Experiment and Astonishment

As John sat on the ground he began to think of the way he should develop his abilities. It was impossible for a person to be good at everything and trying to do so would only cause unneeded stress. It was time for him to decide on how he would focus his development.

He remembered back to his affinities. Of all his stats his vitality was without a doubt at the top and it was only followed by his defense and intelligence. As for the rest they were on the above average level except for his dexterity which was dead average. He then thought of his elemental affinities. Light was in a bad spot due to him not really having any way to use it effectively except in junction with his life element. As for the life element itself it could be used to heal wounds and with enough training grow plants. Then their was his earth and lightning affinities. Lightning was used almost exclusively for attacking while earth for defending. Lastly was his fate affinity and like light he had no idea were to even begin with it.

After thinking it over for a time he came to a basic conclusion. With how many of his affinities matched with defending he thought it would be best to focus on a tanky direction, one that also just happened to be able to hit with some strong attacks in the form of lightning and also lend out support. Taking this and his cultivation methods the thought of a mighty moving fortress came to mind. It could not be taken down and any who dared to get close would be blown away.

With this thought in mind he began to think of ways he could do so. First he would need to think of ways to increase his attacking power. Focusing on only defense was a bad idea. Although he could out last any opponents he had faced so far that would become less of an option in the future as he started to face stronger enemy's with better stamina and defense. Even if they couldn't hurt him he would also be unable to do the same. The best way to alleviate this would be to learn either a strong attacking technique or magic.

As John thought of magic he couldn't help but unleash a sigh. Ever since he had learned of his magic problem it had vexed him to no end. He had more than enough Mana to use magic but because he seemed to have some problem with runes he couldn't cast a single spell. He thought of how when they were traveling Liz had casually mentioned that runes are more like a mental guide to directing Mana than an actual directer. As he thought of this he came to feel that runes were kind of like a circuit. It directed the standard use of Mana. This meant his problem was like if he wasn't compatible with the normal circuits and thus would cause problems when using it.

With this new direction of thought he thought of two ways to solve his problem. First, learn to adapt to the runes and second, make his own path. The first was quickly thrown out as when he tried with the lightning magic the rune somehow caused a large amount of strain on his mental energy which would knock him out. With no other option he decided to go with making his own way.

With this new direction in mind he decided that for a start he would try to reproduce the lightning strike from his first magic test. He began to flow his Mana. After a few cycles he started to focus it into the form of lightning in his hands. Sparks began to collect and form a ball on his palm. With what he new of lightning he tried to form a path in the air for it to travel. Believing he had made a path he tried to cast his spell.

BOOM!!

Dust flew into the air and a crater 10 feet in diameter and 4 deep had been carved into the earth. After nearly to seconds a body fell to the ground and bounced once. The magic had failed and horribly at that. John's pants had almost been completely burned and torn apart. His legs were covered in arcing burn and his feet were almost completely black. All the hair on his body stood on end while all his muscles twitched horribly. Even with his outer wounds being serious his internal ones were completely negligible due to his cultivation method, Void Eater. His skin could be considered one of his weakest aspects at this point. Despite the explosion John hadn't been knocked unconscious and when he hit the ground he immediately began to try and heal his wounds.

(Damn that hurts. How the hell did that have so much power? Could it be because of how my cultivation has advanced? Well regardless of that I need to figure out how the hell I'm going to get Liz to not ring my neck.)

As he lay there his wounds started to heal. The dead tissue fell off and scabs quickly formed and fell off to reveal healed skin. His muscled stopped twitching and after only 5 minutes he was nearly healed except for his feet that had almost been completely cooked and would take another 10 minutes at the least to heal.

After this incident John realized just how needed runes actually were. Runes could be seen like a gun and magic the bullet. What he had done was the equivalent to setting gun powder off in his hands. With this analogy put in place he felt like he needed to make a laser rifle when he didn't even now how to make a gun.

As he was contemplating on his problem he could hear quick steps heading in his direction. Rounding the flattened bushes he could see Liz and Eva running at full speed.

"John!!!" X2 The two of them almost instantly stopped at the sight before them and then doubled their speed to him with Liz arriving first.

"Are you OK?!"

"For the most part yes. My feet still hurt though." Johns answer came back in an almost casual way to the greatly shocked Liz.

"For the most part?!? That explosion knocked us over and we were at the entrance of the cave! How can you still be so calm?!"

"Well besides some burns I'm mostly fine."

Eva had arrived and at this point and immediately went stiff at hearing the conversation between the panicky Liz and calm John.

"Jo...John are you really OK?"

"Yep, although my feet will take a few more minutes to heal."

"Ho...How?"

"Well I have a really strong vitality and that put together with my healing technique makes it so that wounds at this level won't do much damage. My skin is damaged a lot more than anything else in fact." While John and Liz were talking Liz had taken a glance at the crater.

"John were you trying to use magic?"

"I wanted to see if a could come up with a way for me to use magic but although I got the right amount of power I can't seem to aim it."

"Did you not use runes?"

"I didn't."

"..."X2

"WHAT!?!"