Chapter 74: Painful Vibrations
After returning from this fairly bloody trip, Alex began practicing Painful Vibrations in full force. He could induce three chimes already, using his punches, but during the battle with the Supreme Tree Monster, Alex had some insights on how he could increase control over his Light Aura using dynamic vibrations and increase the damage even more.
This was one of the main reasons he rushed home, to practice quickly. His Light Aura had reached Grade B, the highest among his cards, and he had also spent the most amount of time on it working on his control of the card's power. with it.
Alex had realized one important aspect about the application of cards that he hadn't read before. Cards had a certain kind of power or manifestation of some kind of skill, but the nature of the manifestation was closely tied to the body and the mind. Developing increasing control depended on trying to create a kind of muscle memory regarding Card use.
When it came to Painful Vibrations Alex had another idea in mind. He could use his Light Aura to heal himself as he practiced painful vibrations, increasing the tempering of his body.
His body had broken through the first limit, also known as the physical gate, however, he hadn't seen any remarkable difference before and after. Unfortunately, the old man wasn't here to explain if there was any tangible benefit.
Instead, Alex went to the Adventure House's website to find information. To his surprise he actually found some good information from them for one. Every person's First Gate manifested in different ways which depended on the mechanism of training used to temper the physical body and the body's characteristics.
"Mechanism to training? I used the Painful Vibrations ancient art. So what are its typical first gate manifestations?" Alex wondered and dug further into it.
Then he found that Painful Vibration had actually been used very rarely to break through the first gate, because of the painful nature of the art. But most of the previous known users manifested a vibratory force within their body.
Alex was shocked. He had always assumed that the vibratory force was a skill that he ended up training thanks to the painful vibrations...
"I had begun to imbue the vibrations into my body, just before my first gate truly unlocked. So the vibrations were actually signs of my body unlocking the first Gate " Alex thought.
"But the Painful Vibrations art made no mentions of a limit. So its true use is actually to train the vibratory force of the first gate? But why didn't the scroll mention anything about this? Ancient Arts... just what are they?"
Alex made some broad based analysis about the nature of his first gate and the painful vibrations. Without further ado he began training with the bell once again.
Alex would begin punching the bell, and cause it to chime thrice. But even though it chimed thrice, Alex always noticed that the bell rarely moved much. The force would rebound into his body wreaking all kinds of havoc. But now, with Grade B, Alex had found that his Light Aura could actually penetrate his body and he could use it to accelerate the healing process.
The pain was still the same as ever, but Alex was now used to pain. He had assumed that pain was a part of any process to become stronger. The more he practiced, the more the vibrations rebounding from the bell tempered his body, slowly improving his physical strength. At the same time, Alex felt his vibratory force become more and more complicated.
"This vibratory force is so complex, it not only easily rivals abilities of good rank 1 cards, but I can also integrate it into the cards own abilities with some luck."
Alex had tried integrating the vibratory force into his three rank 1 cards and so far, he only found benefits with the Light Aura, because it could be used as an attacking card. Both Dark Shadow and Energy Affinity didn't have any attacking characteristics. One hid the presence and the other increased energy sensitivity.
Alex hypothesized that fortification cards with an attacking characteristic could be greatly improved by integrating it with the vibrating force.
Two weeks passed by in haste, as Alex constantly worked on practicing Painful Vibrations. The chimes from the bell had reached five in number. At this point, the bell had actually begun to move quite a bit, to Alex's slow surprise. His physical improvement was also marked, but his vibratory force was one of highlight. He could now control vibrations in any part of his body and in any move.
Seeing Alex cramping down in desperate pain on the floor as his body seemed to glow with a white light would not be a rare occurrence for any of the neighbours who would angrily enter the dojo to tell the owner to stop the constant ringing sound of the bell. But when they saw Alex constantly practicing in heavy pain, their anger disappeared and they left the Dojo alone.
A myth about the crazy bell banging youth had spread through the locality, with children being scared to sleep with the name of the scary bell banging youth.
"If you don't sleep, the bell banging youth will bang his bell using your head!" Mom's scared little children.
When Alex went around for his morning runs or to purchase groceries, he would often see little children look at him with fear, which left him dumbfounded. He stared at the mirror to see if his face was scary, but didn't find anything.
Two weeks later, Alex received a call from Bill Flynn. Surprised, Alex picked it up.
"Friend, it has been some time since we met." Bill laughed.
"How did you suddenly call me?" Alex asked.
"The Family Alliance asked me to. They said you had to collect rewards for some mission you did." Bill replied.
"Oh, I almost forgot about that. Where should I go?" Alex asked.
"Come to University city. I will take you to the Family Alliance headquarters." Bill said.
"University City? Are all the powers headquartered there?"Alex asked with puzzlement
"Haha, come here, I will explain it to you." Bill said.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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