Chapter 114 (Patreon)

The first thing he wanted to do was try out his new skill. He quickly finished up his meal before leaving for the first-year training facilities. He saw some familiar faces on his way through the building. Some were playing games with each other and some were doing things on their own to the side. 

He found himself in an open room and got himself settled in. Once he got himself comfortable he started slow. First, he started off with [Arcane Construct], creating a round ball of fire mana. Then he started to introduce [Pure Compression], pressing together mana into itself. 

Julius distractedly admired how much of a change his skills had gone through. These two skills now felt as natural as breathing. It barely took any effort to use the two in conjunction. Within a second he was holding a perfectly round sphere of red mana. The power contained in the ball of mana was already impressive, but this wasn’t all he had, he could still do much more. 

Then he introduced [Mana Slash] to the construct. The ball glowed with blue mana around the surface, sharp as a razor. Using [Mana Slash] on a spherical object was much harder than a spike or a sword, but all of his effort to use the skill in different ways was showing dividends.

He had to use [Savage Dance] and [Empowerment of Will] to hold everything together, but it was holding. Finally, he started to use his new skill, [Composite Mana].

As usual, the skill was instinctually engraved into his mind and soul, allowing him to know how to use it without much effort. At first, Julius was nervous that the skill wouldn’t work as well as [Mana Layering] did. However, he had never been so grateful to be swiftly proven wrong.

Not only was Julius still able to use the properties of layering mana on his constructs, but it was better than ever before. He had been attempting to meld and integrate layers of mana seamlessly for a while now. He had been using a structure similar to the scales of an animal, overlapping each other and feeding off of one another.

However, he no longer had to put in as much effort to accomplish the same thing. [Composite Mana] had a brilliant effect of combining mana layers together as if it were one singular layer. Thus, instead of having several layers of mana, the skill had basically heated up the layers and forged them into one super strong and complex layer. 

That had several repercussions. Firstly, it was now much faster to create a construct than before. Building layers of mana took time and in a fight, time mattered a lot. A single second could be the difference between life and death. So now that he only had to worry about one layer, that was admittingly more complex, he could create a construct with more speed.

Secondly, the layer itself was more than a sum of its parts. Now the layer had the best of all of the layers, without the weaknesses. If Julius could compare it to something, he would compare it to making a shield out of flimsy materials. If one were to use hundreds of layers of aluminum foil, cardboard, and paper, one would eventually create a thick and somewhat useful shield. Just the sheer amount of layers would make it work.

Yet, [Composite Mana] had changed Julius’s constructs completely. Instead of having to need many layers for structural integrity he only needed one. The aluminum foil, cardboard, and paper had all been changed into a new material that had all the strength of the old ones but none of the weaknesses. It had the durability, flexibility, and mana conductivity of a far superior material. If his old shield was a cobbled-together wall, his new one was made out of a foot-thick layer of pure tungsten alloy.

That wasn’t even the end of the skill’s benefits. It also managed to support the sharp mana from [Mana Slash] better than Julius could do on his own. The previously difficult task of maintaining the sharp unattributed mana around the sphere was no longer as taxing. It was as if Julius was using one of his other affinities on the construct. He didn’t even need to use an empowered [Savage Dance] to keep the skill up.

He laughed loudly at the realization of how good this skill was. While it wasn’t a rare+ skill, it was a really good fit for his current set of skills. This also meant that for his purpose of combining his skills into an epic-ranked skill, it was a perfect fit.

He quickly dissipated his ball of mana and started to create another construct, but this time on a spike, his go-to attack option. Furthermore, he used [Composite Mana] right off the bat this time. 

Taking a deep breath, Julius focused and used [Arcane Construct] and [Pure Compression] to create a spike out of fire and kinetic mana. [Composite Mana] grabbed ahold of the different types of mana and molded them together, packing fire and kinetic mana into the spike with staggering power.

Previously, Julius had to add a separate core of kinetic energy inside of the spike that would detonate when he chose to or on impact with his target. He would also have to use kinetic energy to increase the speed of the construct as well as add centripetal force to the construct. It took a lot of mental effort, to use two different types of mana like that. 

Sometimes, he chose not to go through all that effort, not having enough time or focus to do it. Now, he didn’t think he would have that problem. Above his shoulder floated a deadly drill of concentrated kinetic energy and fire mana, spinning like a superheated drill and releasing a piercing whistle as it tore through the air.

Julius could see the tip of the spike literally igniting the air. He didn’t even feel like he needed to add [Mana Slash] to it now. Just the potential power barely being contained in the construct was enough to scare Julius a little bit.

