As Matthew looked at the surface of the lake, searching for his own reflection, he found out that there is none. He looked at his own body to see if his body disappeared, but he still sees his body as clear as day. He then looked back at the lake surface to check again, but he still found nothing on the lake surface. He repeated the same action a few times before concluding,
'YES! I'M INVISIBLE!'
'Does this mean that now I can ambush my enemies? Using surprise attacks to hunt them one by one? Or maybe using the invisibility to sneak out if the situation gets worse and I need to regroup myself and compose a strategy while being invisible? Wow! Isn't that cool?'
'Heck yes that's cool, since I'VE BEEN DOING IT ALL THIS TIME EVEN WITHOUT THE INVISIBILITY!'
Matthew then tried extending his tongue outward to see if his tongue is also affected by the ability, and fortunately when he checked to see the tongue's reflection on the lake, it also disappeared.
'Well at least, this is a plus compared to the original skin color changing.'
'But, if I use this ability, then all that skin color changing training will be a waste of time… It's not like I spent years trying to learn it, but at least in my week-long life living here, I at least spent 1 hour each day training to be able to change my skin color at will, but with this ability, it will all be a waste!'
'In the end, I still succeeded in using my own aura ability which is a huge step forward for my progress, and I can also use other animal's aura ability if I consume them and add their body parts to my body.'
'And besides, the system also said that if I can learn how to manipulate my aura on my own without using a creature's innate ability, I can do some awesome stuff with them right? Let's just see the positive side of things for now, such as, even if my body gets bigger, I don't need to worry about how to manage my camouflage since I will be 100% invisible when using the ability.'
As Matthew is going on and on with his rant about his aura ability, he noticed that the glowing white orb in his mind is starting to dim a little,
Afraid that it might mean something bad is happening, Matthew asked the system,
'System, why is the glowing white orb dimming, and what will happen to me if it stopped glowing?'
'What gives the orb the glowing effect is the aura that is inside host's body, if host used the aura continuously then the aura that is stored inside the orb will be used and with less aura that means the glow will be weaker each time until it stopped glowing along with host's aura ability will also stop working the moment the aura storage is empty.'
'What happens then if it's empty? Will I lose my consciousness or… Will I die..?'
'No, the aura will refill on its own as time passes. The only thing that will happen is that host won't be able to utilize the aura at all until the aura has refilled to its minimum capacity.'
Heaving a sigh of relief Matthew thought, 'Thank God that means that the chance of me dying because of a stupid reason is lessened.'
Now that Matthew already knows his aura ability, he only needs to practice how to use it so that he is able to turn the ability on during fights or dire situations.
'How do I turn this ability off again? System, help please!'
'Just like how host succeeded in activating the ability, if host wanted to deactivate it, host only needed to do the same thing but backward. Host needs to control the aura that is being emitted outwards to go back inside host's body and return to the aura pathway. Or host can just let the ability go on until host runs out of aura. With no aura being emitted to maintain the ability, it will deactivate on its own.'
Matthew then tried telling his aura that is currently being emitted outward from his body to go back inside into the aura pathway. But after getting some difficulties in telling the aura to go back, Matthew then tried the same method of visualization of the aura now going back inside the mana pathway instead of going outwards, and with that, the aura started to obey his command and went back into Matthew's body.
After the aura disappeared and the ability turned off, Matthew then can finally see his reflection again on the lake surface.
'Since I don't have anything to do until tonight to find something to eat, let's practice using the aura ability for a while since my skin color-changing practice is not needed anymore.'
And thus Matthew repeated the process again from the start where he connected his mind with his aura center until the aura ability is activated before turning it off and starting again from the start.
As Matthew repeated the process again and again, he finally is able to do it more quickly and fasten the time required to activate his aura ability each time he repeated the training. And as his visualization is becoming more detailed and his muscle memory is more used to the feeling of controlling the aura, Matthew is able to activate the ability in only about a minute.
But not only that, as he practiced at the lakeside to see his own reflection as he trained, he also noticed that, when he activated the ability, his body actually didn't just go invisible the moment the aura is out. At first, his reflection on the lake surface started to blur, and when he pushed out the aura even more, that's when his body turned invisible.
Matthew then thought of something,
'What if I hold the aura until it only makes my body a blur?'
Matthew then repeated the ability activation sequence, but when he already saw his body start to blur at the surface of the lake, he stopped pushing out more aura and stayed in the blur state.
'Okay if that's possible then I should be able to do this,'
Matthew then deactivated his ability first before changing his skin color to light blue, very similar to the water's surface, then he activated the aura ability, but only until the blur stage. After that, he checked on the lake surface, and with his skin already light blue in color and added with the blur, his reflection also disappeared from the lake's surface.
'Yes, that works! With this, I should be able to lessen the usage of my aura since the blur stage of the ability didn't need as much aura as the complete invisibility.'
'But having more aura only means that I can stay invisible for longer. Until I learn how to utilize the aura for another usage other than using the innate ability. As of now, I can't maximize the usage of the available aura yet.'
'Which means that my next step is to learn the other utilizations of aura! But where do I learn them from though?'
'System do you know…. forget about it, the system already repeated this for me time and time again that I need to learn them on my own. And that means I need to explore the world more to learn more.'
Looking at the lake, Matthew squints his eyes as if to penetrate the inside of the lake. The longer he looked at the lake like he was searching for something, the feeling that he got when he was robbed of the prey that he spent a full day to kill, starting to emerge again in his heart and along with the long-awaited revenge that he wanted to do, Matthew then said in his mind,
'And I will just do that after I'm done dealing with you.'
After glaring at the lake for another second, Matthew decided that today is not the day that he will take his revenge since his mind is already tired from training how to use aura for an entire day and not being in his optimal top body condition when fighting against the crocodiles is very dangerous and may cost Matthew his life if he underestimated it.
'Besides, I haven't tested out my new body in a fight yet. I can't make a plan without knowing my body's full capabilities.'
'But what should I test them on? Should I go back to the wolf's den and take the 30-minute walk to that area?'
But after Matthew considered it,
'Since I'm already here, let's visit my old nest and test out my new body later tonight. Maybe another herd of deers will come and eat those juicy berries near the crocodile's lake. And don't be sad my dear crocodiles, but you won't get any meals tonight.'