After two minutes of searching, Lucas could already feel a significant difference. By performing a few simple tests, he believed he could even control his mana better now. This gave him some ideas regarding dark magic, but he set those thoughts aside and focused on what he was really looking for.
Soon, he realized the electric current he had found earlier was much more vibrant this time around. He could now even assert that the energy he felt from it was similar to the one he felt when he met the tree. This is it, Lucas thought. It seemed that life aura was completely different from death aura, not only in their principles, but also in form. While the death aura had a center, the life aura spread and vibrated all throughout his body.
Not wanting to waste time, Lucas immediately started his experiments. Following the experiments he had conducted when he discovered his death aura, he first wanted to emanate the aura outside his body. However, considering that the two were extremely different, he had no idea how to make that happen.
After a couple of minutes reflecting on the matter, Lucas came up with something. He would try to increase the speed at which the currents were vibrating. It was a shot in the dark, but it was all he could come up with at the moment.
Having figured out what to do, he now needed to know how. Fortunately, that question didn’t take long to be answered. Lucas only needed to focus his attention on the current and wish to speed it up, for the activity to increase. The execution wasn’t so simple, however, and it took Lucas about five minutes to get the current to double its speed. He had no doubt in his mind that this would be impossible to achieve without the extra perception points, so he was satisfied for the moment.
Lucas didn’t need to open his eyes to know he had achieved what he wanted—the aura was now emanating outside his body. He remembered that when he activated his death aura outside his body back then, he was able to scare a few beasts with it, but since he had no one around, it was hard to tell what the effects of this life aura were.
As he stood there, analyzing his aura, the thought of activating both auras simultaneously crossed his mind. He was curious about what effects that could produce. But after some thought, he realized he wouldn’t be able to pull it off until he had way more perception. He was fairly proficient in using the death aura by now, but he knew his limitations—using both at the same time wouldn’t be easy.
Deciding to drop the subject for the time being, Lucas focused on his body once again. He wanted to search for any changes apart from the aura emanating from it, but found nothing. Like the death aura, a little more was needed before he could gain the skill he wanted. So, he stopped wasting time and moved on to the next step.
Suddenly, a blade popped from his fist, and he made a deep cut in his arm. This better be worth it, he thought, feeling intense pain from the cut. No matter how many times he injured himself, it was hard to get used to the pain, and Lucas already had a higher tolerance than most. Considering that, Lucas made a mental note to look for some sort of pain control skill after leaving the tower.
After that was done, his focus went back to the life aura, ensuring it was still vibrating at twice its previous speed. However, after a few minutes of just looking at his injury, he realized nothing was happening. It didn’t take long for him to realize the problem. It’s too spread out. I need to find a way to direct the life aura to that spot.
His logic was sound, but the execution wasn’t simple. The life aura was too chaotic to be moved around at will, and considering it was already everywhere, what he actually needed to do was condense those electric pulses into a single entity and then move it to the right spot. Easier said than done.
Ten minutes later, Lucas was sweating. He never thought that he could become so tired just by sitting still, and he had made little progress with his life aura during this time. The problem was that every time he managed to condense a part of his life aura, the whole thing would disperse seconds later. It took a lot of effort to keep the whole thing together—it was like trying to contain a wild animal.
I should try to slow the current down first, he thought after his last failed attempt. He wasn’t sure if it was possible to do something like that since the starting frequency of the current was already high, but it was worth a shot. If he couldn’t make the current tamer, it would be hard to do anything else.
The method he used to agitate the current was focusing more intently on it and wishing for it to happen, so his first thought was to try doing the opposite this time around. The result wasn’t exactly what he expected; while the current did indeed slow down, it stopped at its normal speed.
Frustrated, Lucas went through his memories about mana control, trying to find something that he could use for a situation like this, and his thoughts stopped at water magic, especially the part that evoked the feeling of calmness and tranquility. That might work, he thought, and immediately started experimenting, trying to transmit the same feelings to the current.
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It took only a couple of minutes for him to realize it was working as the current became slower and slower. Lucas wasn’t sure, but he guessed that the slower the current was, the less effective it would be. Still, he had no other option; he couldn’t control it otherwise, and he assumed everything would be easier once he actually gained the skill.
When the current reached a speed where Lucas felt comfortable trying to control it again, he stopped doing what he was doing and tried condensing the energy, wariness weighing heavily on him.
Luckily, after just a few attempts, he managed to condense a considerable chunk of the life aura and carefully started to transport it to the side of his arm.
