[NR] Chapter 262 - Secret Of The Magnifying Glass (Patreon)

Gregor shakes his head, “Back to the void, I guess. You have a messed up cultivation method.”

Jason laughs, “I guess we get to use the special magnifying glass.”

Gregor laughs with him but then shakes his head, “That’s actually a regular magnifying glass. It’s just that anytime someone gets to see all my tools laid out, they assume it is something special, so I’ve started to go along with it. Still, I’ve seen enough with the last one to say I can’t really see any difference. There is something there, but the variance I detect is in line with what naturally occurs. Basically, a clean bill of health.”

Jason nods, “Good to know. I couldn’t feel any difference. But then again, if I felt any difference, I wouldn’t need to ask about it.”

Gregor shrugs, “Yeah, welcome to the club. If you aren’t following a pre-set path, then the farther you go, the less others can help. Not that a pre-set path is necessarily all that good either, as they tend to make it much harder to breakthrough. Following a path doesn’t always take you where you need to go.”

“Someone good with swords might start out quick when following a sword master, but if they don’t branch out their advancement might stop if they end up being more attuned to fire when the master is all about water. Anyway, it seems you didn’t even start on a path so I can’t even begin to help. Maybe the person who started you on using Energy might have a clue, but even that is up to chance. Though if you don’t mind, what did you do and or plan to do?”

Jason scratches his neck, “I didn’t expect any help to be honest. Just a quick sanity check in case something obvious was going wrong. As for what I am doing? Hmm, I’m going to be a little circumspect about it.”

“To start with? As my titles might hint at, I started on my core quite early. And by early I mean once the core had formed I was level one. At the start I wasn’t, but I based my foundation on purity. With time, I have come to realize this was the best choice for me and my understanding of Energy.”

Gregor nods, “Getting a core from the start is powerful. From what little I saw of you moving around, it looks like you’ve put a ton of points into agility. If I had to guess, part of your purity thing was to jettison any other placed points.”

Jason smiles, “You would think that. For me, purity meant no stat points. In fact, the reason I lost so many levels was because I ditched everything that wasn’t pure Energy. With my cultivation technique, I gain only ten percent of the experience I could absorb. Every single stat point has been trained by me!”

“Admittedly, I need to work on that more. If it wasn’t for some stuff that allows me to move more inline with what my mind can keep up with, I probably would suck right now. Of course, I would have also likely gained a boat load more stat points because it would force me to push harder.”

Gregor frowns, “That’s a rare effect to receive. Mind you, this is first I’ve learned of that specific one. But I do know of other similar ones, though. Let me guess, the System has also upped the level suppression?”

Jason nods and so Gregor continues, “You sir, are what we locals like to call an outsider. I don’t know why that was what people landed on for a name, but here we are. You are outside of the Systems predetermined range of capability. Someone like you pops up every once in a while. The only real limit on what can be an outsider is you have to be sapient. Though only because the System can erase potential outsiders which aren’t.”

“Swarms are actually the most visible example of this idea. If they could grow without limit and not develop into a hive mind or whatever, they would count as an outsider. Technically items can also be outsiders of a sort, but that is a lot harder and we have another term for it. Maybe you’ve heard of them?”

And he smirks to clearly communicate that of course everyone has. “We call them artifacts. Yes, I can see it in your eyes, the realization. Artifacts are all unique because the System prevents what allowed them to exist in the first place, but can’t do anything about the one which already exists. Outsiders on the other hand are sapients, and while the System has nearly ultimate power, when it comes to sapients that very much is not the case.”

“The System making it easier for you to control your body despite the low ability scores, was to nerf some part of you that would have blown everything else out of the water. With that in mind, you should look into what exactly made the System adjust those factors. Why is it afraid of you?”

Jason smiles, “Well, I can think of a thing or two. Anyway, besides that, we haven’t really gotten to the fun part of my cultivation. Though some of it as of late has been percolating at the back of my head as being wrong, at least in part.”

“To start is that Energy is the power of creation and it wasn’t meant to still exist like it does now. Place the slightest whiff of Energy near some Mana or Qi and it quickly gets changed. Yet despite that, the stuff manages to exist as one of the three major power sources and even just floating free in the air.”

“From this, my concept of purity has grown to see Energy as a sort of Ur-source. To be purely Energy is to embody the purity from before what is. Despite being so easily changed, this kernel of truth has prevented the complete wiping out of the stuff.”