Chapter 33: Dial-A-Demon and the Magic Jumpstart
In which I call my boss-lady school president, ask for magic juice, and forget to ask how much it's going to hurt.
Okay, real talk?
Dream World Ren is a total badass.
In the dream world, I can use the Death Spiral Bomb, create Shadow Clones, smash through mountains, and maybe—just maybe—look cool while doing it. It's like playing a video game on god-mode but with real consequences and slightly less screaming than usual.
But then I wake up…
And I'm back in Kaito's body.
Still me—Ren Kisaragi—but living inside Kaito Hoshino's body like some kind of Ninja cosplay accident. And to be clear, it's becoming a pretty decent body. The reflexes are better, the stamina has improved, and all the training I've been putting it through is actually paying off, but there's still no cultivation-world Ki here. No familiar Arts. Just Earth's annoyingly separated energy systems.
Still, there's hope.
Two things stand between me and getting something close to my old power system back:
Ki and Mana.
Back home, physical energy and spiritual energy are cultivated together as one thing: Ki. Earth, because apparently reality enjoys making my life difficult, separates the two. Physical energy develops into Ki, while spiritual energy becomes Mana. If I could eventually develop both and learn how to bring them together properly, I might be able to reproduce something similar to the energy system my soul was already accustomed to.
Simple in theory.
Potentially explosive in practice.
Now, spiritual energy? That one I definitely had. Sora had already sensed enough leaking from my soul to become suspicious, and Master Jin had apparently confirmed through Kaito that my soul carried far more spiritual power than Kaito's body should naturally possess.
Ki, though?
Not there yet.
According to what Kaito had learned from Master Jin, Earth's physical Ki usually required the body to develop far enough that it could consciously access and control its own physical energy. Which basically translated to: keep training until your human body stops behaving entirely like a human body.
Fine.
I could do that.
Eventually.
Anyway, I was thinking about all of this while eating breakfast, which, by the way, was incredible. I'm not sure what Miki puts in her miso soup, but I'm fairly certain one of the ingredients is actual maternal affection, because I could practically feel it repairing emotional damage I didn't know I had.
She sat across from me with that same warm look she'd been giving me ever since I told her the truth. She knew I wasn't Kaito now, but whenever anyone else was around she still treated me exactly like her son, and even when we were alone there was something in the way she looked at me that made it clear she had simply expanded the definition of who counted as family.
"Ren," she said quietly, since Dad had already left the room, "you've changed Kaito's routine a lot. You're more focused than he was. Even kind of graceful."
I tried to act calm, sipping my soup like a composed Veiled Moon Ninja, but inside my brain had immediately gone:
She thinks I'm graceful. That might be the nicest thing anyone has said to me all month.
"Thanks," I said, attempting dignity.
Miki smiled.
I concentrated very hard on breakfast so she wouldn't notice how ridiculously pleased that had made me.
After breakfast, I cleaned the dishes—because apparently Kaito considered voluntarily doing that some kind of forbidden Art—and then sat on the couch planning my next move.
If I wanted to consciously awaken Mana, I needed someone who could introduce a controlled pulse of magical energy into my body and basically teach my spiritual energy what being deliberately manipulated felt like. Unfortunately, Earth didn't exactly have Mana jump-start stations sitting beside convenience stores.
I had two leads.
Sora Kurotsuki — Student Council President. Secret Demon. Intelligent, composed, slightly terrifying, and already officially my supernatural ally.
Kuroha — A talking magical cat who had appeared out of nowhere, refused to explain anything properly, sat on my head without permission, and pointed me toward Ryūseikan before disappearing whenever answering questions became inconvenient.
Decisions, decisions.
Do I take the official Demon-approved route with Sora, possibly owe her a favor, and endure another lecture involving enough magical theory to make my brain file for divorce?
Or do I track down a creature whose preferred teaching method appears to be saying one mysterious sentence and then insulting me?
Either way, I needed to move forward.
Because once I understood Mana, developed Earth-style Ki, and eventually figured out how both systems interacted with the energy structure my soul already knew—
Boom.
