Chapter 388 - This is impossible (Patreon)

After 5 hours, as if she set it on a timer, the pressure on me disappears, and I’m finally able to move. The entire time I wasn’t even able to twitch my fingers. I could only blink and breathe shallowly.

For one beautiful moment, I imagine myself punching her and think of just throwing all my mana against her.

Lissandra doesn’t even look in my direction, even after 5 hours, still drawing on the arm of the Saint.

That’s also when Myrra returns, limping on one leg. Most likely a broken bone. Something that should heal fairly quickly for someone like her. The wound must have been much worse a few minutes ago.

“Shitty day?” I ask her.

Myrra nods, “I’m glad you didn’t get yourself killed yet.”

“We are best friends now. She wouldn’t hurt me at all.”

For a short moment, her canines show in a smile, “I can see that.”

Lissandra joins the conversation, “We will be changing the location. Little pup, 10 percent of your mana, this direction.”

We head out right away, and as before, it’s up to me to deal with the monsters under the watchful eyes of Lissandra.

***

I cheat a bit. I let the monsters cause wounds to me when it allows me to save mana or to get in some nice hits.

It doesn’t matter if they damage me a lot. I just need to endure for 5 hours. After that, I can heal my body with the passive. So I think it’s quite a good idea.

Flamebearer, the axe I brought with me, is also something I’m not allowed to use. Instead, Myrra carries it for me.

As I fight against the monsters, I think about what might be the intention of this. Of course, the first is to level. The other might be to improve my efficiency.

Lissandra already pointed out that I like to rely on my big mana reserves, and someone like her would obviously dislike it. You could even say we are from different schools. Where I rely on a lot of mana, she relies on much less mana but of high quality. But for now, even when it’s so annoying, I don’t mind it that much. There is an intention behind her lessons, and so far, I handle it well.

Of course, I’m pretty sure the difficulty will increase. Just as the Veil becomes more and more visible in the sky, I’m sure Lissandra will also step up her training. Her reason for doing it all is still a bit of a mystery. I don’t believe at all it’s only because she is bored or from the goodness of her heart.

I dodge to the side, just enough to avoid the nearly invisible slashing attack that cuts through the trees behind me. Before it crashes against the two women, Myrra uses her Aurora glass to defend against it.

Infusing my dagger with thermal energy, I stab it into the monster and jump back, watching as yellow thermal energy seeps into the body of the monster that starts screeching.

Saving mana, I spin an orb around my body and then sling it at the right moment, piercing the eye.

The wolf-like monster with a shark-like head twitches on the ground a few times before dying. A notification rings, and I check my reserves.

Out of 10 percent of mana allowed to me, two percent remains. Out of 5 hours, three more remain.

For a long moment, I stand there.

“Continue.” She says a single word from behind me.

An anger washes over my body, and even I myself am surprised how difficult it is to calm it down. I always considered myself logical and, on Earth, I was quite good at controlling my emotions. But what was easy back then now requires a bit more effort.

I wonder, did my reliance on [Focus] in this kind of stuff weaken that part of me?

Instead of complaining, I head deeper into the forest.

***

An hour passes. Two hours remain, and with it, one percent out of 10 percent of my allowed mana.

***

Another hour passes, and the mana is nearly gone. Just a small amount remains, and with it, one more hour. That amount of mana isn’t even enough for me to strengthen my body for ten seconds or to create a dozen mana orbs.

“This is impossible.” I stop and say.

Lissandra doesn’t answer, and it irks me. I turn around, and seeing her expression annoys me even more. I know it’s all because of me not using [Focus] and not being used to not relying on the skill after this one year.

Yet I still don’t stop myself, “You sent me on purpose in the direction where a lot of monsters were. You allowed me too little mana on purpose to make me fail.”

“I calculated the amount of mana that should be enough for a beginner like you.”

This time I finally control myself and shut my mouth before I say anything too stupid. Somehow, my lack of control angers me even more than that silver-haired woman.

She takes a step towards me and says, “Send me that remaining mana.”

“I know what you want. Your efficiency is much better, of course you will…”

“Mana. Now.”

I do as she says, and that tiny bit of mana gets absorbed by the black dagger and turned into mana she can use.

Of course, this monster will be able to endure it for one hour longer. Her handling of mana is just that much better. I do not need to be shown that. What I do not expect is what she shows us.

For the following five hours, she obliterates every monster in her way. She does it in a way that she doesn’t use her body too much. She creates an impossible thin thread of mana she uses to cut even the high-level monsters and anything else in her way.

Not absorbing any other mana. That tiny bit, enough for me to create multiple mana orbs, lasts her for the next five hours.

And then, when it’s nearly gone, she stops, the remaining amount creating two tiny orbs over her palm. These two orbs start spinning around each other. Gradually, the speed increases to the point where it seems there are two circles over her palm, nearly touching but the orbs missing each other.

Just the sound of it sends a shiver down my back.

Lissandra then lets them clash against each other, controlling the shockwave to concentrate it, using it to bore a hole through the nearby boulder and a dozen trees behind it.

