[NR] The Void Of Space - Chapter 601

Later that night, Jason was holed up in his meditation room. Rosha had given him more than enough food for thought, as well as a bunch of random nonsense ever since she had arrived back at the clearing. Though the first bit about him repelling dirt and dust stuck with him the most.

So, he meditated on his current self. As while a passive field keeping him from getting dirty was neat, it also represented danger. There was an enormous difference between detecting someone through their power while it is inside them and when it is being manifested. And Jason didn’t like the fact that he was probably in a constant state of manifestation.

Though Rosha was also likely correct about how this was the result of Energy overflow. That meant the chances of finding a permanent solution was unlikely. No bucket can hold an infinite amount of water, after all.

First step was to confirm things. There were other possibilities such as his cultivation technique literally causing an aura, which would be much easier to pull in. Except Jason barely had to poke around before he confirmed it was overflow and not something else.

While the Energy being used all fell back to his core, once it reached there, some of it would splash. Not literally, but that was a close enough analogy. The lines of Energy would have bits shed off and fly out of his body, creating the effect. There was nothing he could do about it and he would actually prefer it if it happened even more.

Why? Because this seemed to be part of the refinement process. The Energy that splintered off and escaped was the bits least synchronized with him. In fact, it seemed to naturally grow how much Energy his core held would require this refinement. To have his Energy so in sync with who he is, that the amount splashing off was less than that entering.

Not only that, but the Energy being pulled in from the world also seemed to match the state of the Energy in his core. So while there would probably never come a time when this refinement would stop, there wouldn’t be a problem with pulling in Energy from the world. Except there was a problem, one that Jason blamed on the System.

The lines of Energy he was pulling in from the planet weren’t all of the same quality. Some clearly had more impurities and Jason knew why. Anytime the System granted him more Energy, it had simply pulled in another line of Energy irrespective of the quality. The only reason it wasn’t worse, was that those worse off lines seemed to be slowly refining themselves as well. Otherwise, this discovery would have been a major setback as he would have needed to divest himself of those lines.

As it stood, Jason hoped he could speed up the refinement. Not only of the incoming Energy, but the Energy already in his core. Except, that wouldn’t help with the problem he had originally been looking into.

Because yes, he did basically glow like a lightbulb to anyone who could detect Energy. Which, thinking about, might have played a part in why most creatures avoided the clearing. While they might not specifically detect Energy, as beasts and monsters, their danger sense should be quite developed compared to sapients from the civilized parts of NeoRealm.

That left him with the question of how to handle this when, if anything, he wished for the effect to be bigger. Not just for the effect on his cultivation, but because it would help scare off even creatures stronger than him. Just another permutation of the classic trick of looking bigger than you are to scare others.

Where to start? Jason rolled his eyes, might as well start where everything seemed to at this point, his much abused pinky. First test was the most obvious. What if he just tried to hold the Energy in?

Nothing. Or rather, it did prevent his own Energy from exiting the area. Though sadly, the Energy aura thing wasn’t his anymore. So from a practical standpoint, nothing changed as he could already hold his own Energy in any way.

After that, Jason tries a bunch of similarly obvious and similarly ineffective tests. The most troubling discovery from this was the fact that his own Energy couldn’t block the freed Energy. It was simply broken into bits much too small for him to handle.

Though during these tests, he did hit upon an idea for later. If using metallurgy as an analog to this process, the freed Energy was slag. Which meant all Jason had to do was find the equivalent to flux, but that was for later.

Right now, Jason moved onto the stranger tests. For instance, while he couldn’t block it or control it, the Energy slag wasn’t completely beyond being affected by him. If he swirled his own Energy in a whirlpool around his core, the Energy slag coming off of it would begin to swirl as well. Though, while interesting, it only made him more obvious as it went from a simple glow of power to a glow that shimmered from the movement.

However, that discovery did lead him towards more fruitful tests. It meant that his Energy and the Energy slag could affect some medium and in turn be affected by said medium. And what was the medium?

His body was a void and the void was his body. Yet swirl and whirl and turn about, his Energy twisted the other. What took up that space? What twisted the Energy?

It was like the air to the water. You can’t see the wind, but it could whip up waves. On top of that, even in the water itself, there is air dissolved into the power. Except, Jason had gotten a feel for how power in NeoRealm worked. Energy was the base upon which everything was built, with Mana and Qi being formed from it.

So what could the air be? What was made of Energy, but wasn’t? Yet, at the same time also not Mana or Qi?

It took Jason many days of pondering whenever he had a bit of free time before an idea came to him that seemed plausible. Obviously not everything was either Energy, Mana, or Qi as you could have a rock without any power of its own.

In the end, it was the fact that his body was a void that allowed Jason to find the right path. Though what he figured out was beyond his control. After all, what is in the void of space? Why, of course! Space itself!