'My Inexhaustible Spiritual Energy,' Xue Ren muttered in thought.
[Precisely,] replied Fireball. [And it's actually because of your |Empty Spirit Roots| and numerous other factors that the Fireball Evolution System chose you as the Destined Host.]
'What I'm getting at from this information is that I can perpetually release and absorb my own Spiritual Energy… infinitely…?'
[In theory, yes. But unfortunately for the current you, you can only cast one Skill of each Type at a time. Furthermore, the amount of your own energy that you can absorb is heavily dependent on the Rank of the Skills being cast.]
[For example, Skills like |Fireball Shield| and |Fireball Sniper|, which have higher maximum energy outputs than Skills like |Fireball| and |Fireball Arrow|, will allot far more Spiritual Energy upon absorption.]
[As of right now, your speed of Qi Absorption is roughly equivalent to an average Low-Grade Spiritual Root user. However, once you begin nearing complete proficiency with your Level 3 Primary Fireball Skills, your Qi Absorption speed should reach the Mid-Grade.]
'It's nowhere near the level of freakish talents like my sister and Mei Mei, but it's still leagues better than where I was at before,' Xue Ren thought. 'I'll have to try out the absorption capabilities of my |Empty Spirit Roots| later, for I'm quite curious to see how much has changed.'
A part of him still felt that cultivation was pretty useless right now, but that was when Fireball reminded him of something:
[The higher your cultivation, the larger your energy and physical damage output. Thus even if improvements in cultivation won't affect your maximum Spiritual Energy Reserves, they'll still improve the effectiveness of all Primary |Fireball| Skills.]
'I see…'
"Hey, what are you zoning out on me for, Little Xue??" Lan Yue shook him hard enough to dislodge his brain stem. "Humph, you little jerk, just like your father."
"Honey~, I'm home—"
"Speaking of the devil," Lan Yue said while glaring at the happy-go-lucky man who froze the moment he entered his house. "Dear, do tell me, why were you out so late~?"
"Oh… I appear to be lost, haha!" Fang Ren walked in reverse, hurriedly fleeing from the scene. "That wasn't my house, haha—"
"Dear, where do you think you're going?"
Fang Ren felt a firm hand clasp onto his shoulder, forcing him to stop in his tracks.
Slowly, and with terror etched across his face, he turned around to face the demonic expression his wife was making.
"Y-You see… My honey dearest, there was something at the Sect that they direly needed me to attend to, and knowing our relationship with them, I had no choice but to—"
"Save the excuses for the bedroom, Dear," Lan Yue said with a 'smiling' expression, licking her lips. "Let's see how long you'll hold on this time."
"!!!"
"N-No, please….!"
Fang Ren attempted to save himself from the jaws of the beast by grabbing hold of the corner of two walls. But unfortunately for him, the beast always won in the end, and he was dragged into the den, put at the whim of the ravager.
Xue Ren stood in place, inattentively staring at the dark hallway where his father's screams of horror could still be heard if one listened close enough.
"Rest in peace, Father," Xue Ren prayed before he turned around and walked up the stairs leading to his room on the mansion's 2nd floor. "I'm gonna try out this cultivation with self-absorption thing. I just hope the house isn't burned down as a result."
Upon making it to his room and sitting down on a cultivation mat, Xue Ren extended a hand. He conjured a Basic |Fireball|, watching intently as it spiraled in front of him.
"Now, to focus on the sensation telling me to pull," said Xue Ren as he did just that. "Ah, I think I got it."
The process was pretty straightforward, and on his first try, he successfully pulled in and absorbed all the Spiritual Energy in the Basic |Fireball|.
Only a small, refined portion of it could actually be converted to actual cultivation base, but even so, it was still over three times faster to cultivate this way than before!
And that was while merely using the most simple of Level 1 Fireball Skills to cultivate!
"How wondrous," Xue Ren praised while continuing to summon Basic |Fireballs| and absorbing their fire energy. "Even with only these, I speculate that I can reach the 2nd Layer of Qi Condensation within 10 or so years. Conversely, it would've taken 30 years to achieve that Realm as I was before."
Without the existence of his |Empty Spirit Roots|, he was unlikely to ever surpass the 4th Layer of Qi Condensation in this lifetime. And that wouldn't have changed no matter how arduously he cultivated.
After a few hours of self-absorption cultivation in order to become accustomed to it, Xue Ren rose from his cultivation mat. He walked out his door and down the stairs of his home. On his way, he heard the faint screams of his father but ignored them and went outside the mansion.
"I should go and find somewhere with more open room to test out the full extent of self-absorption cultivation," Xue Ren said as he raced across the landscape at hundreds of miles per hour. "I fear that if I were to cast |Large Fireball| back in my room, the mansion would cease to be…"
— Next time on Spamming Fireball: First Level 3 Skill At 100% Proficiency!, Bandits Intrude —