Logan wasn't an idiot. Every drop of power he used now was an injury that he wouldn't be able to heal later. Running out of expendable life force could result in many more deaths throughout their journey, but that wouldn't be a concern if his idea worked out.

The logic was simple. Logan wouldn't need extra life force to heal his companions if he became so strong that nothing could threaten them. Why would he need to heal people when no monster could injure them in the first place? That would allow him to save a few vials much more easily, giving him a real chance at fixing his family life once and for all.

That made his actions an investment, or as some would call it, using the lives of others to gamble.

With another strand of power, Logan healed his wounds and recovered most of his energy. Everything seemed too good to be true at first. The egg was already heaven-defying, which made it reasonable that his cheat didn't allow him to perfectly recover.

The most obvious problem was the lingering haze over his mind. The stress and effort involved with hunting down and fighting a monster was immense, not to mention all of the spear training and studying he had done to learn Piercing Thrust. It all took a toll on his mind that couldn't be healed by the egg.

Other than that slight flaw, Logan was thrilled about being able to wipe away his physical exhaustion whenever he wanted. All he needed to do now was see how far he could push himself in a single day. Being able to do three months of conditioning in one would be a dream, but after trying to use Piercing Thrust for five minutes, his cheat seemed to have even more flaws.

The next issue to crop up was that he became ravenous. With every break, Logan had to stuff himself with dried meat just to sate his hunger. He ate a lot more than he usually would in that time frame. He could cope better if he spread out the healing over the course of the day, but binge eating wasn't that big of an issue.

The most important thing now was to learn Piercing Thrust while it was still fresh in his mind. Getting back to work, Logan spent another two hours before he saw actual results. Every other thrust would succeed. As the minutes ticked by, the ratio decreased ever so slightly, his body coming to learn the technique by heart.

He eventually reached a point where he could use the technique consecutively. Three, five, and then nine successive executions were his record over the next hour. Logan continued breaking it again and again, but he would always fail in the end. It wasn't until he lost count of his attempts that something changed.

The aura lingering around his spear suddenly became less mystical. As the tip of his spear cut through the air, Logan understood that this piercing motion was creating the silk strings he saw when the technique worked. The space around him was one solid entity. It wasn't until his spear cut through the air that the twisting motion could fold it, turning the tip of his spear into a razor-sharp edge.

Trying again, Logan made some minor changes to his stance now that he understood how the Heavenly Law of Piercing was being invoked. With an explosive thrust, the air was rent open before the tip of his spear, followed by a wrenching twist, the shaft spinning back and forth. The air passing in the wake of Logan's spear began to fold even more efficiently, the technique coalescing faster and more effectively as more air was folded than ever before.

[Congratulations! You have learned the martial technique: Piercing Thrust.]

Nothing changed. Logan didn't grow stronger, become enlightened, or gain a level of System privilege. He tried the technique again and felt that it was nearly identical to the hundred previous times he had executed it. It seemed that learning a technique was a benchmark to measure his progress rather than some kind of achievement to be rewarded.

Logan opened up his Status sheet.

Status

Name: Logan Gates

Race: Human [Mortal]

Cultivation

Realm: Body Tempering - Early (1/12)

Martial Techniques

Piercing Thrust (Am)

Logan read over his Status sheet. He ignored the first part since it hadn't changed and immediately noticed a new section at the bottom. It was a list of the techniques that he had learned, which was quite self-explanatory, but he didn't know what the bracketed part was supposed to mean.

Focusing on the phrase, a screen popped up with an explanation.

[Technique Mastery: The Heavens are fair. While beasts are gifted with robust bodies and bloodlines to protect themselves, the Enlightened races are blessed with other traits. The ability to wield tools and learn techniques is one of them.]

[There are several factors to account for in how much a person's strength can be augmented by a technique. The quality and type of weapon used, mastery over the technique itself, and the user's physical attributes will all affect the final outcome. These are the obvious traits, but the most important will always be the user's comprehension of the Heavenly Laws.]

Logan vaguely understood what the prompt was talking about. Techniques existed before the System as well, both to keep the user safe and amplify their abilities. Usually, it was simple stuff like lifting with your legs or keeping your wrists loose while playing golf. The part about Heavenly Laws, however, went completely over his head.

[To learn a technique, one must diligently practise it until they touch upon the Heavenly Laws. Once comprehended, the user can invoke them via the relevant technique. There is an inherent limit on what each technique can harness, which is determined by its ranking. Amateur techniques can invoke a single concept while an Intermediate technique is a fusion of two.]

[To continue progressing, you must be able to invoke at least two concepts before you try to learn an Intermediate technique. An Intermediate manual will then guide the user on how to merge the two concepts into invoking an even more perfect Heavenly Law, thus amplifying the technique's power severalfold.]

Logan nodded, reading between the lines to understand what it was telling him. Techniques relied on concepts to help a person go beyond their mortal limits. Piercing Thrust used the concept of rotation to do so, which basically meant using his body to efficiently twist the spear. That action would invoke the Heavenly Law of Piercing, but just because Logan could use the technique didn't mean he had mastered the concept.

