I ran to the left and put my finger on the small bead in my ear.

“Dodger, Fluffy wanted to go left so I’m following him.”

“Okay.”

There were more people the further we ran, and it started to get harder to get through them. I stopped momentarily and put Fluffy on my shoulders before continuing on.

“Her method won’t work for you. You must have noticed that your aura is doing the opposite.”

“Then what should I do?”

“First you should stay away from using your sword for now, you were able to cover your whole body in aura on the last floor so stick with that and don’t use any to reinforce your strength to start off. We should be getting closer to some enemies soon so see how you do with just that first and then we’ll consider something a bit more complicated.”

“Okay.”

I reached a decently sized courtyard area, and at the far end of it there were some people dressed in uniforms fighting against something I couldn’t see just yet. The uniformed people were colorful like the rest of the towns people I’d seen past me and as I got closer to them, I saw who they were fighting.

I was a bit confused by what I was seeing. It first just looked like overall their colors were muted. For some it seemed like they were so light in color that they appeared to be transparent. They wore armor covering most of their body so I couldn’t be sure. I was limited to looking at the skin that was visible through the gaps of their armor.

The enemy was overpowering the others, with one side wearing armor and the other just wearing normal clothed uniforms it wasn’t overly shocking. I saw a fountain to my left and headed for that lifting Fluffy off of me. I put him down by it and pointed for the top part.

“Stay up there for now, okay?”

There was a statue of a half man half fish person holding a vase and the water was flowing out of it. It seemed like a decent spot for him to sit while I was busy.

I mean I was sure that I could fight with him on my shoulders, but it would probably be harder to pay attention to my aura if there was more touching me. As I went over there, I concentrated on covering my body with aura.

I tried to just let the smallest amount escape, but I felt the ground crush beneath one of my feet, so I stopped in my tracks.

“It seems you’ll need a bit more thought. Keep it just to your torso for now while I think about it.”

He didn’t have an answer right away, that was new. Well either way I was sure he’d come up with something useful. I mean otherwise just keeping it to my torso should work for the rest of the floor and we could take plenty of time to consider things while we were in the rest house.

I took the aura around my legs back in and felt a solid amount around my arms and torso. The armor though, felt like it was sitting on top of it. Dodger mentioned I’d be able to cover it, so I tried to isolate the aura under it and move it out just a bit more. Instead, aura inside just came out and surrounded it.

It felt a little weird, but I didn’t really want to think about it. I’d get to fight soon, that was much more worth my attention.

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I started running towards the line of enemies again. Before I got there, the line of guards was toppled over, and the deep dwellers burst through. The few that were left standing were quickly knocked over as well and trampled.

Since my legs weren’t covered, I stuck to using my arms and punched the first one I came across. There wasn’t an explosion of blood and brain matter this time, so the force was not extreme.

Good, this should work for now.

The majority of them were down with a punch or two and they only came at me one or two at a time, so it wasn’t much work. After I’d taken quite a few of them down though, the group turned their full attention to me and started piling on me.

I through off one or two but eventually I had four or five on me. If I had mana, I could send out a wave like a shield and throw them all off in one go.

I wouldn’t have that luck, I’d need to put more force into things, but just a little more. It should be concentrated too, so not my entire arm… maybe just my fingers?

I grabbed the head of the one on my left arm with my right and concentrated on reinforcing my fingers slightly. I felt my grip come together and the body on my arm went limp. I threw its body off and grabbed the one on my right arm.

The same amount maybe even less would work.

I tried less, and my grip didn’t close as quickly but the body went limp halfway through, so I threw this one off too.

I grabbed the two on my back by their armor and threw them into the group of enemies that were running back towards me.

They crashed into them and struggled to get up. But I still had some on my legs. It was easier though since my arms were free so I could throw two at once.

I was able to swing them off with a kick for each leg and threw them towards the few that had managed to stand up.

I charged them and punched any that moved to be sure.

Now that the ones around me were done I looked for Fluffy.

He was perched atop the fountain and was rocking back and forth a big grin on his face.

“Let’s go Fluffy!”

He jumped off from it and I tried to close the distance between us fast enough to catch him.

I don’t know why I did though. He’d be fine landing on his own.

He landed in my arms and put him on my shoulders.

“Head down the path they came from, and I’ll try to explain my idea on the way.”

I nodded and turned towards the street they had come down. I saw the guards that had survived the initial trample checking on their comrades. I’d be surprised if any of them were alive, but then again there were more people moving than I initially thought there’d be.

I ran past them though down a much wider street than I had first ran down.

“Alright, I’ve considered the methods of aura training, and the basics you had done. And unfortunately, we have to reconstitute your aura imaging.”

What did ‘reconstitute’ mean, I don’t think I’d heard it before.

“Beast kin and goliaths have a different amount of innate aura and so being trained by a beast kin leaves you with a weak foundation that wouldn’t be sturdy enough to support amounts of aura like you have. How Dodger has managed her own amount I’m not sure, especially considering how badly she described things.

For the most part Alcoroth used simple common words which was nice, but I didn’t really want to tell him I didn’t know the word. And since I was so focused on that while I heard what he had said I didn’t really process it. He’d probably keep explaining if I stayed quiet, so I’ll just wait.

“In the past you had focus on taking the amount inside and push it out to cover a specified area. Essentially you were moving it like you did when you were unblocking your pathways. What you need to think about is briefly opening a whole to let it move out and then close it quickly once you have enough.”

“But when I was covering my ears-”

“Quartz, Lefty and Dot have figured out their formation. There are three attack squads, each have a captain, fifteen mages and a hundred footmen. The three squads are working separately but slowly moving towards the temple. At the next intersection take a left and then the first right and then keep going straight you should make it to the line of mages. They’re stationed on a large building with the captain.

“Don’t think about the footmen in the area that you don’t run into just get to the mages and captain first. The rest can be dealt with easily afterwards. And if you do it fast enough, you’ll be the one that gets to fight the commander. You managed to pick the route that’s closest to where it seems they entered the city. Once you’re there don’t worry too much about not destroying things. It’s a decently open area so I’m not too worried about you wrecking too many things.”

Sailhin spoke in Elvish, so I responded in the same.

I put my finger on it, “Alright, left then, right?”

I made it to an intersection.

“Yes-“

I took the left.