When Leon woke up the next day, he noticed that now he could control an earth sphere that had the same size of a fist. Thanks to that, he had an idea and decided to do some experiments. First of all, he changed the shape of it and created a somewhat short dart. The form wasn't perfect, but it looked like the projectile of a crossbow.
"I guess I need to work on that after I finish my water container."
Leon made the dart fly around him, he tried to increase the speed, but it looked like it couldn't be much faster than himself. He also had to train his Earth Manipulation in that regard. Anyway, before Leon could run out of mana, he made the earth dart hit a tree. He heard quite a thud, but as expected, it barely scratched the tree, and the dart lost its shape and returned to the ground.
"I see… attacking using mana also decreases the amount of time the mana can be used."
Perhaps Leon could overcome that problem if he makes the earth denser or if he tries to compress it, but at that moment, that was beyond his abilities. He needed to train some more, but he could visualize that soon, he would be able to create a stone bullet and kill those fish. He wanted to take a shower again, but before that, he had to get rid of them. Leon recalled that on the first time he saw them, around twenty fish were looking at him, but despite having killed three, the number didn't decrease, it increased. Now around thirty fish were waiting for the moment he would enter the ocean and become their meal.
Since Leon had a lot of things he wanted to confirm, he only ran and meditated between the sessions where he trained Earth Manipulation, and his tests paid off again.
Congratulations! The skill Dash has leveled up.
You obtained 01 status points.
Congratulations! The skill Dash has leveled up.
You obtained 01 status points.
Congratulations! Your Stamina has increased by one point.
Congratulations! The skill Meditation has leveled up.
You obtained 01 status points.
Congratulations! The skill Meditation has leveled up.
You obtained 01 status points.
Congratulations! Your Mana has increased by one point.
The paths to get stronger and increase his chances of survival were quite varied. Leon also noticed some interesting things after those tests. For example, he had to meditate for a certain time to increase his mana. That being said, he didn't have to do that a single time. He could divide that session into many parts; he discovered that because he didn't have enough concentration to keep his head empty for a long time…
The same logic applied to other stats. However, the less intense the activity, the less progress he would make; thus, Leon would need more time to raise them. Just like before, the secret of getting stronger was to push their bodies to the limit.
"Let's see… I found the way to increase mana and stamina, but how do I increase health?"
Following the same pattern of the other types of energy, Leon found two possibilities. However, both of them were very problematic. The first one was to inflict self-harm, and Leon didn't want to do it. He didn't want to increase his worries, and doing something like that, would also damage his mind…
As for the second, it was to fight against monsters, suffer wounds, and recover naturally. That being said, Leon didn't want to do that either. In a fight against that many fish in their habitat wouldn't end well.
"As I had expected… increasing health will be difficult since it is directly related to my life... No matter, eventually, I will find a way."
Although Leon couldn't find a less troublesome way to increase his health, it was a good idea to find a way to raise his other status. It was kind of hard to get smarter alone on an island without anything to read, so Leon knew he wouldn't be able to increase his intelligence easily either. Raising his dexterity probably wouldn't be easy, as well. Leon was aware that eventually practicing with the bow would help him in that regard, but after practicing too many shots, nothing had happened.
It looked like raising his speed would be like building his dexterity. As for Mentality and luck, he had no idea of how to use or increase them.
"I will probably increase my control while using Earth Manipulation, but again, it will be time-consuming. Well, I should just try to learn new skills and wait for something good to happen while training them."
Since Leon was eager to take another shower and had no idea when it would rain again, he decided to stop digging the hole using Earth Manipulation and began his training in compressing earth.
"Let's see… compress, compress. Concentrate all the earth in a single place as much as possible… Mmm…"
Like everything Leon had done so far, he wouldn't learn overnight, but every small step was a progress that eventually would lead him to perfection. Little by little, Leon improved the shape and the sturdiness of that ball of earth. Four days later, he finally felt satisfied with the result of his practice. Using an earth sphere that had the same size as a marble, he hit a tree and caused a large crack in it. It was so sturdy that the sphere could be mistaken for a small iron ball since it made the three shake for several seconds.
However, that wasn't enough. Leon spent four more days controlling the sphere and increasing its speed little by little until it had the same speed as his arrows. On the morning of his seventeenth day on that island, Leon woke up feeling like he wanted to play with the fish and also feeling like he could kill all the fish of the ocean to take a bath.