Extreme Training

In the Workshop, Loran was sorting through the pile of Iron Ant parts and random items at an almost frightening pace. A pace that should be expected when one is working with nine hands.

Loran sat with his eyes closed as the mana construct hands flew from the sorted piles to the mixed pile in the center. They would move slowly when they first picked up an item, waiting for Loran to figure out what they grabbed, but it only took a few seconds for them to quickly make their way to the correct pile. A few mistakes were made here and there, but overall Loran was like a sorting machine.

"And you're sure you don't mind?" Syrus asked. "It's a lot of work for a single person."

"Maybe, but that just means it's a lot of training for me," Loran said as he worked on creating another Mana Hand. He frowned as his concentration broke, causing the Mana Hand to dissipate before he could stabilize it. "Until now I've been training by just fighting or coming up with new spells. Right now I need to focus on my new Skill and the basics.

Although channeling all of his mana into a single spell had potential, it was becoming more apparent to him that the most effective way to cast spells was to perform multiple spells at once. His attempts at healing The Guardian Elder showed him that without the Spirit to back it up, any mana-intensive spells would lose a lot of their effectiveness. There was also his fight with the Demon Bear, where he was almost able to corner the beast for most of the battle thanks to having multiple spells up at once.

Casting multiple spells also seemed like the most effective way to use [EXTREME PERCEPTION]. Using the Skill in short bursts made casting powerful spells difficult since his Intelligence would be constantly jumping up and down, but by casting and then stabilizing a handful of powerful spells and mana constructs while the Skill was active, he could then deactivate it while still controlling up to twenty spells at once.

However, Loran would need to train extensively before he could hope to use this new playstyle effectively, and conveniently, sorting through this pile of items was helping him in multiple areas.

For starters, he needed to get used to having [EXTREME PERCEPTION] switching between active and inactive. Ignoring how it affected his control over mana, the biggest issue was his senses flickering from one extreme to the other. Switching between the two would be a constant distraction, and if he was ever caught fighting while the Skill was on cooldown, he would be practically blind compared to the players who all had the system to support them.

Fortunately, if at any point he needed to use the Skill for an extended period, was able to rely on his base Perception stat.

It required more concentration, but even now he was able to sense his surroundings without the use of Skills. Technically, in order to create a Skill the players needed to be able to perform the feat on their own first, afterwards the system just streamlined the process.

Even now as he was sorting through these items, the tactile feedback he got through the Mana Hands and how they sounded when he applied pressure to them was enough for him to identify them with his eyes closed. It was unimaginably inefficient, but it was better than nothing, and more practice would only make him better.

The second thing he needed to practice was being able to cast spells while controlling others. 'Even with Extreme Perception active...dividing my attention like this is difficult,' Loran thought as he finally managed to create another Mana Hand. He couldn't cast the spell with his base Intelligence of 20, so he was using [EXTREME PERCEPTION] in one-minute segments. Unlike casting spells one at a time, having the other hands work while he was creating a new one was more mentally intensive despite not pushing his stats to their limits, and the effect would only be worsened when [EXTREME PERCEPTION] was on cooldown.

'It's almost like trying to say one thing while thinking about something else,' he thought. 'Fortunately, this isn't a game limitation. It's just a skill issue. As long as I keep training I can improve.'

The third thing he wanted to train was his casting speed. Simple spells like Mana Spike were fast, but they still took a second or two. Not only would those few seconds be extended if he was controlling multiple spells, but trying to cast anything more complex could take dozens of seconds if not more than a minute. The entire point of his new playstyle would be to overwhelm his opponents with spells and attacks, but if he took too long then casting multiple spells at the same time would be pointless.

His slow casting speed was even slowing down his training since he couldn't practice the rapid use of [EXTREME PERCEPTION] while casting Mana Hand since the spell took so long to finish.

'I was going to stop at ten hands, but maybe I should keep going and focus on improving my casting speed first,' he thought as he waited for the Skill's cooldown to finish. 'Even if I get used to using Extreme Perception rapidly, it's pointless if I can't cast spells in that one-second timeframe.'

