Jason thanks Gregor for the book and heads back to his room to give it a read before he logs off for the night. No matter how interesting it is, he will have enough time to read it tomorrow and in the future. The book itself isn’t too big and since it is so common he can probably pick one up for cheap enough so should provide some light reading material on his journey.

Once back in his room a quick read of the intro section for Energy users basically just rehashes what Gregor told him. Though it did go into a bit more detail of what refinement could mean. While Gregor had only given the example of faster, the book also goes into making the Energy denser and a few other interesting tidbits. Jason gets the feeling that Gregor’s example was mostly restricted to things easy to explain with his river example. Because a number of the examples definitely had nothing to do with the physics of water.

Of all the simple examples, the one that catches his eye involves a qualitative change to the Energy. As if switching out water for mercury or copper for gold. An interesting idea though it is one of the few that takes supplementary materials to use. After all, no matter how much you refine a piece of copper, it isn’t going to turn into a piece of gold. Still, despite this requirement, Jason really wants to try it. If only to find out what the resulting Energy is like.

Up till now Jason hadn’t really bothered with the mental image of his Energy all that much. It was in threads, yes, but qualities like color and opacity didn’t seem all that important. Going by what the book is telling him, those ignored qualities actually can cause a big change in the Energy. At the moment, if Jason had to describe his Energy, it would be a dull silver color. While what he currently needs is more, better might also help.

With a sigh, Jason closes the book and logs out to his personal VR room. As much as he wouldn’t mind falling into a book, there are things to do. Specifically things like looking up the nearest military surplus store and other such odds and ends. If a personal VR room could be spied upon, the people outside would be very excited to see him looking into it more. As it is though they can only watch the physical world and so Jason’s secrets are safe for now.

Though they don’t have to wait long for him to leave his pod. And then they promptly end up bored as he seems to be meditating in the middle of the living room, like always.

Now out of NeoRealm, the System is unable to blur his mind and the first thing Jason does is actually mediate. While unlike with the mind, he doesn’t have some clever method to check his progress, He still can get a feel for his soul and is able to determine that yes, mediating in NeoRealm does improve his soul.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

This little fact is a double whammy for him. Not only does this allow him to take a more active role in improving his real body, but it also means that exploring the wilds of NeoRealm will help him just as much as exploring nature irl would. This lifts a weight off his shoulders as it means he only has to deal with training the body and his cultivation when out of his pod. The five times difference being way too much of a penalty otherwise.

That little check up finished, Jason settles in to cultivate the rest of his time away. Now that he has a core, that means he can focus on gathering power and growing the seeds of understanding that had been planted within him. With the three core concepts of Civilization, Ascendance, and Substance he can finally start walking down the path towards enlightenment.

This starts out simple enough, drawing in more power of the appropriate type. Though that alone is enough to cause shock for the researchers. They had of course had a number of sensors set up already, but they hadn’t been detailed enough, or focused enough to detect the changes. Now though, they can scratch their heads in wonder as energies that normally take a massive amount of effort to affect are now calmly streaming into Jason’s body.

Jason does at this point feel like something is watching him. A bit nebulous and he assumes it must be the house’s surveillance system, so puts it out of his mind. After all, once enough power is gathered, it is time to put it to use. By being pulled into his foundation, the powers all mix together to make the three concepts naturally. From there, though, Jason needs to pull out these new portions of power and run them through his body.

Cycling the power of Substance through his muscles, bones, ligaments, and skin to refine both the physical and the concept. Moving the power of Civilization into his brain to reinforce one of the main advantages of the concept, that of knowledge passed down from the previous generation. And of course the small trickle of Ascendance based power is fed slowly to his soul.

Not that he had originally intended to break up the pieces like that. At first, the three powers just cycled through his body. But soon enough it became clear where each power wanted to dwell. The fact that it matched up with the delimitation between body, mind, and soul likely just a matter of his own understanding of the subject.

While his cultivation isn’t high enough to warp reality yet, it does fudge things. In this case, since he had just been worrying about the three his dantian had responded to this worry and the power within aligned itself with the three. Jason in turn makes note of this and while allowing it to continue never stops trying to spread the three concepts through his entire being. Specialization can allow one to go farther down a path, but without some breadth most will find themselves reaching a dead end they have no hope to breakthrough.