Maybe I could rebuild something resembling my old cultivation system from the ground up.
And if not?
I'd still end up with two completely new power systems.
Hardly a loss.
After finishing the dishes and doing my morning exercises in Kaito's body, I stepped into the backyard to look for Kuroha.
Nothing.
No black furball.
No sarcastic voice criticizing my posture.
No magical cat sitting on the fence pretending she hadn't been spying on me.
Just birds and one suspicious neighbor who had probably already decided I talked to animals.
"Kuroha," I whispered. "Come on. I need supernatural assistance."
Nothing.
I looked around.
"Kuroha?"
Still nothing.
I even opened a can of tuna.
No response.
Either magical cats were immune to the oldest trick in human history or she had somehow sensed the trap and was currently laughing at me from a rooftop.
Probably the second one.
So, Plan B.
I pulled out Kaito's phone.
Using it wasn't difficult anymore. My world had communication formations, portable devices, and enough modern technology that the basic idea of a handheld communicator had never been strange to me. Earth phones just had interfaces designed by people who apparently believed one device should contain every possible function known to civilization.
I opened the contacts and scrolled until I found the name.
Sora Kurotsuki.
Cue dramatic thunder.
She was smart, powerful, organized, and completely intolerant of nonsense. Also the kind of person who could probably calculate the exact percentage chance of you failing an exam while simultaneously planning three supernatural political negotiations.
Still, we had an agreement.
I would occasionally help her.
She would give me access to information, training, and the magical side of Earth.
Fair trade.
I called.
Ring. Ring.
She answered on the third one.
"Yes, Kaito?"
Right.
Public identity.
"Hey, President. Hope you're not in the middle of a ritual, political conspiracy, or world-domination meeting."
There was a pause.
"…I'm free for the moment. What happened? Did you have difficulty understanding the book?"
I laughed nervously and rubbed the back of my head. "Oh, no, the book's fine. Completely understandable. Mostly. I just need you to blast me with Mana."
Silence.
"…Excuse me?"
"I need an external Mana pulse to help me consciously recognize my spiritual energy. Sort of like jump-starting an engine. Just send enough through me to establish the connection and—boom—Mana unlocked."
Another pause.
I could practically hear her adjusting her glasses.
"You do realize that introducing foreign Mana directly into an inexperienced person's system can be extremely painful?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"You answered that far too quickly."
"I've experienced pain before."
"That does not make this pleasant."
"Never said it would be pleasant."
She sighed.
"Fine. I'll come over, but I'm controlling the amount. You are not deciding how much Mana is 'probably safe.'"
"That sounds reasonable."
"And do not scream loudly enough for your neighbors to call emergency services."
"No promises."
"Kaito."
"Fine. Minimal screaming."
Twenty minutes later, Sora was standing at the door looking calm, professional, and very clearly judging the fact that I had prepared a towel and several bottles of water like I was about to enter a sauna rather than voluntarily have supernatural energy injected into my soul.
She stepped inside, greeted Miki politely, and followed me into the living room. Miki gave me a knowing glance but didn't ask questions, which I appreciated because Mom, the Demon Student Council President is here to electrically shock my soul into learning magic was a sentence I didn't particularly want to explain.
"Sit down," Sora said. "Try to relax. The more you resist unconsciously, the worse this will feel."
I sat cross-legged and breathed slowly.
She raised one hand.
Mana gathered around her fingers.
Even before she touched me, something inside my soul reacted.
Interesting.
"You're ready?" she asked.
"Hit me with your best shot, Demon girl."
Sora stared.
"Within safe limits," I quickly added.
"Better."
Then—
ZAP.
Mana surged through my body like I had swallowed an entire thunderstorm.
My spine straightened. Every muscle tightened. My skin buzzed, my vision flashed white, and for approximately half a second I became convinced one of my ancestors had reached across the afterlife specifically to slap me for agreeing to this.
I screamed.
Not a weak scream.
A perfectly respectable someone is currently grating my soul against reality scream.
