The Place Where Everything Begins

When he finished inspecting his upper dantian's current situation, Jeremy discovered that mana particles divided into two parts...

To be exact, they were now trying to separate from one another...

That's why there were two mana portions within Jeremy's upper dantian.

The first one being his original purest mana particles moving here and there freely within the dantian, while the second one being the newly arrived inferior mana particles acting like scaredy cats huddling together near dantian's border.

As for the whirlpool and mana liquid at the dantian's center, they remained the same without being bothered by any of the two sides.

'Ah... It is as I've thought.'

'The hierarchy between the two sides is too vast as they are distancing themselves from one another. Then, doesn't it mean that a mana particle is really a full-fledged living being as in Grand Wizard Judarth's assumption?'

'No, the behavior of establishing hierarchy might just be a simple reaction caused by its unique chemistry or universal laws imposed by the universe, as living things need to have cells and are capable of reproducing, but mana doesn't meet those conditions. Hmm... if mana is not a living thing; is it a semi-living thing then?'

'Anyhow, it is very interesting. It seems like I will have to research more into this topic later on.'

Having finished those theoretical thoughts, Jeremy changed his focus back to his upper dantian's interior.

After seeing that he now had two types, or in fact, two qualities of mana within one dantian, while one side acted like royalty, another side acted like peasantry.

While those royalties were running amok within the dantian's dark space, those peasantries were huddling together in fear at the dantian's edge.

It was such a definitive hierarchy...

Upon inspecting for some more time, Jeremy still found nothing severe or detrimental from his mana being divided into two portions, as that reaction should be as expected, considering the difference in mana's quality of the two sides.

Jeremy was sure that no matter what he did towards them, for now, those mana particles would never be able to mix together.

They were like two different kinds...

They could not stay together for some reason...

'Am I lucky or unlucky to have the mana's quality of this magnitude?' Jeremy thought depressingly.

The reason why Jeremy thought he was unlucky was because...

Those occurrences alone had made him unable to cultivate and absorb mana particles in the atmosphere, causing him incapable of forming any more mana liquid at the dantians' disk spaces.

What did that even mean?

In a straightforward way, Jeremy concluded that he had no other way of making his three dantians replenish their own mana 'independently'.

In a roundabout way, it meant that as long as Jeremy didn't activate the 'Mage of Origin' title, he would be unable to advance to class 1 True Mage.

Nevertheless, there was still a way for Jeremy to replenish mana, and that way consisted of four steps.

The first step was to enter the realm of Mindful Body to gain absolute control over his own body.

Then Jeremy had to create the same vortex to connect its tail end with the dantian's protective layer.

Upon establishing the connection successfully, he needed to access the 10th stage of meditation to maintain the status quo of his dantian.

Lastly, Jeremy had to wait for low-quality mana from the outside world to be absorbed into his dantian forcefully.

Like that, after finishing all those four steps, Jeremy would get some inferior-quality mana into his dantians.

It was such an arduous process that would pay him off with only 3 or 4 percent of his total mana capacity.

Was it even worth his time and efforts in the first place, though?

Well, Jeremy didn't know it was worth his time and effort or not, but he was sure of one thing.

That one thing was the more mana he had, the better.

Knowing that he didn't have any other choice, Jeremy could only endure it and try to replenish his mana as soon as he finished resting.

Of course, those should be at least a day later, as his body and mind felt quite spent from entering the Mindful Body Realm and maintaining the 10th meditation stage for some hours.

When Jeremy finished inspecting and observing his upper dantian, he had suddenly thought of something interesting.

Well, the thing was actually an idea of experimentation.

The experiment was all about a way to advance into class 1 True Mage by using those inferior-quality mana particles and his own dantians as experimental objects.

As for how, it was to absorb those low-quality mana particles into his mana whirlpool forcefully. At the same time, he would try his best to convert that mana into the same type and quality of mana liquid situated within the disk at the whirlpool's center by using the said whirlpool as a compressor and converter.

Nonetheless, Jeremy chose to postpone that death wish for now.

That's right, Jeremy called it 'a death wish'.

As this experiment was a hundred times easier said than done...

The reason was simple...

As there was a particular rule within the magical world stating that 'If you don't want to die a dog's death, do not mess with your own dantian.'

That rule was simple, but it couldn't be more right.

Even for a former sage like him, trying to tamper with his mana whirlpool for more than 3 minutes was akin to playing with a hand grenade with 3 minutes timer before exploding.

It was that dangerous...

'Maybe, in the future, but definitely not now...' Jeremy thought while discarding the idea from his head.

As the idea came fast, it went away from Jeremy's head even faster.

'Alright, I've got my mana back to 89% comprised of 85% purest mana, while another 4% were those mana particles of somewhat mediocre quality, that is when compared to mine. At least, I can cast two additional 0th tier spells with that additional amount of mana. No regrets.'

Afterward, Jeremy exited his meditating state and then opened his eyes slowly.

Upon taking a quick look around, Jeremy saw that other people were currently doing their own things.

Some people were practicing with swords, spears, maces, and other weapons, while their practicing targets being something akin to stationary wooden dummies that should have been bought from the shop.

Whereas some people were erecting tents, making campfires to cook food, sharpening their weapons, talking with other people to lessen their nervousness, assembling makeshift barricades and simple traps to defend against the next wave of monsters, and so on.

'It seems like Mitchell and Eddie are doing good as they've arranged various tasks for those people thoroughly.'

After seeing that some people were erecting tents to take a nap and for the wounded people to rest in, Jeremy suddenly felt regret that he didn't erect his own tent before meditating.

Of course, he had a tent inside his left glove...

Bad enough, due to having to sit on the solid cave-like floor for a long time, Jeremy obviously had leg cramps symptoms.

Having stood up with difficulty, Jeremy sauntered to where Eddie and Mitchell were standing and talking.

'Now that I think of it. Even though it was unintentional, it was quite a good move to make everyone lose consciousness before the commotion broke out, as everything had turned out completely different from my past life.'

'At least this time they are more united with the duos' as their leaders.'

...

[A/N: Ahem... Jeremy also had another big tent within his *cough* pants *cough*]