As the ten-minute mark was crossed, Alex observed that the pearl of Qi that had settled in below Natasha's Navel had all but disappeared, leaving an infinitesimally faint outline of its presence. That was when the dragoness he was talking to infused Qi into Natasha's body once again. His host used the same set of movements as before to guide the Qi to her core before it formed into the pearl once again.
Alex attempted to view the process with Xialing as well to see if he could get any references, but he wasn't bonded with her. While he could feel the presence of the energy in her body and its rough location, he wouldn't be able to get any concrete information without performing a much more invasive investigation, something that he wasn't interested in considering how Natasha was treating Xialing as a daughter figure.
He continued examining the effects of the Dragon's Qi on Natasha and whether he could somehow interfere with the process to expedite it. He had enough control over Natasha's biology to be able to manipulate things in a way that whatever the Qi was stimulating, he could try to use his EP to stimulate it instead, presumably expediting the awakening process.
At the two-hour mark of the training, he finally identified the presence of Natasha's actual Qi core, or her Dan Tian as the Dragon called it. He couldn't exactly sense the core but was merely sensing the presence of the Dragon's Qi that entered it, allowing him to correctly identify the ethereal construct's presence and nature.
[While Bioenergy is a far more advanced form of life energy, it is not made to be manipulated by humans. Qi, however, is. If I simplify things, both Qi and Bioenergy are aspects of the Life Energy of a human. Bioenergy can be considered the core of Life, while Qi can be considered a mere byproduct.] The Dragoness's words didn't make things completely clear for Alex.
He continued petting the scales above her snout while swimming in the water in front of her. [So if I try to use a metaphor, the Bioenergy that a human possesses is like the bone marrow while the Qi is like the blood that is produced?] He asked.
[In a very simplified, loose definition, something like that, yes. Pure Bioenergy seems to be a limited resource for each human, but stimulating the Qi core allows the human to produce Qi. So, while it will take some time, as long as you can understand how Qi works, I see no reason for you to be unable to stimulate your partner's awakening of Qi. You might even be able to expedite it if you can understand things.]
[What do you think about Xialing? How long will it take for her to awaken Qi? Considering her lineage is very strong on both paternal and maternal sides, I assume that her talents in this area are immense.]
[If she was an adult? A few hours of training at most. But she is a child. For now, she needs prolonged gentle stimulation of Qi. Not only will it help her grow much better, but it will also make her much more compatible with Qi. I do this for all the young children in the village. Sadly, it still isn't enough, causing most of them to be unable to awaken to Qi in their lifetime. At best, they can use weapons that harness their innate Qi. But those are all external means.]
[So Yang Nan's words of the process taking a year were true …]
[Yes. She doesn't come from a place of malice, you know. She cares for her niece and is grateful to you for bringing her to Ta Lo.]
As Alex continued chatting with the dragon and discussing Qi and Bioenergy, the three hours of Qi training ended, and the trio went back to their residence to rest for a while before the next training commenced. Xialing would train with her rope dart, while Natasha just trained in hand-to-hand combat. As for Alex, he was happy to stay back and explore the rest of the dimension. He had a long-term idea that he was thinking about eventually implementing, but it depended on the viability. What was most important was whether or not Wanda would end up taking over the Chaos Dimension.
…
The next few days passed in the blink of an eye as Alex continued studying Qi and its effects on Natasha and, to some extent, on Xialing as well.
During that time, he continued communicating with the dragoness as well, getting her to tell him all sorts of insights about Qi and, in turn, telling her about his Bioenergy.
As night fell, Alex and Natasha were cuddling in bed.
"I think I've figured something out with this Qi business …" Alex spoke while rubbing Natasha's butt.
"Have you now?" She spoke.
"Mhm," He nodded. "I believe that as long as you can awaken Qi, I will be able to consciously extract EP from you without any negative side effects. While the process will lead to me consuming the Qi in your body, that can always be regenerated naturally as long as the core of your lifeforce is unharmed. At least as long as I can work out the correct kind of training regime in regards to Qi training and regeneration, that is."
"Don't you already get a passive amount of EP each day from me? From the bond that we have."
"Yes, I do, but I'm not planning to form the same primary bond with the Widows. Or with the forces that I will develop in the future. They will always stay at the tertiary level, no matter what. Out of the Widows, only Yelena has a secondary bond with me."
Natasha hummed in thought before asking, "I've never asked you about it. But why don't you just regularly extract a small amount of EP from the widows if you need it so badly? Is that not viable?"
"No," Alex shook his head. "EP is a limited resource. It's like the lifespan of a person. If I extract EP from a person, it will harm them, immensely so. Qi, on the other hand, is a resource that can be naturally regenerated without any issues. I think that the blood and bone marrow analogy works very well for it. Where Qi is the blood, and Bioenergy is the bone marrow."
"If you extract the blood of a person, it will regenerate after a few days. But the marrow is much worse."
"Exactly. That's why I want to awaken Qi for the Widows. Not only will it enhance their natural capabilities, it will allow me to extract a steady stream of EP from them with no actual harm to them."
"Can you help all of them awaken their Qi?" She asked him with a raised brow.
