155 Targeted Training (Part 1)
As Stivi separated from him to continue practicing her new combo, Samar turned his thoughts to his own test against Sage Vikran.
He remembered the feeling of absolute defeat as Sage Vikran's arrows effortlessly shot down his own and there was nothing he had been able to do.
"That old monster!" Samar cursed, remembering all the skills and tricks he had tried. Rapid Shot, Multi Shot and even Power Shot but Sage Vikran had deflected all of them.
Heck he had even tried the Exploding Arrow, hoping the exploding shrapnels would hurt the Vampiric bats and kill them. However, Sage Vikran had triggered the explosion before the arrow even reached the flock of bats, exploding the arrow in Samar's face.
What annoyed him more was he was not allowed to use any skill from his equipment. That made the only set effect of the Forest Prowler Set that could give his arrows extra speed and edge, the Windstrider, useless.
Just as Samar was wracking his brains to find a suitable solution, he remembered the last punt he had taken by activating the Wind Rune Arrow.
The scene of the arrow racing past every Sage Vikran's arrows sparked a glimmer of hope in Samar's mind. This had proven that Wind Rune Arrows were faster than Sage Vikran's, preventing his eldest Senior brother from striking them down.
The only problem was the time needed to activate the Rune.
Samar needed at least a second to activate a Rune on an arrow. He assumed this was the limit and any Vedic Archer would not be able to reduce the time anymore.
However, this was before Samar had seen the story of valor of his Senior brother, in which he rained down an Arrow Shower of thousands of activated Rune Arrows upon the invading Paladin Army, killing half of them and incapacitating the rest!
Moreover, Vikran was just Tier 4 back then!
"If a Tier 4 could shoot thousands of activated Rune Arrow within an instant, then a Tier 1 like me should be able to activate at least one Rune Arrow in less than a second right?" Samar thought, determined to make the activation of Wind Rune Arrow instantaneous.
Samar began to work on his solution, starting from the very core of the Rune Activation process, Mana Conversion Mystic Art.
He focused on smoothing the Mana channels in his body to increase the speed of his Mana conversion. However, he soon realized that this was not a process he could complete in a short period.
Samar steeled his heart and decided to improve his activation speed through rote, repetitive practice, something he had been reluctant to do for fear of wasting arrows.
He took out an arrow from his quiver and infused Mana into it, letting it slowly spread through the arrow and reach the tip where the Rune was carved. The moment Mana came into contact with Rune, it was like lighting up a fuse as the runic energy quickly engulfed the arrow, replacing Mana.
Samar released the charged arrow and watched as it whistled towards the dummy and penetrated deep into its chest, its tail still quivering. He looked at the arrow thoughtfully, remembering the whole process.
The reaction between the Runic power and the Mana was instant but it was the journey of Mana towards the Rune that took most of the time.
"What if I suffused the Mana into the arrow beforehand?"
Samar began to test his idea but it did not work. The suffused Mana would spread and activate the Rune beforehand. If too little was injected, it would dissipate, making no difference whatsoever.
The Ranger was in a dilemma about how he should increase his speed. He closed his eyes, remembering the teachings of the female Elf who had taught him the Mana Conversion Mystic Art back in the legacy land.
She had been chanting the Hymn while drawing the Rune, making the Runic power obey her will, shaping it into the Rune. She had then simply let the Mana come into contact with the teeny part of it and instantly the entire Runic power had been ignited.
Remembering the process, Samar scrunched his eyebrows. He had been filling up the arrow with Mana and using it to light up the teeniest bit of Runic Power in the Rune.
"I have been gathering a lot of Mana to light up a tiny bit of Runic Power," Samar thought, looking at the Arrow in his hands with narrowed eyes, "But maybe I should be doing the opposite of that?"
He started singing the First Hymn of Wind Rune, directing the Runic Power of Wind into the arrow. When he was done, the arrow was filled to the brim with Wind Rune power and a tiniest of Mana, activated the arrow, making it glow with bright green color!
Samar could feel the very obvious difference in power of the previous Wind Rune Arrow and this Wind Rune Arrow. When he shot it, the new arrow also traveled faster and pierced the dummy with more power.
However, this power came at a price. A price of an extra three seconds!
Samar only needed a second for ordinary Rune Activation. But if he used the Hymn to increase the Runic Power in the Arrow, it took him a process of minimum of 4 seconds, and this was the fastest he could manage.
In the end, he discovered a more powerful way of activating the Rune Arrows but he still did not solve his quandary of time.
Samar notched one of the Rune Arrows to his bowstring and tried to infuse Mana into it, by his old method. The Mana spread through the arrow 20% faster, saving him nearly 0.2 seconds!
This discovery shocked Samar. He carefully looked at the arrows and discovered there were still traces of Runic Power in other parts of the arrow even after 15 minutes had passed.
These traces of Runic Power served as the fuel for Mana, accelerating the activation of Rune by almost 10 to 20%.
This discovery shocked Samar and pleased him. It was his 'Eureka' movement only unlike Archimedes, he did not run on the streets naked. The Archer quickly invoked another batch of Arrows and carefully noted the time it took to dissipate the Runic Power.
The invoked arrow lowered the activation time by about 90% if used within 50 seconds. After a minute, the efficacy was reduced by nearly 5 to 10% every 30 seconds and the efficacy continued to decrease
For some reason, the Arrows lost Runic power faster when they were alone than when they were together.
It was like the ice cubes. When a single cube was left on a counter, it would melt faster but if many ice cubes were placed together, they insulated each other and melted slower.
This gave Samar an idea.
"What if I actually use the invoked arrows to speed up my activation of Runes?"
Samar excitedly considered this possibility seriously.
"It is impossible to invoke the arrows in the test space since it is a spectral realm. I will have to invoke the arrows before going inside."He decided and began calculating the feasibility of the idea.
"The introduction and dialogue will take a minute minimum even if I try to speed things up," Samar thought, calculating the time. "So, the test will start after 2 minutes and the arrows will be at nearly 70% efficiency."
0.3 second Activation time was not ideal but better than his previous number. What bothered him was the fact that it would keep on increasing if he did not use up the activated arrows in the next 30 seconds.
This posed another problem before Samar. How to ensure accuracy while out matching Sage Vikran's shooting speed?
Fortunately this was a problem he could solve with his RapidShot skill and lots of practice. Samar even had a target in mind to practice his skills - the Lv23 Black-Sting Hornets of Ravaged Canyon.
