God Of Crafting

The problem with all the ideas that initially popped up in my head could all be centralized to just one factor.

Complexity.

Inherently, the process of core establishment within one's body stood in direct opposition to the concept of founding it. After all, while one aimed to condense all of one's energy into a singularity, the other advocated the growth of the range of its influence.

It was one thing to have a spiritual core and another to be able to put them to effective use.

As such, destabilizing the core seemed necessary to achieve this, even if it went against the idea of total concentration of one's power.

The problem was, that this was already a process that required quite the focus, as it went directly against the nature of the stage the two of us were in. As a result, there was extremely limited room for further aspects for one to pay attention to.

That's why, the solution couldn't be anything complex… but in essence, that was all there was to it.

This same problem plagued all the solutions I initially came up with due to just how much maintenance and complex arraying they required. A task quite like the idea of fully memorizing a complicated blueprint as one went about drawing it in their thoughts in the first place!

'It has to be something simple. And figuring out the places for this energy to go…'

Stuck in my own world, I couldn't think of anything else but the puzzle before me.

'Is it just a habit I developed when I sharpened all of my attention before every strike?' I thought, distracting myself for but a moment.

A process that resulted in my mind taking but a momentary breather from its task as it focused on something else.

A short-term rest that instantly resulted in a proper idea.

'What if I just make end-points all over my body, so that the chaotic energy from my destabilized core would always have a huge array of equally attractive points that it could discharge to at random?'

I gulped my saliva down as the sense of something great loomed in the back of my brain.

I wasn't there to fully figure it out yet. Still, somehow, I could tell that I was on the right track!

Either way, even if this momentary feeling implied there was much more to this topic than what I noticed, for now, I was more than happy with the current range of my discovery.

'Just by raising the number of the outputs from the core to a certain level, the random chance any of those points would have for the core to discharge into it would make it so that my entire body would have constant access to the energy of my core?'

It was all about simple math.

If one imagined the problem with the core as a center of the plasma ball, then a single point of discharge would be akin to putting one finger to the ball's outer surface, leading to the creation of the arc discharging currents between the two, short-ended points.

A circuit carved out by nature's energy through the usually non-conductive air.

In terms of cultivation, however, I could simply destabilize my core in a way that would make it spill tiny amounts of its energy at extremely high frequency. And by just increasing the numbers of pulses in a unit of frame…'

My whole body tensed up…

Allowing me to realize that in the process of this potentially useless and outright wrong self-discovery of cultivation, I somehow brought my hand to my chin and rubbed it a little as I completely removed myself from reality to immerse myself in the problem.

A state extremely similar to when I cultivated, just this time… It felt a whole lot more… matter-of-fact? As if it was merely a part of my nature rather than the brutal interference of some power hiding within my Qi.

'Maybe this feeling changed because I've apparently reached the rank of Core foundation myself?'

I had nothing beyond Claire's word for it… And my own feeling.

The world itself now felt… just every-so-slightly richer, more vibrant, as if it regained a bit of its essence.

Still, as amazing as it was, I had a potentially groundbreaking discovery to complete and share with Claire, didn't I?

"Hey…"

Despite paying absolutely no attention to the world around me for quite some time… I spoke out while pushing my eyelids open.

This moment was way too important for me to think about the risk of seeing Claire in the pajama-like outfit.

'No matter how adorable she is, this is potentially too big for me to care…!' I thought, fully aware of the one aspect of cultivation that Claire have yet to mention.

The reason why, with every cultivation era, the entire concept behind it changed. After all, during both the mystical and restoration eras, all the cultivators ever wanted was to either find a perfect path to cultivate or perfect the means they already had to do it. All in a bid to make the results more consistent.

In a sense, one could consider each step on the path of cultivation to be a certain modifier, multiplying certain aspects of one's being. It could be strength, perception, agility, and, quite frankly, any combination of those and many other aspects.

But this modifier had a range.

If someone perfectly mastered the first three ranks of their cultivation, they would be in an extremely different spot to those who just breezed through it. Which, in turn, was another reason why cultivation usually took such an extensive amount of pain and effort!

For why would anyone, in their pursuit of greatness, intentionally cut down on their future potential in a bid to grow stronger… faster?

But, regardless if it was mystical or restoration age, cultivators always ran into the wall… The very wall that science aimed to eliminate.

For while cultivation operated on the basis of feelings, mysticism, spirit, and consciousness, all ambiguous concepts…

Science was all about methods, numbers, and a proven track record of different causalities.

If one smashed a glass against a rock a thousand times and it always smashed, then the thousandth and first piece of glass was likely to shatter on a rock as well. You need to put ten smaller weights to balance a single, ten-times heavier one.

And right now, I found a way to use simple math along with extremely simplistic mental construction… to ensure the mathematically best possible outcome for establishing the power of my core all over my body!

For if the number of pulses in a unit of time was high enough, the statistical error of misdistribution of the Qi discharging to a random end-point could be forcefully brought to such minuscule levels, they effectively didn't exist, just like some math functions always grew nearer to specific solutions never to fully reach them irregardless of the argument used to calculate the result.

"Hey, what!" Claire shouted right in my face, forcing me right out of the mindhole I promptly fell into as soon as I raised my voice a while ago.

"What's going on?!" Claire shouted, her face flushed with panic and worry.

'Oh right, I was sitting in silence for god knows how long…' I realized, shaking my head to let the girl calm down a little… Only to reach out and grab for her hand, stopping her from retreating now that she could calm down seeing how I returned to my senses.

"Is it just me or did you mention that all you need to advance now is enlightenment?" I asked, despite not even knowing how those words appeared on my lips.

It was all my instinct, all just a random feeling that felt too… natural and matter-of-fact for me to ignore.

"Huh?" Claire shook, her eyes turning wide. "When did I mention those…?!"

Her shock was far greater than what I expected. For even if it was just a hunch of mine… Why was she so surprised right now?

Was it because I used those words?

Was there some sort of greater meaning behind them?

"Actually, I want to try something out," I revealed, tightening my grasp on her hand while making sure not to cause her any actual pain… All the while ignoring the beauty of this flustered girl standing right in front of me in just some loose, fluffy, pajamas-like loungewear

"Huh?"

Still shocked, taken aback, and suddenly out of breath, Claire tried to take a step back, only for me to pull back on her hand, causing her to fall right back and then rest lightly against my chest.

Claire didn't wait even a second to use this opportunity to hide her face in my chest, where my eyes couldn't reach.

"I mean, you can stop it at any point you want, any point you feel it is wrong or dangerous…"

I lowered my eyes and took a deep breath before raising them back just a little and prompting Claire's chin up with my hand to make her look back right into my eyes.

"But would you be willing to trust me for just a moment?"