“The 2-Star Ray you will learn first is, Water-Cloud.”
Lapis on saying this, grabbed her staff and slightly raised it. A small cloud made from water appeared on top of her staff, “This is the 2-Star upgrade of Water-Ball ray, Water-Cloud ray.”
Lapis explained, “Upgrading a Ray can mean 2 things, first increasing a lower star ray’s star level, this was done to Water-Ball ray. In the second case, it could mean changing the Ray’s area of effect, its damage, needed ray manipulation and there are countless more things.”
Lapis kept explaining. “Dear student, to have water blobs come out the cloud manipulate the ray in your surroundings, then from the ray you manipulated, pour it into the cloud making these blobs come out as a result.”
Azura did this by moving her staff slowly on a circular motion, with staff’s head pointing horizontally towards the water cloud. One could not see but the ray in the surroundings started flowing like a vortex, with its centre being the water cloud. This caused a water blob to appear.
Although one couldn’t see it, Shin could sense the ray forming into a vortex. Comparing it to how Shin had manipulated ray, one could say that he requested the ray to move, while Azura commanded it.
He was far from this level of ray manipulation, as of now.
Lapis slashed her staff at the direction of the water blob that had come out. The blob then split into 2 tiny blobs.
“This ray is commonly used to create shields, from the blobs. Or you can make basic weapons out of it like a pole, but it is too hard to make something more complex like a bow or even a sword. Also, its impractical considering the blob will disappear as you stop manipulating the ray, causing your meticulously crafted weapon to disappear. And you will have to spend a great deal of time shaping it again. That’s why this ray is one of the weaker 2-Star rays”
Lapis kept talking, “To make the water cloud appear, simply wave your hands vertically like I did with my staff. And then think of condensing the ray present into a water shape. Now dear student, your turn.”
Shin was thinking, ‘This can be an extremely useful ray at certain times.’
He then visualised condensing the ray in the air, as she raised his hands. He succeeded in his first attempt; the water cloud had appeared in front of him. He was glad he asked the goddess for increasing his learning speed.
‘My learning speed being raised to the maximum by the goddess, is starting to show its benefits. It was worth it wishing for this.
Shin suddenly recalled how Azura wished to be help to him. And maybe for the first time in his life, his lips slightly curled up to a smile.
Lapis saw Shin’s faint smile, and was surprised. Even though Lapis had just met Shin, she still knew that he was not a person who smiled a lot.
‘Try to reach the academy without dying.’ Thought Shin.
***
[If I am here, then what is happening to my body!]
Her skill answered. [Master the time in this world flows extremely slowly, so the time you spend in this world, should amount to less than a second on real world.]
Azura was relieved hearing this, but she also was curious about this world, that her skill called her ‘Absolute Realm.’
So, she asked it. [Earlier you told me that this is my absolute realm, but what is an Absolute Realm?]
Her skill replied. [Master Azura, every alive being in this world has their own respective Absolute Realm. But they can’t enter here without any special means, like how you got here due to me. This is a place where one’s consciousness resides.]
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[I see, but why does time flow so slow here.]
[Master Azura, that is because of me.]
[Of you?]
[Yes, it is because I coexist with you inside your consciousness now, so instead of one. Now there are 2 beings who reside in your Absolute realm, this caused some instability causing time to distort.]
After all her problems were solved, Azura decided to just give into the feeling of euphoria and get to the real world. Before that there was one last question, she needed to ask her skill.
[Will you be talking to me, outside this place too?]
[Yes.]
After hearing the answer, she completely relaxed her mind. And just enjoyed the feeling, as her consciousness was fading. She wasn’t thinking of anything, except one thing. It was Shin, even after the feeling of euphoria had made her loose herself and everything in this world. She was still thinking of Shin.
Maybe it was her love for Shin, that even allowed her to remember him after losing herself. Or maybe it was an obsession. Whatever it was, it meant more to her than the feeling of freedom that every human consciously or subconsciously yearned for.
In less than a minute, she went unconscious again.
.
.
.
After she regained her consciousness. She was leaning on a black fluffy cloud. As she opened her eyes; she was back in the real world.
Christina spoke to Azura in a bland tone, “What happened to you girl, you suddenly fell.”
The voice spoke on Azura’s head. [Master Azura, you are back on the real world.]
Azura had now regained her senses. Her vision was still blurry. As she heard the voice of her skill, and she was glad.
The feeling of euphoria had disappeared now, and she was feeling completely normal.
Azura touched the fluffy cloud she was leaning on and then stood upright, “Sorry master, I just felt a bit dizzy and fell.”
Azura said as she was cuddling the fluffy black cloud, “Did you summon this cloud master, thank you.”
Christina nodded with a normal face. All the time Azura had spent on her Absolute Realm, amounted to less than a second in the real world.
Christina sat on the grass with one of her knees up, and the other one stretched out, the cloud she had summoned disappeared as she sat down. “If that’s out of the way summon the light cloud again, and try to consecutively shoot 3 lightning bolts out.”
“Yes master.”
As Azura was about to do the movements of her hands to summon the cloud, her skill helpful spoke out in her mind. [Master Azura Would you like assistance in using this ray.]
Azura was curious about the functioning of her skill, so she commanded her skill.
[Yes, assist me.]
As she thought this, her hands started moving on their own. Making the spiky motion in elegance, unrivalled from even when Christina had used it before. In her making the spiky motion, there was not even a nanometre of useless movement.
The cloud was then summoned again, this time it was just like the one Christina had conjured before, it was less transparent than the one summoned by Azura before.
Although her arms were moving on their own, Azura still felt as they were in complete control of her. She was really happy with how useful her skill was.
With the use of this skill, she would never have to trouble with learning a new ray again!
[Master Azura, to choose where you want the lightning bolt to strike. Please think of the location you want to strike, and think to shooting a lightning bolt there. All the other actions are automated by me.]
[Okay, I’ll strike the rock there.]
She glanced at a rock, the rock was the size of an average dog, she thought of striking the rock with lightning.
Crack.
A lightning bolt hit the rock and caused a big crack to appear on it.
[Okay two more times.]
Crack, Crack.
The lightning bolt hit the rock two more times, causing it to be blown into bits.
Azura spoke in a cheerful tone, “Master I did it.” Azura was really into fantasy novels back on Earth, she also got quite happy when the goddess mentioned reincarnating them. It was natural for her to be excited after using something like magic.
On Azura succeeding in shooting the lightning bolt 3 time consecutively, Christina was inwardly happy. Since now she found a talented student to teach, it would be easier for her to get in the academy as an instructor.
Christina got up from the ground and got close to Azura, “It’s time for you first test.”
“Already?” Yelled out Azura in a normal, yet slightly nervous tone.
“Yes, already. For your first test, you will need to bring me 5 corpses of Little Black Saplings.”
***
Shin after having summoned the water cloud, clapped his hands together, while thinking of grabbing all the ray in the surrounding. The ray then from both directions shot onto the water cloud. Causing a blob of water to come out from the cloud.
Seeing this Lapis said, “Neat way of collecting ray into the cloud dear student, it is the most efficient way. Since you don’t have a staff like me, so making a vortex would not be very efficient.”
Shin then chopped at the direction on the blob, causing it to be split onto 2 even halves, each half being the size of a teenage girl’s torso.
He got closer to the 2 water blobs, and grabbed them both. Even though these were made of water, he could hold them like they were solid. They were also light as feather, he figured that it was because of something related to ray.
Lapis from where she was standing dispelled her water cloud and the blobs disappeared too, “Dear student, we should head back to the others. We will pick up on this later, the food must be done too.”