SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 691: A Foundation of His Own

The second reservoir opened on the first morning of the third month.

Leon set the empty vessel beside his notes and connected the new one to the regulating array. He had learned enough from the first to resent its loss less than he expected.

Now he needed to find out how badly his promising arrangement could misbehave.

He began with input volume. Slow increases produced no difficulty, but a sharp increase left energy waiting at three junctions. Widening them relieved the pressure and made the next reduction troublesome instead.

For a week, every improvement seemed to arrive carrying another problem.

Leon eventually found himself looking at two diagrams that differed by a single adjustment. One handled increased intake. The other recovered cleanly when he reduced it.

He placed them beside each other and stopped trying to make either do both.

The junction needed room to accommodate the change, with a controlled return to its resting state afterward. Fixing it at either extreme was what kept producing trouble.

Once that worked, he concentrated demand in individual affinities. Fire drew heavily for an hour. Ice followed after the circulation settled. Darkness required a different allowance, and he was glad he had tested it before congratulating himself.

The reserve remained neutral until energy entered the branch that needed it. That distinction mattered. Letting one affinity’s excess spill into another would have defeated the purpose of the entire design.

By the fourth month, he could vary several demands together without watching every junction.

Then Ji’s suggestion ruined a very pleasant morning.

He had copied it beneath the measurements he had shown her: compare sustained draw with short bursts at a similar average demand.

Leon ran a steady Lightning cycle first.

It behaved beautifully.

He repeated the same average demand through abrupt pulses. The first pulse tightened the lower junction. The second arrived before it had fully recovered.

He stopped before the third.

”Oh, come on.”

Xyra looked over from where she was sitting in the shade.

”Bad?”

”Annoyingly reasonable.”

The system responded quickly enough once demand changed. It did not respond before the change arrived. Each sudden draw briefly concentrated strain where the continuous test had spread it out.

Ji had identified the distinction without needing his private routes or knowing what realm he was actually cultivating.

Leon added the result beneath her suggestion.

Ask better questions next time she looks at your work.

He spent three weeks distributing a small neutral reserve nearer the branch entrances and adjusting how quickly it replenished. Holding that energy ready reduced efficiency slightly, but it allowed a sudden demand to be met before the rest of the circulation caught up.

He tested the change until he stopped expecting it to fail.

Only then did he begin moving.

Walking was straightforward. Talking while walking exposed a hesitation he had missed. Using frost, then Lightning, then a short spatial fold required adjustments to two return routes.

His familiar abilities remained familiar. What needed attention was the new circulation running beneath their changing demands.

Leon eventually carried out an entire sequence while discussing dinner with Xyra.

”You’ve asked me that already,” she said.

”Have I?”

”Twice.”

He checked the circulation. It had held through the spatial fold, the lightning discharge, and his own apparently terrible conversation.

”Then tell me something else.”

Xyra threw a fruit at him.

He caught it, laughed, and recorded the successful test after he finished eating.

The breakthrough began in the fifth month.

Leon examined his meridians again before drawing from the third reservoir. His former foundation remained undisturbed; the work concerned the native cultivation structure he had been building alongside it.

The strength he already possessed made some preparations easier. It could not decide how his new Qi Sea should stabilize.

He tempered the expanded routes gradually, allowing each adjustment to settle before proceeding. Nine days passed in measured cycles, meals beside the array, and sleep whenever continued attention became less useful than rest.

The Qi Sea took longer to satisfy him.

When he pressed too quickly, one affinity began influencing where the energy settled. Leon eased the process, corrected the distribution, and started again from the last stable point.

He wanted the underlying structure neutral. Accepting a bias now because he could compensate for it would leave him correcting the same compromise in every later realm.

On the sixteenth day, the Qi Sea held its shape when he relaxed his active guidance.

Leon waited through another complete circulation.

The first foundation structure remained beneath it, supporting the settled energy without relying on a single affinity’s pattern.

[Native Cultivation: Early Foundation Establishment]

He read the notification twice.

Then he opened his eyes and looked around the empty flat, wishing someone had happened to be watching.

That would have been a good moment to have an audience.

He was smiling anyway.

There was nothing complete about the whole Foundation realm. His platform still required development, and the fuller integration described in the later stages lay ahead. The new structure did, however, remain steady when he examined it, relaxed, and examined it again.

He had made it work.

Leon sat there longer than necessary, enjoying the result before he allowed himself to list everything that still needed testing.

The System had confirmed his realm. It had offered no verdict on future affinities. He would have to prove that part when he had something genuinely new to integrate.

The remainder of the fifth month went into settling the breakthrough. During the sixth, he repeated the movement and demand tests under the new conditions.

Two tolerances needed widening. A return route became more efficient than expected, which pleased him until he discovered it had altered the timing farther along.

He corrected that too.

By the end of six subjective months, three reservoirs stood empty beside the array. The fourth remained sealed.

Leon cleaned the equipment, put his notes in order, and thanked Xyra.

”Finished?” she asked.

”With this part.”

”Good. You’ve been walking past the same view for months without looking at it.”

He looked across the dimensional world before leaving. She was right. He gave himself a few minutes beside her, with nothing circulating except what now ran comfortably on its own.

Four and a half outside hours after entering, he stepped back into the sealed chamber on his personal peak.

Ira waited in the adjoining inner sitting room. Loriel had fallen asleep in a chair with a book resting against her chest.

”You were quick,” Ira said quietly.

”Six months.”

She studied him, then put down the knife she had been cleaning.

”You did it?”

”Early Foundation.”

Her grin arrived immediately. She stood and caught his wrist, giving him a quick, pleased squeeze.

”Good. Seraphine found something, and she’s been trying very hard to let you finish.”

”What something?”

”A crystal. She has drawings.”

”That sounds dangerous.”

”There are several drawings,” Ira whispered, glancing at Loriel.

Leon laughed softly. He took the book before it slid from Loriel’s lap and laid it on the table.

For him, it had been months since he saw them. He wanted to wake everyone, tell them what had worked, and hear whatever small things had happened during their evening.

Instead, he sat beside Ira.

”Tell me about the crystal.”

She leaned back against the chair and began with the part about its guardian.