NOVEL WEB 29. Piercing Gaze
Constantine strode through the forest, his boots sinking into the damp, spongy soil beneath a patchwork of fallen leaves. The earthy smell of wet leaves and trees filled the cool autumn air. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the thinning canopy of colorful leaves.
He looked absently toward the sky, his mind drifting. Inhaling deeply, he let the crisp air fill his lungs, clearing the lingering fog of his thoughts.
A crooked grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he raised his hand, watching the familiar heat coil around his fingertips like liquid fire. He stirred it with his will, pulling at the warmth within him, feeling it drag and churn, spiraling into a vortex of energy, flickering and twisting like flames eager to escape.
“Implant, end the training program.”
The heat drained from him instantly, leaving a strange, empty coolness behind. He flexed his fingers, the tingling gone, but a sense of satisfaction lingered. He stared at his hand, reflecting and comparing the heat he just felt to the real thing. ‘It feels like the real thing. It also reacts to my commands in the same way mana would.’
With another deep breath, Constantine closed his eyes, focusing inward. He tugged at the fiery mass in his chest. Slowly, he guided the energy upward, feeling it snake through his torso like molten metal. His arm tingled as the heat traveled downward like a burning waterfall, gathering in his right palm.
When he opened his eyes again, his fingers were alight with shimmering heat, warping the air around them, and distorting light in unnatural waves.
‘Implant, start the simulation program, but activate it only for my left arm. Load the last snapshot.’ he commanded. The heat returned to his left hand. He moved his hands side by side, watching with a quiet fascination as the two masses of warmth swirled in perfect sync, spiraling slowly, steadily.
"It feels the same. Implant you can end it," he murmured. The heat in his left hand flickered out. With a sharp flick of his right wrist, the heat in the other hand vanished as well. His grin widened—this was working even better than he’d hoped, despite the limited data he'd fed into the network.
‘It might be just replicating the sensations of manipulating mana but it should be enough.’
A sudden crackling noise came from the thicket to his left, startling him out of his thoughts. His body tensed. His hand shot up, ready to channel mana at a moment’s notice.
From the underbrush not that far away, a small rabbit emerged, its horn sparking with bluish electricity. Constantine almost laughed aloud. The creature stood still, its tiny nose twitching in the cold air. A faint wave of nostalgia washed over him—there was a time when the sight of a horned rabbit would have terrified him.
‘Not anymore. I have grown up since then.’
He raised his palm, and runes etched into his skin, one after another, glowing in faint pulsing light. ‘Too far.’ he calculated, measuring the distance between himself and the rabbit. Even with the reach granted by the Move Rune, the farthest he could shoot was around a third of the length of a tennis court.
Constantine advanced slowly, careful not to startle the creature. The rabbit’s gaze remained locked on him, its horn crackling with brighter sparks. Still, Constantine remained unfazed. He took another step, his movements slow, lowering his stance to move as quietly as possible.
The rabbit stomped its small feet, the leaves beneath it rustling softly. Simultaneously, the lightning sparking around its horn intensified. Constantine's heart raced with the thrill of the moment. ‘The rabbit lacks runes to focus its lightning. It can only strike in a small circle around itself. I can easily outrange it.’
The bracelet around his wrist began to glow with increasing intensity. The core embedded in it pulsed like an ember in the darkness, heat radiating against his skin. He took another careful step, watching the rabbit's horn as it crackled, its sparks intensifying.
Suddenly, the rabbit twitched its ears, its instincts picking up on the shift in mana. In a flash, it darted away, moving in a blur of motion toward the undergrowth.
Constantine didn’t hesitate. With a swift motion, flames erupted from his hand, exploding to life as a searing stream of fire shot forward, engulfing the bushes and the fleeing rabbit. The bushes lit up in an instant. The dry branches crackled and snapped as the flames devoured them, bright orange tongues licking the air. He could feel the heat washing over his face, as he lowered his palm.
The flames continued to burn. Smoke rose in thin, curling tendrils, swirling lazily into the air and mingling with the scent of charred wood and ash.
‘The monsters must have a much better perception toward mana than me.’ He thought, his mind piecing together the events. The creature had reacted the moment he activated the core in his bracelet. ‘Just another weakness I need to solve.’
He sighed, frustration gnawing at him. While his firepower had grown considerably, his body remained vulnerable and squishy. A single arrow, a well-aimed blade, and he’d be dead. Even his senses lacked—he couldn’t even detect the rabbit until it had reacted to his presence.
As the flames slowly died down, Constantine’s thoughts deepened. ‘Mana shield is still too far away.’ Although he theorized about using pure mana to form near-impregnable barriers, he couldn't even form a proper core yet, let alone manifest an external barrier. ‘In the future possible, for now, I need something else.’
But then, a sudden thought struck him. His eyes widened as the memory resurfaced. ‘Wasn’t something like this in the manual?’ He was sure he'd read it somewhere. It made perfect sense—cultivators had to have a way to protect themselves beyond merely hardening their bodies with mana.
‘Implant, summarize the first three substages of the second stage of cultivation,’ he commanded with urgency.
Lines of glowing white text flashed across his vision.
<<------------>>
Aura hand formation
Process: By oversaturating the hand’s skin with QI and actively moving it through the tissue, cultivators prevent absorption, forming a thin, semi-permanent film of QI.
Effects: This film absorbs portions of physical trauma and shields from external QI. Effectiveness increases with the thickness of the film.
<<------------>>
Aura hand stabilisation
Process: Constant repetition of the previous sub-stage.