The sound probably travelled through three rooms and frightened at least one neighborhood dog.
Sora didn't stop immediately.
The foreign Mana flowed deeper.
Not violently.
Precisely.
Searching.
Touching something that had always been there but that I had never needed to recognize independently.
Then—
something answered.
After what felt like thirty minutes but was probably closer to thirty seconds, Sora withdrew her hand.
I collapsed backward against the couch, breathing hard while my vision filled with tiny lights.
Everything hurt.
"Well," I gasped.
Sora watched calmly.
"That was terrible."
"I warned you."
"You undersold it."
"I specifically said extremely painful."
"Still undersold."
Okay, so picture this: You've just been filled with enough foreign Mana to make every nerve in your body question the choices that brought you here, your veins feel like they've been carbonated, and your soul suddenly has an entirely new sensation sitting inside it like somebody added another heartbeat while you weren't looking.
Welcome to my morning.
Sora stood calmly across from me with one hand no longer glowing, looking like she had just completed a perfectly routine medical procedure. I, meanwhile, was gripping the couch armrest like it had personally promised not to let reality carry me away.
"You should be feeling something now," she said matter-of-factly. "The discomfort will fade."
Discomfort?
Sure.
And Ballom was probably a misunderstood motivational speaker.
But beneath everything else—beneath the pain, the tingling skin, and the strange humming inside my chest—I could finally feel it.
Mana.
Not my old Ki.
That was immediately obvious.
Back home, the energy I knew was physical and spiritual power cultivated together until neither felt separate from the other. This was different. Pure spiritual energy, consciously accessible for the first time, flowing from my soul without the physical half I instinctively expected to accompany it.
It felt lighter.
Subtler.
Less like a river running through muscle and bone and more like discovering an ocean behind my thoughts.
And it was mine.
I flexed my fingers and followed the sensation inward. The amount itself was enormous compared with what Kaito's body should have possessed naturally—not because his body had somehow produced it, but because my soul had spent thirteen years growing in an entirely different cultivation system.
Naturally, I did what any highly trained Ninja with excellent judgment would do.
I tried to create a Shadow Clone.
Yeah.
That was dumb.
I shaped the Mana according to the familiar pattern, pushed it toward my shadow, and received approximately half a flicker of darkness before the entire thing collapsed into cold sparks.
Right.
Not Ki.
Different rules.
"Are you alright?" Sora asked. "Your Mana just fluctuated."
"Fine," I said slightly too quickly. "Experiment."
Her eyes narrowed.
"An experiment I immediately stopped."
"Good."
I smiled awkwardly.
She continued studying me. "You are unusually sensitive to Mana for someone who has only just become consciously aware of it."
Oops.
"Natural talent?"
"That is possible."
Excellent.
Technically not a lie.
She didn't look completely convinced, but thankfully she let it go.
"That reaction suggests considerable potential," Sora continued. "With proper training, you should be capable of basic spells relatively quickly."
"Define relatively."
"For an ordinary beginner? Weeks or months."
"And for me?"
"I don't know yet."
Fair.
"Do not confuse having large reserves with understanding how to use them," she added. "Magic requires theory, calculation, conceptual understanding, glyph structure, energy control, and precision. If you simply throw power at an unstable spell, you can cause serious damage."
"…To the spell?"
"To yourself."
"Oh."
"And the surroundings."
"Oh."
"Possibly both simultaneously."
"Excellent."
As Sora gathered her things, I sat back and let myself sink into the new sensation humming beneath my thoughts. It would take time before Mana became something I could actually use instinctively, but the important part was that I could finally recognize it, follow it, and distinguish it from the physical energy inside Kaito's body.
It wasn't my old Ki.
That mattered.
But it could be shaped.
And if it could be shaped, it could be understood.
Magic wasn't something I could force using habits from another energy system. It had its own grammar, its own structures, its own laws.
Now that I could finally feel the language?
I could start learning how to speak it.
As Sora reached the door, she paused and glanced back.
"Oh, and Kaito."