Eventually, the cooldown ended. Loran activated [EXTREME PERCEPTION] and was about to cast Mana Hand, this time focusing more on the speed of his casting rather than ensuring the spell was successful, but at the last moment, he changed his mind and decided to start practicing with rapid activation.

'Mana Hand may take a while to cast, but it's one of my more complex spells anyway, so that's to be expected. Most of my attack spells can already be cast in the span of a few seconds, so using Extreme Perception in say, five-second bursts wouldn't be that big of a deal. On top of that, even if I learn to cast any spell in one second, it won't matter if I'm being distracted by my fluctuating senses.'

With his mind made up, Loran started his new style of training and immediately lost control of all ten hands. He flinched as a sharp spike of pain ripped through his head, the sound of several pounds of iron and carapace landing around him serving to only reinforce the feeling of disappointment.

"...Okay, let's try that again," he said as he reasserted control over the Mana Hands.

Loran tried several more times to control all the hands, but the moment he started using [EXTREME PERCEPTION] his concentration broke.

It was hard to understand his own senses when they were constantly fluctuating like this. He tried to concentrate in preparation for the low points, but that just meant his mind became overwhelmed when his senses reached their peaks. His ability to sense mana was so sporadic that it was nearly impossible to even tell where the hands were half the time, let alone keep his grip on them.

But the main issue was actually controlling [EXTREME PERCEPTION] like this. Although there were times were it seemed like Skills could activate on their own, that was just because the system was responding to the player's emotions. As it stands, there wasn't a way to have the system activate and then deactivate a Skill in rapid succession, so Loran needed to do it manually and it took up a surprising amount of his mental processing power.

'I thought it would be like how we use Sprint, but it's not like we try to maintain a constant rhythm with it. Trying to keep the tempo while also controlling the hands is almost impossible!'

Additionally, any time he tried to activate [EXTREME PERCEPTION] while it was on cooldown the system gave him a sharp headache, disrupting his concentration even further.

After nearly two dozen attempts he sighed and gave up.

"Alright fine," he muttered. "Got to start small then."

He needed to ease himself into it as slowly as possible. He started with only one hand, using five-second intervals, and even opened his eyes so that he wasn't detecting the hand with just his mind.

'Okay,' Loran thought as he watched the hand carefully. 'Making progress...'

Progress wasn't just slow, it was downright glacial. His grip over the hand still felt unstable to him and every so often he would mistime the Skill activation, but at the very least the connection didn't break immediately. He tried a few times to reach out for another hand, but the moment he attempted to divide his attention like this he could feel the connection becoming unstable, so he just focused on improving his effectiveness with the one hand first.

Minutes passed, and although it was slow Loran could feel himself improving bit by bit. His grip over the construct grew more stable, and he was making fewer mistakes with his activation timing. Feeling more confident, Loran began increasing the difficulty. He started speeding up the activation cycle, going down to four seconds, then three, two, and eventually one. After a while he closed his eyes again, directing the Mana Hand and sorting the items purely with his mind and other senses. Soon enough, the whole process felt almost natural.

'Okay...time for two hands.'

Finally feeling ready to up the difficulty again, he reached out to one of the other hands with his mind, only to feel his grip slip away from him almost immediately.

'That's fine,' Loran thought, remaining patient after having made a decent amount of progress. 'I just need...to...'

Loran's brow furrowed in confusion. He reached out for the Mana Hands again, but this time he felt nothing. It's not that he couldn't get a grip on them, his senses were telling him there just wasn't anything there for him to grab in the first place.

Opening his eyes Loran discovered that all of the Mana Hands had disappeared.

"What?" Loran said, shocked. "How? I definitely reinforced them for at least..." his voice trailed off as the realization dawned on him.

He had reinforced each hand to last at least two hours, but they had all dissipated. This left only two options. Either another caster had intentionally overridden his spell and dispersed them, or he had just spent the last two hours training without realizing it.

Loran suddenly felt a wave of mental exhaustion hit him, and when he raised his arms to hold his now pounding head the limbs felt incredibly stiff, as if they had remained perfectly still for a very long time.

It had taken him nearly two hours of intensive training to be able to control a single spell while using [EXTREME PERCEPTION].

"....fuck."