Alex Volff is sitting in a meditating position in his personal training room. He has been training the {Energy Manipulation} skill for a few hours. Alex can now holds the mana enhanced state for more than one minute. He's also able to retain more mana after using the skill, about 40 points of mana, when he checks his stats. The biggest improvement though is he doesn't feel as mentally tired as before after each time he uses the skill. He only needs to rest for about one minute between each use.

Alex feels there is one problem though. His mana has increased significantly. Common sense dictates that with more mana, his mana-enhanced state should also see a significant power-up. Instead, there is little difference than before his second evolution. If before his mana-enhanced state increased his physical strength by 50%, this time it seems to only increase it by 51% to 52%.

Alex frowns as he keeps thinking on how to improve his fighting power. He plans on hunting the F**-ranked creatures this time, so he needs to prepare adequately. After thinking for some time, Alex decides to buy another skill book. Now he can spare more mana after using the {Energy Manipulation} skill, so another skill is a logical choice as he still has some credits saved.

Alex walks up to his holographic computer and starts browsing for skills. He decided to get an attacking skill this time. After looking at the skill books that he can buy, Alex narrows it down to three skills.

{ Energy Arrow (F) }

{ Uses 10 units of Mana to form a small arrow made of energy and shoots it at enemies Uses 5 rune-words to cast. Can be held for 5 seconds. [75 credits] }

{ Energy Blade (F) }

{ Uses 15 units of Mana to form an energy blade that can be used to slash at enemies. Uses 7 rune-words to cast. Can be held for 5 seconds. [80 credits] }

{ Energy Blast (F) }

{ Uses 20 units of Mana to compress an energy up to 10 meters in front of the caster and explodes the compressed energy. Uses 10 rune-words to cast. [90 credits] }

The normal skills in the Realm of Defenders requires a fixed amount of Mana and rune-words to use. Rune-words are the strange words that needs to be chanted to use a skill. To learn a skill, usually a Defender has to be able to chant one rune-word in one second, except for a few special skills. Of course as a Defender gets more proficient in using a skill, the time to chant the specific rune-words can be decreased. As a rule of thumb, the more rune-words and mana that are needed to cast a skill, the more powerful the skill that comes out.

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After thinking it through, Alex decides to buy the {Energy Arrow} skill book. It is the weakest skill among the three choices, but he chooses it for its versatility. The {Energy Blade} is more powerful than the {Energy Arrow}, but it can only be used in melee combat. As he already has the {Energy Manipulation} skill for melee combat, Alex decides against this skill. The {Energy Blast} is a long-ranged skill, but it will be hard to hit the target with it as it explodes in place immediately after the Defender finished chanting.

Alex feels that the {Energy Arrow} skill is the most suitable skill for him now. It's a long-ranged skill which increases his option of attacking. Being an arrow shape, it also offers penetration power, something Alex lacks right now as his weapon is still the {Wooden Sword}. It can also be held for 5 seconds before shooting, so he can control when and where to shoot it.

After confirming his purchase, Alex retrieves the white skill book from his [Transporter Box]. As usual, the cover shows a strange script that can be translated as {Energy Arrow}. Alex starts reading the skill book and tries to memorize its content. Alex is unable to memorize the 5 complicated rune-words even though he has managed to memorize everything else in that book.

Alex gives up trying to memorize it and decides to try the skill instead of trying to memorize it. He heads to his training room with the skill book. He clenches his right hand and points his index and middle fingers upward as the book dictates. After that he starts trying to chant the rune-words to invoke the {Energy Arrow} skill.

After the first few tries, Alex can feel that this is going to be a difficult task. He hasn't managed to even chant the first rune-word properly after the first 5 minutes. After another 10 minutes of trying he finally manages to chant the first rune-word properly in one second. Alex can feel the mana in his dantian churns slightly. He tries again excitedly, but fails to do it again. Only after another hour can he consistently chant the first rune-word properly.

Alex then starts chaining the second rune-word to the first one. When he succeeded for the first time he can feel his mana moving, but it dissipates immediately after he fails chaining the third rune-word. The second rune-word takes more time to master as he needs to rest and recover his mana every time he fails for a few times in a row, leaving him with an empty dantian.

After succeeding with the third rune-word, he can see the air above his two pointed fingers flickers with white light. The fourth rune-word is used to form an energy ball around 2.5 cm in diameter. It's only the next day that Alex manages to chain the 5th rune-word. As he finishes chanting the 5th rune-word, the energy ball transforms into an arrow 10 cm long. Alex throws the arrow to a target in his training room. The arrow missed the bulls eye, but half of the arrow managed to pierce the edge of the target. After that the arrow disappeared.

Alex is surprised with this result. The target's hardness is comparable with the normal F-rank 4-star creatures' skin. This will be a powerful weapon in his arsenal to face the higher ranked creatures.