Last time Mike had sat down to infuse a million coins, it had taken him almost 30 hours to do. Since then, he had leveled up several times and his mana regeneration had gotten faster. It only took him a little over 24 hours this time to get all of the coins infused and ready for distribution, but since he had done it all in one long chunk it felt like it had taken even longer.
His mana control had also improved by a good margin since last time, and he was able to focus more on other things while infusing. He unfortunately couldn't experiment with trying to convert mana into other types of energy due to every point of his mana being sacrificed to the coins, so he settled for working with his fragments for the time being.
He had several items that he felt could use some serious improvement. The first was his soul hammer, the first fragment item he had ever made. It had been made from his class fragments before he had evolved, and while it had been convenient to have at that level, it was now completely obsolete. One thing he hadn't realized before he began toying with the hammer was that fragment items could still break, though it was quite difficult for them to do so.
He had been trying to test the limits of the item by twisting and pulling in various directions with nothing but the strength of his hands when the item shattered in his grip like glass. Small particles of white light sprinkled to the ground and dissipated soon after.
Mike had a mini panic attack thinking he had just destroyed some of his irreplaceable fragments, but he found that it had returned to his soul in a broken mess. All that was present was a thin outline of the hammer, with it not being filled in. He had needed to stop his infusion for a minute to infuse some mana into the hammer, which seemed to fix it back to its former state. This had just proved to Mike that he needed an upgrade.
He pulled the hammer apart and began working on his new one, and it had only taken him about ten minutes to make a new hammer out of epic fragments. It was fairly easy, as it had only required him to use two pieces that were of a non complex shape. Just a handle and a hammer head. He still didn't know what he could use the common class fragments for, or if he would ever find a meaningful use for them, but he couldn't get rid of them so he decided to use them to make some ornamental lines on his new forging hammer.
The second item he felt needed improvement was his soul ax. It was made from uncommon fragments and was obsolete. He didn't need a better ax, as his hammer could already smash through any tree, but he was bored and wanted something to do. This one took him a little longer than his hammer had, taking him 20 minutes to replace the uncommon fragments with epic ones. He didn't have many epic fragments at his disposal, but he had enough for the last thing he wanted to do.
He felt pride in the beautiful blue that his wings gave off, and thought that it had looked pretty good. He had 6 epic fragments left from various enemies and from his epic crafter title that he had outgrown. He had a few heroic fragments from making heroic skills and possessing the heroic crafter title, but he was unable to do much with them. He had thankfully gotten to keep his epic crafter fragment after upgrading the title, which made sense given that he got to keep his class fragments when evolving.
The main stems of his blue wings which supported all of the feathers, which Mike remembered were called the leading edge thanks to a history channel binge when he was a child, were the most crucial parts of his wings. If one of them broke off, he would lose the entire wing. If he could replace those with epic fragments, then the odds of him losing his wings in combat would be a lot lower, if he ever did use them in combat.
It had been difficult replacing the fragments, as he needed to place the epic ones in place of the rare ones as they were being removed, Indiana Jones style. After he finished, he could just feel that his wings were more durable when he summoned them. He had played around with his other fragments for a while, not really making anything noteworthy, when he finished his infusing of the coins.
“Oh my god finally!” Mike shouted as he stood up.
“You finally finished? What took you so long?” The teller asked as he was leaving the bank.
“My mana regeneration isn't very high for my level, so it took me a while to get to every coin.”
“Could you not have asked one of the grand chiefs for permission to touch the idol in the village center? That would have sped up your regeneration significantly.”
Mike paused, realizing he had once more taken action without fully thinking it through. “You know what, I could have.” He said calmly, before leaving the building. He noticed the look of deep contemplation on the teller's face as he left, as if Mike had just said something profound. In truth, Mike was berating himself on the inside for not remembering the idol.
He left the village, finding a nice and secluded corner of the desert to spend time trying to upgrade his skills. Various monsters were roaming around, but setting his hammer down next to him scared most of them off with the enchantment on it, due to them mostly being of a lower level than Mike. He looked through his skill list, looking for what skill could most use the application of mana he had discussed with Otto. Looking at his skills, he could only see two that could potentially be improved in this way.
The first was of course was Burst Step, which was the easy answer since Mike and Otto had discussed how that one could be improved. The next one was Cleave. Mike knew that this skill in particular already did some level of turning mana into kinetic energy, but not by much. When he used this skill, it sent out a projection of his attack using mana in the form of whatever attack he had performed.
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If he swung his hammer, a bast of crushing force would be sent out by a wall of mana. If he swung a sword, a cutting edge of mana would shoot out. Of course, the mana itself still needed something behind it to make it deal actual damage, which is where the energy conversion came in. The mana he used for creating the construct that mimicked his attack was not a large amount, with instead most of the cost of the attack going towards making that construct propel forward to do serious damage to whatever it hit.
The mana would convert to kinetic energy, pushing the construct forwards. He felt that it was just an inefficient process, and that it could be significantly improved with practice, so that is exactly what he decided to do. He swung his hammer slowly, trying to get a feel for the way mana moved as he used Cleave. It took him several tries, but he began noticing how not all of the mana left his hammer at once. It made the construct, pushed it out, then the mana activated like a thruster to push it forwards. It all happened so fast that a pre-system human would only see it as a near instantaneous event, but his perception was making it just barely observable enough for Mike to process what was happening.
