Chapter Four: Surprisingly Simple

James awoke, feeling as if he had been in a deep sleep for days. In fact, it was probably the most well-rested that he'd ever felt, at least as long as he could remember. He got up, dressed himself, and walked into the kitchen.

He reached into the pantry, grabbed a cereal box, and poured himself a bowl. He poured some milk into the bowl before grabbing a spoon and carrying his breakfast to the table. He dipped his spoon into the bowl and brought the spoon to his mouth, but suddenly stopped halfway there.

'I feel like I'm missing something...' James thought to himself. Just what could It be? He felt like he was forgetting something, but couldn't put his finger on it.

The Storm Dragon was in awe of this kid, so much so that he couldn't say anything. How could someone with such a vast consciousness and profound soul be such a dumbass?! Did that lightning strike give him brain damage? How could he not remember what had happened last night?

"Uh, kid?" he coughed. James shot out of his seat, he clearly wasn't expecting to hear a voice in his head, but everything suddenly clicked.

'Oh shit...' James thought to himself in a moment of silence before breaking out laughing. He was always so slow in the morning, but he never thought it would be this bad. 'Can I just finish my breakfast before we start doing whatever I need to do?' James chuckled to himself and proceeded to eat his cereal. It was very important for warriors to fuel up!

James finished his cereal and went back to his room after putting his dishes in the sink, and started talking with his little dragon friend once more. 'Well, you said you'd train me. What do you want me to do?' He asked in a helpless voice. He had no idea what the dragon could possibly be talking about, but if he could open an interdimensional portal, then he must have his ways.

"Just sit down and close your eyes. This is probably going to take a while..." the dragon sighed and it seemed like he was trying to gather his patience in advance. "I want you to take a deep breath and try to scan the inside of your body..." the dragon slowly guided James through a basic but deep meditation. "I will take care of the next part, just make sure that you observe," he quieted down and James felt an esoteric sensation converge on his midsection. Through his internal vision, a seal was formed right under his naval, and roughly midway through his body.

"This seal is constructed with the Law of Infinite Thunder, it's essential to this cultivation method," The Storm Dragon explained. Although this explanation only raised more questions instead of providing answers.

'Laws? Who made the Law of Infinite Thunder? I'm confused...' James was at a loss for words, there was clearly a slang barrier between the two.

"Laws such as the laws of gravity or law of the time, if you can grasp onto one and understand it thoroughly enough, you can manipulate it. Everything has a law, and one can only call themselves truly high-level warriors if they have comprehended some laws." the dragon was more thorough this time, making sure that James understood everything that he said. Although somewhat impatient, the dragon knew that even the stronger troops in his army couldn't follow this kind of speech too well, it wouldn't be too surprising if some this mortal couldn't manage at first.

'Okay okay I get it, but what does this one do?' James understood the basic concept of these 'laws' but couldn't see the purpose of this particular one.

The dragon's tone of voice became more exciting as it spoke, "It serves two different functions, one passively and one actively. Firstly, when you fight in battle and exhaust your lightning energy, it will replenish your reserves with your lightning essence being more concentrated than before. Secondly, strong willpower and emotions can be turned into more energy for your reserves, which can give you a substantial power boost in important situations. You should be grateful, even at my level I was considered a genius for touching upon this kind of overpowered law."

James took a deep breath, he couldn't even fathom how much this would actually help him, but he was still amazed. At least he was until a certain thought flashed through his mind, 'How the hell do I even cultivate lightning essence?!' James had realized a flaw in what he'd been told so far.

The dragon slapped his figurative self in the face, he realized that he had jumped way too far ahead and gotten distracted. "Right right, it will be hard to do it here but I can instruct you..." The dragon then slowly guided James though the origins of qi and how to gather energy from his surroundings. Slowly, a thunderstreak began to condense in his dantian, flashing back and forth as if it was waiting for an opportunity to break free and unleash its power.

"There, your first thunder streak. They will grow in number during your training, reaching uncountable quantities. More importantly tho is that whenevery you use them, they will grow ever so slightly in power, this effect will compound over time, making each thunder streak capable of destroying mountains and crushing the fabric of dimensional planes." The dragon proceeded to hype up its own creation, it was oh so proud of it, and James was no less impressed either.

James was eager to use his new found power in the real world, so he pestered the dragon to let him test it out before condensing a few more thunder streaks. The dragon finally relented and the two went on a walk to the nearby park, stopping at the outfield of a baseball field before stopping to take off his shoes and socks.

