I became the Lord of the Eternal World in Tokyo.

Nanjo Aimi loosened her bow tie by running her fingertips under her neck and exhaled a smoke ring: "But don't let your guard down. The intensity of the attacks on the black phone booths increases in stages."

If you can't hold on any longer, it's best to stay with me for a while until it's exorcised.

After arriving at the abandoned building, within a few dozen seconds, Nanjo Manami deliberately released a portion of her aura, which had already permeated the entire building.

A demon-level human who came alone...

Countless crimson, bloodthirsty gazes shone from within the building, including several ghostly auras that had just arrived in the mortal world aboard the tide and were therefore relatively weak.

This building was originally a treasure trove where they could quickly recover from their exhaustion and injuries, and now a god-level blood prey was actually offering itself up to them.

A seasoned Red Oni general, his body covered in wounds, calmly commented, "Truly, lucky."

Suddenly, a cold wind arose.

The fierce wind made the loose hem of her dress flutter loudly, and twirled the strands of hair that were hanging in the air to one side.

But that's all.

The wind was so strong that it couldn't even disperse the smoke rings she exhaled.

Nanjo Manami raised her indifferent eyes, glanced at the screen, and then casually tapped her phone with her knuckles.

"Hold on."

—Then Uesugi Tetsuya will wait.

About a minute later, after a series of indescribable and eerie noises, Nanjo Manami's steady voice finally came through.

"Just tell me what you want from me."

Uesugi Tetsu asked, "Nanjo-nee, did you just encounter a demon?"

"Ah."

Nanjo Manami sat on the still-warm pile of corpses, took out a second cigarette to perk herself up.

She's going to be guarding this door all night tonight.

"Just a minor demon, easily dealt with."

Uesugi Tetsuya, without any suspicion, went straight to the point: "I want to know what the path selection for the Qi Sea is, and how I should choose this so-called path?"

He added a few words to prove that he had not obstructed official business.

"Because Ririko hasn't developed her Qi Sea yet, and I'm not very familiar with the other people in my contacts, I decided to call you, Nanjo-nee, after thinking it over."

"The Qi Sea Road? Why are you asking that?"

Nanjo Manami was a little confused.

The Corona Breathing Technique used by the Arakawa Ward Special Affairs Department does not support the cultivation of the Qi Sea at all.

In fact, the number of people in the entire Special Affairs Bureau who have cultivated their Qi Sea through the complete Corona Breathing Technique can be counted on one hand.

Aside from being easy to learn and relatively simple to understand, the Corona Breathing Method doesn't have any other major advantages.

If you're looking for a complete breathing technique that can cultivate the Qi Sea, then the Corona Breathing Technique would definitely be among the last few.

Thinking of this, Nanjo Manami paused for a moment.

—Given Uesugi Tetsu's personality, he generally doesn't talk about far-fetched things.

Since he's asking himself this question, it means that there's definitely a Qi Sea (energy center) inside his body.

Nanjo Manami finished the remaining half of her cigarette in one gulp, casually tossed it aside, stepped on the giant corpse of the Red Oni, and then rested her elbows on her thighs, supporting her chin.

In other words, Uesugi Tetsuya's body contains a sea of ​​qi without any attributes, and it was definitely not created by breathing techniques.

"This kid's got pretty good luck..."

No wonder he asked that question.

"Although information related to the Qi Sea is relatively scarce, it is not particularly valuable knowledge in essence."

Nanjo Manami called over the wet woman who was not far away.

"Put the handset on, I'll talk to you while I'm cleaning."

—The cleaning is naturally Xiao Ru's responsibility; she only needs to kill the animals.

The overseer, Nanjo, began to watch as the wet woman released water all over her body, washing away all the blood around her.

She explained slowly,

"Generally speaking, the Qi Sea is opened by breathing techniques after reaching the stage of 'Understanding All Apertures'."

The resulting sea of ​​qi will naturally possess the attributes of breathing techniques, with previously opened acupoints sitting in the center, thus inherently possessing a 'path'.

The nature of Qihai is determined by the acupoints, and the area and thickness of Qihai will continuously expand due to the Qi generated by the acupoints.

However, once the Qi Sea reaches a certain limit, the Qi generated by the acupoints will cancel out the Qi needed to maintain the Qi Sea—this is the origin of the upper limit of a Qi Sea.

Nanjo Ai-mi paused for a moment: "The above describes the general situation."

The acupoints opened up within the body will automatically determine the pathway of Qi Sea.

—Uesugi Tetsu quickly understood.

He used the empty sea of ​​qi that the mountain god had just opened up, so he skipped this step and naturally could not choose a path.

In the mountains and forests, Uesugi Tetsu, who had transformed into a four-tailed fox and disguised himself as a human, wandered around aimlessly, hoping to try his luck at this moment.

If you happen to encounter one or two lone demons, you'll gain hundreds of Soul Ash or a few Soul Spirit Points.

Why not do something that's easy to do?

"But you are different."

In the silence, Nanjo Manami's voice, emanating from the loudspeaker, carried far.

"In your case, you'll probably need to find some external objects to define the path."

External objects?

Uesugi Tetsu thought of the two demon incarnation cards he had thrown into his Qi Sea.

However, judging from the fact that his Qi Sea hadn't changed much before, it didn't seem like he had successfully defined the path.

Moreover, he can take out cards at will, which makes it even more impossible to define them—they cannot be taken out from the acupoints inside the body.

Nanjo Manami: "But there are some points to consider regarding how to define it."

