Bandits? Really?

After finishing the magic circle tattoos, Eric began his next experiment. It had taken him just under a year to reach energy refining stage 3 even with all of the benefits such as passive absorption and refining of energy, he had found out that this was because his whole body was made into a core instead of the normal way a core would be made, which was forming a core in the body.

The way a normal person would advance in stage was they would absorb as much energy as they could before refining it and then repeating this process until the core couldn't take it before using the refined energy to strengthen the core and repeating the process all over again. In Eric's case his 'core' was constantly being strengthened as time went on, meaning that it would take a considerably longer time to reach the 'breaking point' compared to a normal person.

The way his 'core' worked was it would automatically absorb energy and refine it before using that energy to strengthen his body. But because his whole body acted as his core it was passage strengthened. however, Unlike the 'qualitative' change in a core going up in stage, the strengthening of his body was just that, strengthening, his energy was still the same 'purity' as before, sure, it was denser and more potent, but it was still a lower form of energy, Just like how a wooden shield and a riot shield where different.

His plan for fixing this was to create a mix between a 'magic network' and 'meridians', the way they would work is they would add on to and enhance the already existing traits of his 'core'. He was going to use the 16 pseudo-cores from when he first formed his core as the foundation for his new 'energy veins'. Along with the first 16, there would be an extra 64 sub-cores 4 sub-cores per pseudo-core, and there would be two assistant cores for each sub-core, resulting in a grand total of 224 focal points for the energy veins to build and work off of.

What the energy veins would do is 'purify' the energy he absorbed, and use that to strengthen his core as time went on, resulting in true passive growth. He had taken inspiration on how he would 'purify' his energy from Japanese swordsmiths, similar to how they would forge a katana he would layer and forge his energy, removing the impurities from it for every layer made, as his energy grew denser and more potent the layering would be more effective. Once his energy reached the point where it couldn't get any denser or more potent, it would focus on layering it more and more, once it had reached to point that his energy couldn't get any denser, potent, or pure, he would use it to strengthen his core to the next stage, starting to process anew.

With the full plans in mind, he began to make the rest of the 224 cores. As time went on and more cores were made he could tell that the speed at which he absorbed and refined energy was getting faster but until it was fully complete it would begin to purify his energy. Once the rest of the cores were in place he started with the energy veins. Immediately after laying the first vein, he could feel a very small amount of his energy being purified, if was minuscule and nothing compared to his total amount but just this small thing of energy being purified was enough to know that it was working.

As more and more veins were made the speed and amount of energy being purified were growing exponentially, Eric could even feel the small mistakes he made in The previous two stages being repaired. Once the first 'loop' energy veins were made and the purified energy was able to start its second journey the results were immediate, the conscious feeling of his mana growing was amazing. The way the veins were made was in such a way that it would form a large cycle around his body with small intermediate loops. Energy would cycle around the loops until they have no effect and then it would go around the whole loop for the next round where it would strengthen the cores slowing it to be refined and purified once more.

It took about a week and they were halfway done on the journey to the royal capital by the time that his energy veins were fully formed and functional. With its full power, he could tell that it wouldn't even take him 3 months to reach energy refining stage 4, it would take about 5 months with ou the energy veins, they had even shown up on his status

{name: Eric

Gifts:Potential, adaptation

Realm: energy gathering 3/9

Powers: energy refinement(v2) lv3, physical refinement(v2) lv3, passive growth(v2) lv3, soul fire, energy veins,

Skills:

enhanced intellect lv5, rapid learning lv5, black magic(Journeyman), sacrificial magic(Journeyman), puppet control lv2, soul magic(intermediate), multi-minded lv2, body magic(intermediate) life/trade skills(intermediate), combat mastery lv2, weapon mastery lv2, bestial fighting(self-made), appraisal(self-made),

Energy: demonic/mana

Equipment: flesh seed(growth type), bestial set (4/4, coat, gloves, pants, shoes, growth type)

Stats: (healthy)

Strength:300

Agility:300

Perception:300

Intelligence:300

Constitution: 300

Ep: 22,500 (100%)}

His best guess on the {v2} on the powers granted by his core was because by adding his energy veins they got 'upgraded', but differently to how going up in a stage would upgrade them, they were the literally second version of them, hence the v2.

Just as Eric was enjoying the power-up, his fun time was stopped by a loud noise outside. "stop there and give us all of your valuables, where the red Valley bandits!" looking out the carriage window he could see three men standing in the way of their path forward. "hey boss, look, A human!" said the skinny one pointing at Eric.

The large one looked over at him before smiling "I heard that a new world had been invaded but I don't expect to see a human down here, and such a good-looking one too, I'll have fun with you." looking at what eric assumed to be the bandit leader he just looked at him and said "sorry, I don't swing that way." before hopping out of the carriage, ready for some fun and to try out his newest spell.

Teaching his hand out to the skinny one, an eiry glow began to form over his hand as he grabbed at the air, as he did this the skinny one started convulsing and granting it his neck like he was suffocating before Eric riped his, and bade and the shaking stopped as and faint blue glowing orb flee out of his corps and into erics hand, looking at the fresh soul in his hand eric just smiled before feeding it to the souls flame and reaching out his other two hands and talking their souls to eat as well. This was a new spell he had come up with, it was a combination of black magic and dark magic that he was calling 'spiritual rend', All it did was take the soul out of anyone who had a weaker soul than him.

Looking at the now soulless bandits' bodies Eric summoned the flesh seed and activated the sacrificial circle on his arm. As the circle glowed the three bodies were sucked into the seed as it pulsed faintly for each body before he unsummoned it once more and walked back to the charge where a now very scared demon guide was sitting.