Chapter 9

- Xenon -

I walked about a hundred meters from camp, with only my bat and knife on me. I needed the privacy to test my new skill, though to be honest, it didn't even matter. I know the skill itself doesn't have any flashy effect.

I need to get used to it if I'm going to be actively using it in the future. It's a terrible idea to try 'new' things when you are in the heat of the moment, so I'd rather get used to it now.

I took out my bat, ready to strike my imaginary opponent. I took a normal swing of my bat without using the skill, to judge the difference.

Bracing myself, I activated my [Empowered Strike], which is really just me thinking of it like a third limb, instead of stupidly shouting the name of the spell like a

Shounen protagonist. And as I expected, there was no visual effect, nothing flashy about me swinging a bat in the air. But the truth is, there was plenty of differences that I noticed once I used the skill.

At first, I've been planning of different uses for the skill. For example, does the buff effect activates when I'm not pouring my all into it, so that I could make a move without much effort into something deadly. I had no delusions it was impossible now.

Because the moment I thought of using the skill, I felt an invisible 'hand' guiding my body towards the desired result, making it so that I put enough effort to make the swing deadly. And that's quite clear with the strain I am not feeling in my arms and shoulders. It wasn't anything overly painful, but I could sense I can't just spam it willy nilly. Without the spell, I can tell I'd never be able to show that much power, so there was definitely something else increasing my power.

The first test was a success so far, so I moved to the next. I needed to make sure I can use it without any weapons, so I dropped my bat, threw a punch while activating the skill, and the very same result could be observed. I used the proper technique to punch forward, and I immediately noticed my body going in auto-pilot, until the movement was complete.

I did the same thing with the knife, then I started looking for the limits. I was worried I wouldn't be able to interrupt the skill, but it turns out, I can cancel it whenever I wanted, though a percentage of the cost is consumed depending on how far into the movement I was.

I could also modify the direction of my swing whenever I wanted, which is something that's been on my mind for a while. I was not a game character, I did not need moves I couldn't change to my whims.

By the time I was done, I only had around 50 stamina left. I could feel the strain on my body because of the effort it had been through, but it's still not at concerning levels. I was clearly sore, but not enough to hinder my movements.

Now came the next part of my tests. I needed to determine how long I can run with moderate speed, and how long I can sprint. These two information will be invaluable so I can plan ahead accordingly. But it proved to be more difficult than expected… I didn't have a watch on me. So I had to approximate everything by counting the seconds in my head.

Overall, I was losing 7 SP (Stamina Point) per minutes jogging, which really wasn't that bad. It meant I could run for about 30 minutes before I became exhausted. I could still feel exhaustion, it was just attenuated for some reason, probably because I still had quite a few SP.

As for sprinting, it cost me around 1.5 SP per second, which means I can sprint for about two minutes at full speed, which really wasn't bad. Overall, I left the woods far more confident than I was before; things were looking good for me.

Now for the last part, it was determining my SP recovery / second. I waited a bit to catch my breath before going back to my tent and laying on my bed, then started counting the seconds again. I was shocked, because after a minute of rest I recovered 5 SP, and that's a lot. I had later found out that my SP Regen dropped once I hit the 50 SP mark, which prompted me to do the exercise again. My SP Regen was 2.5 SP/s.

In summary, it takes around five minutes to go from zero SP to 50 SP, and one hour to go from 50 SP to 200 SP. But that's not everything that came out of my little tests.

< Skill Gained! >

[Proficiency: Mental Calculation. (Passive)] LVL 1

Increase your mental calculation speed and precision.

( Increase based on LVL and INT )

< +1 WIS Gained! >

< + 1 INT Gained ! >

<>

Overall, I was very happy with my results. I laid back for a nap, it's been a long and tiring day.