Growing 2

Whipping the sweat off his brow, Lux collapsed against the cave floor. Finally he finished jotting everything he remembered down.

For anyone who didn't speak English - everyone on Mogar - the carvings in the cave would've looked like nothing but the scribbles of a mad man.

If only they knew.

This cave now held secrets thousand year old awakened would die to get their hands on. The method of eternal life was literally written across the wall in bold.

'It's just a shame that it wasn't finished when I died, or I could've written even more down.'

Even as he thought that, Lux was still happy with what he had. Unless something kills him before he can reach his full potential, it should be smooth sailing all the way up to white core.

From his position on the floor Lux stretched before bounding to his feet. He has been out for a while now, and it must be getting close to lunch time.

'Better off playing it safe and heading back to keep the mother happy.'

Suddenly pain burst forth from his mana chore, it took him by surprise and nearly knocked him back onto the floor. An intense burning sensation crawled all over his body, it felt worse than being shot, and he can say he knows that from experience.

While he was brought to his knees, barely holding on to enough self control to prevent himself from writhing around on the ground. He inwardly compared his current agony to the torture technqiues the selectors put him though during his trials.

'Fuck this man, I'd take stress positions and white noise over this any day.'

Coming to this seemingly simple conclusion, Lux fought the urge to choke back whatever was threatening to come out his throat.

The nausea continued to build up to critical levels, forcing him to let loose the black tar like substance all over the cave floor.

He tried to infuse himself with the different elements, but no matter what he chose, none of them stopped the pain from worsening.

'The book never did this part of the process justice.' He barely managed to think, before grunting painfully as his body jerked in strange and unnatural angles.

The impurities he rolled around in stank on utter shite, it smelled like someone liquified the smell of a burning corpse and mixed it with oil. Gods, Willow is going to kill him if he comes home smelling like this.

Belching out the last lot of impurities, the pain began to quickly die down. Exhausted, Lux lay on the uneven floor, takinging deep breaths of invigoration to bring his body back to a moveable state.

Quickly restoring his energy, he committed mass genoside on the impurities that stunk the cave out, and gave the room and himself a quadruple wash with water magic. Even so the place still held a horrific stench.

Peacing out of there, he revelled in the smell of fresh air. Any longer in that cave and he might not have made it.

Giving his mana core an in depth check with his breathing technique, Lux was glad to find that his previously bright red core has now evolved into a deep orange. A step up the ladder on core, but still nothing impressive for a wannabe mage.

Still, having a deep orange core really expanded Lux's options for spells. At least now he won't have to constantly be wary of mana poisoning every time he tests out a new spell, or attempts to upgrade his existing ones.

Before testing out his improved mana capacity, he tried out a few basic exercises. Everything worked better than before, this is what he was most looking forward to.

Magic's great and all but having a weak body for so long was driving him crazy. Now at least he won't get tired so easily when magic isn't an option. Even better, Lux now left like he's in his own skin again.

Now he could get to work on earning back his previous life's muscle memory.

'One last test'

Placing his hands on the ground he used earth magic to create mud targets to practice his magic on. Which were now considerably easier to make with a deep orange core.

With everything ready, Lux made some distance before aiming his self made tier 2 spell at the dummies.

Forming a gun with his fingers, he used a considerable amount of mana to condense a small sphere of darkness at his fingertips. Once the darkness element built up to a certain level, he released his hold on the sphere, and from it sprang multiple pitch black arrows.

The identical projectiles all shot off towards their targets at high speed, within the second each one of the mud dummies had a gaping football sized hole in their chest.

Very satisfied with the lack of effort it took to project his spell, Lux inwardly patted himself on the back before using fusion magic to speed off back to his house for a lunch he may, or may not already be late for.

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