Testing New Skills II

Freya was very satisfied with the performance of her new skill. Many uses of the skill came to her mind, she could use to get some distance from opponents or stop a retreating enemy, but most of all, due to its instantaneous casting speed it had a great shock factor. In close combat, it would be great help against melee combatants, as they wouldn't be able to stop her from casting the spell.

She also went ahead to test the limits of this skill. She cast the skill continuously as fast as she could and found that she could cast it three times a second. The daggers had enough power to penetrate high density rock, so she could safely assume it could penetrate leather armor unless the leather was from a high level magic beast.

Now, thoroughly satisfied with the 'Ice Dagger Throw' skill, Freya turned her attention towards the 'Mana Sense' skill. As she activated the skill, Freya felt a wave of mana lurch out of her body and saturate the surrounding air. Then all of a sudden, she felt a wave of information enter her mind that left her in shock.

Although there were no notifications from the system, the amount of information she received was almost a little too much for her brain but she managed to get a hold of herself. She closed her eyes to better focus on her new found senses.

As she closed her eyes, a new world opened up to her mind. Even though she could only observe objects in a meter radius around her, the amount of details she received was jarring. In her mind, the skill formed a pitch black world, where all objects around her were depicted in a white mesh form.

Freya could 'see' the worms crawling just a few inches below her feet and a beetle sitting on a broken branch two feet to her right. She could even 'see' a few leaves falling just behind her. She could even perceive the individual grains of sand in that range. She had complete awareness in that one-meter radius.

Even though she had closed her eyes, she felt like she could see more than ever before. "It's beautiful." The words left her mouth before she could stop herself.

'Indeed it is.' Art agreed as he shared her senses. In fact, he had a similar feeling when he had first used this spell. 'And this is just the first level. As you gain experience with this skill and increase the two connected stats, it will only grow more powerful.'

Freya opened her eyes as the shadow world merged with the real world, and her sense overloaded for a second before she reined them in. If she wanted to use this skill in battle, she had to get used to it first. So the female pulled out her steel sword and began to practice her sword style.

To any bystander watching her, her moves would just be a blur. Yet to anyone who could her movements clearly, her swordsmanship would seem like a mystical dance. Due to her relentless training and her recently gained combat experience with 'Swordsmanship of the Lightning King', her mastery over the skill had grown tremendously.

Her lightning quick thrusts, her dodges, her attacks and retreats, all now showed signs of an experienced warrior instead of a novice. And add to that her new skill for spatial awareness and she seemed nothing less than an expert warrior. Her newfound sense allowed her to easily move in any direction without having to look there to plot her path. She made every move instinctively, avoiding any obstacles in her path as if she already knew where they were.

'Mana Sense' allowed her to take her swordsmanship to the next level, and her recently increased agility stat showed a great synergy with her high strength stat. Allowing her thrusts and slashes to contain frightening level of power and speed.

Unfortunately, she was not able to maintain her skill for long and had already exhausted half of her mana in one minute and had to stop. This didn't diminish her joy, as she felt a new sense of confidence in herself. She even felt she had a good chance against Jeera if she could use this skill but then she remembered the quest requirement of only defeating the Orc leader using her swordsmanship.

'Does the quest requirement mean I can't even use this skill during the fight?' She carefully asked, afraid that the mage's reply would simply dash her hopes.

'I believe you can use this skill.' Freya felt her fears lift and her confidence return. 'This is merely a support type skill and not an attack type, so you would be using only your sword to defeat him. So you don't have to worry too much.'

Freya exhaled a sigh of relief as she returned to her training, this time only using her sword techniques, allowing her mana to regenerate. She continued to train her footwork and sword techniques and using the 'Mana sense' skill for one minute every one hour.

Under Art's guidance and her own efforts, her mastery over the skills increased with each passing minutes. So much so that by the end of the fourth hour, Freya had developed a more efficient method of using the sensory skill.

She would activate the skill in bursts, once each three second and she remembered the objects in her surrounding and extrapolate the trajectory of moving objects, allowing her to retain the mental shadow world for a few seconds before she could reactivate the skill. It was a lot of work, but Freya was able to sufficiently use it, and this simple trick allowed her to extend the time period of the skill to three times its usual duration.

She still had an hour left before she had to return and report to the command tent. She decided to take a break and do another one of her task. She walked to the side of an abandoned building where she had put her stuff.

She picked up the magic sword wrapped in a cloth and uncovered it. The dark sword shone with its usual radiance, which she had begun to associate with a sense of arrogance, as the sword remained stubborn.

'Are you ready?' She asked her partner.

'More than ever.' Art replied, and the female picked up the demonic sword and held it tightly with both hands.

'Stop it!' the childish sword resounded in her head once more as the sword retaliated with the Miasma stored in its gem. The harmful energy soared into her body trying to wreak havoc and like before, the great mage channeled it towards the tattoo on the back of her hand through small mana tunnels.

The sword continued its struggle against the mage, but the mastery of mana that Artium possessed was not something that could be denied by a halfwit conscious. The Miasma travelled into the light purple tattoo and it began to extend.

The edges of the arc finally met to form a complete circle, and soon the purple color began to spread inwards in to the circle, etching a small rune on her hand. The bright purple rune continued to take shape until it stopped just shy of completion.

The sword had exhausted it reserves and went dormant.

[i) Absorb even more Miasma. (80/100)]

Just one more day and one of the two requirements of that quest will be completed. As she wrapped the sword back in its cloth, she heard someone approaching her from behind. She jumped back, ready to pull out the dagger strapped to her waist, but stopped when she saw it was just Ariane.

"Relax Freya." The priestess spoke, noticing her extended hand, "I'm just here to tell you that Maria is back from her mission and the Captain ordered us to gather in the command tent."

Freya nodded at her explanation and replied, "Let me gather my stuff and we'll get going."