Chapter 9: Electricity

I whistled a tune as I walked down the dark corridors with my rat following closely behind. I could barely contain my excitement as I made my way to the ladder. If this worked I would be able to harness the power of electricity. Something that I only thought I would be able to do in my dreams. What would be next? Who knew? Anything was possible now, nothing was out of reach. All you had to do was try hard enough and you would succeed. And even if you failed, you could always try again.

My thoughts ran rampart through my head as I thought about my new world. I could be greater than I normally would have been. No, I would be greater. I would be a different man with all this power, a stronger one. No one would be able to tell me what to do. I would live my own life. But getting stronger wasn’t the only goal on my mind. I also wanted to go out and explore different types of magic, places, and even monsters. Even the plants I had just ate had never been seen before by man. Just the thought of doing all of this made my happy. However, I would only be able to do this once I was stronger. But at least I had a goal that I could strive to accomplish once I made sure my family was safe.

Once I was in front of the rusty old ladder I stopped. Tilting my head upwards, I looked at the dim lightbulb that was shining light on the surrounding area. As I looked at it, a frown began to grow on my face. How was I supposed to reach it? The lightbulb that I wanted to touch was all the way on the sewer ceiling. It was unreachable by conventional means. The reason I had to touch it was so I see what electricity mana felt like. Without knowing what it felt like, I wouldn’t be able to create something similar to it with my mana. And if I wasn’t able to create something similar to it then I wouldn’t be able to create a new skill.

The next few minutes were spent with me walking around in front of the ladder and thinking. As I did this my zombie rat paced alongside me happily. I came up with several ideas but most of them ended up being thrown out. One idea was to climb the ladder and jump for the lightbulb. However, that wouldn’t work for several reasons. One was because even if I did reach the light bulb with my jump, I would only be able to touch it for a few seconds. The next was that I was sure to injure myself when I landed. There was no way I was going to survive that fall without some type of damage. Shaking my head I began to think even harder.

What did I need to reach the platform? It was quite simple, a ladder or a platform of some kind. But how was I going to get something like a ladder here in these sewers? There was just no way I was reaching that lightbulb without using one of my skills so I glanced at the magic I had to see if any of it would be of use. My wind blade wouldn’t be useful but maybe I could do something with air. I could have wind propel me high enough to reach the lightbulb. However I wouldn’t be able to touch it for a long period of time. With my knowledge of wind magic, there was no way I would be able to use it to fly. Therefore my only option was to use earth magic, the magic that I was most proficient in.

By utilizing my earth magic, I could create some type of earthen ladder to reach the lightbulb. However, I was not going to use that idea. The reason for that was because I wanted something that was sturdier. I was trying to make a new skill and trying to balance on a ladder while I was concentrating would do more harm than good. After thinking on it for another few minutes I finally decided to make something resembling an earthen pillar.

Pushing my zombie rat off to the side gently, I placed both of my hands on the ground. I would need to focus for this part since this pillar was pretty important. If it collapsed while I was on it, there was no doubt that I would get injured. If a rat saw me in that state I would be killed. I still had my zombie rat to protect me, but it could only do so much. Sticking my fingers deep into the patches of dirt, I poured my mana into the ground. I kept doing this until the earth around me was saturated with my mana. Once that was done, I began to manipulate the earth.

With my mana inside the soil, I began the process of hardening the earth around me. Once the earth around me was hardened I began raising the ground up. After a few attempts the earth began to slowly move upwards. As the ground pushed itself up, I made sure to harden the fresh earth so it could sustain itself. The more I rose the more I hardened the fresh earth until I was finally reached the top of the sewers. Cutting off my mana from the ground, I sat down and began to meditate. I would most likely need the mana that I lost before I moved on.

As I meditated I began to think about what I had just accomplished. The square platform that I made wasn’t easy to create. If my earth magic was a level lower, I was positive that it would’ve collapsed. But since I had a vague understanding of the earth, I somewhat knew where to put my mana. The whole process really wasn’t that different from making an earthen spike. I just had to make sure that the pillar I made wouldn’t collapse on its own and put way more mana into it than I normally would.

