NOVEL NEXT 166- Just Another Day in the Trials. Part 4.
It's daytime—I wasn't going to wait for nightfall when we're still hours away. That's why I already have three groups of two or three enemies coming at me, armed and ready.
Ugh… I need more mana or faster regeneration, because right now I could just grab a rock (well, what I actually have on hand are the roof's wolf pelts) and throw it channeled with fire. If I threw enough rocks, I'm sure at least one would explode.
Would that work? Could I channel the entire roof and break the pelts into small pieces, something I could hold in my hand and throw?
Either way, I'm already leaping toward my nearest enemy, the village gate guard. His companion is dead. If he wasn't before, the bleeding finished him off. I just saw his HP bar hit zero. The guard dropped his club the moment the flames reached his fingers. I use his surprise to drop onto him and bring my blade down on his head. The air's piercing power, fused with the fire, is brutal. I rip through skin, flesh, bone.
I land on the ground beside him and go after the nearest group.
Three of them. One of me. And I have seconds before the rest arrive.
I smile.
I told myself I'd stay focused and not enjoy this. But I can't help it. This is like a video game where I'm completely overpowered and facing hordes of enemies who can't even scratch me. I'm the perfect fusion of an indestructible tank and an unstoppable killing machine.
I mean, I was never this strong in MMORPGs. I usually ended up face-down in the dirt, whether against mobs or other players in PVP.
But this... this is different.
This is feeling the raw strength in my muscles, the agility of this body, the hardness that earth channeling grants me. My weapon extends with each slash as if it's become part of my very soul, and I move with perfect balance—like I'm dancing through a sword kata. One of those forms Catrina drilled into me every Wednesday. And these enemies... damn, they position themselves at exactly the right moment for me to slice them open or run them through.
Strength. Power. Fluidity. Balance. Beauty. I'm a reaper cutting through trolls, my weapon piercing their flesh effortlessly, my reflexes razor-sharp. And when they fail me? It doesn't matter. That incredible high-level earth channeling protects me, turning their blows into gentle caresses.
They're no match for me. Not even when the air channeling finally gutters out and I have to use more force to penetrate their tough skin. The fire keeps burning them just the same.
I slay those three trolls, the next two, and three more.
Afterward, I cast again earth channeling and ask the pup for a healing lick. It only gives me mana—6 points that put me at 9 MP—since I haven't taken a single scratch or bruise.
Even when they all finally arrive—almost twenty trolls bearing down on me—they still can't touch me. I'm too agile, too fast. I weave between their claws and clubs, leap over their strikes, always keeping a hut at my back for cover. When I need space, I scramble onto a roof to renew my fire channeling. When they start tearing it down, I leap to safety. I even unleash a flash when they almost corner me.
I finish them with brutal slashes. These aren't the attacks of a sword master—my mastery is only intermediate—but they can't do anything to stop them. Sure, they try blocking with their clubs, which I slice through anyway, reaching their arms and wounding them.
And the fire... The fire doesn't spread magically or cause damage over time, not yet, but it acts exactly like any flame would on something flammable, like a club made of dry wood.
When it's all over, I feel that delicious exhaustion you get after a good workout, after real physical training. But this is better. Because I've just begun to glimpse my potential.
I can be a mage of any element except darkness. With average affinities, I know my fireball won't be as devastating as Karina's (assuming we have the same intelligence and spell level, and I seriously doubt she has my stats) or my high-pressure water jet, when I learn it, as crushing as Theodore's. But nobody has my spirit magic. Only I can enhance my body and my weapons, something a warrior can only dream of.
A magical fire sword? Nothing compared to my channeling.
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I'm going to be a mage who delivers brutal sword strikes enhanced with magical damage, finishing off any enemy while hardening my body to make it nearly invulnerable.
What will happen when my earth channeling reaches such heights that my body takes on the properties not just of hardened earth or rock, but of metal? Not just any metal: the hardest alloys that are also impact-resistant.
I burst out laughing.
It's from the relief of knowing I can actually do this, since part of me had doubts, especially after my disaster with the wraiths. But it's also from the pure joy of how alive and vibrant I feel. I've never felt this alive, not even when Vincent finally kissed me.
This—the perfect union of mind and body, having fought for my life knowing I controlled everything yet danger still lurked, this fierce, burning present—is the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced.
