Over the next 4 days he slowly gathers his energy in his veins feeling the slow but ever growing headache caused by the energy gathering and solidifying, it took two times the length it took to completely condense his energy from gasses to liquid.
Now with solid energy filling his body he once more enters deep meditation to break through his mental sphere, slowly the energy in his mental sphere solidified and began to fill up rapidly. After finishing that he begins to try and condense the energy in his body but can't even gather all of it together before it disperses, once more failing he begins to contemplate how to continue.
For a core you would begin to expand it using the solidified energy to fill in any cracks that occur but he is unsure if you can do the same with energy veins, after all he had heard of what happened to those born with broken energy veins.
All of them died before reaching the age of fifteen. Bodies often skeletal husks of purely skin and bones.
However the alternative was to attempt to meld his mental sphere with his energy and make it his core, but that could leave him brain dead if his mental sphere shattered instead of merging. Comparing the choices he decided to go with the option of expanding his energy veins and filling in the potential cracks, he would rather go down swinging rather than being unable to do anything but lay there stupidly.
With his choice made he began to settle in for what he was sure would be a painful and unforgettable experience.
Taking a deep breath he begins to slowly push his mental energy into the center of his energy veins slowly carving a thin path way, then using his mental energy he begins to push out his solidified regular energy in milliseconds horrific pain shoots through his body and blood begins leaking from his orifices. His actions causes his energy veins which had been as thin as one millimeter to expand slowly pushing and growing the solid energy acting as a filling to the cracks and small tears all through his body as time passes by at a crawl the solidified energy finally fully merges with his energy veins.
Extracting his exhausted mental energy he begins slowly drift off into deep sleep.
Waking he felt like he had been hit by a truck, sore and tired all over with pain blaring form all of his muscles. But his mind felt heavy and muddled despite having refilled his mental sphere his energy veins were still empty, did he have to do the same thing to his mental sphere as he did to his energy veins? If so he rather just have attempted to merge them.
Sighing he contemplated and came to a decision to just get it over with, closing his eyes once more he began to enter deep meditation again.
Sensing his mental sphere and check it's energy was completely filled he once more began the act of pushing out with his mental energy and if he had thought the energy veins hurt it didn't have a quarter on the pain caused by expanding his mental sphere. Bit by bit he merged his hardened mental energy with his mental sphere and began to slowly increase the push, until after what felt like months but at most a day he completely expanded his mental sphere.
Once more claimed by deep sleep, he awoke to a horrific scent and vision so clear he could see everything around him even in the dark. Feeling light headed due to the smell, he rushed to the water cave and began removing his clothes filled with dry blood and black inky gunk throwing his clothes to the ground he began rinsing off using water he gathered using a pot so as not to contaminate the water going to his pond.
After scrubbing himself so hard skin peeled off he turned to look at his clothes and the gunk that had wash to the ground along side the water, there was nothing he could do for his clothes now they were simply beyond salvation if not for having 2 more sets he would feel mortified.
Sighing he sat on the tarp he took out and sat down as far away from the gunk as possible while looking at how long the entire process had took, 4 days, just like how long it took to gather the energy.
If this was a pattern he could already foretell how painful the rest of the steps for this cultivation style will end up being, slowly the color of his skin turns from red to light tan as it had always been when he went to long without sunlight. Circulating energy he begins to feel the changes in his body, his energy veins and mental sphere had doubled in size, and his energy had completely refilled.
Getting up and dressed he headed for his cave when he heard the plop sound of many slimes coming, rushing into my little stream a group of thirty slimes round the corner I need to pass to return to my cave.
Subconsciously he circulates energy to calm down only to sense it lightly covering his body, surprise zips through him as he realizes he's using energy without a core but dies down when he remembers his current situation however with a means of defense and endless amount of water he was in the best position he could hope for.
It was time to fight or die.