SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 671: What Remained in the Cores

Xyra made the field the following afternoon.

”Eastern flat,” she said. ”A thousand to one, as before.”

The boundary appeared across the grass. She glanced at the wooden case under Leon’s arm.

”Something useful?”

”I think so. My master helped me choose it.”

Xyra bent over the reservoir when he opened the lid, studying the inner inscription.

”Carefully made,” she said. ”Whoever cut that lining had patient hands.”

”I’m hoping it means I can be a little less patient.”

She smiled at him. ”Let me know how that goes.”

Leon placed the equipment, supplies, and all seven cores inside the field. He checked the timing against the rhythm he had established during his earlier session, remembering Xyra’s warning. Then he separated the extraction line from the reservoir and began.

The cores were dark and heavily drained. Their remaining energy had been valuable all along; recovering it in a usable form was the work ahead of him.

He set the first on the intake plate and opened the valve only a little.

A thin current emerged. He caught it before it reached the storage inlet, drew it through his established purification route, and examined it for the dead cultivator’s imprint. Only when it was clean did he let it enter the reservoir.

The next portion came more thickly. He reduced the intake and took his time.

Nothing in his cultivation depended on finishing that portion quickly.

By the end of the first subjective week, he had filled roughly a fifth of the vessel. He had also learned how easily his attention wandered when the work went well.

Twice, he closed the storage inlet because he had caught himself thinking about something else. A trace of foreign rhythm remained in the energy waiting between his hands.

That would have gone straight into the batch.

He cleaned it again before proceeding.

Three cores were genuinely spent by the end of the fourth week.

Leon set them apart from the others. There was satisfaction in knowing he had recovered something useful from material his previous method could no longer use, but he did not mistake that for an endless supply.

The reservoir was two-thirds full. He continued with a fourth core and supplemented the prepared energy with the clean stock from Moonfall. The materials suited to his individual affinities remained arranged beside him for the next stage of work.

Vyra came in while he was changing a seal on the reservoir.

”How much have you lost to the array?” she asked.

”Less than I expected. Most of the cost has been preparing the energy.”

She examined the three spent cores without picking them up.

”And those?”

”Finished.”

Vyra wrote that down. ”I’ll move them to the separate case. Otherwise you’ll spend half a day checking them again before you admit it.”

Leon handed her the case. He had been considering exactly that.

By the end of the sixth week, he had the supply he needed. He checked its purity, closed the storage seals, and physically disconnected the extraction line.

The remaining cores went back into their case.

Testing took another two subjective weeks.

At the second setting, his routes accepted the feed comfortably. The third remained stable through increasingly complete circulations. At the fourth, the Earth branch accumulated warmth during a rapid transition, and Leon stopped to examine it.

There was no contamination. The prepared energy was clean, and the idle circulation settled correctly. He returned to the third setting and recorded the response for Ji.

He also practised cutting off the release without disturbing what was already circulating. The reservoir held its remaining charge when he closed the outlet, allowing him to pause, inspect, and resume without chasing an unstable source.

At the end of the eighth week, he began cultivating the Mid layer.

The first full circulation took most of his attention. He widened the developing routes, guided the returning branches, and checked the new structure beneath his old core.

Beside him, the array fed at the rate he had chosen.

The extraction plate sat empty.

For several hours he worked without once having to turn away from his own channels. When he finally paused, he looked at the disconnected plate and laughed under his breath.

I should have asked her sooner.

The next six weeks still demanded work.

His first arrangement carried energy smoothly while idle, then distributed it poorly when he changed affinities. Leon dismantled the unsettled extension and rebuilt the widths according to what each branch actually carried.

The second problem appeared at the return junction. It was small enough that he noticed it through accumulated warmth rather than an obvious interruption. He stopped the feed, allowed the current to settle, and revised the junction before continuing.

Neither correction required him to throw away the stored supply or rebuild his established Early layer. He could work on the mistake itself.

Seraphine joined him in the tenth week, carrying her shard and two of the conductive plates.

She sat nearby and spent an afternoon drawing lightning along a chosen fault in the crystal. The first plate blackened at one edge. The second remained intact.

”That was different,” Leon said when she lowered it.

”The return was cleaner.” Seraphine turned her wrist, checking the sensation. ”I’ve been losing a little there. I can feel where now.”

She tried again. A narrow light ran down the plate, followed by lightning that left no scorch behind.

Leon smiled. ”There.”

Seraphine nodded, pleased, and repeated it before the feeling faded.

Ira brought the ember-iron into the field the next day. Her first strikes heated its surface unevenly. By the end of her practice, she could drive a controlled pulse through the lance and into the slab without the rebound climbing her arm.

She made Leon watch the final attempt.

”Again?” he asked.

”Of course again. The first one could have been luck.”

Vyra tested a sustained flame around one of her new components, adjusting it until the heat held evenly around the entire ring. Loriel visited with news that the jade-root had accepted its new soil, then demonstrated the gentler life-force circulation she was using to encourage its finer roots.

All four remained at Peak Foundation Establishment. The progress was in what their foundations could carry and how reliably they could use it.

Leon liked seeing them pleased with their work. It made him eager to return to his own.

The Mid layer stabilised at the end of the fourteenth subjective week.

Leon let the nine branches complete another circulation, then another. The returns remained balanced. There was no foreign imprint, no drifting junction, and no pressure against the old foundation above the new layer.

He reduced the feed and tested the circulation again.

[Cultivation: Mid Qi Refinement]

[Formless Myriad Scripture — Stage One, Mid Layer: Consolidated]

[Nine-Affinity Balance: Stable]

For a while, he simply sat with the result.

Four of the seven cores were now fully spent. The other three retained energy he had not yet recovered, and the reservoir still held the remainder of his prepared charge. He sealed both carefully before standing.

Outside assessments would continue to find his old core and read Peak Golden Core. What he had built beneath it was his own progress along the native path, and he could feel the difference when he moved energy through it.

He crossed the boundary a little over two hours and twenty minutes after entering.

Xyra was sitting on the courtyard wall.

”Well?” she asked.

”Mid Qi Refinement.”

She looked at the case in his hand. ”Useful, then.”

”Very.”

Leon set the equipment down before he was tempted to begin planning the next session. He wanted a meal, some sleep, and a chance to see what the improved circulation would do in a fight.

For the moment, that was enough.