Chapter-7 The Priest
A menacing aura of death was emitting from Alex, as he felt power surging through him. He felt a weird sense of superiority, as if whatever came near him would be obliterated. This was something he had felt for the first time since he had started using Darkness elemental skills.
"The element of Darkness is primarily used in close-combat fights, or to increase one's strength, but you are able to use it as an aura, and also shoot projectiles of Darkness energy. It is said to have been very difficult to use Darkness energy for long ranged attacks, but you are easily able to do it; Alex, your talent is way above that of normal people. With the Darkness aura that you have acquired, you would be easily able to fend of against the Priest on equal grounds," said Gary, surprised.
Gary was surely surprised by Alex, due to all that he had done, but Alex wasn't any less suspicious about the identity of Gary. Since his birth, he had never found any information on the Darkness element, and there was no information about it in any books in the library as well. Simply speaking, there was no information about the element of Darkness, its advantages, its disadvantages, its fighting style, its users, ore even anything else related to it in the whole town. The only information about the Darkness element that people of his town knew was that it was extremely rare and that according to the Church of Light, it was a sign of evil.
Even though there weren't any sources about the element anywhere to be found, Gary seemed to know quite a bit about the element of Darkness, which surprised Alex as to how much he knew and how strong he was.
Other than that, he was quite sure that he had never mentioned that he would be taking revenge on the Priest in front of Gary, surprised as to how he knew about that. Alex himself was sure that he hadn't said anything and Max was quiet the whole time.
Gary spoke up, interrupting Alex's thoughts, "If you can create an aura at the first try, you should also be able to apply pressure. An aura basically is when the energy you have is emitting outwards, but since it is attached to you, it won't just be one longe-range attack and will act as a status effect that lingers on. If you extend the range of that attack so that it spreads over a large area, by increasing its size and decreasing its attack potency; instead of obliterating enemies if they come near you, it will work as applying pressure and restricting ad even causing damage to them over a large area. Applying pressure is a variant of creating an aura. It is basically a stretched out aura. I will help you if you need any assistance, but if you are able to apply elemental pressure on your opponents, you could fight an entire army. Use pressure to kill off all the low-levelled soldiers and battle the generals one on one using the aura. These two skills complement each other perfectly."
As Alex thought about taking on the entire Church in the town on his own, the bloodlust in him started rising, motivating him to try to practice how to apply pressure. His reasons to learn it were arguably not ideal, but since he was being motivated, there was nothing bad about that.
He started trying to expand the area of his aura as soon Gary started teaching Max about the aura of the Light element. Alex, unlike how he previously was, he had an objective to accomplish now. As Alex started to expand his aura to a larger radius, he started feeling pain. When his aura's size increased to two times of its original size, he felt as though his body was being constricted. Ignoring the pain, Alex persevered, and when his aura was five times its original size, he started to feel some real pain, but that wasn't enough for him. Alex wanted to test his limit, so he kept on increasing his aura's size. As the pain increased, Alex started to remember him withstanding Gary's pressure. This pain started reminding him of what he had experienced earlier in the day. This, also, didn't seem to stop Alex, who's fighting spirit was ignited due to this competitive feeling of withstanding pain. Finally, he was able to extend the aura to ten times its original size, which was normally considered the limit for most elementals, but Alex still increased the size.
As Gary observed him from the sidelines, he started to feel that the same thing from afternoon would happen to Alex after some time, as he shouted, "Stop there! That is already way more than enough size of pressure being applied, leave it be!"
Alex stopped, but was confused, as he said, "This is not a pressure, this is just me trying to extend my aura to larger sizes. This is the pressure that you told me to use."
As he said this, the aura turned into a dark crimson shade and expanded well over 100 times the original size of Alex's aura. Other than its extremely gigantic size, there were also other special features about Alex's pressure, as it inflicted damage and restricted the movement of the opponents trapped in it, but since the element he had was Darkness, there was another benefit that the pressure also caused repeated attacks such as a poison to whoever was stuck inside it. His pressure was also deadly, just like everything Alex preferred to be.
Gary and Max were utterly impressed by this ability of Alex, as now he was strong enough to fight the Priest and the only thing he needed was some guidance from old Gary, who was a veteran, and a very strong one at that. Other than some tips from Gary, Alex needed to get Max trained a bit. Max was talented and his speed of training was rather very impressive, as well as his grasping abilities, but compared to Alex's god-level skills, he was overlooked most of the times.
"Just wait for Max to get a bit stronger, as that's the only time you will have to live... I'm coming for you... Just you wait, Priest Richard!"