An experiment that popped up during his fight with Dandralith. One hack to hack into another hack to perceive the basics of mana control.

By following, commanding, and feeling the mana compressing the resource bubbles, Tetsu got insights about his unique mana, the mana present in the atmosphere, both pure and affinity-based, and learned to differentiate, absorb, expel, convert, and bend different mana, both pure and affinity base.

Tetsu finally progressed in mana control!

The deeper Tetsu dwelled on the concept of mana, the more complex, interesting, and difficult the subject got. For instance, water and its variants, such as steam, vapor, bubble, mist, aqua, frost, and so forth affinity-based mana, aren’t blue by nature.

Mana is colorless, odorless, and practically impossible to see, gauge, or sense. This is why Earthlings never tapped into the power. Some sages did, but that’s a whole other story altogether.

He didn’t know the specifics or how he came to such a conclusion with so many holes in his theory, but Saint agreed with the hypothesis.

‘Mana,’ without the system's help, would have been a pipedream humans read in a novel.

Mana is by far the most complicated, diverse, and at the same time, the simplest of the three basic powers.

Thanks to the coffin, Tetsu grasped the basics of vital energy, and with this tornado hack, he also hacked away at mana theory.

Modifying the training schedule, Tetsu allocated four hours to train his body, four hours to train vital energy, and last but not least, four hours for mana. The two basic powers, life force and mana, were far... Far behind his mental powers and they needed to catch up. With eight hours of sleep and four hours of practical knowledge, Aka hunting for essentials, Tetsu made a solemn vow of training.

As for the solemn vow of revenge.

Tetsu steps over a burnt corpse. His leg borrows through the creature’s head, breaking its entire body into small flakes of ash.

With a flick, the tiny tornado topples over from Tetsu’s palm and grows in size, picking up wind, with the help of air affinity.

The wind carries the ashes around Tetsu. His unflinching eyes fixated furiously over an ethereal needle.

This opponent had nothing to do with the Dandralith. Yet Tetsu plotted its demise with every step he took.

‘Volcanic Beetles’ are affiliated with one of the strongest forms of fire affinity users. Which makes them the perfect target for practice. A side dish before devouring the main course.

Before he rushed off like a madman, a sensible part held Tetsu back. His steps slowed, then vanished without a trace.

‘Assassin’s footwork.’

With sufficient data, RR marked and alerted Tetsu of any other beetles close by. He only had to fight one beetle, for now.

More ethereal needles appear within Tetsu’s sphere. Each pointed at a lower-level beetle in his vicinity. He noted and ignored all of them.

RR needles with the brightest color pointed at the most concentration of resource. Using the same logic, the brightest ethereal needle pointed at the strongest opponent, and this needle glowed with a crimson sheen.

The creature at the end of this needle is the one responsible for the burnt corpse. It destroyed its opponent beyond recognition. It wasn’t survival or obligatory food, but a hunt for pure joy. A sick bastard showing dominance to flex and level.

A low-level, ‘Whiplash snake,’ lower than most beasts but twice the level of Tetsu, slithers behind him, ready to pounce.

Tetsu stops and stares at a bush. The same bush from which the snake planned their ambush.

A low hiss from Tetsu frightened them out of their skins as they discarded their sneak attack and scurried away. Both Tetsu and his tooth wanted bigger game, so they let the snakes flee, for now.

After the fight, they will hunt every stupid snake into extinction. How dare they think of attacking him? Such insolence has to be dealt with death.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Tetsu admired his brain, one of the three basic powers, the strongest asset or, if you want to be fancy; arrow at his disposal.

The mark of an intellectual being is intelligence, and an intellectual person doesn’t fall for the same trick twice.

Grandma Razz made that very clear and yet both he and Kile could never catch her off guard. The simple matter of fact that Kile hated and yet was the one who pointed out was that she was smarter than him. The damned fool didn’t even consider Tetsu in the statement.

Either way, Tetsu is the superior being here and he won’t fall for the same trick twice. He got blindsided once and now he made eyes behind his head.

Quite literal eyes.

It didn’t matter if the snakes used superior stealth skills or planned an ambush within their territory. As they snuck, Tetsu saw, and before they thought, he circled around and trapped them.

If they risked charging through their fear, Tetsu would have annihilated all of them without mercy. Not that he planned on letting them live after they dared plan an ambush, but still...

The Practice match comes first, then there is always time for worthless bugs.

