With a starting point, Jason can finally dig into what is up with his stats. “System, show me Energetic Body Reinforcement.”

{Energetic Body Reinforcement

Accepting only purity of body and mind you have given up past concepts of self for the uncertainty of truth.

Apprentice Level 8 - 33.41%

Rarity: Truth

Type: Passive, Cultivation

Effects:

• Filtering Cycle - Gain only 10% of absorbed energies but they are extremely pure
• Purity of energy - Because of the purity of your energy higher levels have a lower scaling on what is needed to level up and the energy does more
• Body/Mind Unification - Your inner self has stabilized allowing you as much control of your body as you have over your mind
• Energized Flesh - Can hit incorporeal things for 41% of normal damage with body
• Material Body (Wood) - With time your body can become like living metal or hard like a diamond
• Untainted Core - No longer is your body that of a normal mortal as your heart has stopped but you haven’t. Your body doesn’t attempt to mimic internals so status effects like broken bones heal twice as fast because you don’t have any}

Jason focuses on each line of text. Much has changed over time, especially the description, so every piece needs to be understood and compared to what Jason felt Penny represented. Though speaking of the description, that right there rang the first warning bell. To give up your concept of self is something very in line with Jason, but the opposite of Penny. Going by her name of OrichalcumShell, Penny had placed great importance on her body.

Instead of Jason’s path of abandoning the System’s view of him, she had focused on improving the one thing the system glorified with her race, the shell. If Jason had taken a similar path, his circulatory system would have stayed the focus of his Energy instead of being cast off.

This one difference alone could be the source of his problems. While early on, he mostly followed the technique and thus gained stat points, later on as he diverged the increases slowed to a stop. But it couldn’t be that easy. For something so simple, the description would have changed to reflect that. So while it was a good starting point it only began the story.

With that in mind, what he is looking for must be in the effects. The first couple hadn’t changed at all, but then things diverged completely. It took him a bit to remember but originally the third effect wasn’t body/mind unification but rather blood is life and the heart its throne. A simple enough effect that would increase his passive health regen. Taken with his previous thoughts from the description though and he catches a glimpse at what might have been.

To have continued training in that path would have led to a sickeningly unkillable play style. Growing back arms that had just been cut off within moments and other such things except without the classical weakness found in similar creatures such as trolls. But still Jason continues to examine the effects.

And the unification skill isn’t unchanged either. In fact, with what he can remember from what the effect originally said, the new text could almost be an entirely new effect. Gone are the mentions of stat limitations, replaced with talk of how his inner self has stabilized.

After that is energized flesh which thankfully is the same, if more powerful. A straightforward effect that will help in niche circumstances. Likely incredibly useful for Penny so that ghosts can’t just phase through her shell. Then comes material body, which is honestly the same sort of thing and would explain Penny’s name.

To follow that all is untainted core. A completely new effect based entirely on the change in direction his cultivation has taken. A complete 180 on Penny’s use of the technique. Going from the most powerful mortal form and taking that one step past into the immortal. To reject the physical form given by the system and in its place a personal truth of emptiness filled only by his own Energy and thought.

All of this together paints a picture of radically changes despite some basic parts of the technique not changing. What good does a tougher material body do for Jason when his focus is on Energy. Sure, Jason doesn’t want to completely abandon flesh and become one of those hokey energy beings you see in science fiction. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want his physical form to be made of his Energy. In fact, from a certain point of view his attempts to change all his lines to use his own Energy could be seen as a step in that direction.

After all, once the lines are made of Energy it is only a short step towards making his shell out of that Energy as well. In fact, energized flesh might be a shortcut towards this. As it is, the lines from his core extend outward and tickle his skin like one of those plasma globes. Through advancement of the effect there might come a time when his skin is equally flesh and Energy. From there it would just take pushing it farther than the effect originally would stop at. To have 100% ability to damage incorporeal beings would just be the start and more like 50% of what he wants. Half his skin, flesh and the other half Energy.

Though even an effect that would seem perfectly suited for his path like body/mind unification is flawed. For Penny the effect likely allowed greater control of her Energy by bypassing the control stat and its limits. For Jason, however it attaches him to his flesh in a similar fashion to material body. It right out declares he will be both mind and body. Once again, while it can be said that Jason doesn’t want to abandon his form, he does want to change the basic structure of it and has been working towards that.

Which when Jason ponders on that further, the core of his problem becomes clear. He plans to go beyond his body and yet that is where the stats are. His strength, toughness, agility, and health all are contained within his flesh. While his cultivation technique is still slowly working on it, his body is very much not the focus. Now the only question is how to balance the two concerns?