The answer to where Mike could get a bigger pump for his imaginary sprinkler system that pushed energy throughout his body was obviously increasing the size and power of his core. He had tried many times in the past to do just this, but he had come a long way since then and was eager to see what was possible.

With his soul space already near bursting with the excess energy that he had passively collected, he began collecting it and condensing it around his core, forming a layer as he had done with his skill fractals in the past. His increased ability to guide the energy made up for the lack of speed with which the energy circulated.

He wasn’t surprised, although slightly disappointed, when he had finished surrounding the core completely, only to have nothing happen. Definition of insanity he chided himself as he thought through the problem.

What was the functionality he was trying to achieve? Was it simply making the core bigger? No. He also needed it to be more powerful. Although being bigger means having a larger capacity which should lead to some increased power.

Despite the high mental strain, he kept the energy in place around his core while observing it. Within a few minutes, he realized a fundamental difference between his core and his skill fractals. The core was moving. Very slowly, almost to the point of being nonexistent, the small circle rotated. It was a detail he had never noticed before.

“That explains why the energy never fused,” he murmured, “I have been trying to stick something completely stationary to an object in motion.”

He had another decision, and once again he had no idea which method was right. Should he try to stop his core and then apply the extra energy, or should he try to get the energy to rotate at the same speed as the core so they could fuse? It was already a mental strain to hold the energy in place without trying to make it rotate uniformly, so he opted for the first option. No sooner had he willed his core to slow down than an impending sense of doom settled upon him as the energy within him sputtered.

“Ohhhhh.. Kaaaay” he wheezed, “I guess we will try option two.”

It took time, hours, and his head was ringing from the effort, but eventually he got the energy to circle at the same rate as his core. As soon as he did so, the core picked up speed marginally. Going with his gut, he increased the energy to match it. A blinding light emanated from his core which bound the energy he had been holding in orbit, combining them into one larger mass.

A surge of energy emanated from his core, churning through his channels, causing them to burn slightly as they were forced to widen a hair to accommodate the influx of energy. When the flow had circulated through the entirety of his channels, he pushed some of the energy into Unflinching Meteor. It responded slightly more quickly than before he had added the extra channels.

“Success!” he whooped, feeling as happy as he had hit his first bulls-eye with his childhood bow.

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Mike exited the tunnel, stumbling for the up-teenth time since he had stood up from strengthening his core. In the last three days, he had managed to upgrade his core three more times–a process which got harder with each iteration as more energy was required to coat the increased surface area, and that energy also had to move faster to match the increased rotational speed.

“Glad I had that cosmic water, it would have taken me years to gather enough energy, even with two external methods of pulling it.” he said.

By far, his favorite method for quickly consuming the cosmic water was to simply pour it on his navel Energy Sucker. To the untrained eye, it would look like he really enjoyed bathing his belly button, but with Energy Sense active, he watched as the increased symbol size led to a near perfect consumption of the energy from the dripping water. And being so close to his center meant that the energy reached his core at record speeds.

Increasing his energy pressure also impacted him physically. He moved faster, as evidenced by his somewhat drunken walk while exiting his burrow. It was hard to not stumble when your brain communicates with your body faster than ever before and your body responds in turn. It almost felt like the world was moving in slow motion.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

In addition to speed, he found that his physicality had improved in every way. He was stronger, his body was denser and harder, and as already mentioned, his thought process was clearer. It was like increasing his core had managed to improve him in every way the System had categorized. Well, except Luck. He now more than ever believed that luck was just a social construct designed to make lazy people feel good about why they weren’t as “fortunate” as those who worked hard.

“Millennials and their work ethic.” he grumped, as he punched the ground as hard as he could.

Cracks spread out as it impacted with a satisfying crunch, although his first remained unharmed. Blowing off a bit of dust from his knuckles he began to train. The increased speed and power would only be helpful if he could manage to not move like a newborn foal.

He started off with just the basics of walking, which turned to short sprints. When he was ready, he began running around the base of his crater, the incline of slope allowed him to truly increase his speed to his maximum. He briefly tried activating Tactics, but found the skill unresponsive–something to explore at another time.

When he was moving freely, he added in Footsteps of the Wind, and even without Tactics, he was confident that he was running faster than he ever had before. Once running was comfortable, he formed some axes of Quicksilver and began going through some of his forms. Finally, as the light coming through the rift changed from daylight to night, he felt ready to test out his skills on a real opponent.

Feeling somewhat heady from his newfound power, he found himself wandering across a giant asteroid, seeking out an energy synergy that was similar in size to his own, while thinking how he could best ask for a sparring match. He held no actual hostility towards any of the beasts around him, and he didn’t need more food yet, so he thought it was probably polite to ask. Luckily, beasts as weak as he was were scarce, giving him plenty of time to work on his introduction.

“Hello, care to fight?” No, that one was too forward, they might get the wrong idea that he wanted to actually hurt them.

“Greetings, I am Mike, a warrior, a protector, and a lover of all things meat-related. I have come to see if I am stronger than you.” No, too prideful.

“Hi, wanna test your mettle in the dance of death that reveals a person's true character?” Definitely not. He wasn’t even sure where that one had come from, but he blamed the hippy vibes of the System.

He was still unsure what exactly he was going to say when he spied the perfect beast to train with. It stood around 8 feet tall and was humanoid in shape. It appeared to have a rocky exoskeleton, which would be a natural defense for his axes, meaning he could attack with some real force without causing real damage. Had he found the ideal sparring partner so quickly?

It was at that moment that he realized a flaw in his plan, could the beast even understand English? Clearing his throat, he prepared to ask the beast if it wanted to fight, only to have it turn around aggressively before bellowing and charging him. He was pleasantly surprised that the beast seemed to be marginally slower than himself.

“I guess I don’t have to be polite about fighting.” he assured himself as he sprinted towards the oncoming berserker.

When they were still a dozen feet apart, the beast lowered its neck, rocklike horns growing from its head as it prepared for impact, an exchange that Mike would normally be perfectly fine with, but not on this occasion. He already knew that Unflinching Meteor would be able to absorb the impact, but could his fist?

No, no it could not. In retrospect, trying to collide with something much heavier than oneself was a bad idea. He felt the bones in his arm shatter as he was sent flying back. The pain was very manageable compared to growing channels, so despite the jarring, he managed to land on his feet as the charging beast came at him again.

Falling back on his training, this time he allowed the beast to come to him, dashing sideways at the last moment to avoid its horns, before hitting it with a solid ax swing as it went by. Something that proved very ineffective with its impervious hide.

A grin split his face. So it was to be boxing then? His father would be proud.

The beast came again, its size, strength, and speed apparently not making it any wiser than a charging bull. He once again dodged, but this time, rather than using an ax, he activated rock tunneling, before punching the beast on the side of its left flank. A fist-sized swatch of exoskeleton was obliterated, leading to cracks spreading the point of injury.

With an effective means of attack and a very unimaginative enemy, the fight was uneventful from that point forward. Mike slowly got rid of the creature’s hide, revealing pink, squishy flesh beneath. When a large enough swath of hide was removed, he went on the offensive with his axes, cutting the beast bit by bit until it fell over.

He was confused when no kill-energy entered his channels upon defeating his opponent, until he activated energy sense and saw it slowly bleeding out from the core into the rest of the world. Not wanting to be wasteful, he stopped down, debating whether it would look more weird to put his navel or his head on the stomach of his fallen foe.

“I need to figure out a less embarrassing way of collecting kill energy.” he said with gusto and he hugged the beast tightly.