Shaun spent a bit of time considering his next steps, he hadn’t left the area where he had fought the boss as he still wasn’t sure whether he was going to move straight into the last area on the other side of the tree or whether he was going to attempt the bonding. He hadn’t been in the dungeon for a full day yet so he had time to spare, he just had doubts as to whether he wanted to use his heritage and the risks that came with it. Dying was a risk, he knew that, but it was the unknown that held him back the most.

The heritage spoke of a forgotten race, one that had been hunted to extinction, which in all likelihood meant that there had been a war against these creatures that ended in them losing. There was no other information as to why or when, but the name was Azreal’s Legacy, so it must have something to do with the power they had, and if he continued exploring that power, would he too end up being hunted down and killed?

The only thing that made him even want to risk it was the chance for more power, having one element had given him a huge edge in a fight, the second made him more versatile and able to turn the tide of a fight with a monster in an instant, so what would a third do? He had seen how the monsters in this dungeon had used nature to great effect, and if they could be so effective without it being an affinity he couldn’t help but wonder what he might be able to do with it.

It also seemed that no one was going to be able to see his heritage, on his status sheets it had hidden in brackets that must mean that no matter how strong someone would be, the system itself was going to keep it hidden from prying eyes. He was thankful for that, otherwise the first time he was going to meet someone with a specific skill or at a greater level he may be found out immediately.

Outside of the practice he had done earlier, he hadn’t really tried to use this part of himself, and he couldn’t lie, he was curious to know if he even could do it successfully, to him it was just another challenge that he had to overcome, which made it that much more appealing to attempt.

He sat himself down under the large tree, cross legged and slipped into meditation, figuring that this was going to be his best bet for being able to connect to the nature mana that he knew was going to be all around him, if it was anything like the fire dungeon. He didn’t think he was going to be able to get anywhere close to the trance he was in when he had the elixir so he was going to need to try other ways to control the ambient mana, mediation and enhanced mind were the two sill he had that would work in tandem and hopefully, help him overcome that.

He was going to see if he could even do the first step of locating the nature mana, then he would try to control it a bit before he made his decision on whether to bring it in his body. Before that though he wanted to investigate his own mana channels within his body. Turning his mind inwards, he was able to easily locate the streams in his body, one red and the other brown, still circling each other through his body, in complete harmony. It hadn’t changed much since the last time he checked but he wanted to make sure that nothing had changed, he investigated how each of the threads interacted, it was like they always stayed a certain distance from each other, no matter where they went in his channels, if he was going to add a third though, would this mess with the balance or would it just be added in and the distance would just become smaller between them, there was only so much space that he could fit them in his body.

He continued watching them for a little while, making himself very familiar with the feel of each element, at one point he tried to see how far he could push them, moving them two streams closer together, he could condense the gap between them by about half before he started getting a feeling that if he pushed any further the results would be dangerous. It was a good result, as if he added a third he didn’t think that it would move them that much closer to each other, meaning that he could probably fit it in without any problems, but only if he was able to get them to condense back up after he brought the foreign mana into him.

That opened up another question, with the fire mana he only had earth inside of him to trap the mana but now he had both fire and earth, that either meant he only had to use one of them to make it work, or maybe, he could use half of each and still keep the two threads of affinity in his body without having to fully dismantle either?

That led to his next test, trying to remove part of his affinity from the thread and form it into a sphere in his body. He started with earth as he thought it to be more stable than the fire affinity, less explosive and likely to cause less damage. He focused on one part of the thread, the one closest to the side of his abdomen, hoping that he would be able to heal the damage done there easier than anywhere else. Shaun focused on connecting to the thread and taking control of it completely while still letting some of the affinity pass through to keep it flowing inside of him, it was a delicate process and took a lot of concentration but eventually he was able to form a small branch from the thread and form it into a sphere, still connected to the main affinity stream but also separate.

It was an odd feeling, manipulating his affinity to sprout out of its natural rhythm didn’t hurt, just felt unnatural, but once he had shaped the sphere it took little thought to keep it like that. Keeping the sphere in place he repeated the process a second time, then a third, it got both easier and harder each time. Easier to actually complete the sphere, but with the more affinity he moved out of the mainstream the slower it moved through his body and the more time it took to form the spheres.

After finding success with the earth affinity he decided it was worth the risk to do the same with fire. He used a similar method to earth but found that fully controlling fire was a lot harder, like the element itself, fire could be wild and controllable and it took a different mindset to connect to it and manipulate it compared to earth. He had practised a lot with fire since entering the dungeon though, it being his main weapon against nature, so although he struggled at first, he was able to get it moving in a way he wanted.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It took him twice as long to form the first sphere of fire, moving it in the same direction as he had the earth spheres so that they would all be close to each other, if he brought in the nature mana it would all be in the same line between the two affinity. It took hours to form as many spheres of the two affinities as he could, making sure that the space between the two alternated between fire and earth, he put them as close together as he dared, making sure that they wouldn’t cause a chain reaction in his body that would blow him up like a popped balloon.

