10. It´s a kind of magic.

After lunch, Alex took the pot and used bowls to the stream, to get them cleaned. Looking at the creek he said,

Hey, if I put a dam over there, that might give me a good place for bathing.

But to come back to the training.

If I use the mornings for fighting training, we should do the training for those skills in the afternoon. Or can we combine it somehow?

At a later point, you will have to combine them; I mean, you must learn to keep them up while doing something else, like fighting.

The whole augmenting thing is completely useless if you can do it only while doing nothing else. But first, you will have to get to that point.

Can you explain exactly what those skills do, and what I must do to make them work?

Of course. See, you already had a little experience with your Aurasense Skill and the selfhealing, as you pictured your brain.

One important part of the Aurasense is that you can sense what is inside your Aura. The Aura is like a container for your Mana, you felt it last night when you got into the Dreamtrance. It stops where your skin is, or, better to say, a tiny amount above your skin.

Now, your Skill translates that new sensory information into a picture you can understand. So, you didn't picture your brain; the skill showed you your actual brain.

As your whole body is inside your Aura, you can sense every part of it. So, healing yourself is easy; you identify the problem, concentrate your Mana there, and the rest is willpower. By that, I mean, you have to fill your Mana with a clear intend to heal, and even better, how it should heal. A good knowledge of the damage and how healing should happen is quite important. If this knowledge is not there, you can only speed up the normal regeneration.

That means, you can heal a lost body part, but you must build it cell for cell, and you better know exactly what you are doing.

But that senseing of your inside is only a small part of what you can do.

You see, normally, your Aura would be bombarded with Mana and Essenz particles, which are around you, the whole time. That's not the case, because the ground sucks it away.

And you wouldn´t just feel it anyway because you yourself dispense your Exessmana, or Essenz if you are useing Mana at the moment, so you would need to be very close to another Aura, or better touching it, to sense it.

But if you can lead your, let’s call it exaust for now, into the ground, instead simply al around you, you become much more sensible to the exaust of others. You must learn to do that anyway because it´s a requierment for your dreamtrance. And that sensibility is veryusefull. It can warn you, not just from the vicinity of other awakend and the level of their power; with a lot of training, you can even get a feeling of their emotions and if they are lying.

Such is, of course, a big advantage, as is doing so without the need to touch someone.

There are classes, called Inspectors, who specialize in this.

In short, this basic Aura sense, that you have, is very diverse in the posibilitys for it´s further progression after you mastered the basics.

For now, it's the senses you need to heal.

But how do we heal others? Well, you have to learn to form your Aura. To shape it, so you can fill an object, which is easier, or another life form, that's a lot more difficult, especially if the life form doesn't want it, with part of your Aura and Mana.

You did that, even if just a miniscule amount, as you aktivated the firestone.

We will have to train that, so you are able to sense inside another body; you need it to get your Mana to where the healing must happen, too.

Alex had used the time to damm up the creek, to get a place to bathe later.

Puh! That sounds like a lot!

And you didn´t start telling me about the Augumention.

Well, yes!

But you don't have to be perfect. If you get the basics right, you will be at a point where people expect a newly awakened to be.

And the augmentation is a little easier, as long as you are not looking into the progression after the basics. And with the aural sense, you can actually see what the Augmentation does, which will be a great help.

You see, because you have pure Lifemana, your Augumention can boost everything.

And that is what the baseline of your Skill does. Where you go with it later is up to you.

Now, your exhaust, the Exessmana or Manaregenerationrate, however you want to call it, is about 1 point per one of your minutes if we define your whole Manacontainer as 100 points.

If you put that Exessmana into your Augmention, you boost everything by 10%, while still hold onto a full Manacontainer.

And with everything, I mean everything. Strength, Endurance, Speed, Reaction time, automatic health regeneration and so on. You will even perceive time going slower.

Up to somewhere between 40 and 50% it will get slightly more expensive. So, at a boost of 40% it will cost you your Exessmana plus 10 points per minute. So, you can hold that up for 10 minutes bevor you run dry.

To boost yourself by 50%, it already costs 100 points per minute, that is, because there are parts of your body that must be constantly healed, like your brain, muscles, and sinews.

If you boost to a higher level, the cost goes up even higher, until you need 300 points per minute to boost yourself by 100%. That means you can only do that for 20 seconds for now.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The boost of 100% is the limit for now, because if you do more than that, you risk damaging your brain, and as you need your brain, to heal your brain, that is a huge no-no.

If you want to go over 100% with something other than your brain and nerves, you just must find out how to do it with the Skill.

I mean, that is what progressing your Skill means after all.

I would advise you to start training your Augmentation at the 10% level, so you can use it as long as you want.

First, at rest, like in meditation, perhaps together with your Aurasense, if you can.

Then while walking and doing simple things, and only then while you do your fighting training.

What do you think?

Well, it sounds doable.

So, mornings for fighting training, afternoons magic training.

And I think a little Bunny hunting, whenever I need a distraction.

If you can call it hunting, if I did understand you right, I only have to make enough noise, and one hears it, it comes running, trying to murder me.

Kagami looked at him and shook her head.

I cannot believe, that in your world they are so harmless, that people hold them as pets.

Bunnies are crazy. And really, no joke, if they are awakened.

You have forgotten something in your planned training schedule.

What?

I told you about your hands!

The inventory thing, that Karneol gifted you.

You must learn to use that too. Or you have to leave a lot of the stuff here!

The Money alone weights more than you.

Oh, yes!

I totally forgot about that!

How does that work, anyway?

Well, I have just the description of the process that Karneol gave me.

It was the first time that Kagami sounded unsure.

