He blinks. Really? They don't even have qi? It's kind of a startling realization for him. Didn't every living thing have it? Even if they were unaware of it flowing in their body, they should still know it exists, right?

"Oh, right ah..." he's a bit muddled by the question, and has to fumble for the answer, "it's like um. A life force? An energy that flows through you."

But at the rest, he nods, "right, you only need to form a core, well, can only form it, the once."

His hand hovers at his lower dantian, just below his navel, to gesture about where in the body it sits, physically, "once you have it, it stays, but you have to feed it, to grow stronger, yeah. The body is always generating it, but it takes focus to direct it, cultivate it, into what you need it to be."

Upgrade was kind of a strange word to use, but he supposes it's not altogether wrong.