36 Mana Augmentation
"Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooornnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!"
The horn of the battlefield has been rang, signalling the start of Arthur and Emmanuel suicide mission.
[Everybody it's time, let's go, go, go] Lieutenant Jeffrey's voice sounded in everyone's head.
The tension suddenly reaches all time high, everybody's heart starts beating faster, adrenaline starts to pump. Everyone's afraid, everyone's scared who can blame them from this point forward, everything they do, every step they take, they would be betting their lives.
With the former lead they move quickly, avoiding monster's along the way.
[Arthur 3 o'clock].
Following the Lieutenant order, Arthur swiftly sneaks behind the unassuming orc and silently plunges his knife over its neck , quickly severing its head. The latter eyes bulge shocked, unable to process what just happened.
About half a klick later there's another scout.
[Emmanuel 12 o'clock, two of them]
[Roger] Emmanuel rushed over bashing the orc in the face, his movement wasn't elegant as Arthur but it was effective nonetheless. For today's mission, he had exchanged for a pair of gloves and arm guard instead of his usual shield. He had felt the lack of need for the latter as he could always yank an orc shoulder pad and use it.
Gloves with steel knuckle
Durability: 125/125
A glove made for punching
Evaluation: Produced by an apprentice blacksmith with a mediocre talent using a mana steel with poor density.
Steel shoulder guard
Durability: 150/150
Created by a blacksmith to satisfy his chuunibyou, later standardized to be use in the army.
Evaluation: Produced by an apprentice blacksmith with talent for design, using a mana steel with poor density.
After bringing the orc down, Emmanuel quickly picks up its axe and tosses it to the other orc.
Puchie! The axe plunged into the orcs head, cutting it in two.
The surviving orc tries to get back up but Emmanuel grabs it by the head and snaps it. Before gently laying it back to the ground, now with its head on the other side of its body.
Even when taking down the orc the squad never stops moving.
[Let's speed things up, about 2 klicks from here there would be another 4 scouts] Lieutenant Jeffrey said.
[Arthur, Emmanuel I want you to scout ahead and take care of them, don't alert the enemy, we don't want the other party thinking we have an army here waiting for them]
[Copy that] Arthur and Emmanuel replied.
When they are far enough from the rest of the squad, Arthur said "Emmanuel, if everything went sideways, I want you to ran and do what you promise, between the two of us you have the best chance of surviving"
Emmanuel looked at Arthur a little angry "Don't give me that shit now, we're about to do something crucial here and we can't afford to get distracted"
"I'm not talking about now, this guys is nothing to worry about" Arthur said before speeding up
He had learned a lot about mana from Doctor Lucy. When the latter last put her mana inside of him, he had felt a faint similarity everytime he used his skill [slash], the only difference is Lucy uses it on him, a person while he uses it with his weapon.
With his skill [Perceived Duration] luckily activated last night, he had obtained the time to work out his theory on how he can augment his body the same way his slash skill augment his katana.
[Perceived Duration] being a cheat skill that it is, an ability that was able to turn a second to a month he was able to succeed.
By the time his skill ended, there were two new skills that appeared in his status window.
The first one is [Slash] who doesn't show in his status window eventhough he already learned it using a skill book and the second is [Arthur's Mana augmentation] a skill who has his name in it.
Arthur Wardragon [Human] Lv.62
HP: 1860
SP: 2980
Str: 186
Vit: 186
Int: 248+50
Agi:186
Unassigned Points: 0
Special Skills:
Enhance Intelligence(Passive): Increase intelligence by 20 percent.
Perceived Duration (Active): The subjective experience, or sense, of time, which is measured by someone's own perception of the duration of the indefinite and unfolding of events.
Skill:
Slash [Lv.1]
To cut (something) with a violent sweeping movement of mana, typically used by focusing mana in a knife or sword.
Arthur's Mana augmentation [Lv.1]
A skill created by Arthur Wardragon by tapping into the basics of mana manipulation and human anatomy. The skill is still in infancy, a prolonged use would quickly drain the user mana and may cause permanent damage.
Arthur used [Arthur's Mana augmentation] focusing his mana to the veins in his feet; his speed increased by 50% .
Feeling the wind in his face Arthur smiled, the only downside of this ability beside what aforementioned in the status window is he can only focus his mana in one side of his body and while using Mana augmentation he cannot use his skill [slash] but if he was only dealing with an orc it was enough.
With his increased speed he quickly arrives in the middle of the four who seems to be roasting a large beef monster.
They notice Arthur and are about to reach for their weapon.
When the latter swang his blade.
[Slash]
The skill changed a lot the first time Arthur used it. Now he can freely control the amount of mana he wants to put on the blade. The more mana he puts into it the stronger his attack becomes. He can also increase the range of his attack by releasing the mana in his blade every time he makes his swings.
Looking at his attack, the image of the man in knights armor came into his mind.
Emmanuel finally caught up with Arthur, although he was far away, he had witnessed everything.
"Damn!" He exclaimed in surprise.
Arthur looked at him "What did I tell you, easy right?"
"How the f*ck did you become this strong are you already tier 2?"
"No, I'm far from it. It just learn a little trick"
"A little?" Emmanuel asked, preparing himself for the latter bragger parade.
"Yeah, but I guess if it's you, you would need a year or even a lifetime to learn it"
'F*ck, you can brag but please don't insult me, you are simply a monster' Emmanuel thought to himself. "Alright stop boasting, if you are already this strong what are you so worried about?"
"I don't know, I just can't shake the feeling that something is wrong"
"Don't jinx it," Emmanuel said, blocking Arthurs mouth.
After a couple of minutes Lieutenant Jeffrey arrived with the rest of the squad.
"Good work! this is about all of them" He said
"Everyone be prepared, about another 3 clicks from here we would be able to see the orc army,"
[Sarah what's the enemy's movement?]
[The orc archer has arrived, there are only hundreds or so orcs between your position and his, but there is something weird.]
[What is it?] Lieutenant Jeffrey asked
[I cannot see any orc around 100 feet of the orc archer tower]
[That's great, heaven is helping us] Lieutenant Jeffrey exclaimed.
Contrary to Lieutenant Jeffrey excited expression, Sarah is sweating, everytime she looks at the orc archer tower, she feels death is gripping her by the throat.
[I don't know about that sir, I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this. We should withdraw and collect more data]
Lieutenant Jeffrey didn't even stop to reconsider [No, we can't, we have orders and we have to execute it plus we don't know when would the orc archer reach tier 2]
Hearing conviction to the other voice, Sarah has no choice but to resign his doubts [Alright sir, it's your call, I'm going to move 3 more klicks to get a better vantage point]"
[Okay, be careful]
"[Are we sure about this sir?]" Hearing everything on the open channel Arthur asked but Lieutenant Jeffrey remained adamant and proceeded in ignoring Arthur.
"Ready your weapon we're charging in"
"Let's go go go"