I stand with the still-flaming sword in my right hand, arms raised and my face turned toward the artificial sky, the ceiling of the immense cavern. There, I close my eyes and breathe. I feel my heart pounding, life surging through my veins, my body perfectly balance with my soul and spirit.
Is this why I have such high affinity?
Doesn't matter.
I let myself simply be.
I don't question it.
I don't know how many minutes pass before I stop feeling so complete, so utterly euphoric. Eventually, I lower my arms and turn my face back to the ground. That's when I hear it—the sound of a notification. Then another.
Congratulations. Your low meditation spell has leveled up. It is now intermediate meditation.
Intermediate Meditation: Through the perfect union of body and spirit, accelerates the recovery of health and mana. Recovers 3 HP and 3 MP for every 20 minutes of meditation. Allows unlocking of hidden abilities.
Congratulations. You are beginning to walk the true path of an Aetherblade. You have met the requirements to learn a new ability: Aetherblade specialization, Wisdom 10, and Intermediate Meditation. Choose one of the following two abilities:
Core Unity, lesser level. Active. When in balance, the energy field and the body that contains it intermingle. Energy and matter intertwine, one becomes the other. Your health and mana cores can be merged into one and then separated again. Effect: you can convert between 95% and 100% of your MP into HP or your HP into MP. Cooldown: 20 minutes.
Transcendence, lesser level. Passive. When in balance, as you cease being just yourself, your soul, spirit, and body become one. If you reach that state of perfection while casting a spell, you won't spend any mana. Effect: 0 to 10% chance to not spend mana when casting a spell. The percentage depends on the degree of transcendence achieved during the spell's preparation and casting.
Since I still feel connected to that mental state, I'm not surprised. I know I would be normally, but I'm not. I accept that my meditation leveled up without even casting the spell. After all, it's somehow like I was meditating in motion, in the middle of combat. I also accept that what appears to be a hidden ability has been unlocked.
Of the two options, the first one calls to me more. Because in this world mana pools aren't very large and there's no mana regeneration over minutes or seconds, like in many games. Instead, I have to go to sleep.
However, with the mental clarity I still possess, I know I can't take it. I don't have enough emotional maturity to control myself, and if I need mana to fight and I have no healing licks or potions left, I know I'd use it. That would leave me at 5% health, maybe two points, or one if the system rounds down. I say 5% because 0% seems absurd, or maybe it's just a warning. I don't know. But at 0 HP you die. Sure, my necklace would boost me to 5 if it's off cooldown, but still... I see it as too tempting and too risky.
I imagine that as the ability levels up, the cooldown will decrease and it will allow converting a smaller percentage of health to mana.
The other ability, for now, doesn't seem like much. Not spending mana is a massive advantage; the problem is the small percentage, and I don't know how it will increase when the ability improves. It's somewhere between 0 and 10%. I assume I'd hit the higher end if I can recapture that feeling from the fight, though I know that will take time, training, and meditation.
The mind is a complicated place, where your worries and all the things you have to do, even the trivial ones, bombard you when you try to blank it out.
I don't know why, but it's designed that way.
On Earth, with our modern 21st-century lifestyle where it seems there's only time for work, social media, and wanting everything instantly, we're victims of stress. Especially if you live in a big city.
And it's so easy to fall...
I myself, since I've been in this wonderful world, have realized I have the problem of overthinking everything.
The combat was so glorious, intensely about letting myself go and existing in the present, that just remembering it fills me with some of peace again.
Yes, I'll definitely be able to reclaim it, to enter that state of transcendence again—if that's what it's called.
I don't feel doubts. I simply know it.
I notice my lips curve into a soft smile as I reach out to select the second option.
And when I do, I'm certain I've chosen correctly.
I sit down to meditate, to restore my mana. The pup stays beside me. If something happens, it will wake me. If not, I'll wake up on my own when I'm back to 11 MP.
When I'm done, I retrieve the duffel bag to fill the flasks with troll blood. Since the trolls' wounds didn't bleed much during the fight, their bodies still contain plenty of blood. I fill them all, and there are still corpses I haven't touched.
I check out of curiosity how much experience I've gained. 699 XP from 32 trolls. The total should be 736, and 5% of that—about 37—goes to the pup. Given that it just leveled up to 8, that's like a drop of water compared to what it needs—2,981—to reach level 9.
I ask it to shrink to fit in my backpack pocket, hide the bag again, and we head for the rest of the villages.
To level up, I'm going to need a massive amount of XP. Way more than the pup.