 

Even for Eternal Deities, there’s always ‘time’.  It’s something that we never have enough of, you know?  In order to do anything or nothing, we always end up sacrificing time.  Of course, that’s also what makes everything worthwhile.  If everyone had an eternity, then there would be no point in doing anything at all.  You would always keep saying “Well, I’ll do it later…” But you wouldn’t though; we wouldn’t accomplish anything, ever.

Ten years, it seems like a lot, but it really isn’t.  No matter how old or young you are, your entire life can change in an instant, so even an hour can seem like forever sometimes.

Cultivation was pretty boring and monotonous if you only did things the ‘easy’ or ‘simple’ way.  The more difficult and complex a task was, the more quickly it will seem like time passes for you.  I guess that was one of the reasons why I decided to choose my new path.  Actually, I always knew that I would end up needing to do something about it eventually, but I just kept putting it off.

That Goddess had told me “You need to combine all nine Elements you lazy twat!”  Okay, that’s not what she said, but it’s how her words made me feel!

Once I sat back down next to the snoring beauty, I entered a state of ‘meditation’ and sent my Spiritual Awareness inside of my Dantian again.  As I had anticipated, large amounts of silver Yin Qi was swirling around outside of my Arcano-Sphere: The Arcane bubble that isolated my green ball of gas.

There was also a decent amount of light-green Nature Qi from the tea that I had drank earlier.  My food wasn’t totally digested yet, but the majority of the mana-related nutrients were already dealt with.

“Now comes the tricky part, hehehe~.” In case you haven’t noticed, mana that’s already inside of your body can be manipulated according to your will.  If you can’t ‘see’ or imagine it though, it would be impossible.

I reached out my illusory hands and started ‘pushing’ the green gas through the Arcane bubble.  It was already relatively dense compared to the small spots of Nature Qi that came from the air I was inhaling.  Then I gathered all the silver smoke together into a ball and made sure there was a thick layer of clear mana isolating it, before I started compressing it.

The general rule was that as long as I didn’t intentionally manipulate the various ethereal substances, they would stay together for the most part.  I worried about the Yin Qi slipping through the transparent barrier, but it simply didn’t happen.

In the end, I managed to create a second ‘cell’… It only took me two hours.  That’s actually pretty impressive and if I was in a normal, safe and comfortable environment, I probably would have been impressed with my progress.  

However, I was on a tiny sailboat, in the middle of the ocean.  The morning sun was starting to rise on the distant horizon and there was no land or ships in sight.  Those waves were so large that if we failed to ‘ride’ them properly, we would capsize.  Every few minutes, I would nearly have a panic attack, because it was that ridiculous.

Aside from myself, everyone else was a hardened sailor, so they weren’t even fazed by the constant near-death experiences.  Mei, Liara and Johan were still sleeping for fuck’s sake.  As for Granny Arin, I opened my eyes just in time to see her have an orgasm.  She was using some kind of giant magical golden dildo to ‘cultivate’ her kinky Yang Qi Method.  It’s not like she could always find a bunch of random strangers to have sex with under the circumstances, so toys were pretty important.