บท 38: A New Turn [5]
'A new skill...'
I already had one skill that I was working on, but as I didn't want to show it to the world yet, even if I was far away from finishing it, I was thinking about more options.
A skill could either be used to further escalate one's already prominent strengths or it could be used to cover one's weaknesses. For me, I already had a skill in the making that was part of that first group, so it made sense that I should work on something that could cover some of my weaknesses. More specifically, my lack of physical strength.
'I need to increase the baseline power of my punches.'
Having gone to the side of the sports hall to get some space to work with, I sat myself down on the floor, cross-legged, to think for a bit.
There was an obvious solution to the problem and there was a not-so-obvious one.
The obvious solution would be to try and develop a skill that simply made me more powerful, something similar to what Celine had used during our spars. Now, even if I didn't understand quite how it worked and the mechanics of the skill, I could already see a very glaring flaw in that skill.
'She had been instantly drained of all her mana...'
It had been an 'all-in' skill, which appeared to make her incredibly powerful, but at the same time, she had fallen just seconds after using it, which proved the immense fuel consumption of the skill. It was also not quite suitable for the goal that I wanted to reach with the skill.
Because, even though physical strength was one of my apparent weaknesses, I also had another weakness that had nothing to do with that but instead correlated to the specifics of my fighting style. An arm could, normally, never be able to parry or block a sword.
'...then, couldn't I just try and make my arms more durable with mana? If people can launch huge spikes of earth, that should be possible, right?'
Staring at my exposed arms, my skin showing as I was wearing a tank top, I began to slowly create an image of what I wanted to accomplish.
'A layer of reinforced mana...? Something like that?'
I had seen other students during the spars use their mana to imbue their weapons, like how Fatima's axes had been shining with energy or how Evan had imbued mana into his spear to make it move like a snake, so it didn't feel impossible at all.
'Then, let's begin by circulating mana.'
As I had already begun a similar process when experimenting with my other new skill, which was also focusing on using my arms as weapons, the first part of the skill wasn't particularly difficult.
Circulating and gathering mana, only to then lead it to my arms, and as I felt them heating up and I could see my forearm veins protruding more and more, I knew that I was on the right track.
'But... how do I make it go outside my body?'
Right now, the mana inside of my arms was useless other than putting strain on my cardiovascular system... or the 'manavascular' system would probably be a better word for it.
With time moving as slowly as ever to me, I had a lot of time to remember the sensation of congregating mana and think deeply about the process, but as I had no idea of the next step, it ended up in my mana fizzling out.
After trying a few more times without any apparent progress, I stood up and stretched a bit.
All around me, I could see other freshmen doing all kinds of cool stuff.
Evan's spear was shining up in short bursts as he somehow replicated single thrusts into multiple attacks, Celine was sporadically looking like a tesla coil as red lightning sparked around her body for a short while before she had to rest and Cerus was... meditating?
There was, however, another student as well who was doing some interesting things. With his gray hair and shark-like teeth, he was using some weird kind of sword with several sharp edges, looking like some weird mix between a sword and a saw.
What was interesting was the fact that these 'sword-teeth' were moving around the sword in conjunction with his swings, making it impossible not to fantasize about what kind of abhorrent wounds he could imbue on someone.
'He seems pretty crazy...'
Even now, while only doing some version of shadow-boxing but with a sword, his sharp teeth shining beneath a huge, sinister grin. A grin that only seemed to grow bigger as time passed, bigger and bigger...
'Wait a minute...'
Maybe it was due to how slow I perceived him, or maybe it wasn't that I just didn't expect it, but it wasn't that his grin had gotten bigger, the gray-haired man had actually just walked up to me. And now, for the first time, I realized just how insanely tall he was. He was towering over me, who was pretty tall as it was, proving just how large he was, though his body wasn't all that wide.
Wearing a pretty fierce smile, while the sword pointed towards the floor while swinging a bit back and forth, the man spoke.
"Are you the kid who challenged the upperclassman?"
A strangely high-pitched voice came from his mouth as he spoke, very much contrasting his stature.
"No, I didn't challenge anyone. Why?"
"So, you're not the freshman who will be dueling George next week?"
"No, that would be me. But he was the one who challenged me, not the other way around."
"A smartass, huh?"
Taking yet another step forward, he was now blocking the light coming from above as his crazy eyes were completely fixated on me. But even then, I wasn't feeling all that threatened because no matter what, I still knew that I had ways to escape if I wanted to.
"I like you. Make sure to not die next week."
Turning around, he didn't say anything else, simply leaving me after successfully creeping me out to the max. With shivers all over my body, I was desperately trying to understand what his deal was.
'What a weirdo... but somehow, I get the feeling that he is pretty strong.'
Unlike Cerus, I didn't get the feeling that he had the qualities of a champion, at least not all of them. What he did seem to have, however, was a love for fighting, a trait that I had also recently discovered existed inside of me as well.
So despite his weird approach, I wasn't unhappy about it. In fact, I was excited knowing that there was someone who wanted to fight me. The only problem was:
'I need to learn those skills if I want to have a chance.'
In the end, I sat down again on the floor and once again repeated the process of gathering mana into my arms while trying to visualize expelling it throughout my skin. This time, however, I had a much clearer image to visualize. Because this time, I had the face of someone I wanted to fight.
I closed my eyes, entering a world where time was of no consequence. In this world, I was fighting against the gray-haired maniac, and at some point, I got caught, having no choice but to guard against his bizarre sword with my arm. And at that point, something strange happened.
'Ah...!'
As I opened my eyes, I could see my arms glowing with a purple hue, and although it was more akin to a mist than a defensive layer, I had taken a step forward.
*****
[Jared Folm's POV]
'Birsha found him...'
Having seen the tall Birsha walk up to Ray, I wasn't all too surprised that he became interested in him as it would be impossible for someone like Ray to stay under his radar.
Birsha was one of the students who had been talked about quite a bit amongst the teachers, with Mr. Peut, his homeroom teacher, being quite vocal about his dislike that he was accepted into AH.
Birsha, who came from Servini, was already famous for a number of 'mishaps' during spars where his opponents had been left completely broken as well as his weird obsessive nature where if there was someone he thought was interesting, he wouldn't ever let them leave his sights.
'Tch! That cocky brat already has enough problems after accepting a duel on his second week at the academy!'
Ray was too overconfident, and although I would have liked for him to be taken down a peg, I didn't want him to break.
Looking at him now, sitting on the floor in a sort of trance, I knew that although his combat sense was extraordinary, his body wasn't.
There was no doubt that unless he was hiding another skill, he would find himself in a very tough spot fighting against George.
'But he would need a pretty impressive skill to...? Wait, is that...?!'
A purple hue began to cover his arms, mana in the form of a mist, the most malleable form mana could take. A form that even very few of the second years were able to produce as it was a lot more difficult to conjure pure mana rather than using mana to produce specific phenomena like body strengthening, imbuement, or spell conjuring.
A scary thought arose in my head as I saw the incredible achievement that was likely produced by nothing but pure instincts.
'He might be even more talented than Cerus and Zoe...'
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