In the end, it takes Jason a few hours to fully convey everything to Courtney. And honestly? If not for the record function this is the kind of thing that would have taken much longer. Even then he leaves it open for her to contact him with follow-up questions. Being new to the subject, she didn’t really have many questions after the first few, from sheer disbelief.

Afterwards Courtney wanders off to her room. Not to try it herself, but rather to set up yet another set of screens for research. That and the fact that even information on the edge of what Jason had revealed is locked down tight means it will take a while before she is willing to even try. Still, despite her training Courtney decides to keep things under wraps for the moment. As long as he doesn’t try to pass the knowledge onto Rosha before she can finish her research, it isn’t like anything can go too wrong.

Jason, on the other hand is left with some free time. Okay, that’s a lie. Free time is the last thing he has. He didn’t really get a chance to check it out before but suddenly gaining 50% more Energy because of his real world cultivation was in no way expected. The question is, how did that Energy get added to his core? He can only shake his head and retreat to his room as well.

Back in his room Jason doesn’t waste any time, getting right to exploring the changes. Not that it is hard to notice the surface level changes. With more Energy, his core is now putting out many more threads, allowing for a better coverage of his inner self. But there should be more to it and Jason really wishes he had paid more attention the previous times he had gained more Energy from the System.

Obviously the Energy comes from the flow his core connects to, but why is more being let through? As Jason dives into his core, he can’t see any physical difference. Rather, it looks like more Energy suddenly decided to come on through. With a mental sigh, Jason dives into the flow before turning around to see what things look like from the other side.

And once he does it becomes blindingly obvious. Apparently the System has more than one way to keep Energy users down. Jason isn’t sure how, but the System appears to be limiting how much Energy he has. His connection to the Energy flow is more than able to take in many times what it currently is. Not just an additional five, the System could probably reward him an additional fifty and still have some wiggle room.

It still wouldn’t be enough to rebuild his lines but this shows him another way to improve. As long as his real world cultivation continues to advance, the System should release more of his avatar’s capabilities. Then the only question would be what to do once he maxes out his connection. Though since his core is his connection, the answer likely starts there.

At the moment, his core is exactly the same as when he formed it back at the start. He hadn’t heard anyone talk about improving their core. But then again, people don’t really talk about cores in the first place. Jason can only shrug at this and go seek out Gregor. If anyone was to know, it would be him.

Though after a quick check of the house, Jason can only give up on the subject for now. Gregor seems to have left to do something for the day. Reasonable enough, though, Jason does feel a bit embarrassed for assuming he would always be around when needed. Even though Gregor has his personal workshop in the house doesn’t mean there aren’t things he needs to do out and about.

A little lost on what to do Jason returns to his room. Knowing that there is a limiter on his Energy doesn’t mean other things didn’t change as well. Specifically, how is the extra Energy affecting his cultivation as a whole? He had seen that more of his inner space was being covered by it, but what does that do?

The answer isn’t obvious at first. After all, not much time has passed so there hasn’t been too much change. But change there will be. As the Energy threads wash through his inner space more frequently, the walls toughen up. Metaphysically, his defenses are increasing. Not yet to the point of being an actual stat, but that may be in the cards once he gets even more Energy.

A happy surprise for Jason as the usual way to gain natural defense to mystical attacks is to suffer from them a lot. While almost a necessity past a certain point, Jason had not been looking forward to having to borrow his mom’s cursed ring set. While quite an effective method of training, one of the curses makes it feel like ants are constantly crawling on you and that is just one of the more mundane effects.

Still, he needs more Energy before that becomes possible. While his real world cultivation will be going up quickly enough early on, he can’t depend on that for the long run so all there is to it, is to actually get around to training his Energy. Something he had been meaning to do but seems to keep slipping through the cracks.

At the moment, he has all the information he needs to make an attempt. Despite that, for some reason he can’t quite work up the nerve to. Confused, he decides to do that one thing he hadn’t got around to doing in a while. Plain old meditation. Not viewing his inner space, not cultivating, just simple meditation to let his mind ease up. If anything, it will be good for the soul. Though that does bring up the question of if he can train his soul in NeoRealm. Which he realizes is another attempt to avoid the subject. Strange.