lost in this new world (douluo dalu)

"How did it go?" Lena said while brewing something.

"You sensed my presence even when I am trying to hide it?" Sai said as he opened the door of the house.

"You're a thousand years early to be able to conceal your presence from me, so… answer my question," Lena said with a grin on her face.

"Well… I awakened my martial spirit, and it was a knife, but…" Sai didn't know how to explain.

"But?"

"I also felt something—the same spirit energy as my knife also flew through my body. I think maybe I awakened two martial spirits," Sai tried his best to explain clearly.

"Hmm, so you have two spirits: a tool-type and a body-type martial spirit. The important thing is, do you have spirit energy?" Lena looked at him with curiosity.

"I am a level 1. Wait a second… what did you just say? A body-type spirit? And you didn't even react when I said I have two martial spirits? I read every book in this village, but I didn't hear of body-type spirits or anyone having two spirits!" Sai was surprised by her reaction.

"Of course, you will not know anything if your source of information is this village. Even though having two martial spirits is rare, there are multiple cases of it every hundred years. But…"

(Do you mean I'm not special? What happened to my reincarnator status?) Sai was a bit sad hearing the news.

"About your body spirit, I know of multiple cases in history that had a body-type spirit, but sadly, none of them knew anything about their spirit, so they were considered normal people."

"Well, you are lucky since you have a tool spirit and some spirit power."

(Everything I fed you and everything you went through was because I knew you would have bad talent. But how can my child be mediocre?) Lena had a faint smile while thinking.

"Mom, I won't ask you how you know so much, but there is only one favor I want. Can you teach me how to increase my level and become stronger?" (She clearly has an incredible background, and that's better for me.)

"That's what I was going to do. Oh, and don't call me Mom."

"Now sit in front of me. We will start now."

(So fast? Why do I feel like everything is going as she expected?) Sai thought as he sat in front of her.

"Close your eyes and try to sense the spirit energy inside of you."

(Isn't this just cultivation, like in all these novels—gathering and refining natural energy to your own?)

"Okay, I will start now." (Focus… focus… you are a genius, Sai. You can do it.)

(Hmm… no matter how much time passed, I couldn't sense anything. Am I really talentless?) Fear went through him as this thought crossed his mind.

"Mom… I can't sense anything," Sai said in sadness.

"Well, of course. That's why I prepared this," Lena said as she gave Sai a cup filled with something that had a herbal scent.

"As you drink this, sense the energy that enters your body, then try to find something similar to it inside your body."

"Why didn't you give me this before?"

"I was just checking your talent," Lena said with a disappointed voice.

Sai knew the outcome of that test, but he didn't ask her anything to maintain his dignity.

(Hmm… I can see it. I can see the energy enter my body. That's damn cool. Now I need to find the same energy as this inside my body.) Sai was happy from the new sense he got to experience.

(There it is, under my belly—a pile of energy that doesn't move at all.)

"I found it," Sai said loudly.

"Good. You will find nine points in your body that have no spirit energy. Try to control the energy you found and fill one of these points."

Doing as she said, the energy moved to the empty point just under his throat.

(I just need to fill it with this energy.) He started pumping his energy into the hollow point, but the energy couldn't enter.

(As expected, a level 1 won't be able to open his points.) Lena thought as she observed Sai.

(There is a barrier that I can't break guarding the point. I don't have enough spirit energy to break the barrier.) Sai started thinking again, trying to find a solution.

(Oh right, maybe I can use the energy from the thing I drank just now.) As he thought that, he found that energy in his body and guided it toward the point.

He felt like there was glass shattering in his body, and an immense amount of pain started to hinder his brain function.

(Well, this pain doesn't compare to what I felt back then.) As he thought that, the barrier broke, and energy started flowing to the point.

(Maybe it's as painful as the pain I felt back then…) This was his final thought before losing consciousness.

"This is bad. He will die if I don't act immediately." (This idiot. How did he break the point on his first try? Impossible… Did he use the energy from the elixir? That's foreign energy—he shouldn't be able to control it.)

Lena panicked. Even though she found Sai a nuisance and a headache, after spending six years with him, she came to see him as her own.

(Nothing will happen to you under my watch.)

She brought something that was covered in jade, and that bottle looked like something out of this world.

(Here.) For her, his life came before anything else. She poured the contents of the bottle into Sai's mouth, and like that, he regained his heartbeat, and his body returned to normal.

"If not for the strong body he built as he grew and the elixirs I gave him before, he wouldn't have survived that. Well, it was worth it. He is alive."

"Xiao Sai, my son," she said, then sat and looked at his face in peace.

...

"What is this dream? Mom treating me nicely? Truly a weird dream."