Two months had gone by and training continued as usual and I was getting used to my new body with each day, all thanks to the combat training I was doing with Gramps. The ability to move rapidly at ease, changing directions at blinding speeds, super strength; that feeling of ultimate power was coming back to me. I missed being half-demon, it felt like a missing part of me was being returned.
I sat by the lake staring up at the tranquil and dark sky. Gramps was fast asleep and as usual I stayed awake; I realised with my new body the mana consumption at idle was quite high, so I was always constantly regulating mana around my body. I had learnt to do this subconsciously, the same way we breath. I meditated often, absorbing mana and strengthening my mana pool at night; I was still stuck at Stage 5 but I could feel it, I a little bit passed halfway done until I could reach the 6th stage.
**
I sat at the hill again, waiting for Gramps to come. We usually trained here now as it helped my mind focus more.
"Zeref." a voice called out from behind me. Gramps stood in front of me, a boulder levitating behind him as he held a glass of water in his hands.
I broke out of my meditating stance and got up to confront him.
"Since you've gotten used to that new body of yours and we've revised the basics, it's time we up the training difficulty and this time try and improve your intricate control over your 4 elements." as he said that he pulled out a huge cauldron from his dimension ring, then pulled out extra firewood and started a fire; he then placed the huge cauldron on top of the fire and poured water into the cauldron, "Okay, now that that's ready-"
"Can you at least explain what's happening? What's the huge cauldron for? Am I gonna have a bath in that?" I laughed.
"Close enough but not yet. Have you ever tried to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time, well the training that you're about to do is something similar except it'll be 100's of times harder." he answered, before handing me the glass of water in his hand and dropping the levitating boulder on the ground, "what you'll be doing for the first step is freezing the water in this glass then unfreezing it using your fire and ice mana constantly, whilst levitating this boulder above the glass; I want you to do this for at least 3 hours without dropping the boulder."
"Can't I do it a bit lat-"
"Shush! Just get on with it." Gramps scolded, before leaving in a flash.
I sighed heavily before beginning with the training. I first grabbed the glass of water, I could feel my ice mana passing through my meridians into the cup until the water froze down to the molecular level, then gently I heated it again until the water particles had enough energy to break free and the glass was filled with water again. I then used gravity mana to encase the particles in the glass of water from evaporating and escaping into the air.
Now for the hardest part; the boulder that I had to levitate was about 10 metres in circumference. How the hell was I meant to keep that over my head for 3 hours?
I faced my palm towards the large boulder, then pointed upwards with my index and middle finger, causing it to rise above the ground a couple inches; the concentration this was taking was immense. I fully exercised my gravity mana on it and kept my arm in the air; the boulder idly levitated above my head now, flying 2 feet above my head.
Now it was just the waiting game; I just had to concentrate and continue to freeze and heat the water and make sure not to drop the boulder on my head. Easier said than done.
**
My T-shirt was drenched under the sweat and my hair dripped wet; I had 2 more minutes to go and the 3 hours of torture would have passed. My MP was holding up fine and was still more than 80% full, the parts of me that were fatigued were not my body but my mind. The intense concentration I was using, intricately controlling the mana output left a huge toll on my brain.
The good thing was that my body was getting used to controlling the mana much more efficiently.
"Okay Kid, good job. You can relax now." at Gramps's voice I could feel the relief as I Yeeeted that rock as far as I could and incinerated the frozen glass in my hand.
"That was unnecessary. Anyhow, you're ready for the next part of this mana controlling training." Gramps shook his head as I lay on the ground staring at the sky.
"Let me rest a little at least."
"2 minutes. You've got 2 minutes before we move on. Next stage is much harder and if you can do this I'll let you rest for 3 days as a reward." Gramps said as he started a fire under the large cauldron that was next to him.
"The technique I'm going to be teaching you is called 'mana skin'. It's an advanced augmentation skill that boosts your defence and allows your body to use spells of the attribute at will, without delay. This is an example." As he said that the gravity around us changed; if I were to guess, the gravity increased around us by a hundred fold. I had to use my own gravity mana to stop myself from sinking into the ground.
"Gramps, I can do this too. Was this the skill you wanted to teach?" I asked.
He ignored me and closed his eyes instead. I could see him focusing but couldn't understand what he was doing. Suddenly the gravity mana in the atmosphere all stopped and condensed around his body. Then he inhaled and exhaled deeply; the gravity mana formed a purple aura, covering his limbs and whole body. Was this it? I could feel the condensed mana pressure oozing off of him. I stared at him with interested eyes.
"Okay now punch me." He said tensing his abdominal muscles.
"Are you sure? I won't hold back, you know." I smiled, before getting from the ground and cracking my knuckles. I stood an arm's length away from him and reeled back my clenched right fist, "Can I use body augmentation?"
"Yes."
At that a familiar sound of cackling filled the air around us and the lightning ran violently around my fists. The thousands of volts of lightning coursed through my veins and my hair rose up.
In a blitz my arm seemed to vanish as the speed of my punch cut through the air crisply, making contact with his body. The gravity mana acting as a cushion bounced my arm back but most of the damage still pierced through. Gramps's body flew back smashing past trees, leaving a trail of destruction as his body catapulted backwards. After a while he stopped and laid limp, not moving.
I stared at the destruction caused in front of me, then stared down at my biceps. What the hell just happened? I wasn't even using half of my power. Damn!
Gramps got up immediately shaking off the dirt on his muscle fit long sleeve T shirt. He slapped his head a couple times and shook it before coming over, cracking his neck from side to side
"That was awesome! Hit me again!" he said ecstatically then his face twisted to a serious one, " How much of your power was that punch?"
"Around 40%." I shrugged.
Gramps stroked his beard in thought.
"You're still not used to that body of yours right?"
"Yeah, no matter how much I try. It's hard to control my power output, even though my mana manipulation is on point I can't control my raw power." I sighed accepting the truth.
"That's not all. You haven't noticed yet but why do you think there haven't been many mana beasts around this area?"
"Cause of your loud snoring!" I smirked before becoming serious; I realised this was no joking matter, "I don't know."
"It's because of your mana pressure."