Depthless Hunger

Since the Pureflower sect had given her access to all their medicinal resources, Omilaena had a truly excellent opportunity for thievery. And yet, despite that temptation, she was focused only on finding a solution. Cultivation resources seemed ephemeral compared to the real prize of understanding: a little qi would quickly become obsolete, but grasping another fundamental principle would mean a true step upward.

After another session with the matriarch, this one much more careful, Omilaena had virtually confirmed her theory: the absent sparks of soul within her had corresponded to qi and chakra. There was still a flickering mote of mana, similar to those she remembered. That was immensely suggestive that Omilaena's entire theory was right.

There was a marginal chance, highly improbable, that Omilaena's memory was inaccurate. She decided that she was okay with risking everything on this potential breakthrough.

Based on that theory, she had modified the last Divine Remedy Pill by bathing it in mana. She didn't have the skill to melt it down and reformulate it entirely, not with cultivation-style alchemy, but she could modify the effects with a new layer. Most of the rest would boil down to supportive medicine, but she honestly didn't care about that.

Omilaena sat alone in the workroom, staring at the pill in front of her.

She knew that souls only contained a limited number of capacities, corresponding to the seven aspects of power she had read from the alien text. But that didn't stop differences from appearing, such as the "Cultivation Aspect" being different with pure cultivation, Krysali crystals, and Manticore tribe tattoos. She didn't think those were just minor variations, or additions that had no effect, there was some sort of fundamental property that differed.

One thing she had learned from the Great Library of Traeton was that different forms of energy could fill different aspects. Though she hadn't seen it, she was sure that it should be possible to cultivate using mana or chakra, even if that didn't come naturally. Yet it couldn't be as simple as "mana cultivation" being a different system, because all the ones she'd seen were based on qi.

What still bothered her was that she wasn't sure how to square that idea of seven capacities with all the different fusions and additions that she'd seen. The idea that these were simply using entire capacities to boost their power was incompatible with the evidence. And Kir Mei Bai had burned out an aspect of qi without harming her core cultivation, so it had to be two fundamentally different things.

"These are the best they could do," Zin Nim said as she entered, and set a box down on the table beside her. Normally that might have been distracting, but Omilaena just jerked upright and grabbed her wrist.