"That's the plan, at least," Alex said. "It will still take me a while to develop a working system for it, but eventually, I should be able to awaken Qi for all of the Widows, making them much stronger."
"Wouldn't the regular extraction of Qi also stagnate their abilities?" She asked him.
"No, actually. If anything, it should stimulate their growth. You haven't noticed it, but Ying Nan consumes Qi whenever she is teaching us or performing those Tai Chi movements. She doesn't let it all stay inside her body. As it is consumed, the deficiency is naturally filled up as she continues training. This both enhances her physique and her Qi capacity," Alex explained.
"So you will finally be able to use my Widows as your personal EP batteries that only get more efficient with time?" Natasha asked with a teasing smile.
"I've invested a good amount of my EP and mental processing toward them. It's the least they can do. Especially since they won't even experience any negative effects from it, they might even chalk up the whole Qi thing to an ability that comes with the suit."
"I'm curious …" Natasha trailed off as Alex waited patiently for her to speak. "About this whole bond thing … These primary, secondary, and tertiary bonds that you talk about. What's the deal with all of this?"
"Are you really interested?" Alex said. "I don't usually talk about these things so that you don't feel uncomfortable."
"It's fine," She said. "Tell me about it. Tell me about all of your bonds. I truly want to know."
"Fine," Alex said as his status panel appeared in front of his eyes. Over the past three time-dilated years on Gaia, he had made a couple of modifications to it.
Skill acquisition was still the same without much to show for it. He hadn't gained any new skills since the previous time and didn't feel like trying to get new ones either.
‹SKILL ACQUISITION›
«EP/Bioenergy Units: 2789»
«Cosmic Energy Units: 0.0000»
«Manipulation Abilities»:: ‹Advanced Lightning Manipulation› ‹Basic Blood Manipulation›
«Innate Abilities»:: ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›
«Derived Abilities»:: ‹Low Cosmic Physique Creation› ‹True Sixth Sense› ‹Inventory› ‹Advanced Camouflage› ‹Elemental Immunity› ‹Hypnosis›
«Magical Abilities»:: ‹High Magic Affinity› ‹High Chaos Affinity› ‹Host of the Scarlet Witch›
«Authorities»:: ‹Time (2.5%)› ‹Mind (2.5%)› ‹Soul (5%)›
«Cosmic Abilities»:: ‹Low Cosmic Manipulation (Incomplete)›
He'd added the new term for EP that the dragon had told him about and removed the abbreviation from Cosmic Energy completely, leaving it as Cosmic Energy units, which were still zero. Even after multiple years on Gaia, he hadn't found any suitable direction for generating Cosmic Energy.
‹HOST PANEL›
‹Primary Hosts›
{ «Status- Host #1»
«Name: Gwen Stacy (Ghost Spider) (Earth-65)»
«Bonding Rate: 70%»
«Bonding Level: 5»
«Powers: Low Cosmic Physique— Spider Sense— Wall Crawling— Bio-Electricity— Camouflage— Blood Berserker»
}
{ «Status- Host #2»
«Name: Gwendolyn Stacy (Research Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 75%»
«Bonding Level: 3»
«Powers: Superhuman Physique— Superhuman Intelligence»
}
{ «Status- Host #3»
«Name: Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) (MCU Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 44% -> 60%»
«Bonding Level: 3»
«Powers: Superhuman Physique— Melee Mastery— Espionage Mastery»
}
{ «Status- Host #4»
«Name: Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) (MCU Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 70%»
«Bonding Level: 5»
«Powers: Low Cosmic Physique»
}
{ «Status- Host #6 -> 5»
«Name: Laura Kinney (X-23) (Earth-Z)»
«Bonding Rate: 45% -> 60%»
«Bonding Level: 6»
«Abilities: Low Cosmic Physique — Cosmic Healing Factor — Bone Claws (Vibranium-Adamantium Alloy) — Blood Berserker II — Melee Mastery — Weapons Mastery — Espionage Mastery»
}
{ «Status- Host #7 -> 6»
«Name: Jane Foster (Mighty Thor)»
«Bonding Rate: 2%»
«Bonding Level: 2»
«Powers: Low Cosmic Physique — Lightning Divinity (Mjolnir) — Bifrost Summon (Hofund) — Cosmic Energy Manipulation (???)»
}
‹Secondary Hosts› (Direct Line of Communication)
{ «Yelena Belova»
«Cindy Moon»
«Felicia Hardy»
«Ayesha (Sovereign)»
}
‹Tertiary Hosts› (Automated Systems)
{Black Widow Division - 105
Black Widows - 96 (Expand) Black Widow Trainees - 7 (Expand) Kamala Khan and Laura Kinney (Tethered)
Prisoner Farm - 38
Mary Jane Watson Prisoners - 37 (Expand)
}
Yep, everything tracks … Alex thought to himself as he looked over the status sheet for all his hosts.
He was still not sure of the whole 75% bonding rate situation that resulted in Gwen creating a split persona, which resulted in him actively slowing down the bonding rate for his hosts — even forcefully capping it at 70%.
As for MJ's change from primary to tertiary host … That had been a long time coming, as well as the experimental prisoner farm. But that's a story for another time.
"What do you wish to know about?" Alex asked Natasha.
***
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