Effects: The film becomes permanent and no longer requires conscious effort to maintain.
<<------------>>
Aura skin
Process: The previous process is repeated for the entire body.
Effects: The film covers the entire skin surface of the cultivator, and when excited, the skin glows faintly.
<<------------>>
‘This could also work for me.’ Constantine mused, though a small frown creased his brow. It wasn’t perfect. Forming an aura required diverting mana to his skin, which would slow his core growth. Still, the concept was solid. He’d just have to try and modify the technique to fit more with his one path.
His footsteps crunched softly over the scorched ground, the ash rustling beneath his boots. Heat radiated upward, but it was tolerable. As he walked, his thoughts swirled with ideas. ‘I have offensive spells, so maybe defensive ones would also work.’
He glanced at the rabbit’s smoldering corpse, leaning down to extract the core with his knife. His hands worked absentmindedly while his mind wandered to the pattern from the petrifying hog. He’d never had the time to study it properly, his schedule of the past week occupied by the creation of his mana simulator, but the idea nagged at him.
Suddenly, his ears pricked up. A loud, distant crack echoed through the trees, followed by a deep rumble that sent a flock of birds screeching into the sky. Constantine's head snapped toward the sound, his heart pounding with renewed alertness. His body tensed.
Constantine pocketed the freshly cut core and rose swiftly to his feet. His instincts screamed at him as more snapping sounds resounded in the distance. Growls echoed, the forest around him turning disturbingly quiet except for the incoming sounds. The sounds were getting closer. Fast.
Without thinking, he turned and sprinted, his legs already in motion before his mind fully registered the decision. Mana surged through his veins, his speed increasing with every step. The forest blurred around him, branches and roots flying past as his boots pounded against the soft earth.
The noise got even closer—another tree collapsed, even closer this time. He glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the trees buckling in the distance—a flash of light, then a weakened growl, almost like a whimper.
‘Something is fighting!’ His mind pieced together the situation.
The crashing and growling ceased abruptly, leaving a silence in its wake. Only the rustling leaves remained.
Constantine’s breath came in heavy gasps as he darted behind a large tree, pressing his back against the rough bark. His legs burned from the effort, but his expression remained calm. ‘The battle is over. That means there is a winner.’
His heart pounded, his mind racing between two choices—run and risk making noise, or stay hidden and risk that the victor could already sense him.
Then, a voice—calm, human, and crystal clear—cut through the silence.
“Mortal... no, you are not entirely mortal. I sense the flow of Qi within your veins.”
Constantine’s blood ran cold. Cold sweat trickled down his back. ‘A cultivator. So it was a cultivator battling some beast.’ He pressed himself tighter against the tree. His mind raced as his hand itched, uncertain whether to draw upon his mana.
The voice continued, “Strange... your Qi is chaotic, unrefined. No proper circulation, no discernible meridian paths. Your body reeks of QI, yet it is untouched by the rigors of true cultivation. Your muscle is unrefined so you are not yet a cultivator.”
Constantine’s chest tightened. The cultivator could see right through him even though he couldn’t even tell from where the voice was coming. ‘Perhaps some high-grade Qi-perception technique... coupled with a method to obscure his own presence.’
“A curious anomaly indeed. To possess such raw Qi and yet lack the most basic foundation of cultivation... Hmph. Even your physical form bears the frailty of a mortal, your muscles starved of true power.”
Constantine remained silent, a flicker of hope stirring in his heart. Perhaps the cultivator had misinterpreted the strange state of his body and mana.
“There is... talent in you, though,” the voice mused. “To have so much QI without even cultivating and to use it to move faster than mortals should. Intriguing...”
Constantine’s heart thudded loudly in his chest. ‘So this is how my current state looks to normal cultivators.’
Suddenly, the voice adopted a more formal tone. “I am Julius, an inner disciple of the Frozen Peak Sect.”
Constantine heard of the sect from the girl in the village—they were the ones collecting taxes for protection against monsters. ‘Hunting monsters in the forest. This must be the reason for his presence.’ He clenched his teeth and fell to his knees, bowing low despite not knowing where the cultivator stood.
‘He introduced himself... and I am still alive. That must mean he does not intend to kill me—yet.’ He swiftly deduced, hoping he was right.
“In seven moons,” Julius continued, “the sect will open its gates to those who seek the path of cultivation. You should present yourself. Even as a mere menial disciple, it would be a fate far above that of a common mortal.”
Constantine almost snickered. He didn’t desire to be some disciple. He had better things to do than to slave for some sect. He could already see how he, someone without any background, would only get used and would have to fight tooth and nail to get anything out of it.
Then, silence. Utter, terrifying silence. He listened, waiting for the cultivator to speak again, but he didn’t. He knelt, his forehead still pressed to the earth, uncertain if the cultivator had left or still lingered nearby, watching.
‘He saw right through me.’ Constantine’s thoughts raced. ‘I could feel mana from the man at the council, but not even close to this detail.’ At the very least the cultivator’s senses were sharper and had practiced a technique similar to QI sight.
His stomach churned with a sickening realization. He’d hoped to remain hidden between mortals, but now he knew his mana had already reached the level where cultivators could feel it.
‘This is not good.’ Constantine cursed silently. He’d spent so much time focusing on the core and studying the runes that he’d neglected other crucial aspects—his senses and ways to hide his mana emission.
‘I was lucky this time. He thinks I’m some untrained talent with potential. But if he knew the truth…’ His thoughts trailed off. He didn’t know how long his charade would last before his anomalous state became too glaring and how would normal cultivators react to what he was doing.