"Commonly, one might seek out a master who practices a breathing method they admire and ask them to separate a portion of the core energy from the dantian and send it into their body, thus establishing a connection."

Thus, even those who have never practiced this breathing method can possess the exact same path and nature.

While this method offers many options and is fast, its foundation is not very solid, so I wouldn't recommend it for you.

Uesugi Tetsu listened attentively and wrote down all the key words and phrases.

"After that, it's about utilizing other extremely important things within oneself... such as sword principles, a sword heart after enlightenment, or the three flowers of essence, energy, and spirit."

Nanjo Ai-mi abruptly stopped halfway through her speech and changed the subject.

"However, you probably haven't mastered these more advanced techniques yet, so let's leave that aside for now."

Kenri and Kenshin Uesugi Tetsu both knew this.

The former is a path one can choose after swordsmanship reaches the expert level, while the latter is the "Sword Heart Clarity" cheat that brought him a lot of shock from the very beginning.

But these three flowers... can this thing be materialized?

Uesugi Tetsu scratched his head. Having practiced the Spirit Nourishing Technique, he did indeed have a deeper understanding of essence, energy, and spirit than ordinary people.

But it's limited to simple tasks like gathering, compressing, and releasing these three "qi" (vital energy).

He noted down this question, intending to discuss it with Ririko later—Nanjo Ai must have her reasons for not elaborating on it now.

Uesugi Tetsuya wouldn't question "how a teacher should teach a class".

Nanjo Manami: "In that case, Uesugi-kun, you'll have to use real external objects, rare materials, as the boundary marker for your Qi Sea."

"For example?" Uesugi Tetsu asked.

"For example, the sacred relics of the great Yin-Yang masters who cultivate the four paths, by placing those objects they left behind and touched for a long time into the Qi Sea, can define the path as one of the four paths."

There are also the Five Elements, and materials related to metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are plentiful, but their upper limits are generally not very high.

Besides these, what other sword fragments left behind by sword masters and sword saints can cause you to generate a sea of ​​sword energy...

In short, the nature of the Qi Sea is strongly correlated with the properties of the defining object itself.

After listening to Nanjo Ai's words, Uesugi Tetsu once again looked inward and saw two cards fighting back and forth in his dantian, giving off a feeling of "palace intrigue".

So he asked, "Is there a way to balance the various forces within the Qi Sea?"

What Uesugi Tetsu was thinking was,

—Since the cards that are transformed from demons can continuously generate energy, they can achieve the same effect as acupoints in expanding the Qi Sea.

—Then let's find a way to stop the cards from fighting amongst themselves and let them work together.

Uesugi Tetsu's intuition told him that using the transformation cards as the foundation of the Void Sea was absolutely the right choice.

This makes sense, because the transformation cards are "materials" that can be continuously upgraded in quality and star rating, rather than being static and inanimate objects.

Nanjo Ai's real intention was to try combining spirit control techniques, swordsmanship, and other powers into her Qi Sea, just like Uesugi Tetsu wanted to.

—This kid has quite a lot of ambition.

Nanjo Manami smiled and said, "In that case, let's choose the Five Elements. The cycle of the Five Elements perfectly matches your idea... mutual generation and mutual restraint, endless generation, and continuous cycle."

Hearing sporadic sounds coming from afar, Uesugi Tetsu turned his head and asked, somewhat puzzled,

"Nanjo-nee, didn't you say that the upper limit of the five elements is generally not very high?"

"I'm talking about ordinary people who define their Qi Sea using a single material, that is, one of the Five Elements," Nanjo Manami countered. "Uesugi-kun, are you an ordinary person?"

I think I... well, I don't think so either.

After receiving a silent response, Nanjo Manami continued,

"But the materials are really hard to find - since you've already chosen to have all five elements, you probably wouldn't even look at ordinary materials."

Uesugi Tetsu lightly stepped forward, quickly heading towards the direction where the demonic roars were growing louder: "That makes sense."

The phone went silent for a while, seemingly as Nanjo Ai was thinking.

After a while, after the sound of a lighter clicking, she spoke up: "Oh right, didn't I tell you before that there was a place where you needed to put out a fire?"

"Ah? Is there any?"

There have been too many things going on lately, and Uesugi Tetsuya really couldn't think of anything that was so low in the priority list.

"As for the eyeball material you requested," Nanjo Manami said with some helplessness, "it's just the beginning of a small wave, and Shizuoka Prefecture has already made several calls for help."

"So when the next small wave, which is now called the 1.5 wave, comes, you can just go there as part of our Arakawa District's reinforcement force."

The Special Affairs Department over there has a piece of the "Sea-Shining Scale Armor." Once you've resolved things there, just ask them for one.

"This thing is quite precious, and it directly solves the need for water-attribute items."

Nanjo Manami's tone suddenly carried a hint of displeasure, but it was clearly not directed at him.

Uesugi Tetsu blinked.

Shizuoka Prefecture?

He had never been there, but the name of the place sounded strangely familiar.

Where have I heard the same thing before?

Not having the energy to think about such trivial matters, Uesugi Tetsu replied, "OK, OK."

"As for the 1.5 wave, Astronomical Path said a few hours ago that the scale seemed to be larger than they had anticipated."

If there aren't enough people, you might be forced to go out on your own.

"I can't ask for it."

"That's good."

Is there such a good thing?

Uesugi Tetsuya would love for more demons to come and slay.

"Ask everything you have to ask at once, stop beating around the bush." ​​Another voice came from Nanjo Manami's side. "My work here is too troublesome."