Jason mentally took a step back and observed his path. A wall to protect. A field to feed. A pillar to support. The walls protect the field that feeds the pillar and in turn the pillar supports the rest. Jason freezes.
“Wait, support. I’m missing support. I’m missing the virtuous cycle. My concept of [Ascendance] includes things like power, magnitude, beyond, and will. There is even a bit of purification in there. However, nothing in that is used to benefit the rest. Just like with the planter, all the growth is being funneled into it.
“What good is ascending alone? Being at the top is a lonely thing if no one is there to support you. The problem is that my understanding of it seems to be purely a matter of selfishness. Was it like this when I started?”
Jason ponders on this as the sun swings across the sky, but despite it being so recently isn’t able to come up with an answer. Though his lack of understanding when it comes to the concept civilization makes all the more sense. His substance is being protected some and so can support his ascension. Ascension, of course, has the other two feeding into it and so has grown. But civilization is a bare wall standing against the outside without any support.
Even the strongest wall would fall if not supported from within. He needs something to change about his path ever upward that allows it to support those behind it. To raise not only the ceiling, but the floor as well. After all, while a pillar can rise up quite high all on its own, mountains tend to be a much more stable structure.
Though while in stories a mountain might support the sky, they don’t support much else. At least, not without the cost being that of the mountain itself. So while Jason does want it to help the rest, he isn’t willing to strip mine his own advancement for it. No, there needs to be something more mutual about the exchange.
The various words he associated with [Ascendance] cycle through Jason’s head like puzzle pieces. Power, Magnitude, and Beyond are about having advanced past others. After all, having a magnitude more power puts you beyond others. For Jason, it represents how already he is better than most in his level range.
After that, yet before in conceptual space comes Potential, Rising Up, and Will. The state of improvement that would lead to the previous three words. You need the potential and will to rise up.
Then all that is left is the oddball of purification. A part of his path because to truly build to the sky you need a strong foundation and for that you need to work with the best materials you can. Though being the odd one out means there should be room to extend it. The only question is how.
As an idea, purification can be pretty lonely. To take away that which isn’t what you want to be left with a singular pure object. However, as Jason mulls it over a second understanding of the word comes to mind. To improve, and not all improvements happen by just taking. Steel needs carbon to be added to iron and so on.
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Jason frowns as he tosses around this new angle. Just “improve” isn’t enough though. There needs to be more behind it than just that. No, he needs another word for it. Specifically him, others might be able to use “improve”, but to Jason it doesn’t feel right.
Then it hits him, upgrade. While improvement is important, it has a lower level feel to Jason than upgrade. To him you would improve by a level but an upgrade would be a matter of innate quality or in a more NeoRealm centric view, of breaking through a bottleneck. From level 23 to 24, it won’t be of much matter to Jason, but from 24 to 25 is a whole different matter.
As this realization crystallized though, Jason feels a slight weakness spread through his body. While the addition of the ability for his ascension to upgrade his walls was important, it also took something from him and a quick check of his stats shows the reason.
{Normal Stats
* Strength 46 ( 45[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
* ★Toughness 64+1 ( 64[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
* Agility 71 ( 70[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
* Control 138 ( 138[Base] )
Auxiliary Stats
* Defense 61 ( 60[Energy] + 1[Substance] )
* Stamina 95 ( 34[Base] + 60[Energy] + 1[Substance] )
* HP 167 ( 106[Base] + 60[Energy] + 1[Substance] )
* Energy 30
Tripartite Conceptual Energy
* Civilization 0.161%
* Ascendance 0.183%
* Substance 0.19%}
His understanding of [Ascendance] had dropped from 0.213% to 0.183% and along with it all his stats also dropped. Even though this was only by a single point, Jason had still felt the difference. Something vaguely odd to him as the feeling of gaining stat points doesn’t exactly trigger anything for him, but obviously this was a different matter.
Still, Jason isn’t sad about this. Rather, he understands why the drop happened and is happy about it. Because, in the end, Jason hadn’t actually lost any understanding of [Ascendance] but instead had increased what it covered as a concept.
The fact he lost so little actually points towards him having gained more than enough insights. To Jason this was like believing you were halfway through counting your money only for someone to show up and drop a couple more stacks of money on the pile. Yes, Jason would now have to work harder to understand it better, but in the end he would know more than if this hadn’t happened.
Also, while the benefits from the understanding hadn’t changed, Jason had a feeling that if he continued to expand his understanding of what the three concepts meant, more benefits would surely come. After all, the System was limiting itself to percentages and obviously 50% of 200 would be more than 50% of 100. Though in the end, all that mattered to Jason was that he had managed to fix his understanding of his foundation.