 I also noticed that the more I manipulated mana, the more I  began to understand it. The few spells I knew were becoming easier to cast because I knew how to manipulate my mana better. My meditating probably helped with that to. With every piece of mana I absorbed, I gained a tiny bit of wisdom from the mana. If I kept on meditating, my skill with mana was sure to improve.

Once I had restored my mana, I moved closer to the lightbulb. I couldn’t actually stand since I had made my pillar rise up too close to the wall. I didn’t really blame myself for this mistake since this was my first time doing something like this so there were bound to be errors. After I finished crawling towards the lightbulb, I reached out my hand. It was time to begin my training.

The first thought that ran through my head when I touched the lightbulb was of its warmth. It was a pleasant sensation since the only temperature I had been feeling in this sewer was the cold. The warmth that was spreading throughout my hand led me to think about some things.

Although the lightbulb I was touching wasn’t that big, it held a considerable amount of power. Without this lightbulb this area would have been casted in darkness and I would have died. There was no way that I could’ve climbed down the ladder safely without some sort of light. I needed to remember to appreciate the small things since without them I would be in a very different situation.

The moment my mana touched the lightbulb, the hair on my body began to stand up. It rose up even higher the more mana I pushed into the bulb. I pushed my mana further into the bulb until it was past the glass. Touching the glass was good and all, but what I needed to feel the electricity. I was forced to move my mana slowly through the glass in fear that it would shatter. I only had one lightbulb in this sewer and I would need it to last. If it didn’t I could say good bye to any sort of electric skill.

Once my mana was pass the glass, I moving it toward the electricity that was flowing violently in the bulb. With a determined look I coerced my mana to come in contact with the electricity. The result? Well it wasn’t quite what I had expected.

Recoiling my hand in pain I watched in surprise as I lost control of my body’s functions. The only thing I could do was stare at the bright lightbulb as my body twitched around. Shit….this was the worse. I could feel my muscles tensing up in my body and it did not feel good at all. I was finally allowed sweet relief a few seconds later as the electricity was forced out of my system thanks to my mana. Taking a shuddering breath I ran my hand through my hair only to shock myself again. Fuck! Shaking my hand furiously I looked at the lightbulb. This might be the hardest magic skill that I ever tried to gain.

As I stared off into the distance, I thought about my problematic situation. The little shock that I had just received wasn’t all that bad. Along with the pain I managed to receive a little bit of wisdom about electricity mana. Electricity mana was essentially mana that was charged with energy. This mana had so much energy inside it that it gave off an electric shock if someone got too close to it. Or at least that was what I thought. I had to touch the lightbulb again in order to gain more of an understanding of the magic. There was just one problem with that, the shock.

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The moment I touched the electricity in the lightbulb I would receive a small shock. However the longer I touched it, the more wisdom I received about electricity magic. If I touched it long enough I would gain the skill. The problem with holding it was the longer I held it, the nastier the shock became. I could tell that such a shock might kill me if I held on too long since the weakest shock was still painful. But was I going to give up? No. If I let something as small as an electric shock scare me then I couldn’t call myself a man. I had pride dammit. Grasping the lightbulb, I prepared my body for another onslaught of pain.

The next twenty minutes passed by in a blur of pain and wisdom. I was forced to rest several times thanks to the severity of the shocks I as receiving. I would also periodically receive a shock that would make it so I was unable to control my body for a short period of time. The hair on my body was always staying up since I had been shocked so many times. It was even hard to form coherent thoughts with all of the electricity running throughout my body. I would need to get my skill quickly or else my body would receive some damage I might not be able to heal.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, I began to pour my mana into the electricity. As I did this, I once against struggled against the shocks I was receiving. It was considerably hard to concentrate on understanding electricity magic when your head throbbed every couple of seconds. Gritting my teeth through the pain, I searched for what the electricity mana felt like. I went past the pain, past my mana, and past the all of the other stuff that was in the way until I finally reached it. I could make it through this, I know I can.

Grabbing the electricity mana from the lightbulb with my mana, I began moving it towards my hand. Once it was there I wrapped it securely with my mana. I did not want to lose the electric mana or else I would have to go through this whole process again. Removing my hand from the lightbulb I turned my attention to the electricity that was currently running through my hand. I needed to combine my mana with it so that I would be able to use the electricity.

