Upgrading his shadow bomb skill had taken Arthur the better part of the day. That left them a little under a week to finish rounding out the rest of his skills before their self-imposed time limit came to an end. Whether or not he was ready at the end of it, they'd have to finally challenge the hydra at the centre of the layer.

Delaying any longer than that posed a risk of permanently harming them, in what Alyssia called hollowed soul, a phenomenon which contrary to its name did not damage the soul at all. It did, however, increase the cost of levelling by quite a large margin, hence why those afflicted had been deemed hollow by their incessant need to fight and kill to 'fill' themselves up.

For once, Arthur's foray into magic had gone quite well. Perhaps shadow magic had been so difficult for him due to its intrinsic connection with the panther he'd consumed, a part of him he hadn't quite managed to come to terms with. Instead of the futile head-smashing-a-brick-wall his attempt at enhancing shadow bomb had been, he'd noticed some visible results a mere hour into his water domain creation. Arthur hoped that the experience he was getting right now working with ether despite having a broken soul would translate to a massive spike in aptitude when he finally fixed the issue.

It had been slow going, but he'd seen progress. Actual progress. It made him feel validated in his efforts, that he was actually getting somewhere. That feeling of progress made a world of difference when failure became your best friend. Four days into their journey on the second layer, Arthur felt like he was on the cusp of a breakthrough.

He took a look at what his water manipulation skill had morphed into. Alyssia had been very adamant about the fact that manipulation abilities wasted perfectly good skill slots. They were, in her words, 'a crutch for the blind who had never trained their eyes to see.' At least that was what his Myriad tongues had translated her expletive complaining as.

Her advice was sound, unanimously agreed upon, in fact, and matched the general consensus people had reached on forums online in the week leading up to the locus. Skills were supposed to have unique effects that couldn't be replicated with general ether manipulation and if you truly wanted to master an element, you wouldn't use skill to do so in the first place.

Following her advice, he'd finished spending the required ten thousand ether on the skill in very specific ways nineteen hours into his training and the system's help had quickly departed. It had left him with an evolved skill that whilst not perfect, served as an adequate starting point for his plans.

Water manipulation level 10 has become Vapour's grasp (Rare) [incomplete pseudo-domain]

Vapour's grasp (Rare) has reached level 3- Generate a gaseous domain of charged water vapour around you. Size dependent on ethers pool. Slows down all within it by 17%

Cost 200 ethers/minute

The skill was honestly quite powerful for something he hadn't yet completed. Sure, its only effect was a reduction in his opponent's speed and it targeted allies and enemies alike, but its true utility lay in the fact that he could use his molecular water shot to weaponize his entire domain and attack from all directions. A little testing with Alyssia had shown that the speed reduction worked on everything, thrown sticks, stones, even the speed of magic. The alverin thought it affected her thinking speed a little too, but that could just be a placebo. They had no way to test it accurately.

Of course, the problems had of course arrived when he tried to add shadow manipulation into the mix. One of the biggest advantages of having multiple affinities was that you could use them in unison and create skills that possessed the best of both worlds but only used up one skill slot.

That's what he'd been trying to do for the past two days. He'd taken breaks only to eat, sleep and piss. Maybe it was his high constitution, but Arthur hadn't needed to take a shit in quite a while. Or maybe he was just constipated. He hoped not. Fighting a hydra whilst constipated would be quite the experience and not a pleasant one.

The problem was two-fold, the underlying one being his terrible aptitude for shadow magic, and the second being that he did not quite know what to do. There was no convenient manual he could follow and his personal experience in the field was lacking, to say the least.

The only thing he'd managed to do was create an explosion, and the passive drain his magic possessed was a skill he'd stolen from the Rodent king by consuming its core. His only other experience with the magic was his observation of the shadow panther's unique binding abilities. Now that, was definitely a potent ability he wanted to get his hands on. He'd felt its effects on himself and it'd make a fine addition to his water domain, compounding with its seventeen percent reduction in speed.

Try as he might, though, Arthur had accomplished nothing yet. He'd been extremely careful, using only the smallest increments of ether on the shadow manipulation skill so as to not go over the ten thousand point mark and evolve it. Doing so and creating a separate skill would make it far harder for him to merge it with his pseudo-domain, vapours grasp. His lifeline was running out though, and he only had nine hundred and twenty ether to go before he automatically generated a skill.

Eyebrows furrowed in frustration, Arthur raised his head and looked up at the bright sky. The fake sun had passed its zenith, and the day was steadily beginning to darken and yet, Arthur felt that for this one magical moment, everything was in perfect equilibrium. Taking a deep breath, Arthur tried to release the tension that had become his closest companion in recent times.

He wasn't altogether successful but he managed to get his shoulders to relax a little. It took him a minute to centre himself but he felt much better by the end of it, almost returning to a semblance of normality. Doing so made him realise how tense he'd been, a coiled-up spring just waiting for a release. Thankfully he'd managed to release the tension before he'd done something drastic he'd regret.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

There was a reason why Alyssia wasn't around to observe him and he was only just realising it now. She'd left a few hours ago, saying that she was looking for this layer's challenger stone to break and whilst that may be true, she'd just wanted to get away from him for a while, to give him some space. He'd been getting steadily surlier as days passed, his responses more curt and snappish until Alyssia had finally decided he needed some time alone. Damn, I've been a dick. I owe her an apology.

