Tom acted like a metal detector as he started moving around, testing the air everywhere he went, trying to locate where the electricity mana came from.

At first, it took him multiple minutes just to notice if the air had any electricity mana in it, and even longer to detect where it was coming from. It was slow work, especially as he didn't wish to be noticed by anything, so he spend most of the time carefully creeping to a new location where he repeated the process.

Eventually, he managed to work out that one of the hillsides had a tiny bit more electricity mana in its air.

It was the only valid lead he had left, so he enthusiastically started making his way down the hillside while monitoring the mana levels, and sure enough, it was rising.

As much as it grated on his impatient mind, he couldn't just go straight to the source of the mana because where else would the creature be? He slowly made his way forwards until he spotted that there was actually a hole in the side of the hill, maybe half a meter in diameter, covered by some bushes just barely visible from his position.

He wanted to go to the hole and investigate it straight away and maybe even set up a trap. However, he knew that there was quite a high chance that if he did that the creature would notice him, and that would mean all his careful sneaking around would have been for nothing.

He eventually accepted that he couldn't be impatient, and he would have to wait for the creature to exit on its own accord if it was even in the hole.

However, after half an hour of sharply keeping eye on the hole, absolutely nothing had changed, nothing had moved, and the area was still as peaceful as ever.

His patience was starting to run out, and his attention started to wander to every and all things other than actually watching the hole.

He remembered how his friend had said that the core was slowly created by gathering energy into his body and then somehow storing it. However, every time he had drawn energy into his body, it had started wreaking havoc if some parts of his body weren't damaged and he didn't have a genuine need for healing.

"So what can I do to store it..." The obvious answer was staring straight at him in his backpack, the core, but how? The only lead he had was how he knew diamonds formed under enormous pressure, but then again, Harry had said that usually, people gather the energy slowly into their bodies using some technique, without having awakened minds that could control mana.

The whole thing seemed like a mystery to him. Then again, diamonds also formed during ridiculously long periods, so maybe there wasn't some shortcut available to him. But what was this his own path that the Secverses AI had clearly been trying to get him to tread? Could it truly be that he had just spoiled himself by managing to skip so many steps, and he should just humble himself and buy some guide? And accept the fact that he would have to save for the "Cultivations basics" while longer.

He had only 1,7 credits, and the guides in the Empire net were quite expensive, and then the question would be which one? In the training village, they were already trimmed down to a selection of the ones that would suit humans the best, and they came with real training, not just information. But then again, he was currently one unclimbable cliff wall away from the nearest one.

However, as he had nothing better to do while he waited, he decided to give it the old college try. And on top of that, he wasn't that eager to select one of the multiple guides available on the Empire net, only to realize that it didn't suit him.

He leveraged his will on the neutral mana flowing around him, trying to bring it under his control. Soon noticing how the mana floating in the air also resisted his attempts to draw it in, so how could some technique allow a normal person to do the same? He had to settle for a small quantity of the mana, as it was resisting him exponentially more the more he tried to influence it.

He brought the energy into his body, and like before, it disappeared into his muscles not long after.

"How I am supposed to do this?"

It was clear he needed to do something different, and the only thing he could think of was this "some technique." He couldn't fathom it as a possibility that a normal person could somehow draw more mana in than their bodies would consume. Or was this a side effect of his advanced body? It would certainly fit the bill, as his body had been modified using a core that mostly seemed to use mana to empower its vessel.

But what was it, and more importantly, where would he store the energy? Could he somehow oversaturate some area of his body with mana? But that seemed like a bad idea, as always when mana had no purpose inside of his body, it had started to create its own twisted modifications to it. Could he somehow control these to actually form a core? It was clear that there was a way to do it, as countless humans were currently trying to achieve just that, but he just didn't know what it was.

And if he tried to somehow control these modifications, where would he do it? The only thing Harry had spoken of was the torso, so the only logical area he could think of was the center of it, as it seemed the most logical.

Stolen novel; please report.

He remembered he had gotten the hint, "CORE CENTRALIZE."

So, could it truly be as easy as the one world let him believe? Gather things together in a common location, but why centralize and not something like concentrate? The central place it refers to, could it truly just refer to the central area of his torso?

This time Tom tried to gather more of the mana before he brought it into his body. He kept it just outside of it while he gathered more and more. When he finally had a decent amount of mana, he moved it as fastly as he could through his body to the center of his torso. He lost some of it on the way, but once it reached its destination, Tom stopped moving it and let it stay there, and just like before, it disappeared into the tissue around it.

