First breakthrough(part 1)

"Lets continue Vel, no sense in wasting time now that we know what to expect."

The excitement in Isobel's voice was understandable, she had just found out that even having a rank 0 core powered by blood energy her children would be twice as powerful as normal. She could only make assumptions about how strong they would be once they actually made the initial breakthrough to become rank 1 cultivators.

The journey from rank 0 to rank one only had a single stage, it was basically setting the foundation of your core and what kind of energy it would function with. The generic elemental energy that it had been absorbing unconsciously was practically useless aside from assisting with the beginning of cultivation techniques. This is evidenced by its use in creating the first set of blood gems. 

The blood gems condensed with this generic energy weren't nearly as pure as those made with blood energy, mostly due to the impurities this generic energy caused to be deposited into the gem. but once Vel completed the first stage and broke through this purity problem would become a non issue.

Vel continued to cultivate with the gems he had already made, his body and core rejoiced while it began to be fueled by more and more of this wonderous energy.

It took just slightly less than 17 blood gems in total to replace all of the energy within Vel's core. Once he was done he took a look inside of himself and discovered that the energy flowing through his vessels looked no different than blood. It was as though he had two different blood streams, one pumped by his heart, the other by his core.

The feeling of power that was flowing through him was insane, he felt like he could do almost anything. Which of course wasn't true, it was just a mind game brought on by the sudden increase in power. But it was fair to say that he was now probably the most powerful mortal on the planet.

However the first stage of cultivation in this new technique wasn't over. Now that Vel had replaced all of his internal energy, he now needed to prepare his core for the breakthrough into rank 1.

To do so he would need to force his core to become an actual solid structure, capable of growth and expansion. As his core stood now it was little more than an ethereal holding vessel, capable of containing a very small amount of energy. It had other problems as well but those would all be fixed after the solidification process was complete.

To begin Vel sat once more in the lotus position, returning to his cultivation pose. He then gathered the energy from every corner of his body until it was all gathered within his core.

Once it was all there he began to rotate and compress it, trying to force his core and the blood energy to fuse together. The process was grueling and painful, causing Vel's body to break out into cold sweats. But he didn't give up, he continued to push with more and more force to complete the fusion as quickly as possible.

Isobel stood by watching the process, she of course would not allow him to fail, but she also knew that if he could pull this off by himself the results would be much better than if she intervened. She could theoretically force a perfect fusion but the relationship between Vel and his core would never be as solid as it would be if he did this himself. Therefore she resigned herself to watch and wait until he either finished, or it became clear that he was incapable of completing the task on his own.

Minutes passed like hours as Vel continued to struggle to force the fusion of his core. With each small victory the difficulty in compressing the energy grew exponentially, finally he came to the conclusion that he could no longer force the energy to compact anymore, so he settled to finalizing the fusion of it and his core at its current size.

The reason he had pushed so hard was that the technique described the benefits of being able to compress ones core in the initial rank 1 breakthrough. The smaller one's core became the more pure it was, thus increasing its potential. Vel had managed to force his core down to .75inches in diameter, which was incredibly small, but not nearly the .1inches the technique called for to have perfect potential.

Several more minutes went by as Vel continued to force the energy and his core to fuse until not a single whisp of the energy was left. He waited for a few moments to ensure the stabilization of his core at its new size before he finally allowed himself to relax.

Almost instantly after the tension left his body Vel fell asleep, so intense had been his concentration he didn't realize how far he had actually pushed his body. Isobel wasn't the least bit concerned however, she knew all to well the regenerative gifts given to her children. He would be fine after a bit of rest, for the time being she gave in to curiosity and knelt next to Vel to inspect his work.

Placing her finger on his chest she seeped a small strand of energy into Vel's body to inspect his core. What she found there was a perfectly crystalline sphere that shone with a red light like a freshly polished ruby. The core was empty for the moment but she could tell that its capacity was much greater than the ethereal core despite being a tenth of its size. Turns out solid materials were much better at containing energy than ethereal ones.

Pleased with what she saw Isobel waited for Vel to wake up before running any more tests with the new core. It was bound to be extraordinary and she couldn't help but be excited to witness Vel's new capabilities.

She didn't have to wait long as only about 10 minutes had to pass before Vel woke up. He lay on the ground for a few moments before righting himself and looking towards Isobel.

"I did it mother, I am now a rank 1 cultivator." A bright smile blossomed on Vel's face as he had taken the first step on the long journey of cultivation. He didn't know haw far he would have to go to achieve all of his goals, but he could now say he had his feet planted firmly on the path.

"You've done well my son." Isobel returned his smile, but before allowing her son to get to lost in his accomplishment, she had to throw some cold water on his head. "I am proud of your accomplishment Vel, but your not a true rank 1 cultivator yet. Your core needs energy to finalize the break through. Yes it is capable of containing rank 1 energy now, but without that energy your core can perform none of its functions."

Vel's smile quickly dissipated. He knew that his mother was only looking out for him, but it was still kind of sad that she didn't let him revel in his success for a bit longer.

Resigning himself to pout about it later he gathered the remaining 10 blood gems he still had. Returning to his cultivation pose he began to once again circulate the blood energy, now with his new blood core.

The first few moments were exactly the same as before, but everything changed once the energy contained in the blood gem reached his core for the first time.

The core refused to accept the energy as is, instead it put the energy through a purifying process as it passed through the core's walls. Only an extremely small amount of energy actually managed to be deposited within his core. Slightly confused Vel continued his cultivation, he knew he was doing everything right but the reaction of his core wasn't nearly what he expected.

The energy from the rank 0 blood gems seemed to be vastly insufficient for his current needs, after using up all 10 blood gems he had filled his core capacity to barely 10%. Those 10 gems would have done 60% of his ethereal core meaning his capacity had grown by a factor of 6!

With the energy efficiency he would now be 500% stronger after filling this core, which was equal parts exciting and terrifying to think about.

Isobel had been watching the entire process and was quickly able to discover Vel's problem.

"Those rank 0 blood gems are too impure for your current level. You will need rank 1 blood gems from now on if you want to make any kind of actual progress."

Vel had reached the same conclusion after reviewing the process over and over again. It seemed like the gaseous energy contained in the gems was simply to weak. So the core processed it, condensing it into a gas that it could actually use.

Knowing this there was really only one thing for Vel to do...run through the tower again and see if he can get enough blood to forge rank 1 blood gems.

Vel sighed as he stood before the tower doors once more, looking back at Isobel he placed his hand on the door while thinking. "Here we go again."