Chapter 022 - Unexpected Gains

Alex Volff is in his personal training room, repeatedly breaking a training dummy every few minutes. There are pieces of broken training dummies on the ground with different sizes. The smallest piece was when he first succeeded in executing the ultimate kick using 50% of his mana. As he works to decrease the amount of mana he uses for the kick, the resulting power gets smaller, but the amount of time he can hold his mana in his right leg increased. The pain he feels as side effect also gets reduced to the point that he doesn't feel any pain when he used around 30% of his mana to execute the skill.

Alex has spent 2 days to reach this point. He can now use 30% of his mana to execute the kick, enabling him to hold the mana in his right leg for around 2 seconds, giving him more time to execute the kick. The power of the kick with 30% mana isn't as strong as when he used 50% mana. His kick can still break the training dummy, but now it only breaks in two, a far cry from when he breaks it into small pieces when he used 50% mana.

Nevertheless, Alex is satisfied with this result. Breaking a material with the strength of F-rank 3-star creature's bone is no easy feat. When he was in his normal mana-enhanced state, he could only made a small dent in that training dummy. This kick is still 3-4 times stronger than his kick in normal mana-enhanced state. He has also get significantly familiar with the {Energy Manipulation} skill. His spiritual control has now increased leap and bound compared to before. Alex even feels like he could control his spirit to leave his body. But, that is just his feeling, as he doesn't even know if it is possible for his spirit to leave his body.

Despite being satisfied, Alex still trains so he can get more familiar with this new move and can execute it under every condition. He also try to do this using other parts of his body, not just his right leg. Executing it using his left leg pose no problem as it is not that much different than using his right leg.

When Alex tried to punch using this move, he still feel a bit pain in his hand when using 30% of his mana. Alex thinks that this is logical since the muscles in his leg should be stronger than the muscles in his hand, so they could handle more mana to stretch their power.

Alex keeps training to reduce the mana consumption when executing this technique. He also finds out that when his mana moves to his legs or hands, the part of his body that is filled with mana also increased in toughness and elasticity, which means increased defensive strength. Hence, after mastering using the move with his hand using 20% of his mana, Alex keeps working to try and enhance the vital parts of his body.

Every vital parts need different amount of mana, so Alex spends another 2 days for trial and error. The last part of his body that he needs to work on is his heart muscle. He has been working on it for half a day without success. The heart is a delicate organ and it is constantly moving, so it is the most difficult organ for him to work on.

These past 2 days has been highly beneficial for Alex. As after many trials and failures, he can now control his mana to 5 point precision. Alex once again uses 15 point of mana to cover his heart muscles carefully. 15 point is the most he can move without feeling pain in his heart muscles. When he tried to move 20 points, he always felt a little pain that made him retract his mana from his heart immediately.

Alex raises his concentration to the maximum and starts resonating his spirit and mana with the beating of his heart muscles. Alex starts infusing his mana into his heart muscles carefully. This time, Alex shows a small grin as he can feel that he is almost successful in executing this move. Suddenly, when he successfully covers his heart muscles with 15 points of his mana for the first time, he can hear a "ding" sounded in his head, followed by Fay's voice.

"Congratulations, Defender Alex Volff. You have evolved the {Energy Manipulation} skill from F-rank to E-rank," Fay's voice sounded in Alex's head.

Alex was surprised to hear this notification from Fay. Did it say he now possess E-rank skill?

But, when his surprise hasn't subsided, another sentence sounded in his head.

"Congratulations, you have gained one achievement for being able to evolve a skill without using a skill book. You have been awarded with 1,500 credits."

This next notification brings further shock to Alex's mind. He has suddenly gained an achievement and received 1,500 credits. 1,500 credits is the equivalent of killing 300 <Forest Werewolf>. Alex estimated that he would have needed 20 days with his current strength to kill this many <Forest Werewolf>. The him before this training session wouldn't be able to achieve this even after spending 2 months. Now, after spending a few days of training, Alex suddenly gets 1,500 credits. This is truly an unexpected gain.

After calming down from the shock, Alex uses [Observe] to check his stats and the evolved {Energy Manipulation} skill.

>-----<

Name: Alex Volff

Age: 15

Race: Human

Rank: F**

Credits: 1,534

>-----<

Basic Stats:

- Strength: 39

- Speed: 36

- Agility: 38

- Endurance: 42

- Spirit: 60

- Mana: 30/60

>-----<

Skills:

- Energy Manipulation (E)

- Energy Arrow (F)

>-----<

Kill Count: [60 F*], [2 F**]

Achievements: 1

Records: 0

>-----<

{Energy Manipulation - E}

{The first evolution of the Energy Manipulation skill. Enable Defenders to use their spirit to control parts of their mana and use this controlled mana to enter focused mana-enhanced state for one part of their body. The focused mana increases the offensive and defensive power of the enhanced body part beyond the normal mana-enhanced state.}