Divine

Of course, even if Magnus took away the light element part, the way the armor worked was still fairly different from [Unbreakable]. However, the basic principle behind the defensive quality bore many similarities to his best defense skill. Both utilized the combination of earth and wind element mana to form a transparent layer of protection.

Unlike his other defense skills, such as [Ice Wall], [Earth Manipulation], and his least favorite—[Eye of The Storm], [Unbreakable] was less straight-forward. It basically employed two opposing attributes, which were toughness and versatility, and made them work in harmony. This offered him great defense as well as the ability to move it around and place it on any object or person in any types of form. Not to mention the advantage that came from its transparent feature; it gave him an unhindered sight of the things he needed to defend from.

[Armor of Light] practically implemented a similar concept, with two major exceptions. One, it improved the versatility, allowing it to conform to the shape of a person's body, in return for less solidity. This meant that the level of protection went down a notch. If Magnus tried to purposefully apply the same method to his barrier, [Unbreakable] would no longer become unbreakable. It would be more vulnerable to stronger attacks, albeit not by much. Nevertheless, it was a fair trade in order for the movements of the armor's wearer to become less awkward and restricted. They would be able to move around easily without having to constantly cancel and re-summon a barrier, because the protection would follow them everywhere they went in the form of an armor.

The second exception was, obviously, the presence of light element mana within the mixture. This offered the armor's wearer a faster Stamina recovery rate as well as automatic healing in case they got injured. The quality of the healing itself wasn't as good as [Big Spark], but it should be decent and could at least treat minor wounds in a matter of a minute or two. Or less, depending on the level of the skill. In addition, it constantly provided the same refreshing sensation as the skill [Rejuvenate].

For a skill that needed to continually be active for an extended period of time, [Armor of Light] consumed a bit more mana points than Magnus liked. [Unbreakable], on its MAX level, only costed him three mana points per second, allowing him to keep it up for a couple of hours if he didn't need to worry about using other skills. The addition of five mana points to cast its more mobile and holy version, a.k.a [Armor of Light], surely annoyed him a little bit. However, he knew it was actually still pretty cheap, considering the boon it gave him. Especially with the automatic healing function, which could save him mana from casting [Big Spark].

Besides, the skill would normally cost other people even more mana, since they didn't have Magnus' advantage of having affinities to all three of the skill's ingredient elements—earth, wind, and light.

Curious, Magnus casted his new skill using the knowledge the system had given him. Immediately, he could feel his mana start to drain. That was already on top of maintaining [Unbreakable] around the house's backyard. A second later, he could feel an invigorating feeling crawl up his body as a translucent layer that glowed with dim white light enveloped his torso, arms, and legs. He could've included his head, but he just felt it was unnecessary for a test run.

He then tried to use a moderately-powered, mini-sized [Riptide] to slash his arm, only for it to collide with the armor; his skin remained unscathed. Feeling glad that the protection held out even with the lessening of the solid attribute, Magnus casted [Riptide] again, but with more propelling force behind it. This time, the skill managed to pierce through the glowing layer and scratch his skin, creating a superficial bloody line the same length as the water crescent. He then watched as the healing function of the armor got to work. Without him having to command it, light element began converging around the injury and started closing it. It took close to twenty seconds for it to completely heal; definitely a major downgrade compared to [Big Spark]. But that was okay. It was reasonable, given the other advantages the armor offered.

He then glanced around the yard and noticed Summer's satisfied expression. Magnus figured she had just successfully leveled up her healing skill. That was rather quick. He wondered how many times TJ had to injure himself for her to heal him repeatedly.

Magnus decided to approach them, partly because he wanted to show off his new skill.

"You're glowing," TJ pointed out.

Meanwhile, Summer looked her boyfriend up and down, fascinated by the light enveloping his body.

"I just got a new skill." Magnus then turned to Summer. "Once you learn basic earth and wind element skills, I'm definitely going to teach you this. By the way, have you leveled up your healing skill?"

Summer nodded firmly. "I sure have."

Magnus gave her a proud smile. "Great job, babe!" He then looked at TJ, who was wearing a face that said, 'no need to thank me or anything'. He chuckled and told his friend, "Thank you for helping her. But I'm afraid I still need you to do one more thing for me."

The black-haired boy didn't try to hide his annoyance. "What is it?"

Magnus brought his arm forward, positioning it in front of TJ. He then made a hole on the armor, allowing TJ to touch him. "Wound me."

TJ could tell his friend's intention immediately. "Do you wanna test this light layering thingy of yours?"

