So, with this strange half-flesh, half-Energy body, Jason needed to enforce stress. This led back to the technique just taught to Lily, that of turning one's aura upon yourself. It would not work, of course. He had already figured that out and it was easy for him to figure out why. While the aura, intent, or whatever you wanted to call it could affect the more spiritual side of things, being more than capable of fending off ghosts and elemental beings.

That only worked because they were inherently not the same as the intent. Using it on a ghost is like pouring water into oil, but when used on oneself, it was more akin to dipping out a cup of water from a bucket and then pouring that water back in. This was very useful for most people using it to train as it prevents things like an injury to the soul. All the while the flesh was still affected because it was the bucket and so while the cup of water won't damage the bucket, it can still push the bucket around.

Jason, on the other hand was working sans bucket and instead of water it was more like a pile of sand. You can grab a handful of sand and toss it at the pile, but that isn't going to accomplish all that much. However, the fact his main body is just that pile of sand means there is another opportunity. He just had to use his intent in the manner it originally was used for.

After all, if he didn't have a bucket to beat into shape, why not beat against someone else's bucket? More seriously, since his Energy is to some degree his body, strengthening his Energies cohesion should be a decent stand in for strengthening his body. So how do you train the cohesion of a power?

You do it just like you train a muscle. Stretch it, strain it, and then let it heal. Jason's best guess is that so far he has been doing something similar during his fights. Every blast punch and war stomp is him stretching. Quite convenient for him as it meant all he had to do was fight more.

Except fighting would bring in more experience. The answer to this was to bring a new focus to his fights. Sure, Jason wailing on a monster is going to train his strength, but if he puts more focus on the how, that could help. It would also help grow his skill levels as well and maybe finally gain him a more general skill for unarmed fighting.

Jason knows why he hasn't gotten such a skill yet, it is in the very name they generally go by. Weapon skills. If he had to guess, the System likely directly connected general combat skills to the weapon, and so the fact he wasn't even using brass knuckles or gloves was throwing it for a loop. Not that he cared, it could deal with it.

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Though that does bring up the question of what the more passive skills are actually doing. An active skill is easy enough to understand, even some of the passive skills are simple. A skill that increases Mana regeneration? Easy! The System is just pumping more Mana into them or has changed their body to better absorb the stuff.

Passive Combat skills aren't some magical thing that teaches you how to fight better. They just make you hit harder. It isn't even something clever like how his movement skill messes with how much friction there is between his feet and the ground. You hit harder without any obvious reason.

For all Jason knew, it might be as simple as the System literally just making the damage numbers bigger. A very scary conclusion, as it meant that the System controlled your health. Not that he hadn't already suspected it with how the System could cut you off from Energy through the lines it had co-opted.

With how the plants from his previous experiments had slowly died off, this just showed that it was able to actively cause a problem. After all, there is a difference between someone starving to death and someone having their blood drained. Even if the System isn't able to just cut off HP, if it can simply boost the damage he does take? Well, one damage could turn into one hundred or thousand.

Jason sighs, how does "damage" even work to begin with? Cut off a hand and you take some damage. Except then you can regain all the lost health without regaining the hand? Oh, and regrowing that hand later on doesn't gain you extra health? Why does hitting zero HP mean death?

Jason sighs again because those questions are simple compared to some of the questions specific to his situation. For instance, how will damage work when he takes over his own string system? If the System isn't in control, does Jason revert to something like how irl works? Maybe he gains control of what damage means to him?

There is just no way to tell. Though Jason suspects he will learn a bit more as he begins to work on it. Nevermind the fact he had been planning to do so for a while now. Life had been a bit hectic.

Though as plans are wont to do, the next few days are a bit upside down. While Jason and Lily had managed to leave the beaver frog's territory, all that water had to go somewhere and honestly, Jason should have noticed the problem. Right now, there are raging rapids on both sides of them as the various dry ditches suddenly made a lot more sense.

Maybe if they had been deeper, Jason would have realized what was up, but no. The ditches were exactly that, shallow ditches. Except now they were filled with water that was rushing by at a crazy speed.

Jason wasn't certain how it picked up that speed, but he was also glad that he was seeing it like this and not while still in the beaver frog area as it was likely worse. To end up like this, the entire area up there might be flooded.

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