Jason shrugs, “Picked up the power expulsion skill at the guild.”

Peter frowns, “There’s a skill for that? Seems like having a skill for walking.”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “Honestly, a walking skill would be useful. One of the things adventurers spend most of their time on.”

Peter shrugs, “True enough, though at that point you’re going to want a breathing skill. Well, a normal breathing skill. There are enough breathing based skills. Things like breath control and being able to hold your breath or silly amounts of time. Anyway, I have no clue about your new skill, so I guess you can train in your room.”

Jason nods, “All I need is to train some more to get the skill so I should be fine. Plus the next step involves more personalized training, so even if you knew of the skill it wouldn’t be of much help.”

Peter waves him off, “Go and train then. I need to stick around here and make sure nothing burns down.”

Jason shakes his head and walks around the edge of the sound barrier, down the hall, and into his room. As he settles onto the bed, he sighs. At least for his Energy it would come down to his usual cultivation. For stamina, things could get tricky. With that in mind, the obvious choice is to start with Energy so he has more of a clue on what to do. That isn’t what Jason does.

‘I already know what needs to be done with Energy, but who knows if that would work with Stamina. Instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole because the round peg fit, I might as well grope around for the round hole first.’

Looking inside his body, Jason first takes the time to feel his stamina pool, though he is tempted to call it his dantian. The location is so perfectly placed that he can’t help but guess that somehow he affected the placement. Still, this makes the pool easy to find. Observing the pool, he can see the stamina diffuse outward to the rest of his body.

But that isn’t how things really look. At least not for Jason. He switches to how he visualizes the body, a void filled with threads so numerous that counting them all would be folly. Jason focuses on his stamina pool and feels at the threads in the area. There isn’t any sort of collection of threads, at least not anymore. If such a thing had existed, his core and cultivation had wiped the tangle away long ago.

Still, now that he knows where to look, Jason can feel something. While the threads are his Energy, there is more to it. Starting at any of the threads within the pool, tiny pulses radiate outward along the lines. On yet not of the threads, stamina trickles through his body. The pulses jump between threads at random, but eventually get to where they need to be. Now all Jason has to do is figure out what to do with the power.

Minute after minute ticks by as Jason spends the time just observing the process. While his Energy has taken the form of threads, stamina has taken another form and now is the time to decide if the power should stay that way. Observation makes clear that stamina is more like a wave, but is that the best form? Even if he controlled the stamina waves, the power would still take longer to reach where it needs to be than his Energy does.

On one hand, stamina is the kind of thing you want to come at a steady pace. The continual replenishment of the body. On the other hand, to use the power of stamina in skills and abilities requires him to deliver the power right away. No time to let the power seep through his body.

‘I can’t just replicate my Energy system. Hell, I could almost view this like body cultivation as compared to Energy being a more traditional cultivation technique. In fact, that isn’t the worst idea. The body needs to be firm to resist attacks, yet at the same time one needs to be able to punch. Now I need to figure out if the form will fit. The waves are too random and easy going and threads will not work either.’

Jason lies back and stretches out. ‘Waves can be powerful and my threads can weave together for strength, but they are inherently separate, even if the waves are currently riding the threads. What goes with thread? I need a form to assist my stamina getting where it needs to go as soon as the power is needed.’

‘Wait, waves! My stamina isn’t acting like waves, but rather the pulses feel like that. My threads are like a wick, absorbing my stamina. This makes sense. Stamina is connected with the blood and my core is my heart. With threads replacing the vessels and stamina the blood itself. Not that the stamina takes too long to reach somewhere in my body. Rather, my threads aren’t as efficient as the circulatory system would be. But how to fix this?’

‘The waves are just the result of the threads being unable to contain the power. Each thread is so small that it makes enough sense, but I can’t change the size part. Too much of my cultivation right now depends upon it. Though I guess if the problem is the threads needing more throughput I could always make it use more threads.’

‘In fact, now that I think about it, the gut is a hot spot for blood vessels picking up nutrients. The intestines absorb what the body needs and passes it on to the blood. I bet if I went back to before I formed my core there would be as many if not more of the threads centered on the region than even the heart. That means the answer is obvious. I need to create a confluence of my Energy threads in my stamina pool.’

Akhier

Thank you for reading! Next two chapters are free on my Patreon ( 253 and 254 ), five chapters beyond that for only a dollar, and many more for five dollars (two chapters release a week at this tier).