Chapter 15: Mana, Magic, Aura.
"Ready whenever you are," Sierra swung her wooden sword and stared Alseace in the eye with her left hand resting on her hip.
Alseace remembered the moves those elite knights used during the war. He then dashed forward and started attacking Sierra from all angles and directions. Although his stats were high, Sierra could easily fend off his attacks and parried them with a single movement of her wrist.
"It's never about power, but how, when, and where your attack is!" Sierra knocked Alseace's hand back after she parried his attack, and used that opportunity to thrust the sword right up his neck. But he managed to dodge it. "Remember your footing, you're so vulnerable!" Sierra kicked his left foot and made him fall down.
Sierra took a few steps back as she threw the wooden sword away. She then kicked up the wooden staff and grabbed it mid-air.
"You were trying to copy someone else's move, and that only made you look like an idiot. Just focus on the moves that I taught you because you need to master them first before you can use another style," Sierra said as she spun the staff around. "Your growth exceeds your experience that your eyes and your mind haven't adjusted to it yet. Let's start from the basics again, but now with a hellish training," Sierra pointed out as she looked at the staff in her hands.
Alseace nodded his head and readied his stance, the stance that Sierra had taught him.
Alseace started rigorous training for a whole month non-stop under Sierra's guidance, and it was indeed a hellish one. Alseace was struggling, but he knew it was necessary if he wanted to be the best he could be. Especially after experiencing how helpless he was when he was facing four clones of Arisma.
"Where's Alseace? Is he not home?" Elenoir looked at Sierra behind the counter.
"He's undergoing hellish training, and I'm not going to let him leave until he shows any improvement," Sierra answered and put a glass of gin in front of Elenoir. "I'm planning to train him for the next five months, so don't bother him," Sierra warned Elenoir.
"Is there a reason why you're pushing him that far?" Gratya sat next to Elenoir with her phone in her left hand.
"It's not me, it's him who wants to achieve something," Sierra put an empty glass in front of Gratya. "He wants to learn Aura," Sierra poured the whisky into the glass.
"I'm not sure if that's wise," Elenoir said, watching the amber liquid swirl in Gratya's glass. "Is it even possible if he has never trained it before?" Elenoir glanced at Sierra.
"He's the one who wants it," Sierra said with a shrug. "I'm just helping him reach his goals."
"I don't know, Miss Red," Gratya said with her eyebrows furrowed. "He has to learn Mana first to be able to learn Aura, and to be honest it's going to be a waste of time if he starts learning it now."
"Are you sure about that?" Sierra asked with her eyebrow raised. "You would be surprised once his training is over," Sierra smirked as she looked at Elenoir and Gratya.
"I guess we'll have to wait, Gratya," Elenoir said, and then took a shot of her gin.
(3 months later)
"Status," Alseace said as he lay down on the floor in the training ground.
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Name: Alseace LaRoze
Level: 6 (45.613762%)
Karma: 100/100
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Status
Strength: 265.73 (+23)
Agility: 265.18 (+23)
Dexterity: 263.29 (+23)
Vitality: 252.74 (+23)
Mentality: 251.67 (+20)
Sense: 194.92 (+20)
Magic: 209.11 (+20)
Stamina: 272.51 (+23)
Extra Point(s): 5
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Skill : [Leftover] [Pain Resistance] [Leech] [Sword Art] [Spear Art]
[Dagger Art] [Axe Art] [Staff Art] [Bow Art] [Martial Art]
[Mana] [Pain Resistance]
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Sub-Skill : [Scavenger (E)] [Fire Magic (F)] [Water Magic (F)] [Earth Magic (F)] [Wind Magic (F)] [Healing Magic (F)] [Enhancement Magic (F)] [Heat Resistance] [Cold Resistance] [Sword Mastery (E)] [Spear Mastery (E)] [Dagger Mastery (E)] [Axe Mastery (E)] [Staff Mastery (E)] [Bow Mastery (E)] [Inner Strength (F)]
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Achievement : [The One Who Did Nothing] [Rebirth]
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"So many things to learn... So many things to understand..." Alseace said and looked at his palms that were covered in wounds. "Let's just focus on one thing at a time," Alseace sighed as he sat down.
Alseace meditate and started to focus on the Mana around him, and then started to gather them around his body. He had just gotten [Mana] skill a month ago through a meditation that Sierra had taught him. He got all his [Magic] skills after he got his [Mana] skill since magic needed Mana and [Magic] status. He also got [Inner Strength] which gave him bonus status since it required both [Martial Art] and [Mana].
