Ever so slowly, John started imagining his essence becoming colder and denser while circulating it in his chest. Since it could not be changed in the core itself, he had to hold it inside as it slowly transformed, forming small droplets of essence.

Each time a drop formed, he put it back in his core, careful not to lose control of it. According to the sage, liquid essence was much harder to control, but it was also much more powerful.

‘... This is taking longer than I had hoped. After five minutes, I’ve barely transmuted ten percent. At this rate, it will take nearly an hour to change everything. Can I improve the rate somehow?’

John tried changing the way he circulated the essence, changing the direction and shape. But the rate remained the same.

‘Hmm… What if I imagine rainclouds instead of cold temperatures?’

He thought about the grey clouds on the rainiest day he could remember. He was back on the training grounds in Aachen, fighting through the dense downpour that fell from the sky. It had been a great day for fighting, with the rain washing away any sweat and keeping his body at a nice and cool temperature.

He loved the rain.

‘Ah! It’s forming much faster!’

His essence seemed to enjoy his memories as it drifted like a dark cloud in his chest. Drops of liquid essence fell in a constant downpour, making it challenging to collect it all.

‘This is so much faster! That sage is a real greedy bastard, only telling me about the slowest method!’

Only a few minutes later, he had transmuted half his essence. Back in his core, he could see the liquid gathering at the bottom of the sphere, swirling around on beat with the pulsing light. But the liquid had only taken up about ten percent of the core, leaving much room for the gaseous essence to float around in.

‘The liquid essence takes up that little space? That’s amazing! I can store much more essence this way, letting me fight for way longer. But I’ll have to gather it all first, though…’

The essence would usually fill up in about eight hours, but that was just the gaseous version. To fill the core with liquid essence would take nearly two whole days. Or perhaps it was even longer now that his core had grown.

‘I’ll just have to fight beasts then. Sage Full Blue didn’t let me know anything about gathering essence from the air, but that doesn’t mean I can’t improve it…’

John tried to think about ways to increase the natural gathering speed, but couldn’t think of any good plans at that time. Instead, he decided to test his new liquid essence, eager to see how much it would change his power.

He stayed inside his base for now, deciding to start small. A simple body enchantment should be a nice test, as that was what he was most used to doing. Strengthening muscles and bones to swing faster was something he had trained millions of times at this point.

The floating essence felt very compact as it moved to his hand, very different from the usual essence. It was challenging to make it move like he wanted, as it spread in an uneven pattern when he tried to apply it.

‘Damn, this really is different… but how’s the power?’

He took hold of the tree he was sitting inside, trying to crush it in his hand. He might have been able to do so with the normal essence as well, so it would be a nice test.

His fingers crushed the tree like a ball of hay, with nearly no effort from John. He stared at the wooden pieces in his hand, feeling an extreme urge to fight something.

‘It’s that much stronger?! That’s a matter of magnitudes! How would a spell work with this?’

Quickly discarding the simple fire spell from his mind, he turned his hand toward the exit and prepared a good old air blast. It was his most used spell, so it was only natural he would try it first. The liquid essence gathered in his hand, slightly slower than he was used to, but it moved almost like he wanted it to.

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The spell fired with a roar, sending him flying into the back of his little hole with incredible force. His back crashed hard into the wood, causing pain to shoot through him.

‘Agh! Four times?! It’s really four times stronger?! God damn that hurt!’

His hands were on his back, trying to alleviate the pain, even though they couldn’t do much. His back was still in one piece, at least, and the armor had taken some of the blow.

‘Why would I test it with a wall at my back? My chances of surviving this shit would be a lot higher if I wasn’t a damn idiot!’

Even when using both of his hands, he would only get half of the force he felt now, using only one. It was an incredible difference in all aspects of his fighting power, as long as he managed to control it properly.

‘I’m glad, but there’s so much new stuff in my fighting kit now! I need to train to get used to it, but I can’t just go out and swing a giant sword around, can I?’

The amount of essence used was exactly the same as that used by a spell normally. That probably broke some laws of physics, but that’s what essence was supposed to do anyway. The laws of physics seemed more like suggestions when essence was involved, but that only made it more interesting, John thought.

He sat in silence for a while, thinking of the different ways he could use this essence in combat. His bursts of speed would be way more abrupt and fast, but it would put more strain on his body. He would need to use more essence in his bones and muscles to prevent injuries, so the total usage would go up after all. But since his storage had increased so much, that wasn’t a big issue.

His swings with Larang would be way stronger, but that didn’t matter much if he couldn’t use the momentum properly. If he swung mid-air, the only thing that would happen was that he would turn, while the blade would just stay nearly still.

Even on solid ground, he would have trouble swinging it with full force. The sudden sideways force would cause his feet to slip, regardless of what surface he was standing on.

‘That’s why I wanted a way for my feet to stick to the surface I stand on… Can I do that with liquid essence? Or maybe solid?’

In the past, he had considered the same issue, trying to put essence into the ground to gain traction. But with his new knowledge, it only made sense that gaseous essence wouldn’t do much to help.

Putting his hand on the surface of the tree, John tried gently leading the liquid essence into it, focusing on making it connect to his hand. As he tried to lift it, he felt a sticky sensation holding him back, as if honey had been poured out of it.

‘Ah, this might work! It’s not as much as I hoped, but this would be great for climbing or keeping hold of things. Let’s try making some solid essence, then.’

Encouraged by the results, he was eager to try the last type of essence he dared to make. The last type, plasma, was apparently very dangerous, so he would first try to increase his control with the other types.

Sitting back down and closing his eyes, he slowly gathered the liquid essence in his chest. Instead of moving it around, he tried keeping it as still as possible so that the solid essence could form. Trying to help the process, he recalled watching ice slowly form on a lake in the winter.

‘Hmm, the speed of that might not help much… But I can’t think of anything liquid going solid very fast… No, wait! The metal poured from the forge would harden instantly on the ground.’

As he changed the image in his mind, the essence formed into small chunks of solid essence, quickly shrinking the liquid in his chest. The solid form seemed to take up even less space than the liquid form, making it an even better way to store essence long-term.

After about half the liquid was transmuted he stopped, wanting to keep most of his essence in familiar forms in case he needed it. All the essence was put back in his core, which now had small cloudy pebbles of light floating around in the liquid.

‘Hmm, does the cloudiness have anything to do with the purity? Probably, right? If I had imagined crystals forming, would it work better?’

He felt slightly hopeful that increasing purity would be that easy, but at the same time, he felt it would be more challenging than that. He opened his eyes again and focused on his hand, ready to test the solid essence.

It traveled ever so slowly from his core, giving a sensation of solidity and immobility. Exactly what he wanted, even if the speed was disappointing. It was far easier to control than the liquid essence, but still not as simple as the gaseous one.

It eventually settled in his hand, and he could feel it stiffen as it activated. It felt strange, like his hand was numb and unresponsive, but he felt confident it would increase the defensive capabilities way more than any other form of essence.

‘It seems great for defense, but it won’t be fast enough to respond to sudden attacks… So it doesn’t fit my combat style well. Let’s see what it does with sticking to surfaces!’

Laying his hand on the tree again, he tried leading the solid essence into it, imagining a metal rod attaching to his palm.

‘Please work like I want you to. This would make me so much stronger!’