I looked over.
"Don't overdo it."
I blinked.
"You don't need to prove anything by progressing too quickly."
Her tone was quieter than usual, almost gentle, as if she had already worked out exactly what kind of idiot she was dealing with.
I gave her a thumbs-up.
"Got it, President."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You are absolutely going to experiment the moment I leave."
"That sounds like an accusation."
"It is an observation."
Then she left.
I waited until the door closed.
Exhaled.
And immediately went to experiment.
She knew me too well already.
You ever sit down with spiritual energy humming inside your soul, stretch your arms, and think:
Yeah. Today's a good day to discover how much property damage magic can cause.
No?
Just me?
Right.
Forgot.
My standards for a normal afternoon had changed considerably.
I still didn't have access to Earth-style Ki yet, and Mana certainly wasn't going to magically replace the cultivation system I had spent my entire life using, but for the first time since arriving on Earth I possessed a supernatural energy source I could consciously manipulate.
Mana.
And oh boy, this stuff was weirdly cooperative.
So I did what any self-respecting Ninja would do: went outside, found a quiet place with enough open space that an accidental explosion probably wouldn't reach anyone's house, and started testing.
First up:
Body enhancement.
Back home, reinforcing my body with Ki was one of the most basic things a cultivator learned. Physical and spiritual energy working together strengthened muscles, bones, senses, and movement simultaneously.
Mana only gave me the spiritual half.
Which meant I wasn't expecting miracles.
Still, I gathered the energy, directed it through my limbs, and focused on the concept of strengthening movement.
The Mana responded.
Not perfectly.
But smoothly enough.
My arms and legs began tingling with what felt like cold lightning.
Then I jumped.
I didn't fly.
I did, however, clear an entire tree.
I landed on the other side and stared back at it.
"Ha! That's what I'm talking about!"
It wasn't the raw physical reinforcement of cultivation Ki, but Mana could clearly assist the body indirectly. If I used it carefully while continuing normal physical training, maybe I could push Kaito's body further and eventually reach the point where its own physical energy awakened as Earth-style Ki.
And once I had both?
That experiment was going to be very interesting.
Next up:
Energy manipulation.
I'd been dying to find out whether pure Mana could reproduce one of my simplest high-level manipulation principles.
Specifically—
the Death Spiral Bomb.
Now, attempting the actual Death Spiral Bomb would have been idiotic. The real technique used compressed rotating Death Ki, and the life-draining property came directly from my death affinity and the way my own Ki interacted with it.
I didn't have cultivation Ki here.
I definitely didn't have Death Ki.
But the basic mechanics?
Rotation.
Compression.
Containment.
Those were principles.
So I gathered Mana into my palm and began rotating it.
Slowly at first.
One current.
Then another.
Opposing directions.
Compression toward the center.
The sphere wobbled.
I corrected it.
The Mana resisted differently from Ki, but the underlying concept still worked.
Then—
BOOM.
There it was.
A compact blue-white sphere of violently rotating Mana sat above my palm, smaller than a real Death Spiral Bomb and lacking every death-related property that made the original technique terrifying, but structurally stable.
I stared.
Then grinned like an idiot.
"Yes!"
This wasn't the Death Spiral Bomb itself.
Not yet.
But it was proof that the principle behind the technique could be translated into another energy system.
I looked toward a boulder.
The boulder had done nothing wrong.
Unfortunately for the boulder, science required sacrifice.
I drove the sphere into it.
BOOM!
Stone exploded outward.
Chunks rained across the clearing.
I stood there grinning beneath the debris.
"Okay."
Pause.
"Mana is officially cool."
Now, before you assume I immediately went insane and attempted thirty different Arts, don't worry.
I possess restraint.
Occasionally.
I tried several familiar hand patterns and attempted to reproduce a basic elemental Art.
Nothing.
Not even smoke.
Which made sense once I thought about it.
Mana was an energy source, not a universal replacement for everything I already knew. My old Arts had been developed around cultivation Ki, which contained both physical and spiritual components and interacted with the body according to completely different rules.