Opening his eyes, he saw the tissue reconstructing itself ever so slowly. It took about ten minutes—just when the effects of the elixir were about to wear out—to heal the entire injury. A weary smile slowly formed on Lucas’ face. It worked! Shortly after, a notification sound popped up.
New skill acquired!
Skill: Life Aura Manipulation (Inferior)
You have trodden on the path of the life aura, like many creatures have done before you. Now you have some control over your life aura and can heal wounds with it.
Warning: This skill has a high consumption rate, and its efficacy will depend on the user’s proficiency.
Just as Lucas rose from the bed to celebrate, dizziness took hold of him, and he almost collapsed on the floor, only preventing the fall by supporting himself on the wall.
“What’s going on?” he wondered out loud. His answer was in his stats—during that short period of less than an hour, his stamina had all but completely drained.
Going back to bed, he began to think, and it didn’t take long for him to find the reason for this dizziness. The death aura drained his health to operate, and the life aura drained his stamina.
He couldn’t help but feel a little bitter about it. Sure, it would be great to use the skill in emergencies, but he didn’t have much stamina to begin with, and if he drained a lot of it to recover his health, he could be placing himself in even worse danger.
From what Lucas could gather, just as Vitality was linked with Health and Magic with Mana, Stamina was linked with Toughness, which explained his low stamina problem. The clothes he used to give a boost to his Toughness didn’t do anything for his stamina, and he could only upgrade them through level-ups. So far, it hadn’t been a big problem, but if he wanted to make his life aura worthwhile, he needed to figure out a way to increase his stamina first or somehow lower the consumption.
Another thing to look for after I leave the tower, Lucas thought with a bittersweet feeling.
His efforts had paid off in a very short period of time after using the elixir, and he didn’t even need to use a second one. It was just a shame that the skill wouldn’t be useful right away.
Lucas considered whether he should drink a stamina potion and ultimately decided to do it. He was already feeling a headache due to his low stamina, and he had enough potions to spare. Besides, he needed to make the most of the time he had; it would be counterproductive if he spent the whole time in a daze or with vertigo.
After drinking it, he felt much better and headed towards the training room. His main goal in this training session was to see if he could replicate the skill Elliot had used during their fight—the weird water wall that slowed down his attacks, allowing Elliot to keep avoiding him.
The reasoning behind his desire to acquire that skill was that it seemed like the perfect skill for him. He could slow down his opponents’ attacks and take the extra moments to perfectly dodge anything that came his way. It would work almost as a boost to his agility.
The problem with this was that since he hadn’t found the skill book on Elliot’s ring and didn’t have any teacher to guide him, he would need to rely on his memories from his fight in the video that was recorded.
Lucas knew it wasn’t impossible to replicate a skill only by seeing it done, but based on a book he read, very few were capable of doing it. On top of that, the difficulty of pulling such a feat increased the higher-rated the skill was. However, he didn’t believe the skill was so high-rated. It was useful, of course, but it seemed pretty simple, and he estimated that at best it was a common rarity skill.
Besides, this time he had a staff with him, which should make all magic practices easier. Trying to convince himself of this, Lucas began his training.
Two hours later, Lucas’ mana was depleted, and despite making progress when it came to mana control, he seemed far from achieving his goal. Feeling depressed, Lucas went back to the bedroom.
The only person he could blame was himself. If he hadn’t been too caught up in his own head, he would have made a few quests to earn merit points and gained skills that way. But now it was too late, and apparently, trying to replicate the skill based only on his memories was nearly impossible, and he knew why.
To perform magic, the most important thing wasn’t the outcome; it was the process that happened internally, and he couldn’t figure out any of that by just looking. Sure, he could make a few guesses, and Lucas was able to create a fountain of some sort after hours of hard work, but he had doubts that he could protect himself from anything other than a mosquito.
Tired, Lucas started watching the tape again. He re-watched his three last fights and only stopped when Adam and then Sultan used that power-enhancing skill.
“What exactly is that skill?” Lucas wondered out loud. After both of them used the skill, they seemed to get a boost in their strength and even agility, but Lucas was sure that a skill like that had an equivalent price to be used. However, he never managed to figure out what it was.
His guess, after a couple of re-watches, was that the usage of the skill increased the stamina drain somewhat, but he couldn’t be sure. Their stamina was undoubtedly way higher than his, so while they seemed tired near the end, Lucas was considerably more exhausted than they were, even without using any boosting skills.
He had to admit he was also interested in that skill, but since he wasn’t even able to replicate the water wall, he believed his chances of replicating that one were close to zero. Resigning himself to this fact, he turned his attention to the only thing left on his to-do list: dark magic.