He tried to copy the process at first, not activating his skill to do so. It was a crude replication, but a replication nonetheless. He tried more and more before figuring out where mana was being wasted in the attack. When he typically swung his hammer, the speed with which he swung it didn't affect the cost of the skill. If he swung his hammer really fast, the construct would be shot out at the same speed it would have if he had swung slower, but the mana cost remained the same due to the skill trying to use the same amount of energy each time. He had to learn to hold it back and to make it not try to go as quickly as possible, and after a few hours of swinging his hammer at the air, he got it.
*Skill upgraded! Cleave, becomes Cleave (Heroic)*
Cleave (Heroic)
Each attack sends out a small shockwave mimicking the nature of your strike. Sharp weapons send out cutting blades of force, while blunt weapons send walls of force. Infusing this strike with mana increases the power of the shockwave. Mana cost decreases depending on the speed the attack is sent out.
Now Mike wouldn’t be wasting mana whenever he used the skill, instead he would have much more control over the power behind the attacks. He could still force them to be much more powerful, but now it would not be as expensive. It was time for Mike to move on to his next skill, Burst Step. The skill was still only at rare rarity, and he felt there was likely an easy way to bring it to epic rarity before using energy conversion. He used the skill, running a few dozen miles as he felt the mana. He remembered that he and Otto had discussed the wasted mana from him throwing it out with no purpose behind it, so Mike decided to work on that.
Every time he took a step, he tried focusing on making his mana shoot out in a controlled fashion rather than the, well, burst that it usually went out in. He tried focusing it into a tight spike of mana as it left his foot, but found that difficult to do. Instead he tried to do something similar to his first time practicing mana control. He tried creating bolts of mana that would shoot out of his feet, though the term ball may be a more accurate descriptor thanks to how much mana was going into each step. He wasn't doing much to condense the mana, so it was a fist sized ball of mana that shot out from his feet now every time he stepped.
Sand exploded into the air each time the balls made impact, and the air was beginning to get hazy. He moved on from the balls of mana, reattempting making spikes of mana that would pierce whatever they hit. Eventually, he got it down, and each step sent out a spike of mana that dug deep into the sand below him.
*Skill Upgraded! Burst step, becomes Blast Step (Epic)*
Blast Step (Epic)
Send out a blast of mana in the form of a spike or blast of force from your foot, propelling yourself.
Yet another skill upgrade, but Mike was still far from done. He continued sprinting around using burst steps, but this time he focused on trying to make the mana turn into kinetic energy. It wasn't easy, and Mike began losing track of time as he practiced. He tried to recreate the effects of cleave which propelled his attack forward. If he could manage to do that, but with his foot, then he could make the cost of the skill a lot cheaper.
He sprinted around in a circle, not feeling the expenditure drop at all. It was only after 5 hours straight of running that he realized why that was the case. While each use of the skill was not getting cheaper, he was getting more thrust from every step he was taking. He tried dialing it back, getting his normal amount of thrust from each step, at a reduced cost. He got the exact result he had been looking for.
*Skill Upgraded! Blast step, becomes Blast step (Heroic)*
Blast Step (Heroic)
Send out a blast of mana in the form of a spike or blast of force from your foot, propelling yourself. Alternatively, you can choose to send out no blast of mana, instead converting mana to kinetic energy to reduce the cost of blast step.
It wasn't a huge upgrade to the skill, but it proved that Mike could convert the energy, which was proven by his next notification.
*Skill Upgraded! Intermediate Mana control, becomes Kinetic Mana Control (Legendary)*
Kinetic Mana control
Control your mana, bending the magic of the world to your will. You can control your mana to a higher degree as well as have a minor effect on the mana of others. You can convert mana into kinetic energy at a steep conversion cost.
A legendary skill. Mike could only think of the applications this had. He could improve just about every aspect of what he did just by adding a bit more force behind it. With mana alone, he could make every swing of his hammer hold more power, every movement of his body quicker, or even just impart the momentum onto something else to blast it a far distance.
The skill even made it clear that there was room for improvement when it came to converting the energy, and that only made Mike more excited about it. He was just itching to test out the skill, when he felt the ground begin rumbling beneath him.
‘Guess the small dust storm I kicked up didn't go unnoticed’ Mike thought. From his attempts to upgrade Blast step, he had kicked up so much sand that he couldn’t see more than a few hundred feet in front of him. This also made him nearly shit himself when the ground began rumbling even louder. It rhythmically shook, with each shake sounding like a massive step being taken. Mike tried casting identify in every direction, until he finally found the source of the noise.
Sand Elemental (level 57)
The 40 foot tall monster was fading into sight as it got closer to Mike, the sand storm having masked its presence. It was roughly humanoid in shape, emphasis on the rough part. It had two legs, two arms, and a blob that he guessed could count as a head. Ordinarily, Mike might be nervous about the fight, and even consider fleeing the monster that was 20 levels higher than him. But now was no ordinary time. He was riding the high of having upgraded three of his most used skills, and the massive sand elemental was the perfect target to test them on.