Pure spiritual energy was only half of that equation.
Trying to fuel every old technique with Mana was like trying to bake a cake using nothing except flour and determination.
Technically ingredients were present.
Just not enough of them.
Okay, I'll admit it: rebuilding anything similar to my original Ki was going to take time. Kaito's body needed to keep advancing physically until I could awaken Earth-style Ki, while I separately learned to control Mana properly. Whether combining the two would eventually recreate cultivation-style Ki exactly—or produce something completely different—was a problem for Future Ren.
Which meant I had two choices:
A) Mope around, complain about not having my original power system, eat Kaito's snacks, and sulk.
B) Learn magic and become some kind of magic-wielding battle Ninja.
Guess which one I picked?
Now that Mana was actually accessible, I could finally start working properly on magic.
Sora had given me a book titled A Beginner's Introduction to Mana Theory and Practical Magic, which was somehow much less insulting than the title I had expected after our first meeting. She had still handed it to me with an expression suggesting she suspected I might skip directly to the dangerous chapters.
Not entirely unfair.
Anyway, the first few sections were pretty simple:
Understand the concept.
Read the spell structure correctly.
Construct the spell diagram.
Route Mana through it in the correct sequence without accidentally setting yourself, the diagram, or nearby furniture on fire.
Easy, right?
Well, for somebody raised using this system?
Probably.
For somebody whose previous approach to supernatural techniques involved understanding the principle and then forcing Ki through a trained pathway until reality cooperated?
It felt like learning mathematics in another language while someone periodically threatened to explode the textbook.
I started simple.
The first practical spell was an illusion.
Basically, magic's answer to the illusion Arts I already knew.
Sora probably expected the fundamentals alone to keep me busy for days.
Unfortunately for her expectations?
I understood illusions.
The Veiled Moon Sect used them constantly. Misdirection, sensory manipulation, false movement, concealment, fear projection—if you wanted to survive as an assassin, understanding what people perceived was nearly as important as understanding how to stab them.
The spell itself worked by manipulating light and sound using Mana.
That part made immediate sense.
The annoying part was the spell circle.
You had to construct the pattern correctly and then move Mana through specific sections in sequence, almost like executing a formation command one step at a time.
Actually…
Once I thought about it like a formation?
Everything became much easier.
It took three tries.
Okay, fine.
Five.
One attempt made my own voice echo from three different directions, and another created an invisible patch in front of me that I immediately walked into because apparently being the creator of an illusion did not automatically protect you from embarrassing yourself.
But on the sixth attempt?
I got it.
Across the clearing stood a perfect image of me.
Well—
of Kaito Hoshino.
Same hair.
Same clothes.
Same stupid little satisfied smirk I was currently wearing.
It wasn't a Shadow Clone.
No independent consciousness.
No physical body.
No returned memories.
Just light, sound, and carefully controlled Mana.
But it worked.
I walked around it.
The illusion turned.
I raised one hand.
It copied me.
I started laughing.
For the first time since arriving on Earth, I wasn't merely trying to recreate something I had lost.
I was using a system I'd never possessed before.
And the strangest part?
The precision felt good.
Back home, my enormous Ki reserves had never prevented me from learning subtle techniques, but controlling huge amounts of combined physical and spiritual energy for extremely delicate effects always required careful discipline. Mana behaved differently. It responded more directly to thought, structure, and intention once I gave it the right magical framework.
Different strengths.
Different weaknesses.
Different possibilities.
I made the illusion bow dramatically toward an imaginary audience before letting the spell collapse into scattered particles of light.
"Not bad," I muttered, grinning.
Not bad at all.
So yeah.
No cultivation Ki?
Not yet.
No problem.
Magic was slower, more methodical, and annoyingly dependent on actual studying, but it worked. I was learning something completely new, something powerful, and something that belonged to this version of me rather than simply being an imitation of what I could already do in my original body.
And the best part?
For once, I wasn't just trying to catch up to where I had been before.
I was becoming something more.