“You have wasted one hour of your leveling, one hour of your rest, and three hours of mana shaping. For the next seven hours, you will try to mimic what I just did.”

She then enters the forest, leaving me and Myrra behind.

“Why do you keep antagonizing her that much, feral one?” Myrra moves closer and asks.

“Both of us are the types who hate being pushed around, so it’s obvious we will clash.”

“Maybe you just like when people treat you harshly.”

“Totally.”

“I’m not joking, feral one. You seem more comfortable when people are harsher to you. As if you don’t know how to deal with them being nice.”

Maybe something to think about. To answer Myrra, I just shrug and create two small orbs over the palm of my hand, spinning them around each other.

“Did she also make you do this?” I ask.

“For a bit. She then said she would probably do better a few days after being born and compared me to level ten animals some ladies from the court used to have. So I got different kinds of exercises.”

“Sounds like her.”

Myrra then sits on the ground near me. With her back resting against the tree, she puts her feet on my knee, the one that’s not broken and healing.

In exchange, I reach out and pull on her tail, which gets me a surprised gasp and a soft kick.

Returning my attention back to the two orbs, I increase the speed they are spinning at.

What Lissandra did was move both of the orbs at exactly the same speed, as even a millisecond of error would cause them to clash as their trajectories meet.

Another thing is how the hell did she make them spin so quickly. Maybe I could do it with kinetic energy with a little bit of cheating. But moving two mana orbs just with her [Mana Manipulation]?

As I start trying it, I find it much more difficult than expected.

Keeping the shape of both orbs, keeping their trajectory, adding enough speed, and synchronizing that speed. When Lissandra did it, the orbs moved too quickly to observe them, so I wonder, did she change their shape to pierce through the air more easily? Did she do something else?

How did she cause the shockwave? Was that just from the crash of the orbs and the shock directed by a quickly set up barrier? Or maybe she did change the shape of the orbs before the end to shoot the shockwave in the direction she wanted?

There is also the possibility she did something else and it wasn’t a shockwave at all. Something with the frequency of mana? Certain speed to reach that result?

The two orbs over my palm spin, I keep shifting their trajectory a bit, I keep changing their shape a bit. I also reduce the mana they contain after some testing. There seems to be a reason why she used that little mana for them, well, other than her not having more.

I sense Myrra shifting and Lissandra coming back, but all of it happened somewhere in the back of my mind. This place is safe with them around, so I allow myself to dive deeper into practice.

When someone taps on my shoulder, I get annoyed. I just started, so who…

“Time dedicated for mana shaping passed,” Lissandra says.

I make the two orbs over the palm of my hand disappear, and she doesn’t say anything. Surprisingly, there are no comparisons of the current me to a few-year-old kids or some random animals.

“Give me twenty percent of your mana,” she says.

I do so, and when she takes it from the black dagger and reaches toward me, I lower my defenses. As before, she creates inscriptions on my skin, this time it’s my arm only with a few connections to my mana heart. These inscriptions are something I could get rid of if I really wanted, the same as before.

"We've been discovered, and too many monsters are coming our way. This time, you'll take the lead and concentrate on using the most powerful attack you can in a single burst without collecting mana beforehand."

“Any skill?”

“Yes, just take as much mana as you can handle at once and in a single burst and use it together with the skill through your arm without damaging it.”

Interesting. So it is something like doing your personal best in the gym? A single repetition of the exercise with as much weight as possible?

“Where are we heading?” I ask.

“North.”

I don’t even bother asking for more.

According to natives, north is where more Veil Ignition Stations used to be. That, as well as bigger bunkers and the most powerful Skyhold Islands. And the ruined continent where the body of Absolute Tassian lies. The man who made such interesting emblems for Nevan.

Back then, that healer Irvin, the soylent guy, talked about the Absolute Tassian with great respect. About how that man was capable of fighting against the Veil and the enemy forces even after falling into a trap. So I wonder, is one of these places the target of Lissandra or does something else lie there?

Just like the previous floors, I left the 5th floor without exploring it fully, so being here once again makes it interesting, especially with so many things to explore.

Packing our stuff, we head in the direction Lissandra points, and I start collecting as much mana as I think I can handle. The requirement to use my arm to direct it all holds me back a little but makes it an interesting exercise.

The question is how much mana will I be able to channel through the arm without damaging it? The intention of it being an improvement in my control and hope to move higher amounts of mana through my body at once.

I hate to accept it, but so far it seems like Lissandra totally saw through me. All the things she requires from me target my weaknesses. She saw through me so easily.

When the first monster jumps in our way and I send a burst of mana through my arm, activating [Resonance]. I even reduce the amount of mana to what I think I can handle just to be sure.

The monster dies as the oscillating mana tears it apart. There is no intention of efficiency, just using as much mana as possible. Trees splinter, the ground cracks, and everything in the path of the attack is vaporized. A chunk of the forest is obliterated along with the monster.

Looking at my mangled, bleeding arm, I also realize I severely underestimated how much more difficult Lissandra made it with these inscriptions.

Inscriptions that I now realize seem to weaken my already low constitution even more.

***

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