Once again, Tom found himself inside the cave, the gecko still laying down on the floor.

He immediately got to work, he had so many things to do. He had ridiculous amounts of mana available to him, and on top of that, he even knew what he had to do, all the keys to success were at his fingertips.

Well, almost all, he chose to ignore the very fact that his reward didn't contain the technique he needed.

However, he did have some ideas about how he would go about it. The core had formed under the pressure of ridiculous amounts of mana and his willpower. And at the start, the area had stopped absorbing mana after he had saturated it with ridiculous amounts of it.

But if he basically had to create a core for each and every centimeter wholly through his body, he was sure that it would probably take him over a month of constant work, which was just unacceptable to him.

However, for now, he knew exactly what he had to do, so he sat down against the cave walls and continued what he had started. He started bringing the electricity mana under his control, assisting his core. Then he continued on turning more of his body to this new mixture, between electricity mana and the empowering composition that most of his body had already been turned into, reworking his very cell structure.

He had tested the defenses between his newly upgraded arm, and the one that was created purely with the empowering mana, and the difference was night and day. Sure the electricity mana had empowered the hand that was still in its previous stage to a much harder stage, making his skin as hard as a rock, and giving him the strength to wield it. However, if he continued on for longer than five seconds, he wouldn't have to worry about any outside sources of damage anymore, as the mana itself would start ripping his muscles to pieces, leaving behind only a cauterized mess.

As to his newly modified arm, it lasted for a whole minute before the damage started doing permanent harm to him. The speed boost he got on top of the toughness and strength was a welcome addition, even if the level of toughness and strength had greatly decreased.

So it was a no-brainer to him that he had to do this operation on his whole body. He only regretted that he had mostly focused on his bones and skin with the empowering mana, only doing some of his muscles and the rest had just enjoyed the excess energy that leaked to them to heal the damage they took while he broke his bones and skin.

However, the electricity mana did the very same to his muscles, but instead, it almost completely overwrote their previous composition, the two being in completely different leagues.

The process was much faster, and the only thing left was speed and the ability to handle electricity.

Tom continued this for over four hours before the gecko finally got up.

He stopped his cultivation, curiously looking at the gecko who had eaten the extremely heavy core. He had no idea what the creature had done with it or how it affected it, but it still looked the same with no visible differences.

The gecko did the same and just stared at him, this continued on for a while before the gecko once again sent a jolt of electricity into him. This time he responded in kind, doing the same almost instantly.

The gecko seemed somehow pleased with it, and then it just headed out of the cave going outside to do who knew what. Tom just shrugged, deciding to see where this would go. As much as it pained him to lose a valuable core, it wasn't essential to him, he could not use nor could he sell it out here, so trading it for a possible friend didn't seem like a bad idea.

Then he just continued his very slow work of transforming his body into something better.

It was drooling work, he would spend half an hour gaining control over the mana, then he would spend the same time forcing it to transform his body's composition to something better, and last he would spend almost half an hour letting his willpower recover. Then he would repeat the cycle.

While working, he would usually try to think of ways of optimizing the transformation process to speed it up, but so far, he had no luck with it. Other times, he would just log off to take care of his bodily needs and to work out, determined to someday reach the same heights in the real world.

Sure it felt great whenever he managed to transform a whole section of his body, and he could test its function and feel just how much better it was than before. However, it was mind-numbing work, but it was mind-numbing work he thrived in. He could experiment to his heart's desire, he had all the tools he would need at hand in abundance, and there were no deadlines hanging over his head.

He tried on many occasions to change the progress somehow, experimenting with how he used his willpower and mana, trying different approaches and movements as he forced them into his body. But so far, he hadn't made any discoveries.

After another three hours, the gecko came back, but it wasn't empty-handed, it was carrying some kind of a burned bird-like creature. It walked up to Tom, dropped it right in front of him, and looked at him expediently.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Tom looked straight back at it. Eventually, he started moving his hand toward the carcass, curious about what the gecko brought him. But just as his hand was about touch it, the gecko pulled it back and swept its tail toward his backpack, like it was demanding him to pay for it.

"Are you trying to abuse my generosity????" Tom asked indigenously." Or are you just wanting to trade cores... " I don't have any more core..." He continued in a low, almost defeated tone.

Tom quickly dug through his backpack, but there wasn't anything he thought the gecko would want. Most of his equipment was directed toward killing monsters, not befriending them.

He eventually decided upon a nail, while the gecko looked at each of his moves with anticipation. It was one of the few things he had an abundant amount of and wouldn't feel the loss that badly. And the possibility of trading a core for a nail just seemed too good not to try.

