Next, Ankit turned his focus to the Heart Core's energy pathways.
Slowly, carefully, he extended fine threads of Essence from the new core and linked them with the heart core energy pathways.
Because the Heart Core was a major bridge, its network was far denser than the others—about 15,000 pathways in total.
Of these, roughly 5,000 were major channels, thick, highly functional lines that would determine how much air Essence he could move and how cleanly it circulated.
He took his time.
One by one, he connected these routes to the core, feeling each link lock into place.
Once the network was complete, he began opening them fully, flushing out residual impurities with gentle waves of Essence until the channels ran smooth.
Only then did he start pouring condensed air Essence through them, filling every branch and node.
When the last major pathway thrummed with power, Ankit stopped and let his body rest. The Heart network had come alive; his circulation pattern was now fundamentally different.
Substage 2 was complete.
After the short recovery, he turned to the final step: compressing the Heart Core itself.
Drawing on experience, he did not attempt this alone. Sacral and Solar Cores stirred in response to his will. Sacral wrapped the Heart Core in a cool, stabilising film, controlling pressure and keeping its structure from warping. Solar provided steady, controlled heat and power from below, pulsing in time with each heartbeat.
Together, they squeezed.
The Heart Core contracted millimetre by millimetre, air Essence inside growing denser, its nature clearer and more refined.
Every round of compression increased his control over wind, sound, and circulation, but he kept the pressure strict and even, never allowing it to spill into the fragile pathways.
He did not touch the pathways themselves.
Cores were made to be compressed; roads were not. Energy channels—those vast, branching networks—needed a certain thickness and flexibility to handle sudden surges of Essence, whether from a desperate technique, an enemy clash.
Broad pathways acted as shock absorbers; they spread impact from techniques, battles, or core resonances across the body, diffusing pressure before it could shatter bones or overload organs.
If he tried to compress them thinner for a marginal speed gain, they might carry Essence faster on a calm day, but the first time a true storm of power rushed through they would tear like over‑stretched wires, rupturing under load.
More importantly, pathways were fragile and sensitive. Forcing them into a smaller volume risked cracks, hidden ruptures, so he left the channels at their natural, reinforced size and focused all compression on the Heart Core itself.
When the process finally settled, the core had shrunk further and hardened, its rhythm perfectly synced with lungs and blood.
Substage 3 was complete.
He had separated the Heart-stage work into three distinct substages for a reason. The sheer number and importance of the Heart pathways—15,000 in total, with 5,000 major channels—caused a massive quantityleap in his power, flooding his body with air Essence volume that no flesh or mind could handle in one overwhelming rush.
Trying to cram core awakening, pathway connection, filling, and compression into a single jump would have turned the process messy and dangerous: pathways might twist under uneven pressure, Essence could backflow and rupture meridians, or the body might simply reject the sudden load, leaving hidden fractures that would sabotage future growth.
Likewise, compressing the Heart Core was a qualitative leap, refining its density and syncing its rhythm with Root, Sacral, and Solar in a fragile new harmony that amplified overall circulation and technique power.
Forcing this amid the pathway chaos would disrupt that resonance, like tuning four strings at once on a lute—some snap, others go flat, and the music turns to noise. It demanded its own focused step, with the other cores stabilizing from afar, ensuring the change rooted deeply instead of scattering like wind in a storm.
Only then did Ankit check his numbers.
He hadn't paused to test his stats after each substage, but he had clearly felt the jumps. Now, he estimated and recorded them to map the growth of Stage 3:
Stage 3 – Substage 1 (Heart Core formed, nature awakened, clone + air body):
- Strength – 600 tons
- Defence – 95 MJ
- Destructive power – 100 MJ
- Speed – 12,000 km/hr
- Sensing range – 200 km
- Lifespan – 8,500 years
Stage 3 – Substage 2 (Heart energy pathways linked, opened, and filled):
- Strength – 1,000 tons
- Defence – 120 MJ
- Destructive power – 130 MJ
- Speed – 15,000 km/hr
- Sensing range – 300 km
- Lifespan – 10,000 years
Stage 3 – Substage 3 (Heart Core compressed):
- Strength – 1,500 tons
- Defence – 150 MJ
- Destructive power – 160 MJ
- Speed – 18,000 km/hr
- Sensing range – 450 km
- Lifespan – 12,000 years
These were only his base stats. If he layered techniques, elemental bodies, or higher‑element control on top, they would climb even higher.
Ankit stretched, feeling the air itself respond a little more gently to his movements, like the world had accepted a new rhythm from his heart.
After all this time away, it was finally time to return home.