You take something into one or both hands, then you send your Mana through your hands, enclose the object with your aura, and push.

You will then push that object out of her into who knows where.

Then comes the not-so-fun part. You must split the part of your aura that is around the object from the rest of your Aura and let the object go.

That will be painful. And such aura damage needs time to heal. And until it heals, your Aura container lacks this amount, which means you have less Mana until it has healed.

At least you don't lose part of your Aura when you take something back out.

Well, I mean, you can try it, and we can still leave stuff here if it is too painful.

We will see.

By now, Alex had built a nice little damm, and his feet were freezing, from standing in the water.

We can try it later or tomorrow. For now, let's just try to learn how to best train the Skills.

With that, he got out, tried his feet, and put the boots back on. Oh, glorious warmth, he thought.

Then he went back to the camp.

Alex laid out one of his blankets on one side of his training area and sat down cross-legged.

Looking at Kagami he asked.

Ok, how do we start this?

I think we start with the Aura sense, as you already have some experience with it.

She said, sitting down opposite him.

We should first concentrate on what you need for healing. All the other stuff you can do with an Aura sense is nice, but we can take our time with it.

So, you should try to block out the sensations that come from the surface of your Aura and concentrate on the inside.

At the beginning, it is likely useful if you close your eyes and try to ignore your other senses, so you have as few distractions as possible.

Alex nodded affirmatively and closed his eyes. Breathing slowly, he tried to block out his familiar senses.

Remember last night when you felt your Aura, find this sensation again, but don't try to manipulate the Mana. Just feel it and nod if you have a clear picture of it, and don't fear losing it again.

He soon had again this picture in front of his inner eye: a green misty cloud in the form of his body sitting cross-legged.

But it took some work and concentration to hold it while nodding.

Good!

Can you hold on to it while listening to my voice?

Again, Alex nodded.

Now picture how your Mana is not just sitting in your body. It's imbued in every part of you.

Every bone, muscle, organ, and fluid inside you. Every single cell, every bacterium or even a virus.

It doesn't just imbue everything; it also interacts. It follows your blood cells, it works in your muscles and organs, and it hunts for harmful things.

Trust your own Mana, and let your sensation of it, your inner picture of it reflects what it does for you.

In absolute fascination, Alex experienced a slow change in what he sensed.

While Kagami led him with her words, the green mist got distinctive. Not that it overall changed, but parts of it got their own meaning.

They told him what they were. Some told him they were bones, some spoke of muscle fibers, and others of red and white blood cells as they rushed through his body. There was so much!

It stormed his understanding like a tsunami, and he had to tear himself away and open his eyes for fear of drowning in this sense.

Oh my God!

He cried out.

How can I do anything with that? It's just too much information!

Yup! And now you know why you can't do cultivation without the help of a Class.

To be able to do bodycultivation to sense all this information would only be the first step.

But don't worry.

You get too much information from every sense you have. You are just used to ignoring them.

As you had them since birth, your brain does the ignoring and selecting what it does not ignore automatically. You have a new sense now, and you must learn to use it now.

Try to concentrate on only a small part, a single bone or even just one cell.

At first, the rest will drown it out, sooner or later. But with training, you will be able to hold the noise back and sense only what you want.

Alex nodded, still a little shell shocked from the sensation. That sounded logical.

Ok, I give it a try.

But tell me before the afternoon is half past.

I really want to try the augmentation and this inventory today, too.

The following time, Alex tried it again and again. Each time, the force of the sensation, flowing in like an unfathomable high tide, swept him away and broke him out of his concentration.

But even though he was nearly never able to focus on a single detail before that happened, it was such a fascinating experience that time flew away from him.

And Kagami told him, that he was still able to heal, by picturing the damage and giving his Mana intend; it was just a lot more expensive in Manausage and not as flexible. As an example, she told him he wouldn't be able to heal damage he wasn't aware of.

Even with so little progress, he was so absolutely captivated by this experience, that he was surprised, as Kagami told him, that half of the afternoon was already gone.

So how do we do this now?

Alex asked Kagami,

I mean, do I stay where I am, or should I be in motion?

I think you should stay sitting, at least for the first few tries, least.

This is much easier than the Aura. At least if you are just using it on a basic level. The Skill will do the work, and you just need to concentrate on your intent and guide your Mana.

The difficult stuff will come, if you want to, for example, only want to boost your strength. The Skill helps a little with the learning, but you will have to do most of the work by yourself.

There are gods, who give their servants Classes, that do more, and help more. But something like that would cripple you for the future. People with Classes like that will never make it to the worlds of the higher thresholds.

Alex was surprised; that was the first time she mentioned that you could chance worlds.

What? You can get to those other worlds?

Yes! But you need to get to a certain level of power and competence to get there. Believe me, that needs time. Years!

For now, we need to concentrate on the now!

You have already moved your Mana in little ways, and you felt the amount of Mana, your Exessmana, that leaves you if you do not use it. I want you to infuse your Mana with the intent of augmenting your body. You have to will it.

That's the easy part. It will use your full Mana in one go, and you double everything for about 20 seconds.

After that, you are full of Essenz, and totally empty of Mana. That will go with a feeling of weakness and maybe some other sensations.

After that, it will take about one hour and 40 minutes until the essenz has left your body and enough Mana has flowed back in, to be full again.

Just see it as something that you can do in an emergency when you can't afford to use more concentration for the skill.

The difficult part is to just infuse the right amount of Mana, exactly how much you need, with intend, and keep this infusion going stable, while doing other things. That is the goal of our training here, and that is what you should be able to do before we leave here.

Are you ready?

Well, I think so.

Alex answered.

I'm at least ready to try!