Two days had passed since Rany first woke up in the wooden cabin of the Silver Pack. Life here moved at a rhythm she had never known in her previous world. There were no alarm clocks, no flickering fluorescent lights, and no rhythmic clacking of keyboards. Instead, there was the gentle rustle of emerald leaves, the sweet chirping of mountain birds, and the lingering, earthy scent of a forest that felt alive.
Rany felt much better. The healing elixir had done its work, and her small body no longer felt like it was falling apart. She sat cross-legged on the soft fur bed, her white hair falling over her shoulders like a silk curtain.
I can't just stay a fragile child, she thought, her crystal-blue eyes narrowing with determination. If I want to protect this peace, I need to understand how this body works.
She closed her eyes and began to implement the "source code" of the Heavenly Essence Technique she remembered from her favorite Murim novels. In her old world, it was just fiction. But here, the laws of physics seemed to operate on a different logic.
She focused on her Dantian—the point just below her navel. She began to breathe in a specific pattern, visualizing herself as a "server" waiting for data.
The Great Convergence
The moment she initiated the "program," the world responded.
Rany expected to feel the warm, internal flow of Qi—the energy of the self. And she did. A thin, golden thread of heat began to swirl in her belly. But then, something unexpected happened.
The atmosphere around her began to vibrate. The ambient energy of the forest—the Mana—detected the vacuum she was creating. Usually, Mana and Qi were like oil and water; one belonged to the world, the other to the soul. But Rany's programmer mind didn't see them as different substances. She saw them as two different "data types" that could be integrated into a single "unified framework."
If Qi is the hardware's internal power, then Mana is the cloud-based data, Rany reasoned, her mental logic "coding" the connection. I don't need to choose. I just need to synchronize them.
Outside the cabin, the air grew heavy. Valia, who was busy hanging freshly washed linens on a rope, suddenly stopped. She felt a chill run down her spine. The Mana in the air was no longer drifting; it was being sucked toward the cabin like a massive whirlpool.
"What in the world...?" Valia whispered. She saw birds fluttering away in panic and the grass around the house bending toward the walls.
Inside the room, Rany was no longer sitting on the bed. She was floating.
A brilliant, pulsating light erupted from Rany's center. A vortex of white and blue energy swirled around her small frame. At that moment, Valia burst through the door, frozen in shock at the sight of the five-year-old girl suspended in a pillar of divine light.
The Return of the Warrior
While the energy inside the cabin reached its peak, a tremor shook the ground at the village entrance. Robin, the strongest werewolf warrior of the Silver Pack, was returning from a long patrol at the borders.
His sharp eyes immediately caught the anomaly. From a distance, he saw the very atmosphere of the village warping. The Mana was screaming, flowing in a visible river of light toward his own home.
"Valia! Vany!" Robin roared, his heart gripping with fear. He dropped his hunting gear and sprinted, his powerful legs tearing through the earth. He reached the village center in seconds, where the pack members had already gathered in front of his house, whispering in hushed, fearful tones.
"What is happening?!" Robin demanded, his presence looming over the crowd.
Before anyone could answer, the door to his house creaked open. Valia stepped out first, followed by a wide-eyed Vany. And then, stepping between them, was a small girl with white hair and eyes as blue as the deepest ocean.
The air around the girl was still humming with residual power. Robin, who possessed the keenest combat instincts in the pack, felt a shiver down his spine. He didn't see a helpless child; he saw a master who had just successfully opened her Cultivation Gates and awakened a Magic Talent that felt ancient and profound.
Rany had done it. She had optimized her "system."
Robin stared, his jaw tight. "Valia... who is this?"
Rany looked up at the massive warrior, her blue eyes calm and analytical. She gave a polite, elegant bow.
"Greetings, Master Robin. I am Rany. I apologize for the disturbance my... 'update' has caused to your home."
Robin was speechless. The "doll-like" girl he expected to find was instead a small beacon of overwhelming power. Robin stood frozen, his breath hitching in his chest. As a warrior who had survived countless battlefields, he had developed a "sixth sense" for danger. When he looked at Rany, his instincts didn't see a child. They saw a monster hidden inside the delicate frame of a porcelain doll.
When Rany gave her polite bow, Robin found himself unable to utter a single word. His throat felt dry. In all his years of traveling and fighting, he had only encountered that specific, suffocating aura three times. Those three individuals were legendary Masters who could topple kingdoms with a wave of their hands.
And now, for the fourth time in his life, he was feeling that same spine-chilling pressure. But this time, it wasn't coming from a weathered old sage or a battle-hardened general.
It was coming from a five-year-old girl with snowy hair and eyes like calm mountain lakes.
Who... no, WHAT is she? Robin thought, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of his axe, not out of aggression, but as a subconscious defense mechanism against the sheer purity of her power.
Rany, noticing the warrior's intense gaze, tilted her head slightly, her white hair swaying. She gave a small, innocent smile—a smile that looked adorable to the villagers, but felt like the calm before a storm to Robin.
The silence in the village was absolute. The strongest warrior of the Silver Pack had been silenced by a child's greeting.