I am actually doing this aren’t I? Shaun didn’t know when he had made the decision, it had to have been at some point while he was carried away with forming the spheres, but he had done all of the prep work he needed to before moving on to the next step. It would have all been for nothing if he didn’t at least try now. It didn’t take much concentration to keep all of the elemental spheres in place, now that they were formed they seemed stable enough that he could shift his attention out into the world around him.

*Multiple Skill Level ups: [Advanced] Enhanced Mind – Level 16*

*Multiple Skill Level ups: [Basic] Meditation – Level 20*

He had levelled up both skills quite a lot doing the prep work, which would only help him more with the next step. He turned his attention to the world around him, eyes closed, and just focused with his mind. Trying to pierce the world around him and feel deeper into the mana that was located around him was hard, and he didn’t know how long he tried but he didn’t give up.

He knew there had to be earth mana around him, to at least some degree, as the dirt was made up of rocks so it would need at least some presence in the world around him. He focused on this first to see if he could locate a type of mana that he knew intimately. He pulsed out his earth affinity into the area to see if he would get any feedback from the earth mana, to his surprise he was able to feel the small motes of mana send back a frequency that resonated with the pulse. He did this a few times until he was able to easily locate each one around him.

It gave him an idea though, the mana motes had a frequency to them, much like living creatures did when he used his echo to locate the things around him, so what if he could use his echo to locate mana? He had never tried anything like this before and wasn’t what the skill was supposed to be used for, but it was worth a try.

Changing over to his earthen echo skill, he focused on sending out pulses with the skill and focusing on where he knew the earth motes were. It didn’t work, in fact the only feedback he got from the skill was from all of the trees around him, but he didn’t give up. When he first got his detection skill it had been overwhelming and he had to learn to block out the things he didn’t want information on, so he focused on doing the same with his echo. Every time he sent it out he aimed on removing the feeling of the trees, he needed to strip it down before he could try and feel the tiny motes.

He continued mediating and using his enhanced mind when sending out the echo, and eventually he was able to feel the trees fading into the background of the echo, still present but now an afterthought of the feedback from the skill. He didn’t stop and kept going until the skill came back with almost like a blank canvas, that’s when he changed up the skill, he infused his earth affinity into it and then sent out a pulse of his echo, and just as he had felt before he could now locate the mana in the area, but on a much larger scale.

He was thankful that there were no monsters or people around as he was certain that they would be able to feel the large amounts of energy he was sending out into the world around him, this was not something he would want to do unless he was certain he was alone and safe.

He practised a few more times with his skill infused with his earth affinity until he was confident on what the mana felt like, he then stopped and tried the same steps with his fire affinity. As expected there was next to no fire mana in the area, only a few located in the areas where he had fought recently and left his mark on the world with his fire attacks. The fire mana had a different feeling to the earth motes, the vibrations they had were much faster, almost on the verge of combusting. He expected something like this, the attuned mana should feel the same as each other as the element that made them up was completely different on a base level, so what should nature feel like?

He thought back to the attacks from the monkeys and gorilla, he felt that the nature aspects of their magic were more stable than fire but also had a flip side where it encouraged growth, sometimes untamed and uncontrollable but could also be nurtured and protective. He thought about how it felt to be hit by the bolts from the monkey’s sticks, I have one of those sticks! Without breaking his concentration, he took out the magic stick that he got from the monkey, he didn’t identify it as that was not what he needed it for, what he needed was to see if he could feel the energy that came from it.

Once he had it out of his inventory he put it on the ground in front of him and focused his echo on the energy signature of it, it was faint, but he did pick up on the remnants of its connection to the magic it used. He concentrated on that feeling until he had grown accustomed to its feeling and then turned his attention back to the world around him, focusing on picking up on the same signature of the stick but in the mana that he knew would be present.

Slowly his mind adjusted, and faintly at first he started making out different mana motes around him, not well enough that he thought he would be able to take control of them, but it was a start. He kept focusing his energy into being able to more clearly make out the mana, trying to bring the vibrations that resonated with nature to the forefront of his mind. With a snap, as if his mind had crossed some kind of threshold that had been holding it back, he could now sense all of the mana around him with stark clarity, each mote of mana, no matter what attunement, was now in his grasp.

*New Skill Created: [Advanced] Mana Sight (Level 1)*

*Skill Gained*: [Advanced] Mana Sight – When in a deep trance, the Mana Sight ability allows you to look deeper into the world and bring the mana around you into sight through your minds eye. Using this skill will block off the physical world and leave you defenceless, unable to move until you exit the trance.

*Profession: Mana Crafter has levelled up by +2 levels. [Basic] Mana Crafter has reached Level 15. +4 Int, +4 Wil, +8 Soul*

*Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (F) has reached Level 22. +4 Ap gained*