Chapter 14 It's good to be alive

"Well damn."

Looking at the new level that had been opened up Kyle could see that the new section of his channel was about twice the length of the previous section, so this meant if previously the length was 1 the overall length of the channel would be 3. However the width of the previous section was far wider than the new section.

As there was no gate in place anymore the mana flow wasn't restricted so the mana from his first section was freely entering the second section. As the mana flowed into the second section it underwent a change. As Kyle watched the mana density increased as he had seen in his mothers channel previously, so the most likely scenario is that as mana enters the next level it undergoes a change allowing skills to be more powerful or to be used repeatedly.

The change however didn't stop at the mana which was now located in the first level. As he watched the change went back against the flow changing the mana still in the previous section and in his opened nodes. Thinking on this Kyle believed the gate operates valve preventing the evolution of mana affecting what was behind it but as Kyle broke his gate his mana was all evolved to the more powerful form.

Also within the first level Kyle was able to locate a new group of nodes and sub-nodes. The new nodes totalled 16 bringing up the overall level of nodes to 24 and the total number of sub-nodes to 192. Unlike the nodes he had already opened and expanded these were once again clogged. As for expanding and clearing these nodes and widening his main channel, Kyle decided to take his time and do this within a training cycle as he didn't want to push his body to far in case it started to break down. This isn't to say he would need to be as slow as others as with his soul sight he could cheat a bit and push it further without risking damaging himself.

Curious to see how the cultivation methods already in use affected his new level, Kyle did a cycle of the 'breath of Ares' and 'heavenly deliverance' as they were the highest rated methods within the family they may have an effect on the new nodes. While both when cycled did pass through a few of the new nodes, it was nowhere near complete. 'Breath of Ares' passed through 4 of the new nodes and 'heavenly deliverance' only passed through an additional 2. Kyle knew he would need adjust the new technique he was creating to include the new nodes. It came to him it would probably be best to separate the technique itself into levels like cultivation itself is, so there would be no mana wasted trying to cycle through areas where there are no nodes.

Kyle already had level 0 down as he had trialled this with Miranda, so he began working on level 1. Cycling through the new nodes in the same way he had shown Miranda previously, by looping the mana and leaving some mana in each node he began the process of developing his personal technique. As he used the previous techniques as the basis for his new one Kyle decided to call it 'breath of deliverance'. Unlike the previous techniques the new technique would be built in stages. This meant that rather than dismissing the previous level you would add to the cycle at each level if the quantity of nodes kept increasing.

Kyle would also need to experiment with the sub-nodes to see how they operated in conjunction with each other and separately. Thinking of the maths involved in this Kyle realised that working this all out would take an impossibly long time, luckily there was already a large number of skills which would give him a jumping of point. Thinking about this started to give him a headache, so he decided that he'd note the locations of the sub-nodes and just see how it goes.

Kyle would also need to check his parents and see how they cultivated. If this new technique was compatible with them even being in the second stage, he could empower his parents far beyond the other families in the city and become a dominant factor and may even eventually be able to contend with the imperial family. This would take time as Kyle had no doubt they could become more powerful over time but the imperial family and their supporters were fully entrenched with a massive foundation, were as Kyle's family may be a local behemoth but in the face of the upper families were only waiting to be stepped on.

While running through these permutations Kyle realised he needed to expand his testing, in particular he needed higher level warriors to see if they could change their techniques and if there would be any adverse effects from opening nodes unconnected to their current path. Deciding on this course of action Kyle decided to ask his father about prisoners or people on death row that would suit his purpose, but even these would need to be vetted as once he trained them they would become his people and his guards. Once you were one of Kyle's people he wouldn't turn away from them so they must be the right people.

With all of this Kyle would also need to separate a little from his parents as currently he lived in the same manor as them but within the Powell compound there were many manors. Each manor was taken by a family and as the heir to the family he was well within his rights to claim one for himself although this would usually be done when he was a little older. Doing this Kyle could train his own guards and servants without relying on those provided by his parents and he could conduct his experiments away from prying eyes.

Feeling much better about his self Kyle began cycling his new 'breath of deliverance' technique to see what new abilities he may awaken. After running through the new technique a few times and beginning the process of clearing his newly found nodes, Kyle began to cough pulling out of his concentration. This was a horrendous and hacking cough, it was so bad he thought he may cough up blood before long. After a particularly painful episode Kyle could feel something coming up his throat. Thinking he was going to vomit he panicked and looking around he saw an empty water jug on the side. In all the chaos in the last few hours Miranda appeared to have forgotten to replace it. Rushing over to it he grabbed it and vomited into it. However this wasn't any food or bile, instead what he had thrown up was an iridescent blue blob. It looked similar to jelly. Kyle was confused as to what this could be.

Running through his memories he couldn't think of anything like this ever being mentioned. It may be a parasite but why did he suddenly cough it up? As he was focused on this weird thing his soul sight kicked in. Surprised by this Kyle as previously he couldn't see outside of himself unless he was in contact with what he was scanning. He chose not to worry about this and just chalked it up to him breaking through increasing his powers.

Returning to his improved soul sight Kyle observed the blob to try and work out what it was. Looking at its physical composition Kyle could see it was composed of several different plants. He couldn't identify which types of plants these were but with his improved memory he would just remember how they appeared and would scan plants to build up a library of them in his head. This lead to his first interest in alchemy as they deal with plants and potions. Looking further into this compound and reaching a spiritual level Kyle was surprised to find the compound contained a great deal of mana which was compressed into multiple layers. Each of these layers when exposed to his sight began to change form, finally they appeared to him as chains.

"This must be the remnants of the poison."

Realising that what was held in the jug was the remnants of the poison which had blocked his progress Kyle made some theories. Firstly the poison must have been in the form of a potion rather than an array or curse as no array or spell would leave a residue like this. As for why he spat out these remnants, he believed this was due to him having cycled his new technique as quite a number of the new nodes were located around his torso and if his impression is correct, these strengthened his organs allowing him to cast out these remnants.

Finally free of this Kyle noticed the sun was beginning to rise. Smiling to himself he just muttered

"It's good to be alive."