Long story short? The other book didn’t have any further help for Jason. He read the whole book and then reread the Energy specific parts but nothing jumped out at him. Despite the person assisting the author having put down a few of the steps that is as far as they had gotten it seems. Jason can only shake his head, ‘The System is most definitely screwing over Energy users and I doubt the other players are doing much to help the situation. I give it fifty fifty odds of a local even remembering any of this if I told them. It isn’t like this is hidden.’

‘Now, let’s focus in on the basic components of the other power type’s sixth step. Mana has a bunch of fancy ways to describe it but the focus is on sending the power outside of the body and having it return. Basically, it all comes down to external control. Qi, on the other hand involves keeping the power inside and instant action or like how I simplified Mana, internal control.’

‘Which, thinking about it does make some sense. Mana is meant to shoot things while Qi is meant to punch things. They both have various functions on both sides of creation and destruction. It isn’t yin and yang, those concepts already exist here. Rather, Qi and Mana seem to take the place that yin and yang took in my old world. The first paths to split off from creation and thus favored by later creations as the power of creation itself is beyond most. Taken from that viewpoint the number of Energy users is actually quite shocking.’

‘Then again, I doubt most are following the true original paths of Energy, Mana, and Qi. Rather we should be following the path of post-world powers, tainted by mortality. Does that count for me though? I’ve already gotten the one message that told me I had taken a step past the mortal. What does this mean about everyone else?’

‘First, everyone starts with mortal powers. I didn’t break this paradigm, and neither did any other mortal in this world. Some exceptions may apply here depending on if something like a phoenix counts as mortal or not. Outside of that I have somehow taken steps towards refining my Energy into primordial Energy. In fact, the System seems to like to hide certain differences unless you prove you know about them. Let’s test this.’

“Mortals start with post-world power, which could be referred to as mortal powers. Primordial powers, immortal powers, or pre-world powers. However you want to refer to it is power that existed before the taint of mortality reduced things to a sane world. Having taken a step beyond mortality something has changed with my Energy.”

{New Title: Immortal’s Prodigy

Having trained under an Immortal and with your talent the path towards the top appears smoother than for most. Your senses are more attuned to the difference between mortal and primordial powers.}

‘Well, not what I expected. I guess the System didn’t really know how to handle my knowledge. Though this does prove something about my mysterious master. Makes my war stomp that much more valuable as well. Not often you get to train a skill under an immortal. Or at least I assume that to be the case. Don’t exactly hear much about them.’

“System, show me my stats.”

{Normal Stats

Strength 43 ( 28[Base] + 1[Ascendance] + 10[Eq] + 4[Set] ) Toughness 57 ( 42[Base] + 1[Ascendance] + 10[Eq] + 4[Set] ) Agility 54 ( 39[Base] + 1[Ascendance] + 10[Eq] + 4[Set] ) Control 34 ( 34[Base] )

Auxiliary Stats

Defense 52 ( 30[Eq] + 10[Energy] + 12[Set] ) Stamina 52 ( 32[Base] + 20[Energy] ) HP 166 ( 106[Base] + 60[Energy] ) Energy 15

Tripartite Conceptual Energy

Civilization 0.06% Ascendance 0.11% [ +0.01% ] Substance 0.07%}

‘I was expecting something to have happened to my Energy stat. I guess it was worth a percent of a percent in my Ascendance stat. Though that might have more to do with my understanding of the three powers growing. Except I just realized something. Though let’s test if I have to verbalize my understanding for it to show up in my stats.’

‘People who align their power with a specific thing like a fire mage transitioning to fire Mana are cutting themselves off from primordial Mana. This is not cutting off their path but as long as they don’t try to advance down the path of fire itself their path will be much longer and hard fought. Fire Mana is a dual path of the concepts for fire and Mana and thus requires understanding both paths individually and figuring out how to perfectly merge them.’

“Now System, show just my conceptual stats.”

{Tripartite Conceptual Energy

Civilization 0.06% Ascendance 0.11% Substance 0.09% [ +0.02% ]}

‘Hmm, just thinking about it worked but instead of Ascendance my Substance improved, and by twice as much as Ascendance had. Either I got something wrong or. Hmm. The previous understanding was directly related to the differences between mortal and immortal. This, however, was related to the differences between pure and mixed powers.’

‘What am I missing? The concept of mixed fire and Mana is there. Wait, can you have pure fire? Or rather Fire. That would make sense but would throw out the entire concept of the System, locking us into one of the three original powers. So that means as long as one is chained to the System those alternate paths are locked off because you can never throw off your original power to focus purely on something like Fire. And that is why so few people tread on the path to immortality. It already took great talent and luck in my past life to take a step onto the road with just one focus. Here, unless you remain true to one of the three original powers, you will be stuck following a mixed path. And it isn’t like following an original power is easy either as they tend to be a pain in the first place.’

Jason looks over at the blue screen to check it.

{Tripartite Conceptual Energy

Civilization 0.06% Ascendance 0.113% [ +0.003% ] Substance 0.09%}