The average for people to get [Mana] skill was between a year to ten years. Some people were gifted and talented and it took them less than a year. Alseace wasn't talented, but thanks to his high [Mentality], it was easy for him to have peace of mind and [Sense] that made him sensitive to feeling Mana around him.
He controlled the Mana with his mind and started to coat his body with it. He started to get used to it and could easily manipulate Mana.
"(Now all I have to do is to accept them into my body and coat my flesh and skin with it from inside)" Alseace furrowed his eyebrows as he absorbed the Mana around him into his body. "(Now carefully distribute the Mana all over my body...)" Alseace took a deep breath and exhaled deeply.
[You have unlocked a Sub-Skill of [Mana]!]
[You learned [Body Aura (F)] Sub-Skill!]
[Body Aura (F): A power to manipulate Mana inside oneself body and can be used for various purposes. Body Aura can be used to reduce damage taken from outside factors. Body Aura can also be used to increase damage dealt using limbs at the same time. The side effect of using Body Aura is depleting your Stamina twice faster. (Current Rank is F, increase damage dealt and decrease damage taken by 10%)]
"I did it..." Alseace smiled and chuckled softly as he looked at his body covered with a thin, light blue Aura. "Let's try it on a weapon. It's a lot more difficult since manipulating Mana to an object that I can't feel, but since I know how Aura feels, it shouldn't be a problem now," Alseace grabbed a wooden sword and looked at it.
While he was focusing on putting Mana on the sword, his phone started to vibrate and that bothered him. He looked at his phone, and it was a warning notice that an outbreak had happened where C-Rank monsters were coming out of the sea. The location of the Dimension Portal was hidden deep in the sea between West and East Dasmein.
"What a bother," Alseace turned off his phone and continued applying Mana on the sword.
(2 months later)
"Your aura has turned into dark blue, very good, but that's like wrapping a paper to protect your sword compared to mine," Sierra said as she showed her black aura on her sword.
Alseace looked at the Aura on his sword, and it looked pathetic compared to Sierra's.
"The more Mana that you coated on the sword the more colorful it gets, the denser the Mana, the darker it will be. An object has a maximum size of Mana that you can coat, that's why you need to make the Mana denser so you can put more of it into the object," Sierra explained.
"I don't understand," Alseace tilted his head and looked at Sierra with a confused look.
"Imagine you have a suitcase and you have so many shirts. If you crumpled them all and put them inside, it would only fit a few of them. But, if you folded them neatly and tightly, you can fit more inside," Sierra explained.
Alseace hummed and nodded with understanding.
"The order is similar to the color of the Vortex, Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Purple, and lastly Black," Sierra explained as she looked at the aura on her sword. "Also, you can release the Mana from your weapon to attack the target from the distance!" Sierra swung her sword at Alseace and created a black projectile attack that traveled at the speed of sound.
Alseace dodged it and immediately looked back to see what kind of damage it did when it hit the wall. The moment the projectile attack hit the wall, it created a hole and bent the steel wall inward. He could see the concrete wall that was layered by a meter-thick steel wall, and Sierra managed to create a hole like that without even trying.
"Convenience, right? But you won't be able to do it unless you maxed out your weapon aura. Each weapon has a different type of projectile attack, so you have to be patient and keep practicing," Sierra said as she looked at the broken wooden sword in her hand after she used it.
"I will," Alseace dissipated the aura on his sword and put the sword back.
"It has been six months since then, and you have become a lot stronger than before. What are you going to do now?" Sierra asked as she threw away the sword.
"I can go back to work, and this time I might enter C-Rank portals and perhaps join the vortex raids from now on. I need monsters with high status points for my Scavenger," Alseace answered as he put a towel on his head since he was sweating like crazy.
"You're still an F-Rank Candidate. You might be able to become a porter in the C-Rank portal because of your reputation, but entering a vortex, you need to be at least C-Rank to be allowed to enter," Sierra pointed out as she walked toward Alseace. "But there's a solution for that, and you have to join the Emissary to allow you to enter no matter what Rank you are as long as you're an Emissary," Sierra said and crossed her arms in front of him.
Alseace thought that it wasn't a bad idea to join the Emissary. There were so many benefits to joining the Emissary, and the best part would be being able to move from West Dasmein to East Dasmein. East Dasmein was rich with Dimensional Portals, and most of them were C-Rank as well. He could enter vortexes to help small guilds to do raids.
"Can I even become an agent of the Emissary?" Alseace asked.
"Who do you think I am? I can ask Gratya for a recommendation letter. She will take care of the rest on her side. You don't have to worry about it," Sierra answered with a smugging face.