Modern Cultivation : The Strongest Couple Bonded by Vampire System-Chapter 632 - 632: Living Formation.

Matter was not just stuff. It was atoms arranged in a specific way, held together by bonds. Those bonds existed because electrons were shared or pulled, and because charges balanced into a stable pattern.
When energy entered a material, it did not just make it hot. It made particles move faster, collide harder, and sometimes break their bonds. Heat melted ice because water molecules gained enough motion to stop locking together. Enough energy could even break molecules apart.
But energy could also build.
With the right ingredients and the right conditions, energy helped atoms form stable bonds again. That was why reactions needed heat, pressure, catalysts, or a precise environment. The final result depended on what atoms were present and how they were allowed to connect.
Structure decided properties.
Even metal changed when its crystals formed differently. The grain structure decided whether it bent, cracked, or held.
That was why space power was not a cheat code.
He could move things, but he could not ignore chemistry. If he tore something apart with space power, he was breaking bonds and scattering parts. Putting it back meant forcing atoms to reconnect in the same pattern, not just in the same place. If spacing was off, the bonds formed differently. If the energy input was wrong, the reaction ran in another direction.
Alex stared at the dust again and sorted it in his head.
Mana was smooth. It flowed like a liquid he could guide. It was easier to shape and easier to control. With mana, he could heat, freeze, shock, and compress. Those changed motion and pressure. Motion and pressure decided which bonds were favored. Heat helped atoms cross barriers they could not cross before. Compression forced them close enough to bond. Mana could be applied evenly and gently, which made it good for precise steering.
Qi felt different.
Qi was direct and crude. It did not like fine shapes. It wanted to push, crush, cut, and force results. When qi entered matter, it acted like a heavy hammer hitting the structure. It drove things out by pressure and impact.
That was why qi was good for brute refinement.
If he flooded a material with qi, weak bonds snapped first. Loose structures collapsed. The material was forced to become denser and tougher. It worked, but it was messy. If the user lacked control, qi would also tear useful patterns apart and leave hidden cracks inside.
Lifeforce was another level.
Living things were not one reaction. They were chains of reactions that ran in loops and controlled themselves. A cell stayed alive because it kept its inside different from the outside.
A cell had a thin wall around it. The cell spent energy to push tiny charged particles to one side of that wall, so the two sides were not the same. One side had more, the other had less. That difference stored power.
It was like a dam. Water wanted to flow, but the wall held it back. When a gate opened, water rushed through and could turn a wheel. A cell did the same thing. When it opened special gates in its wall, the particles rushed back across, and that flow was used to make energy and move things inside the cell.
Life also kept instructions.
Inside living things were molecules that worked like a blueprint, DNA. The blueprint told the body how to build proteins. Proteins were tiny machines. Some were gates. Some were pumps. Some carried materials. Some cut, repair, and assemble.
The blueprint decided their shape, and shape decided what they could do.
That was the key.
A living organism did not become alive just because it had the right atoms. It became alive because the atoms were arranged into a system that could copy itself, repair itself, and keep itself organized. It had to spend energy every moment to stay that way, because the natural direction of the world was to fall apart.
That was what lifeforce felt like to Alex.
Not just power, but a direction that fought against the world's rule. It carried identity, because a living thing always tried to remain itself. It carried direction, because living systems tried to return to a working form after being damaged.
Space power sat under all of it.
Space decided position, distance, and contact. Bonds depended on distance. Reactions depended on contact. If he controlled space precisely, he controlled whether atoms could meet, how close they could get, and what shape they were forced into.
Alex's thoughts tightened into a line.
'Rather than purifying, it's more correct to call it transformation.'
He didn't just want to remove dirt. He wanted to change the inside recipe.
If an elixir already had a pattern, he could strip out the unstable parts, isolate the harmful pieces, then rebuild the inner structure into something new. Cheap materials could be used first, transformed, then stepped up without carrying flaws forward.
If he failed, it would be ugly.
The material could collapse because the structure could not hold. It could turn unstable because the bonds formed the wrong way. It could become poison because a small change in structure could create something reactive, corrosive, or hostile.
Alex finally smiled.
"Thanks, Alice," he said. "I think I got an idea now."
The risk was still there, but his path was clearer.
Mana could guide the reaction environment. Qi could force the crude refining. But the key was lifeforce and space together.
Space would place the pieces. Lifeforce would give the pattern a direction, like telling the material what it should become, and helping it hold that shape instead of collapsing.
What he needed next was a formation.
Not a formation to attack or defend.
A formation that acted like a blueprint, something that could rewrite the inside of a body safely, step by step, and work even on mortals.
It was like nanomachines changing a body from the inside.
Only this time, it was not machines.
It was a living living cell made from runes, lifeforce, and space power.