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He only had a surface level of understanding over the concept of rotation. It was no different than learning to ride a skateboard; just because he could avoid falling off didn't mean he could do a kickflip. To prove that point, he tried to use Piercing Thrust with just his index finger. He stabbed forward while using the technique, the air rippling for a moment before it failed.

Logan could only invoke the Heavenly Law of Piercing by relying on the technique in its intended form. To progress his mastery, he would have to more efficiently apply the concept of rotation via the movement of his body. Fusing two separate concepts would be much easier once he had a firm grasp on these concepts as well.

Logan ignored the life force manuals and other miscellaneous textbooks, instead focusing on martial techniques. He had a single-target method of attack that could allow him to pierce armour. Next, he would have to find a movement or defensive technique. Logan thought about it for a moment and decided to look through the movement skills.

He was already virtually immortal. In a fight, killing weaker monsters would be easy if they didn't run away or come in a big group that could overwhelm him. That more or less allowed him to have free reign to harass the average monster until it died.

On the chance that a horde did appear, however, Logan would be screwed. He would eventually pass out or starve to death as they endlessly mauled his invincible body, not to mention that his temporary immortality would quickly run out if the monsters just sat around and waited.

That was why he settled on a technique called Flash Step. It was all about bursting into motion by using the body's ability to twist and rotate, which should allow him to escape if something happened. Logan skimmed over it before closing the interface with a yawn. It was very late now, so he moved on to practising the life force technique before bed.

Logan quickly got into the familiar rhythm. His body held up well for the first half of the dance, but his mind was already beyond exhausted. It didn't hinder him so much as it made the dance more difficult. Still, he made some progress and reached a new record that was marginally better than the last. If quantified into a number, he reached the 80% mark before the breathing technique became too much for his exhausted body.

There were no unusual side effects. Logan just felt more tired and sore after getting a little backlash from failing the dance, but that wasn't a bad thing. His boiling blood would strain his muscles and organs a bit while it settled, which would actually help him last longer the next time he attempted it.

Now was the time to do something crazy. Once his life force was purified and the remnant energy was absorbed by his body, Logan pulled out another strand of power from the egg. He was getting better at estimating how much he needed, his body recovering after just one dose of golden mist.

Then, he attempted the First Step again. It felt different than the last time, his breathing strained and his veins aching as blood surged through his muscles and organs. Every aspect of the spear dance was more difficult now. It felt like he was trying to go for a jog while sick with the flu. Even his head was throbbing from the strain of it all, which made what happened next no surprise.

At halfway through the First Step, the veins in his hands and feet burst open, forcing him to stop the dance and call on the egg to heal himself. The cost was a lot higher this time due to the greater injuries. The results were also far worse considering he only got halfway through rather than almost finishing the whole thing, which made sense. The life force technique was supposed to be used less than once per day. And that was only if you had recovered from its previous use.

No, he was facing a backlash due to breaking this rule. Logan's muscles had torn themselves apart, it felt like his lungs were full of needles, and his heart ached with every beat. If he didn't have the egg, continuing the dance might've killed him.

Thanks to the Egg though, he was healed a moment later, his life force purifying itself once more. The effect was much weaker since he hadn't gotten as far in the dance, but that didn't deter him. Progress was still progress. And in the end, Logan now had a way to nearly double his improvement for the day.

Pushing himself off the floor once he was no longer in constant agony, he started up the dance for a third time. His body was immediately overcome with pain. A splitting headache made his movements jerky and rough. The boiling in his veins also made breathing harder, and his internal organs began to throb for some reason. If that wasn't bad enough, he woke up on the floor a moment later with no memory of how he had ended up there.

Logan's mind slowly made sense of everything. He recalled making it about a third of the way through the First Step before his veins burst open and his organs more or less collapsed. Thankfully, the egg automatically sent a stream of golden energy throughout his body to heal him. The implications were terrifying, so he ignored them and focused on his lifeline.

It was purifying itself again, but the results were pitiful compared to the enormous cost of healing his injuries. It simply wasn't worth taking that much damage for a fraction of a day's progress. Logan settled on attempting the dance twice daily: once in the morning and once at night before bed.

Logan was disappointed in the results until he noticed the impurities were still being removed. A burst of them would usually be extracted at once, followed by a dying trickle that would quickly cut off. Now, the impurities were slowly getting pulled out one after the other, some of the flakes darker and more deformed than any he had seen before.

Had the frequent attempts dislodged some of the more stubborn flaws in his lifeline? Or was it perhaps a result of his body being so damaged? Either way, Logan couldn't stop himself from smiling. While the amount of impurities wasn't even a tenth of what he could typically extract, the changes to his lifeline were to its core rather than just its surface.

He would definitely try to replicate these effects again tomorrow.

***

The next morning, Logan awoke to an odd type of fatigue. His mind was recovered along with his body, and yet he still felt off. It took a bit of thought to realise that the sensations were coming from his lifeline. It was wrung out after last night, the cord of green a little less vibrant and energetic.

He quickly decided to skip attempting the dance for this morning. Logan felt a hint of fear, wondering if he might cripple himself if pushed too hard. The last thing he wanted was to crack his lifeline and die from old age at nineteen. Besides, focusing on learning Flash Step and studying his visualisation technique would be more than enough to keep him occupied while he rested.

Unfortunately, a knock on the door ruined his good mood.