"It's called [Armor of Light]. And yes, I wanna know how it fares against dark element. I'm pretty sure Summer was able to level up that fast because you kept using [Decay] on yourself. Naturally, the light element mana had to work harder to battle against the traces of dark element on the wound."

TJ shrugged and without hesitation touched Magnus' arm. Suddenly, dulled pain invaded Magnus' sensory perception, and it was concentrated on the part where TJ's hand got into contact with. Pain inflicted by dark element mana was unique; it was so cold to the point it felt burning, and yet so hot it felt freezing at the same time. The way dark element mana worked was that it messed up the particles that made up every structure of organism. It brought chaos to order and destroyed anything that had a constructed form.

In this case, TJ was killing Magnus' skin cells at great speed. It seemed that the guy had recently leveled up the skill as well, because he was able to reach what was beyond the skin—the flesh. The pain quickly shot up. However, due to Magnus' [Pain Resistance], the sensation had been dialed down considerably. On someone without the passive, the pain would definitely make them scream in agony.

"Alright, that's enough," said Magnus, feeling that the dark element mana had started ravaging his flesh. As soon as TJ cancelled his skill and withdrew his hand, Magnus immediately patched up the hole in the armor. Instantly, he could see the damaged tissue in the open wound caused by [Decay] began to regenerate. About half a minute later, the skin started slowly stitching itself back together. In total, it took about a minute and a half for the wound to fully heal.

He lifted his arm to observe the spot where the wound had been. "Not bad," he muttered.

Remembering the pain caused by [Decay], Magnus realized he'd forgotten to check on his friend's skill list. He opened up the guy's Status Window and saw he had gained [Pain Resistance], earning him 20 XP. Moreover, it had reached level two. Swiping the screen to pull up his own Status Window, Magnus saw the 150-point increase in his DP.

'I mean, I get that it's not a very useful skill, but that's still quite a significant drop from the 600-point gain granted by TJ's achievement in learning [Ignite].'

"Anyway, thanks dude," Magnus told his friend while patting his shoulder. He then pranced toward the edge of the backyard, drawing a curious look from TJ and Summer.

Inspired by the workings behind [Armor of Light], he was curious if he could apply the same thing to [Unbreakable] without paying the price of less solidity. He placed his hand on the blue barrier and transformed the mana in his reserves into light element mana before inserting it to the barrier.

Starting from the spot where his hand was, the barrier began losing its blue color. No, more precisely, it turned silvery white outlined by a thin layer of faint glow. The shifting of color then rapidly expanded toward the rest of the dome, until it became completely white. Along with it, came the changes in the air, too. The invigorating effect of light element emanating from the dome created a light and fresh air akin to the mornings during spring season. There was a subtle and pleasant aroma of greenery, too. Or maybe it was just a placebo effect, Magnus couldn't really tell. Nevertheless, he had managed to upgrade [Unbreakable], adding a mood-lifting effect on it, for the price of an additional one mana point per second.

"That's not too bad," he commented before retracting the light element mana from the barrier. Instantly, the faint glow vanished. But surprisingly, the color of the barrier didn't return to blue. It remained white, just slightly dimmer without the glow.

Ignoring the questioning look from everyone upon seeing the changes that occurred on the dome, Magnus asked the system, 'Umm, the barrier's not malfunctioning, is it?'

[The skill was once given to the host by the god Atlantis, complete with its set of knowledge. However, the host is no longer Atlantis' Protagonist and therefore isn't connected to his Divinity anymore. Therefore, once the host tried to tinker with a skill originally gifted to him by Atlantis, the host has unintentionally interfered with the god's Divine Essence. Thus, the barrier retains its white color, adopting the host's own Divine Essence. In conclusion, the skill called [Unbreakable] now belongs to the host completely.]

Magnus blinked a few times and was silent for a moment. 'What exactly is Divine Essence?'

[Divine Essence is basically the signature style or vibe given off by the Divinity of an individual. It has its own unique color and Aura.]

'So, like Divinity fingerprints?'

[That is one way to put it.]

That was definitely intriguing. 'What can I use Divine Essence for? Can it even be used?'

[Divine Essence is but a signature of someone's Divinity. It has no practical use other than to identify whose Divinity it belongs to. Large amounts of Divine Essence can usually be found on magic inscriptions created by gods. Magic inscriptions engraved on an object always carry the Divine Essence of the individual who has blessed the item.]

Blessing items was basically done by engraving magic inscriptions on them. It was then that a radical idea popped into Magnus' head. 'Can I…can I perhaps bless items?'

[It is certainly possible. However, the host must first learn how to use divine magic.]

'Darn. How the heck am I supposed to learn divine magic?'