The group talks a bit more, but the meal is finished and soon enough everyone splits off to do their own thing. Jason doesn’t have much more to do with the day besides think over what he has learned and so retires to his room. Though even with some time to himself nothing new bubbles up in his mind. With a sigh as he checks the time, Jason logs off. While the new discoveries he has made in NeoRealm are important, his real life body takes precedence at the moment.

Jason wakes up in his pod and takes a deep breath before relaxing his entire body. Things are coming close to a breakthrough on both sides and it is quite stressful trying to juggle them. Especially with the time difference. With that in mind, Jason pulls himself out of the pod. While comfortable, he can’t be wasting time.

Out in the living room, Jason doesn’t even bother stretching or anything. He just plops down in the center of the room and begins to meditate. On the edges of his dantian there are smudges of various powers he has kicked out, but nothing has gotten in yet. Things are almost ready for the first true bit of danger.

First, though, Jason takes five minutes of time to top off the tank. While it was a good thing when he removed any of the powers he didn’t want. It did empty some of his dantien and the first step is the safest when you’re full. Not straining, though. He had seen his fair share of nervous young cultivators ruin their chances by overfilling their dantian.

Then, as Jason feels the barest amount of strain on his dantian, he lets out a deep breath, releasing that last little bit of power. Just enough to remove the strain, but not the feeling of being full. With his difficulties in the last life, he had practiced this technique enough to have ingrained it into his mind.

But now that everything was in place he can’t delay any more. The first step, the foundation of his future. Jason focuses on his full dantian and considers it. During his time between lives, he had seen more than just his original cultivation method. Not too many, he hadn’t been allowed to cheat that much, but enough to know he had options. In fact, with how the powers were in this world his original method would have been wrong.

No, for this he needed to build his own legacy. After all, he didn’t plan to keep it to himself. It would be impossible anyway. Even if humans here had figured out some tricks with life extension, they hadn’t gotten anywhere near what was possible. Maybe true immortality is out of reach, but after a certain point most people don’t bother making a distinction.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Jason takes a long view of the gathered powers, feeling for a theme. There is of course his focus on purity, but that doesn’t have much to do directly with the powers. No, underneath it all three things stand out to him despite having many more powers than that. Rather, what powers he gathered have coalesced into three groups. He can feel it but it is just out of his reach to truly say.

[Civilization](Order, Technology, Progress, Community, War, Peace, Protection)

[Ascendance](Power, Potential, Purification, Rising Up, Magnitude, Beyond, Will)

[Substance](Body, Solidity, Reality, Earthly, Vital, Physical, Grounded)

While unspeakable, the core concepts imprint themselves into his mind. This is better than Jason had hoped for. In his past, this step involved much too long meditating on his old world’s Daos. The path might exist but the roads are all different. Beyond that, he can feel that while he could go down one of three paths that isn’t the end. Instead, he can choose to forge ahead. To follow through on all three at once.

Of course, the choice was obvious. He didn’t have some ancient texts that go over each of the roads before him. The only option is to advance on his own. To create his legacy. With a twist, the energy in his dantian begins to rotate. Slowly at first, but faster with time until the different concepts have separated out into three blobs. There is of course still a few specks of unwanted powers but there was no helping that.

Three layers now float within his dantian. Each one represents a different concept. Civilization on the outside, acting as walls to protect. Substance within to give the walls a deeper connection to reality and his soul. Finally Ascendance, much smaller than the others, has gathered at the very center. Less than a third the size of the others and yet amazing, it contains a will to reach higher.

Seeing this order, Jason lets out a sigh. If it had just been two elements, it would only be a matter of balancing the two. Not necessarily one to one, but simple enough. Three elements? Each one needs to balance singularly against the other two as well as all three at once. Anymore than three and things quickly get silly. In his past life there were some people that managed it but through using a preset elemental system like this world’s four element system of fire, water, earth, and air or the five element system of earth, metal, wood, water, and fire.

Those elemental systems would probably work here now that he thinks of it. A large part of what made the similar ones work in the other world was belief. While in this life, they don’t quite have as much time for the beliefs to be set in stone. The fact people still keep them despite modern technology and them not actually doing anything is amazing in and of itself.

It isn’t simple like the myths say. The systems don’t work because of some underlying truth. Fire can burn water despite how it always seems to be put in a weaker position and coldness isn’t actually the opposite of it.