Energy Cultivation

 After grabbing a light blue robe from the wardrobe, Luther sat cross legged on one of the golden mats and opened one of the energy cultivation manuals.

To his surprise, despite the unfamiliar language in the manual, he could read and understand.

It was all because of the bracelet Bernoni had given to him.

'What a wonderful piece of technology. With it, doesn't it mean I don't have to learn a language ever again?'

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Luther began to read.

Energy existed in billions of different forms and even to date, many new forms of energy were being discovered.

Of all that vast sum of energy, the most prominent was aether.

Aether energy was what a planet produced after reaching Level 1 in rank. As the rank increased, the quantity and quality of aether on the planet increased.

Additionally, the planet expanded in size, became sentient and gained a planetary spirit.

With the presence of aether, most sicknesses would vanish as the population would build basic immunity; in fact, kids would be born stronger and the life expectancy rate of the race would surge!

New resources and minerals, including aether mines would be produced by the planet, allowing them to craft potions which would aid them to become Espers.

The energy shards produced from the mines could be paired with specific body art manuals to create Pugilists.

The creation of Esper potions wasn't limited to only Aether energy though.

In fact, all forms of tangible energy which could manifest in physical forms could be used after being extracted and treated with the right equipment.

Different energies could be combined to create differing Esper fluids with myriad wondrous effects!

Nonetheless, the super power gained from the Esper fluid couldn't be easily ascertained due to the energy; it was random.

There were cases of people taking Esper awakening fluids made from Life energy but they awakened elemental powers or even necromantic powers!

With such unexplainable effects, energy in itself, and the extraction of it to create Esper awakening fluids, was termed a Space Wonder.

There were some big families and clans, races and corporations who had somehow narrowed down certain energies to achieve desired results!

The Qilin clan had monopolized mines in their territory which produced red lightning energy shards, dark matter shards, and spatial shards.

By combining those three energies to make fluids, they ensured that at the very least, whatever super powers they gained had a high possibility of being extremely destructive!

After awakening and becoming an Esper, what was next was energy cultivation.

The Space Wonder phenomenon made it such that regardless the kind of energy used to create the Esper fluid, the person could absorb any energy shards to cultivate!

Someone whose Esper fluid had been made by combining energies such as death energy, dark energy and necromantic energy could absorb shards of life energy.

'That makes no sense!'

Despite his shock, Luther kept reading on.

The best crystal to facilitate rapid absorption though was aether shards. Also, shards of the energies which had been in the fluid could be rapidly assimilated too.

The reason why energy cultivation manuals had been made despite such a liberal requirement for absorption was that different people had different preferences.

At the end of the day, the person sought to evolve and grow stronger; thus by absorbing the energy systematically, they could progress rapidly.

At higher stages of power, the person could become a living, breathing source and container of energy, with bodily cells capable of storing trillions of units of energy, capable enough to power a planet!

'Does this mean there are people out there who have power to destroy entire planets?' Luther gasped in shock.

The thought horrified him.

Bernoni had mentioned earlier that one of the ways he could save earth was by destroying the sun!

The next paragraph contained the various stages of power and energy cultivation, which could also apply to Pugilists too.

There were nine known stages; experts believed there were higher stages but that remained yet to be seen!

The Awakened Stage was the first,

Then Energy Condensation stage,

Then the Energy Core Formation stage,

Next was the Ascendant stage,

Followed by the Planetary stage,

Then the Entity stage,

Above it was the Calamity stage,

Then the Transcendent stage and finally,

The Star stage!

All these stages were vast, having minor sub classifications underneath them. The higher one advanced, the stronger they became, until they had the energy capacity of stars in their bodies.

Luther couldn't help but exhale slowly.

Nine full stages, and each was no joke; it definitely wasn't going to be easy to advance.

And to save his home planet Earth, he had to at least, be at the sixth stage, the Entity stage!

Earth was going to experience the apocalypse in five years at the very least; this meant that he had to rapidly go from the first to the sixth stage in five years!

'Holy fuck… is that even possible?' Luther muttered under his breath.

Despair began to creep into him, filling him with the sensation of being dropped into a freezing artic.

Could he do it?

Could he save his planet?

Luther dropped the book and cradled his head into his hands. Silence engulfed the room for a long time as Luther struggled mentally with himself.

He was only 18 years old, from an average family.

His looks could be said to be above average, same for his academics; he wasn't the first in mind when top students were mentioned.

At the end of the day, he was just an insignificant kid from a backward planet.

The scene of Earth's destruction then played in his mind.

The flickering barrier which protected the planet fading from existence… then instantly, the sun erupting in blinding red and gold, shooting flares at the planet.

As if imploding, the planet crumbled from within, enormous chunks falling off like discarded trash.

Millions, no billions of lives, wiped out by the flares.

The survivors doomed to restart civilization again; the flares had sent the whole planet back to the stone age.

Could he really watch on for that to happen?

Luther opened his bloodshot eyes and clenched his fists. No matter the cost, no matter the price, he had to do something.

'I have to try, no matter how impossible it is, how will I know if I don't try?!'