All that aside, Jason now has two methods of improving his Energy. Both to grow the amount the System allows and the untapped base amount as well. Though looking more closely at the first technique, Jason notices that it isn’t really a technique per se. Rather, it feels more like a couple of exercises out of a routine. As if he had a ripped piece of paper that only said pushups and squats. Good exercises but alone they aren’t worth as much.

Jason turns back to Basic Core Refinement. Before, he hadn’t really paid attention to the different sections of the book. Instead choosing to read the generic technique and the Energy specific chapters. Now with an eye towards seeing if something is missing he carefully reads through the entire book. Even with the extra parts, the book isn’t the biggest of things and so it doesn’t take long for him to notice something.

The Energy section doesn’t have as many steps as the Mana or Qi parts do. Of course this could be a simple matter of it needing less steps. Except that what he got from the other book overlapped, though not completely. Rather of the four steps the first book had, three of them were repeated in the second book. The fourth step, however, was missing. The problem is that even with that extra step added it still doesn’t match with the Mana and Qi parts.

Jason sighs, ‘For an ancient technique without any secrets it sure feels full of holes right now. Though the fact I got a hold of Basic Core Refinement in the first place is probably a miracle. I have had little experience with other Energy users but I have a feeling about the guy in the first book. I don’t think he had access to the Basic Core Refinement technique and I know Penny didn’t.’

‘That’s two for two. This might just be that Energy users are so rare they don’t tend to have someone to give them the technique. Except for the fact that apparently every library should have a copy. More to the point, Penny was the guildmaster for a starter town. The chances of her not being important to the guild is low to none so someone there should have mentioned it to her at some point. Hell, the guild should have a copy of the technique in every guild hall. She should have easy access to the technique and it isn’t like she hasn’t been looking into Energy.’

Jason shakes his head and starts to dissect the Basic Core Refinement, getting down to the most basic understanding of what each part does. Easy enough for the generic section. It deals more with the core itself. While placement and the power used can vary, there seems to be an underlying principle. As if someone was describing a bucket and how to improve the design so it can hold more without going into things like material or what is meant to held.

Helpful to know and the section is the one with most of Gregor’s notes but it really lives up to the techniques description. There are no hidden paths or shortcuts as far as Jason can tell. Leaving any of it out would be like leaving off the bottom of a bucket.

Once he gets into the power specific sections though is when things get interesting. If the generic was about increasing the volume of a bucket, the specific sections were about tricks to make the bucket pour better. Whether that was being more precise, faster, or smoother. Basically turning the bucket into a watering can or some such. Even Energy could be looked at from that point of view.

Except that wasn’t how Energy worked so Jason dug deeper into the descriptions. But no matter how much he compared the parts this seemed to be the extent of it. That is until he went back to the more general section. It had a small part that talked about regen rates. Basically how you want to fill your bucket.

Mana and Qi both involve pulling in the power around you. Like filling a bucket from a well leaving it out in the rain. Energy though? You just hook that right up to the garden hose. And that is what allows Jason’s view of the metaphor to change. Energy was more like one of those nozzles. While you could look at it as a watering can, Energy works off of the control of a constant flow instead of needing to refill it yourself.

This is of course obvious in hindsight but Jason can only shrug. Sometimes when reading you can get stuck in the author's mindset. Now though, with a new outlook on how this might look Jason dives back into the book. And not much changed. But that is alright because a couple of small details made all the difference.

Going much too far into the bucket metaphor, a bucket only has to be able to hold the weight of the water. You can make a bucket out of paper as long as it can handle the weight when wet. A nozzle on the other hand needs more than just that. It needs to be able to handle the pressure as well. So while Mana and Qi users only need to strengthen their cores when increasing the size of their pool, Energy users need to constantly be strengthening their cores to advance.

The upside of this is that Energy users can do more with less. Jason hadn’t really looked into how the number values for the three power types compared but it is apparently a lot closer to one to one than he would have thought. After all, a mage with a similar level to him would have well over a hundred Mana, a few even edging towards the four digits territory. All the while he has been tooling around with a magnitude or two less.