The "manual" they gave to the laborers was hardly a book. It was a single, crumpled sheet of paper titled *The Stone Breathing Method*.

  Julian sat on his scratchy bunk, holding the paper under the dim light of a glow-moss lantern. Around him, other boys were already asleep, snoring in discordant rhythms.

  "Breathe in through the nose for three counts," Julian read, his brow furrowing. "Visualize the energy settling in the stomach. Exhale the impurities through the mouth. Repeat until you feel heat."

  It was primitive. It was vague. It was inefficient.

  Julian closed his eyes and tried to follow the instructions. He visualized the ambient Ether entering his nose. Under his [Acoustic Mind] passive skill, the energy didn't look like white mist—it looked like a chaotic waveform, jagged and noisy.

  When he tried to force this jagged wave into his 'stomach' (which the system identified as his Dan-Tian), the resistance was massive. The energy crashed against his meridians like water hitting a brick wall. Most of it dissipated as heat.

  *Efficiency rating: less than 5%,* Julian calculated, opening his eyes in disgust. *This isn't cultivation. This is leaking energy.*

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  He looked at the diagram on the paper again. It depicted the energy flowing in a straight line down the spine.

  *That's the problem,* Julian realized. *Straight lines don't exist in wave propagation. You need a loop. You need a circuit.*

  He took a deep breath. This time, he ignored the instructions.

  Instead of dragging the energy down, he spun it.

  He visualized the Ether as an alternating current. As he inhaled, he mentally applied a **Low-Pass Filter**, stripping away the jagged, high-frequency "noise" (impurities) before it even entered his body.

  What entered him wasn't the rough, muddy energy the others absorbed. It was a smooth, sine-wave oscillation.

  *Now, impedance matching.*

  Julian guided the wave down his meridians. Instead of forcing it, he oscillated his internal mana to match the incoming wave’s phase.

  Constructive Interference.

  The energy didn't just flow; it surged. It was like he had turned his body from a rusty copper wire into a superconductor. The "heat" the manual promised didn't happen—because heat was a symptom of resistance. Instead, Julian felt a cool, electric hum vibrating in his core.

  [Ding!]

  The blue window popped up, bright enough to make him squint.

  >> SYSTEM ALERT <<

  Technique Analyzed: [Stone Breathing Method (Common)]

  Flaws Detected: 14 Major, 32 Minor.

  User Modification Applied: [Phase-Locked Loop].

  Technique Mutated!

  New Skill Created: [The Superconductor’s Breath (Rare)]

  -- Efficiency: 95%

  -- Mana Regeneration: +200% compared to base technique.

  -- Side Effect: Zero heat generation. Perfect stealth.

  Julian exhaled slowly. A thin stream of gray smoke left his lips—the impurities, filtered out with mathematical precision.

  He looked at his hand. The faint violet light under his skin was no longer erratic. It pulsed with a steady, metronomic beat.

  In the bunk above him, Kael—the bully from earlier—mumbled in his sleep, tossing and turning as he tried to cultivate the crude Stone Breathing Method, sweating profusely from the wasted heat.

  Julian smirked and closed his eyes again. While they burned themselves trying to light a fire, he was building a fusion reactor.

  *Let's see how much charge this battery can hold.*

  Author's Note: