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Time passed, and before I knew it, I had graduated from the Royal Academy. And besides the mandatory lessons, it has been fun. I may not have made many close friends outside of Dave, Sam, Elise, and later Alistair Arundel… and eventually Lavinia Castilene after she and Emma almost got into a catfight.

Other than that, it was just a long line of acquaintances, especially those who tried to get close to me after my victories at my first tournament. Unfortunately, that list of acquaintances increased exponentially when I once again dominated the duel scene in the other three proceeding years.

But as fun as school life was, that does not mean I was not busy; on the contrary, I was as busy as a bee. One of the things I was busy with that paid off big time was the mana pathway tempering experiments I was doing with Professor Sageira.

With her monitoring my progress so I don’t accidentally kill myself and making me soak in some unknown smelly green solution that makes my body feel like it is constantly in uncomfortably hot levels of water for hours on end, I am now able to circulate mana at the level equivalent to the lower echelon of magic beasts. To this day, she refuses to tell me about what is in that smelly green solution, and I am now afraid to ask.

To test the result of our hard work, in the dead of night, Professor Sageira transformed into a smaller version of her dragon form and flew me out of the capital while holding me in her claws like a small doll.

When we were deep in some monster-infested forest, we began our experiments. When I brought up the dangers of performing experiments at our current location, she just laughed at me, “Silly boy, there is nothing to fear while I am here. Any creature, big or small, who so much as caught a whiff of my scent or is sensitive enough to mana would have already cleared the area. Any who did not and is stupid enough to attack would just become a late-night snack for me.”

We first tested how my tempered mana pathways improved my aura usage. We started the test with some basic physical tests like sprinting, how much weight I could carry, and punching trees and rocks to see how much strength I could exert. She then compared these results against my previous benchmarks, and with some calculations to exclude the increase in my physical strength due to my growth spurt over the past four years, Professor Sageira calculated that my aura’s effectiveness should be an average of 2.5x that of an average aura user at my level of aura proficiency.

The next test was to enhance my body the way magic beasts do and see how I performed. I turned off my aura and channeled pure mana through my mana pathways, then willed the mana to infuse into my flesh. As I did so, I felt my body heat up, and my mind flashed back to the first time I tried it, and I can say it was not a fun time. All I remember from that time was pain and waking up to Professor Sageira telling me I was bleeding out of all my holes and even my pores, but we persisted with lower levels of mana to temper my flesh to the unnatural levels of mana being infused into it.

All of this culminated in this moment. When I felt my body fully infused with mana, my flesh felt stronger, harder, and denser. However, while testing my body, I also felt slower and stiffer than my mana-infused body should be.

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When I poked my flesh and applied pressure, I felt like I was pressing on soft metal. When we tested the durability of my body, I could tell this method provided more protection than aura.

While aura exuded a shell of protection around my body and temporarily boosted strength while it was active, infusing my flesh with mana made my body tougher. But unlike magic beasts that permanently had mana infused in their flesh until they died, I could only sustain this mana infusion for less than ten minutes at most before my muscles literally started breaking down. Professor Sageira says that as I continue to practice, my body should be able to sustain this state for more extended periods of time.

We tested the durability against all kinds of physical and magical damage. After many cuts, bruises, shocks, and burns, all of which were healed up with healing magic, Professor Sageira rated my durability to be slightly above gold, which was not saying much when your everyday merchant could bite on gold coins to check if it was really gold.

But when you take into account that not only my skin but the flesh under it was of the same toughness, it was safe to say that not many non-aura users could pose a threat to me in this state.

Lastly, we wanted to see how I performed when I used my aura and mana-infused state simultaneously.

After a bit of rest, I activated my aura and mana-infused state, and I was overcome with a feeling of euphoria and unlimited power. Professor Sageira was saying something, but my mind was not with her; I was busy feeling the strength flowing out of my core and into my limbs. The only thing I could hear was my body shouting at me to use it, so I did.

From there, I fell into a trance. The only thing I could remember was flashes of me breaking trees and rocks and tearing apart the earth itself, only for my trance to end with pain and coughing up blood and guts as I slumped to the ground, powerless.

After being healed and force-fed food and water, Professor Sageira said that the moment I used my aura and mana-infused state simultaneously, I just stared into the distance with a stupid look on my face before disappearing from her sight in a flash of speed. She said she had to take flight to keep up with my speed, which was leaving a trail of destruction.

She told me that when she finally found me, I was dying. All my bones were cracked; most of my muscles were torn or stressed, and my body was suffering from both mana stress and abuse. This meant that my body subconsciously forced itself to stop producing mana to keep me alive, and if any part of my body were forced to take on more mana, it would totally break down. At that point, there would be nothing left to heal; it would just be dead meat in my body.

When I asked how long my rampage lasted, she said it was around three minutes.

She asked me what I had experienced on my end, and when I recounted my side of the story, she made me promise never to use this method unless we were both in the middle of nowhere and while she was supervising. Seeing the end result of my rampage, I would be stupid not to agree to her promise.

However, as my time at the Royal Academy was coming to an end, further practicing the fusion of aura and mana-infused state would be rather difficult. When I brought up this problem with her, she just waved it off and said that it was not an issue, “It is a small matter. I can fly to your home in less than an hour. The results of the fusion of aura and mana-infused human body are a lot more important.”

She then plucked one of the smaller scales from her body and started inscribing something on it with her claw before blowing a white flame on it that did not exude any heat. Then, she passed the scale to me. When I inspected it, with both mundane and magical means, the only thing I could tell was that there was mana in it and nothing else. “When you get home and want to try that fusion again, inject mana into that scale and talk; I will be able to hear it.” I thanked her as I pocketed the scale.

But that is enough about me. I was not the only one who had done some growing in these few years.