Without further ado, he sent the spike of mana screaming at the nearest target against the wall. The spike smashed into the target with a loud explosion, the shockwave almost tossing Julius off of his own feet. The rings in his ears took a moment to go away and he had to shake his head to recover from the blast.

Holy shit, he stepped back a few steps more surprised than anyone else. That wasn’t even as much as I could throw at it.

Julius smiled at the thought that he could create something even bigger and more explosive. So without another thought, he created another spike over his shoulder. It took less time than it had before. Without having to painstakingly and build several layers of intricate mana the speed that created a spike was almost twice as fast as before. It was oddly freeing, now he could just infuse his mana and his skill would take care of the rest. 

He made a mental note not to rely too much on the skill though. Knowing how to use a skill manually continued to prove a very obvious advantage as he progressed, something he would need to keep on top of as he continued on his path.

Once he had another dangerously spinning spike of death over his shoulder, he concentrated and gently added [Mana Slash] to his construct. If he thought before that the spike was igniting the air with the friction it was creating on its tip, then this time he was practically drilling through space. The sharpened mana infused into the construct and the whistling sound as it tore through the air faded away.

Another interesting detail was that he could no longer hear the sharp piercing whine of the construct. It was now just silently spinning in place. He found that was much more scary than hearing the whistle. It just floated there ominously, like the hand of death.

This time, with so much more mana and power, Julius had to use an empowered [Savage Dance] with [Empowerment of Will] to keep ahold of the construct. He admired it for a moment, the spinning spike of red and blue. It was a far cry from what he had first considered a deadly spike in the troll rift. 

If he were to throw this at the chieftain troll he would expect this thing to vaporize it. Who knew, perhaps it would be so strong that it would just go straight through the troll without exploding.

With no further waiting, he launched the spike at another target. This time, the target didn’t survive. The big block of metal was pierced by the spike-like it was going through softened butter and exploded, metal fragments tore through the room. 

Julius tried to put up a defense of a hardened mana shield in from of him, but it wasn’t enough. Shards of metal stabbed into his legs and chest like he was a pincushion. Immediately, [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] activated and started to heal him. The red flame covered his entire body, pushing small and large shards of metal out of his body, and hitting the ground with a sharp ding.

[Composite Mana lvl 1 -> lvl 2]

At least he got a level out of it for his troubles.

Julius got back to his feet in time to see the enchantments of the room work in overdrive to constrain the damage. He could see runes flashing frequently all around the room and little sparks of mana coming off of the walls.

Oops, Julius winced after looking at the damage.

Gabriel POV

Gabriel was in the middle of meditation when he heard someone knock on his private training room. 

He pressed a little button that was linked with a corresponding object outside of the room. “Come in,” he told Soran.

The door opened quickly and his personal assistant Soran came strolling in. Gabriel took the time to look at the young man. He had just graduated a couple of years ago and had been offered a staffing position at Goldencrest. Soran had caught Gabriel’s interest last year and had taken him on as his personal assistant. The young man was talented, like all Goldencrest graduates, but what the man excelled at was teaching others and administrative duties. Something Gabriel hated with a passion. Thus, he ended up pushing a lot of his duties onto the young man in front of him.

It wasn’t like Soran was doing it against his will though. He was happily doing much of the grunt work. After all, he was getting personal lessons from Gabriel as he worked his way to Tier 4. Anybody would joyfully trade in some paperwork for that kind of chance.

Soran spoke once he felt like Gabriel was paying attention. “Sir, I did as you were told and I kept an eye on Julius’s student card activities. He just used his to enter into a first-year training room, but…” he trailed off looking more confused than anything.

“But what?” Gabriel urged the young man.

“But that same room just received a report that the enchantments were damaged and are in need of maintenance,” Soran finally said. “I only noticed because you told me to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary and I wanted to let you know.”

Gabriel smiled and shook his head in exasperation. “Remove any history of Julius’s access to the room and then schedule a group of enchanters there tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

Soran paused for a moment, probably thinking about asking what the reason was, but in the end, the young man just nodded his head, walking out to do just that.

That was another reason why Gabriel liked to keep Soran around. Sure he was talented and useful, but more importantly, he was trustworthy and knew when not to ask questions. Something Gabriel appreciated massively.

After Soran left, Gabriel leaned back on the mat he was meditating on and smiled widely. Not even halfway through a semester and he is already causing this many problems. If he wants to keep his head down, he needs to do better, he laughed to himself.