He raised his fingers to his temples and gave them a little massage. He wondered what he needed to do next. What was that quote? doing the same thing a thousand times and expecting a different result was the height of insanity-something like that. He'd already established that his current methods didn't work. What did he need to do differently? So far, he'd been using small dosages of ether no greater than twenty points of his total pool and running them through the shadow manipulation skill. Doing so produced the usual range of effects, in that he could use the attuned ether to manipulate existing shadows in the vicinity.

Try as he might, he couldn't generate any shadow magically out of thin air on his own. Perhaps he could if he poured more ether into the skill but it'd be a waste to do so on what amounted to nothing more than idle curiosity. He didn't need to learn how to generate any shadows of his own yet. That was something best left for the future when he wasn't under such a time constraint.

Arthur's limitation of the magic was that it remained two-dimensional, it existed only on the surface of other objects, definitionally only the absence of light, an existence dependent on both the presence and absence of photons. It made sense that it existed in only two dimensions. The real surprise was that he managed to give his shadows substance in the first place when overcharging them to create explosions, or as Alyssia put it 'the strangest use of shadow magic she'd ever seen.'

Sadly in light of his recent enlightenment, he had to agree with her. It was a gross misuse of a magic that was never meant to deal direct damage. It worked though, and fit into his planned build, so he could only hope unlocking his class solved any deficiency it had.

Come on man, how do I make my shadows blinding? Is it cos I'm using so little ether? No that can't be it. I should be able to produce at least some effect with minimal ether usage. Just what was he missing? Could he strongarm it again as he had the shadow bomb skill? All he'd done there was halt the explosion and edit its effect a little and that had sufficed for the creation of his trap skill. Would the same hold true here?

I don't know what else I can do here. Neither does Alyssia. Should I just risk it? Steeling himself, Arthur ran through some numbers in his head, taking a glance at his ether reserves. 5340/5555 Using so little ether at a time meant he still had most of his energy pool left, his natural regeneration keeping up with his slow expenditure. He only had 920 ether left, however, that he could channel into the skill. The margin for error had gotten smaller and smaller. And I need to reduce it even more if I want any chance of succeeding here.

He infused a constant stream of ether into the skill matrix and used it to manipulate his growing shadow, nothing special, just a little movement here and there. He kept it up until the total ether he'd run through the skill had reached 9700. He only had 300 left to use. That was a number he could work with, big enough to fulfil his purposes, but small enough that he could exercise full control over it.

Taking a deep breath, Arthur tried to calm his racing heart. This was it. His final chance. If he didn't succeed now, he'd have to fight the hydra without refining his skill set in the way he wished to. It would weaken whatever class he ended up with, irrespective of whatever rarity he got.

Closing his eyes, he looked inwardly at where his skills resided. He wasn't sure if he was truly looking at them, but it always helped him use them better. They were all there, visible to his mind's eye as stars of varying brilliance suspended in an ocean of darkness. There were his water skills, their light tinged a pale blue. His healing skills presented themselves as deep green and his shadow as a dark purple. His single soul skill produced the most light, colourless, yet it dwarfed the rest with its luminescence.

And it's still an unranked skill. Arthur was about to do something he'd never attempted before. If he failed here, he'd have to cut his losses and move on. C'mon, it can't be that hard. Four skills at once. I can do it. Arthur tried to hype himself up. I should've invested more into willpower. He briefly considered using his saved stat points but immediately dismissed it as a foolish idea born of desperation. Those were saved on the off chance he could shoot for another paragon title after fulfilling his goals. This would work or it wouldn't.

Opening his eyes, Arthur began to cast.

He started with his newest skill, paying the initial cost of 200 ether to manifest his pseudo-domain. "Vapour's grasp." He didn't know why, but he just whispered its name. It just felt right in the moment. It was easy enough so far, just a constant drain on his resources that remained in the back of his head, a mental strain small enough that he could almost ignore it.

Next, he called upon his only elite-ranked skill. Molecular water shot could be used to generate water bullets out of thin air. He didn't use it for that this time though. Huh, this isn't that difficult. It was hard, certainly; he could feel a headache coming on, but he could maintain this almost indefinitely, or at least until his ether reserves ran dry.

I just jinxed myself, didn't I? Forming a large water bullet out of the existing water in his domain instead of materialising one was quite easy. He made it the size of a tennis ball, not too big, but large enough that it produced a small sliver of a shadow on the ground. This was where things were going to get dicey. Maintaining two separate streams of ether was like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Adding a third was like doing so after some idiot had decided to set you on fire.

Arthur's jaw clenched hard enough that his gums started to bleed, his lifeblood painting rivers down his chin. That's a lot of blood. Oh, it's coming out of my nose too. Arthur observed the phenomenon like it was happening to someone else. The pain he felt, however, was very, very personal. A few years ago, he'd read about a serial killer who'd used an ice-pick to off his victims. He imagined this was how they'd felt in their last moments.

He persisted anyway, creating a shadow trap out of the water orb's faint shadow. He didn't use much ether, an amount small enough that its detonation would only maim a pre-system human. Any greater, and it'd be impossible to accomplish what he had planned.

Arthur's plan was simple. He wanted to use shadow magic to suspend the ball of water in the air after dispelling his molecular water shot and freeze it in motion as the panther had done to him. To do so, he needed a shadow that existed in the third dimension, one that could affect physical reality. Shadow manipulation could then be used to control it and thus he hoped, to merge it with his domain skill. He only knew one way to create a tangible shadow though.

Arthur needed to catch an explosion.