Since my mana was wrapped around the electric mana to begin with, all I had to do was push it inwards. As I began to do this, my hand began to periodically twitch due to the small shocks I was receiving. The more particles I combined, the more the feeling in my hand went away. It was similar to when your hand fell asleep and no matter what you did you couldn’t feel anything. After a few minutes of this, I was finally done. Sweat was dripping down my face and most of my mana was gone. But all of this would be worth it if I managed to get a new skill.

With the combined electricity running through my hand, I gave the air in front of me a few jabs. The sound of the air crackling was like music in my ears. With this I could do some damage. Before I could experiment more, a blue box suddenly appeared in my vision.

Electric ShockSkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: UncommonSkill Level: 1Exp: 5%Effect: Allows the user to give something or someone an electric shock. Due to the low level of the skill, the victim will only feel a slight shock or numbness.

Rubbing my face tiredly I took the next half hour to meditate. I always got exhausted whenever my mana got too low and it was not a pleasant feeling. Thankfully meditating would alieve me of that pain so I wouldn’t have this feeling for long. As I meditated I began to think about my electric shock. Why was gaining my electricity skill so hard? It wasn’t this hard when I first made an earthen spike. If I tried getting fire or water magic would it be just as challenging? Even if it was I was still going to try to get it. It would no doubt be useful in the future and I was sure that it would be worth all the hard work.

Once I was finished meditating a blue box appeared, notifying me of a skill level up. I took a brief glance at it before swiping away. I also noticed that my mana affinity skill gained considerable amounts of experience. This was because I was manipulating the electricity’s mana when I was trying to create my skill.

MeditationSkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: UncommonSkill Level: 3Exp: 1%Effects: By sitting down and gathering mana, mana regeneration is increased. The higher the level, the more mana that is regenerated. Small amounts of stamina will now be restored.

My meditation skill was now level three and small amounts of my stamina would be restored. This was really good since I now had a way to restore my stamina quickly. Before I just had to wait for my stamina to refill but now my meditation would help with its recovery. I had a feeling that if I leveled up my meditation skill enough, restoring my health would be next.

 Placing my hands on the pillar, I forced it to go back into the ground. I did this by doing the complete opposite of what I did before. Instead of hardening the earth, I softened  it instead. As I descended I allowed a small grin to appear on my face. There were a lot of things I wanted to accomplish today and I could barely wait to start.

Once I reached ground level, I walked off the top of my pillar. Before I went back to my base I wanted to try out my electric shock skill more. From the description I didn’t really know if it would be useful in battle unless I targeted something specific. Such as an eye. No matter how small the shock, if I struck somebody in the eye with my skill it would be painful. But that was only because the skill was low leveled. If it was higher I was pretty sure I would be able to use it in battle.

Taking a combat stance, I began to concentrate on my hands. Remembering the feel of electricity I began charging my mana. After a few minutes of concentrating I began to feel a slight numbness in my hand. This let me know that my spell was currently active. I threw a couple of punches in the air to test out my skill. Here were the results.

Since my skill was only  level one, my attack power was weak. Not only that but I could not extend the electricity away from my skin. This meant that I was unable to create a small spark. I would be able to do this when my skill was a higher level, but until then I would have to touch my opponent to damage them. If I wanted to use my hands to fight that is. I had an iron sword in my possession so I might as well try to use it. The metal on my sword was bound to increase my shock’s potency and that would prove helpful until I leveled it up more.

Grabbing my sword from the ground, I began to pour my mana on the electric blade of the sword. Once I did this I gave my mana an electric quality. But since I couldn’t see a difference I began pouring more electric mana into my sword. The result of this little endeavor was me getting shocked….It was quite painful.

I spent the next half hour experimenting with the allocation of electricity in my sword. Although getting shocked was painful, it was nothing compared to what I felt when I was creating my electricity skill. The reason I was trying so hard was because I could see potential in attacking an enemy with an electrified sword. Not only would they get cut but they would also get shocked. It was essentially two attacks in one. This skill would be extremely powerful, I just needed to train it in order to use it to the fullest potential.

 AN: Thanks for reading and expect a side chapter after chapter 10. Also props to KenshoSeeker for giving some pretty good ideas and tips. They're actually really helpful, thanks.