When he presented the nail to the gecko, it just stared at him. Then Tom placed it on the ground between them and moved away, giving it some space to examine it.

It slowly approached the nail and started smelling it from different angles and giving it a couple of licks.

Then it finally ended its studies and looked at Tom like he had betrayed it. And as it looked straight at him, it started eating the carcass while staring into his eyes for the entire duration, making sure that he cached every second of its lunch, stopping eating whenever he looked away and walking to where he was looking at. Clearly driving its point home, it was pissed with him.

Tom looked at the whole ordeal with amusement, trying his best not to laugh. He had run into a petty gecko.

While he looked at the gecko's show of displeasure, he thought that maybe this nail wasn't as useless as the gecko had thought, as it was still metal, thus a conductor.

He started gathering mana from the air, as he picked the nail up. He stared straight back at the gecko, making sure that it could see what he was about to do.

Soon enough, he had enough gathered a decent amount of mana, and he shoved it into the nail, genuinely interested in the results.

As the mana went into the nail, it slowly started getting an electric glow, the mana taking to the nail like fish to water.

Tom looked at it curiously, as the mana somewhat contained itself inside of the nail, not trying to jump out of it into the air around and forcing him to fight for control.

He watched as the metal the nail was made of didn't seem like it was getting damaged like he was. No, everything seemed to function just fine, the electricity mana playing nice.

He curiously stabbed the nail into the ground, wanting to see what would happen. As it hit the ground, he commanded the mana to shoot out into the ground. And sure enough, it shot forward, surging into the ground, as it went, it somewhat deformed the nail, and left a small scorch mark on the ground.

As he looked up, he noticed that the gecko was looking at the nail just as intently as he was.

Before it seemed to make a conclusion, it suddenly brought the last piece of the carcass to Tom, which amounted to bloody feathers and a couple of bones.

Tom shook his head at the gecko's greed, surprised to find a creature this shameless. He threw the nail away and continued his cultivation, curious to see what the gecko would do with it.

However, it just took it with it as it went deeper into the cave.

This continued for a couple of days. Tom drew in more and more mana, his cultivation speed increasing with each day, steadily but surely, as he wound new methods to optimize the progress. Meanwhile, the gecko would come and go, sometimes it was hunting, but most of the time, it was spent deeper in the cave, away from Tom's prying eyes. It would periodically try other trades with Tom, and the very next time, he had traded a nail for another carcass, but the moment he got the corpse, he realized that there was no core inside of it, only a hole on the side the gecko has kept away from him.

Before he could do or say anything, the gecko was already shooting deeper into the cave.

Had the gecko truly just scammed him?!?

He had tried to follow the gecko deeper into the cave, but like the last time, he soon ran into the problem that the mana levels were too high, and they started overwhelming his core, even if his body could handle it somewhat better. However, this time Tom understood the risk, and immediately went back to his original position to continue his work, slowly advancing his body.

But when the two days were up, he had finally done the same operation to every part of his skin, muscles, and bones.

This was the very first time he got a taste of some truly superhuman levels of power. He sent mana out from his core to every corner of his body, almost fully emptying his small core in the progress. The mana didn't immediately rip his cells apart and kill him as it spread through his body. No, he could feel as the mana seeped into his cells and started empowering them, giving him access to power he could have never imagined having, making him feel like he could do anything, his whole body overcharged with power, just waiting to be allowed to explode forth, and he did just that.

He shot forwards like a rocket in a controlled fashion, he was sure that he could give hundred-meter sprinters a run for their money, and to top it all off, this wasn't just raw uncontrolled forward momentum. No, he could control his movements. However, like all good things, the feeling disappeared as fast as it had come. Just three seconds later, as Tom was performing a side step from his max speed, it ended. He felt like his body had grown 30 kilos heavier, and the moment he tried to complete his sidestep, his leg strength and toughness was no match for his momentum. He came down in an uncontrolled spin of limps, his body sliding through the cave floor, burning his skin as he went.

Tom didn't mind it at all. Instead, he just started maniacally laughing on the floor. Deciding, that if he ever ran into the wolves, he wouldn't kill them all, as he abandoned all of his plans that he had cooked up as he had trekked through the tundra on how he would go about the grim work.

He knew that his empowerment was far from perfect, the time he could use it at that level was just too short. Most of the mana had been spent during the transition, as it had to push through his body, most of its energy spent on moving and not empowering, burrowing paths through his body as it went. However, this was a great starting point, and to top it all off, he knew, well almost knew, what he had to do. He needed to somehow create the meridians, and if he could create his core here, then who said that he couldn't also advance it?