บท 207: Training combat ability (1)
He spent his days with his family until it was Monday and once again time for him to go to school.
During that time, Jane had at first clung to him at all times but soon she seemed to have realized that he wasn't going anywhere and once again gave him some breathing room.
Ivan had used the time not only to play with her but also to think about his way forward. So on Monday when school ended and he was back home, he called Celine.
"Come with me. We are going to the herb dungeon.", he told her. He had neglected that dungeon lately with all the other things going on.
The dungeon did seem like a good way for him to get stronger even with his current predicament of having his stats locked. It could not only provide him with ample combat experience but also increase the power of his soul. Something especially important for cultivators.
Besides, the rewards were good as well.
"Do you want to come as well?", he then asked Leopold who was lounging around on the couch.
The lizard only shook his head, "I'll pass. I have a meeting with that girl from the neighboring villa."
Ivan could only shake his head at his answer.
"Do you need to prepare anything?", he then asked Celine.
"No. I have got everything ready."
Since Ivan only knew about the entrance of the Herb Dungeon that was located at the Slavers Alliance, they had to first travel there. Since Celine counted as something similar to a summoned pet, it was no problem to use the traveling app on his phone to appear in his small room at the dorm, with her.
It had been a while since he had been here but everything was still clean and orderly. It seemed like no time had passed since the last time he had been here.
Ignoring the room, he led Celine outside and towards the teleportation gate of the dungeon. They didn't meet anyone Ivan knew, which wasn't surprising since he didn't know many of the alliance. Which reminded him, he had to still do some quests.
There weren't any problems, so soon the pair found themselves inside the Herb Dungeon on the small platform at the start of the first floor.
He then summoned Vlada as well. As usual, the first thing the little bat did, was to snuggle into his hands, asking for some petting. Something he was happy to oblige with.
"Do you just want to go through with it or do you want to really train your combat experience?", Celine asked him while looking around.
"What do you mean?", he asked her confused.
She grinned while answering, "While you were away I got a lot stronger. So I could most likely just breeze through the first and second floor.", she told him with pride in her voice.
"Wow.", he felt astonishment. He knew that she would get stronger but he hadn't expected it to be this drastic. He then curiously asked, "So do you have a plan for me to train my combat experience?"
He was well aware of the fact that she had much more experience than him, which would make her plan much more effective than any he could come up with.
"I got a couple of ideas.", she responded, "So which would you like? Normal difficulty? Hard difficulty? Or insane difficulty?"
"There are this many difficulties?", he asked in surprise.
"Yeah. For example, the normal difficulty would be just fighting with everything you have, while I will give you tips. The hard difficulty would be me just watching and Vlada would be watching as well. You would have to do all the fighting yourself but you could still use all your skills."
"Then insane difficulty would be?"
"You fight alone and you can only use mana based attacks.", she grinned at him. Somehow he found that grin terrifying.
"Why do I think you would enjoy that the most?", he quietly muttered. But of course, it didn't escape her ears.
"Isn't it fun to watch others fight for their lives?", she asked while looking at him with a pointedly innocent expression.
"Sure. Everyone enjoyed watching others have a hard time. But that doesn't mean that person enjoys it."
"So? If you go insane difficulty, I can enjoy your sweating and fighting for your life, having a hard time, while you can enjoy rapid improvements. Isn't that a win-win situation?"
"A win-win situation where you don't have to do anything."
"So? It's not my fault that I'm much better than you."
"Well, you are much older than me after all.", he fired back with a cheap shot.
Still, Celine took it with stride. She even fired back, "Are you sure about that? From what I heard about you before your reset, you might just be much older than me."
"So what? That doesn't count. During my reset, everything changed for me."
"Then for me, anything before my racial change doesn't count either."
"How could that be? Only your body changed but all your memories stayed intact.", he protested.
Seeing that it would continue to evolve into even more bickering without anything constructive coming out of it, Celine who was the more mature one of the two, hurriedly put a stop to it.
"Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that you are lacking experience. So what do you want to do?", she asked, her tone once again serious.
"I'll go with the insane difficulty.", Ivan didn't have to think long. It wasn't like he had much to lose. And even more importantly, using only his mana to fight would improve his 'Mana Manipulation' skill. Something that he had determined was an extremely useful skill for him to get stronger even with his stats locked.
This was the loophole he had found while thinking about how to improve even with locked stats. Sure without the ability to increase his stats he couldn't improve the amount of mana he had or his strength or any other stat of his body. But that didn't mean that he couldn't improve his usage of what he had.
In this aspect, it might even be a good thing for him to have this stat lock happened to him. If not, he might not expend so much time on improving the way he controlled his strength and mana.
The ability to exert a strong amount of control over mana or any form of energy, might not seem that important at the beginning since it looked to be easier to just increase the amount available than think about ways to use what one had more efficiently. But later on, on the road of cultivation, it would be possible to see a huge difference.
Not only could a stronger control improve cultivation speed but it would also improve battle prowess.
But even though he had already planned to train his skills now that he had time, he hadn't planned something as drastically as the method Celine had proposed.
"You use your mana skills to fight the monsters until you have completely exhausted your mana. If you haven't managed to kill it then, then and only then you can also use your sword.", she instructed him. "I'll only intervene if there is really no other way."
Ivan nodded to show that he had understood. He then wanted to stride forward and search for the first enemy, when she stopped him.
"Wait. What kind of skills can you even use?", she had forgotten to ask him that before. She had just assumed that he had learned a few, which could be used in combat to slay enemies.
"My main skill are flame blades, but I have also learned about ice lance and ice shackles. As well as mana shields and flame shields.", he told her. Thinking about it, he didn't have many skills in his arsenal. But he had never focused on fighting purely with mana skills. To him, it had always been a way of enhancing his close combat skills.
"Hm, that's not a lot but it should be sufficient. For now, I want you to use only flame blades. You should be able to kite the monsters here without needing the shackles or any shields.", she instructed before explaining, "For flame blades the form and the structure are important. Both of them can increase the stability of the blade and thus reducing the consumption of mana while increasing power and range. You can also experiment with the size of the blades. It might not be necessary to attack with the same size if the enemy is weaker or smaller."
"Like how a small mushroom only requires a small blade while a large treant would require a large blade?"
"Correct. It is always good to keep the skills as small as possible while still archiving the desired effect. This will enable you to drastically reduce your mana consumption overall."
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