Acquiring A New Skill (Part 2)

Sitting legs crossed and slowly emptying his mind of all irrelevant thoughts. Joshua didn't start absorbing origin energy from the atmosphere like he usually does when cultivating .

But instead, he slowly concentrated all his thoughts on diving deeper into his mind which caused his figure to quietly appear floating within a vast spaces with a white coloured sky above and a small blue coloured pond below.

Instantly, Joshua knew that he was now within his sea of consciousness located at the dept of his mind and that the small pond he layed eyes on was made up of his soul or perhaps a reflection of it to be exact.

Joshua also noticed the existence of a 5 axis runic diagram floating on mid-air at the very centre of his soul power pond and this he suspected to be the runic diagram of his only acquired skill 'Basic Taming'.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of his soul, Joshua could also faintly make out the existence of a huge runic diagram with numerous axis looking like noodles that have been randomly stuck together.

Nevertheless, Joshua had a feeling that this huge runic diagram belonged to his overpowered 'Sage' Innate Skill.

Returning his attention back to what had brought him here, Joshua figure floated towards the edge of his soul power pond and started manipulating a small amount of it to flow upwards out of the pond and transform into the shape of a brush with a string at its tail end that connected it to the pond.

And then, Joshua began drawing the rune symbol for 'Increase' first. Just as it had been stated in the skill book.

Of course, he failed a couple of times before finally succeeding in the end. After which were the rune symbol for 'Power' and lastly 'Aim' which he also failed in drawing correctly for a while before succeeding at last.

Watching these three different rune symbols float opposite each other on mid-air, Joshua proceeded to draw a 'Y' axis line in between three of them and connected them together.

Upon the very moment he did that, these connected words gave off a soft glow and automatically rearranged themselves into a much smoothly drawn runic diagram before floating away and situating itself beside the 'Basic Taming' Acquired skill runic diagram.

Only then did Joshua notice that his soul power pond within his sea of consciousness was no longer shinning as bright as it had been when he had first arrived here but instead, it was now somewhats dim.

However, this was no cause for panic to Joshua because he very well knew that this situation was as a result of overdrafting a huge amount of his soul power in one go in order to draw the 'Amplification' skill runic diagram.

And that, even though he had a soul power pond within his sea of consciousness, it was nothing but a mer refection of his current soul power state and quality since soul power in it's own right wasn't something that originated from the sea of consciousness but from his very soul.

As for the location of the soul within the human body, this was still another mystery for the current Joshua.

After observing this his new skill runic diagram quietly float alongside his old one for a couple of minutes without experiencing any hiccups, Joshua slowly retracted himself from his sea of consciousness by pulling back his thoughts from the dept of his mind and back to the outside world.

"That was way harder than I had expected.... Woah" muttered Joshua as he tried standing up from the floor only to be suddenly assaulted by a heavy wave of fatigue that immediately threw him back on the floor, causing him to yell out in suprise.

Struggling to resist the overwhelming feeling of sleepiness that came along with his body lying on the floor. Joshua threw a quick glance at his personal template and thought inwardly as he fell asleep; " So that's why"

Name: Joshua Norman

Race: Human

Realm: Rank Two Beast Apprentice

Soul power: 10/60

Main Art: Beginner's Meditation Method

Acquired Skills: Basic Taming, Amplification

Innate Skill: Sage

Acquired Ability: Basic Pole Mastery

Innate Ability: None

Tamed Beast: One (Metallic Python)

Time slowly flew by within this quiet room as Joshua slept for over three hours in order to recover from this fatigue caused by the high consumption of his soul power which had left him with only 10 points of soul power remaining out of the usual 60 points he currently possessed as a Rank Two Beast Apprentice.

Although his 'Above Average' quality soul, provided him with around 1.5 times more soul power than other regular Beast Tamers of the same Realm and Rank with 'Average' quality souls and was only 0.5 times soul power away from being a 'High' quality soul.

But since this was Joshua very first time of expending such a huge amount of soul power, it had taken a toll on his body and that lead to him having to sleep for over three hours in order to recover.

In reality, such was also the case for every other Beast Tamer regardless of his or her Realm and Rank if they were to expend over 80% of their total soul power for the very first time.

Waking up from his forced afternoon nap, Joshua stretched his body a bit in order to confirm it he had fully recovered which he had. When he was done, Joshua then summoned Astra as he thought inwardly; "Time to check out my new skill".

After the appearance of a 5½ metres long python covered in black scales which gave off a faint metallic luster. Joshua immediately stretched out his right hand and pointed his index finger towards her and yelled "Amplify".

At that very moment, Joshua activated his new skill by manipulating a small amount of soul power from the soul power pond within his sea of consciousness to flow out of it and fuse into the 'Amplification' runic diagram floating above it.

Instantly, Astra became tinted by a red hue and her entire 5½ metres long body started emitting a much stronger presence.

"Wow" Commented Joshua out loud as he stood just a few feets away from her and carefully observed her body which now appeared a bit bloated and packed with threads of muscles and veins.

Silently keeping tabs on the time in order to figure out how long the 'Amplification' state would last.

Joshua not only discovered that it lasts for about 10 minutes and has a side effect of leaving it's user slightly weaken for about 5 minutes. But it also costed him only 5 points of soul power to activate which meant that he can activate it continuously for about 10 times before running out of soul power during a battle as far as he could remain alive long enough to do so.