He kept on trying, each time he had mana at the center of his torso, he tried different kinds of movements. He spun it around or tried to push it on itself, but they only marginally prolonged the mana stay before it disappeared. However, this did demonstrate to him that maybe the techniques were some form of precise movements, but he had no idea how normal people could do any of them, as spinning the mana around had drained much more willpower than just gathering more of it, so it wasn't actually worth it.

The other positive thing was that, unlike other cores, the neutral mana didn't seem to try to turn his body into something it wasn't, but then again, it didn't seem to do anything else either. But as he had nothing better to do while he waited, he kept at it, being at ease knowing that as this was a game, if he truly did something terrible to himself, he could just run to the forest and challenge the biggest, and the badest monster he could find.

Could the final step be just patience, or did these techniques drive some other purpose than just gathering mana?

He continued collecting the mana to the center of his body and letting it disappear into the tissue around it just to have something to do. And as he could practice controlling mana with his willpower while doing it, so it seemed like a win-win situation.

This continued for almost an hour without him having anything real to show for his efforts. He was flabbergasted, just how long would normal humans have to do this for them to achieve something? He was sure that they couldn't draw anywhere as much mana as he could, and still, he had nothing to show for it.

The thought, " Am I missing something?" kept creeping up on him, but he could feel how he could control the mana under his command within his body much more accurately now, so he didn't pay his doubts that much mind.

However, before he could go any further with his test, he finally spotted movement in the spot where he had been staring at for over an hour. A shape made its way out from the hole cautiously, he barely even noticed it, the only thing that alerted him to its presence was the very fact that every detail of the hole's surroundings had been deeply carved into his mind, and he noticed that it somehow looked different.

The creature was a maybe meter long and had the general shape of a gecko, it was dark green in color and maybe a meter long, but most of it was its tail that was thick and brutal looking. Before he could look at it for any longer, it scurried into the underbrush, disappearing between the bushes and going who knows where.

After it had disappeared, Tom waited for a couple of minutes before he made his way to the hole. It looked to open up more as it went deeper, he couldn't see its end from the entrance, but he could see that it went down at least ten meters before it turned to the side, blocking the deeper parts from scrutiny. He could feel how there was abundant electricity mana coming from the hole, and he was sure that there had to be something similar to the camouflaged tree inside of it.

He didn't know how long he had before the gecko would come back, and he had a decision to make. Would he go in and possibly trap himself in the hopes of finding a perfect ambush location, or would he wait for the gecko to come back and set up his trap at the entrance, as it clearly didn't have a clear line of sight to it from within the hole?

He quickly started to examine the entrance, looking at how he could set up a trap for it. As far as he knew, the gecko was extremely fast and could attack from range, a deadly combination in any situation. In order to have any chance of victory, he would need to get close and stay there to stop the gecko from attacking from range, and setting the trap inside of the cave fit the bill perfectly.

He had to force himself to be patient, as he would only have one shot at this, so he did the only reasonable thing, even if it pained him to do so, he retreated back to his watchpost and started to wait, determined to see how long the gecko would spend out of its cave. Instead of preparing a trap, he improved his watchpost by digging a small hole where he placed himself and used the shield as a cover, watching the cave's entrance from its gaps.

Tom spent the rest of the day watching the entrance while doing his best to gather mana to the center of his torso.

One could say that his wait hadn't been in a vain, he had gathered some valuable information about the gecko's movements and gained some advancement in his test.

The gecko had spent around two hours out of its cave before it returned covered in blood. Then it had spent almost five hours inside of the cave before it had once again left looking much better. This time it had to spend over three hours out, returning in much better shape. At that point, Tom was ridiculously tired, having stayed awake for extremely long.

While he waited, he had seen and heard some scuffles around the mountains, the gecko was clearly hunting around its territory. His initial assessment of the tundra population had been clearly of, he had just been lucky not to get targeted by any of its top predators, as he had heard at least three scuffles and who know how many took place further away.

At the same time, he had spent the whole time gathering the neutral mana to the center of his torso, and maybe he had made the right decision. After the first five hours, the manas disappearance speed had started to slow down. It was great news to Tom, as the whole point of a core was to hold the energy somewhere in one's body, at least as far as he understood it, so maybe he truly was on the right track, the answer had been around him the whole time, the neutral mana and patience. Unlike the mana he had drawn from the cores, it seemed much more compliant not to bend on destroying his body even after he had drawn so much of it into himself.

Whenever the gecko had just entered its cave or left, Tom had taken a quick breaks from the Secverse, taking care of his body and quickly logging back in, praying that the gecko hadn't returned or left while he was away. However, to Tom's relief, it clearly liked to take its time while it was in the cave or out hunting.

After it had entered its cave after its latest hunting trip, Tom finally exited the game and went to sleep.