During the process of James guided meditation and condensing of his first thunder streak James had gained a basic understanding of manipulating energy. He reined in the rampant thunder streak, which seemed to turn somewhat obedient, but still energetic. James drew the thunder streak to his leg before integrating and spreading the energy into all the muscle fibers in the leg.

James lifted his leg up before stomping the ground with all of his might. His foot crashed into the ground and made a loud thump sound before james was sent flying roughly six feet into the air, launching himself almost a dozen feet across the field. This was higher than he'd ever seen any human being jump before. This was just him stomping his legs, he wasn't even making an attempt to catch air! James looked at his leg to see extremely defined calf and thigh muscles and feeder veins left and right, but they were slowly receeding to show him his normal but still muscular leg. James' eyes then shot open as he looked forward, he paused for a second before screaming in agony.

As soon as the energy was used up, James felt a sharp wave of pain shoot up his leg. "Your body needs to adjust to this extreme amount of power. You will just have to aclimate yourself to it, but next time you should invest some energy into your bone structure to support yourself, at a sacrifice of some power." The dragon had a ton of personal experience with this, even his body had to acclimate to the energy because his thunder streaks were much stronger and greater in number than James'.

The sharp pain in James' leg had faded to a dull ache. The storm dragon continued while James tried to stand back up, "You're already an extremely strong host, a normal persons leg probably would've been broken from that." The dragon was secretly in awe, he wanted to test how this kids body would hold up, but he honestly thought there would have been a small fracture in his shin at least. Little breaks were something he could help fix in a couple of hours, but he didn't wan't James to know that just yet.

Once he stood up, James used his internal vision to check on his current condition. His leg had a bit of internal bruising and internal bleeding, but the storm dragon promised that this wouldn't be a problem. James then turned his sights to his dantian, where he saw the lightning streak that he had just used. It was still there, but it no longer had its glowing purple hue. It turned into a faded gray, and looked as if it was hollow; it had lost all of its vigor once James had used all of its energy. "Once created, thunder streaks will not dissipate, but they do need time to charge themselves with your willpower and the natural surrounding energy, it will take about 5 minutes to recharge, and they all replenish themselves at once." The dragon spoke very bluntly and simply.

James had decided to go for a run before he went home, even with this pain in his leg. He realized that he still needed a stronger body, a run was a simple way to do it for now. James ran a good dozen or so laps around the park before taking his run home. He had never had great cardio so these few miles truly did a number on him.

By the time James arrived at his house, he was drenched in sweat and panting heavily as he stumbled through the door. "Oh my, what happened to you kid?" James mom chuckled as she turned from the stove, she was just heating up leftovers when her kid had walked into the house in such a sorry state.

"Oh I was just going for a run, summers getting close and you know girls like ripped guys," James gave a silly reply to his mom. He always tried to joke around to make sure she wasn't ever too concerned or suspicious about his behavior or time spent away from home.

James grabbed a fresh set of clothes to change into after he hopped in the shower. But when he stepped into the running water, he noticed something strange. He was always a ridiculously strong kid but barely had a noticeable six pack. After all, the bigger someone was, the harder it was to be toned out; but now, he had a shredded core and a clearly defined eight pack. He then looked to his arms to find even more veins than usual running down them, and his legs had even toned themselves too. There was one thing that really grabbed James' attention though... His dick had become massive!

James had always had a decent sized member, but this was ridiculous, he could probably flex on most male prostitutes with this. James thought to himself, 'do you mind telling me what the hell happened?!' he clearly was expecting an answer from the dragon.

The storm dragon chuckled to himself before giving his explanation, "I was circulating a body tempering technique while you were running, unbeknownst to you. It will help you train your body faster, and yes, you will have a bigger dick because of it..." The dragon was a little pissed off that the first thing the kid noticed were his genitals, but at least he didn't ignore the rest.

'Can you teach me the body tempering technique so that I can circulate it on my own?' James' tone suddenly turned serioius, he knew that training his body was most important at the moment.

The dragon chuckled to himself, "That can be aranged, but you need to condense more thunder streaks first." He knew that once his hosts body parts could handle one thunder streak each, it could handle many spread out throughout his body. He needed James to have absolute power right now so that he coulp protect himself.

James sat back down and started to gather qi, on his own this time. He wanted to get this whole energy manipulation thing down himself without needing the dragons help...