Tetsu drools, imagining how tasty snake meat is... somewhere close to chicken meat, he guessed.

Whiplash snakes are the top assassins among the forbidden forest creatures. They strike from a distance and with precise, improbable movements. Some think these inspired Tetsu to form his unique fighting skill, but the puzzle clicked in place only once he saw the ‘Carrier fly’ in action, so they get the credit.

Tetsu stumbled onto a whiplash snake by luck and since then steered clear of their territory.

They expanded fast and died faster. With only sneak attacks in their arsenal, once they are spotted, other creatures snap them like twigs.

Following the ethereal needle, Tetsu ignored which territory belonged to whom. Now, the entire forest was his territory, and the snakes were trespassing.

He lost a friend by disregarding a simple technique—never again.

Grandma Razz first drilled the rule into Tetsu and then made him keep track of his enemies. Back on Earth, he had to keep track of the bullies’ social media accounts, their girlfriends’ location, interests, the teacher’s house closest to his current location, back alleyways, and so on.

This data acted like a beacon that Tetsu used to track, evade, and irritate the bullies.

This strategy worked in such a way that Tetsu was praised by every nerd and hated by every bully. At first, intruding on teachers and getting yelled at, or getting forced into some extra private lesson, were the only negative points. But once the rumors of a slippery nerd spread, Tetsu received threats, challenged, and was actively hunted by every bully in the city. Some even traveled from other cities to catch him.

Other scenarios made sense. Tetsu only hated the simple-minded creativity behind the name, which stuck, all thanks to Kile.

“What else do you expect from a bully?” Little-Tetsu glares at Kile. “And I am friends with the king of bullies.” He mutters under his breath.

Kile laughed his ass off, while Tetsu had to live up to his stupendous name.

Kile being Kile, he began posting Tetsu’s hooded pics online and also gave the bullies a means to track his phone. When Tetsu ditched the phone and changed his entire wardrobe, Kile gave the bullies his tracking details and shadowed Tetsu.

In two months Tetsu developed a danger sense, a bully sensor, and memorized every street, back alley, and wastebin in the city.

A hypothetical eye at the back of his head.

When every bully lost, they called the grapes sour and left Tetsu alone. Razz warned Tetsu that bullies were the last of his worries but he ignored her.

He turned his back and now… Now he lost a friend.

The backlash from a lazy, stupid, and prideful choice claimed his friend.

Upgrading that strategy with mana and runes, Tetsu created ethereal eyes.

Either thanks to his current state or an existing blueprint, Tetsu recreated a basic technique from Earth within five minutes. The pieces of the puzzle fell out of the box and arranged themselves into the picture of an eye, placed inside a triangle.

‘All-seeing eye of providence.’

The triangle surrounding the eyes wasn’t a simple triangle either. Tetsu made it with tiny lines that swirled, connecting with dots and interconnected with crosses.

The same design went over Tetsu’s eyelids and, by infusing the rune with more mana than usual, Tetsu could blink and peek at the world from the perspective of a symbol.

Like every powerful skill, even the rune ‘Eye of Providence’ came with a good deal of harsh backlash, and without Tetsu’s knowledge, a commandment was added to the rune.

The commandment of loss.

This commandment kicked Saint out of his pride, morals, and ways of teaching, making him warn Tetsu about the grave dangers of using a commandment.

A sudden flux of information appeared in Tetsu’s mind, which he obviously always had.

The worst backlash in using the rune all-seeing eye of Providence is loss of vision. If the rune runs out of mana and Tetsu keeps using it to peek, his eyes will forever be stuck inside said rune.

Other backlashes such as dizziness, lack of current perspective, requiring ridiculous spatial awareness, being unable to draw the rune on living creatures, that include trees, some boulders, and the time required to draw the rune, seem childish in comparison.

Tetsu tried to find out more about commandments, but neither saint nor info worked. This wasn’t his first encounter with this incredibly vigorous trade-off system, and without this commandment in place, Tetsu was one hundred percent sure that the rune wouldn’t have worked.

Also, the lack of a unique tag meant some crazy Rune master already made this rune and Tetsu happened to discover it.

This accomplishment granted Tetsu with the strongest skill selection yet, and as a bonus, removed every backlash the rune carried.

[Ding! Skill: Domain access is available. Level: Asura. Rarity: Epic.]

[Accept: Y/N.]

Tetsu doesn’t even read the full description before declining the offer.

“No.” He commands the screen to fuck-off.

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