Point-of-View: Zoraiz Rafayet
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"This, uh, isn't working, is it?" Said Mike sheepishly.
"You think?" I responded sarcastically, having made no progress at all.
His 'trial and error' method was completely useless, especially since he was making it up as we went along. His advice was hard to follow, and he himself looked uncertain about what he was talking about at times.
"Hm, what haven't we tried yet...," He muttered to himself, as he mulled it over.
It's no use, I doubt that I'm going to make any progress like this. I need a different approach...
"Hey, is it possible to output less that 1 Aura? Like a fraction amount between 0 and 1-," I began to ask him.
"Nope, 1 is the absolute minimum, that's what the scale of the numerical values is based on. Why do you ask?" He responded, looking up.
Huh, in that case...yeah, I think that might work...
"I had a thought, and I wanna try something," I replied, as I got an idea.
I exhaled slowly and focused as I closed my eyes...Mike said that the most important part of activating a Physical Skill ability like the superspeed power I used before is to divide the Aura evenly, otherwise I'd end up straining the parts of my body in which the Aura was lopsidedly divided.
The reason why I didn't strain myself before was because my Aura was overflowing and leaking out since I had no control, but the downside was that I wasted a ton of Aura.
Still, spreading my Aura out evenly wasn't a problem, I quickly managed to get the hang of that, Mike confirmed it by taking a look at my Aura. I'd also figured out the reason why my eyes were able to keep up with my increase in speed, it was because Aura had been flowing around my eyes too.
That technique was called Physical Skill: Perception, and the superspeed was called Physical Skill: Accelerate. Oh, and Perception is different to the technique used to see the Auras of others, since that can be used by any Meta-Human, regardless of their Skills.
Perception involves channeling Aura around your eyes, supercharging the nerves connected to it, while the technique to see Auras, which is called Appraisal, involves channeling Aura to the center of your pupils.
Anyway, I'm getting a bit off-topic. What I was doing right now, was dividing my output...first, I started by spreading out an even amount of Aura throughout my body. And then, I halved it. Before halving it again. And again. I kept going until I couldn't anymore...but it still felt like I could reduce it.
Hm, if the numerical value of the Aura capacity is really as relevant as Mike has been implying, then maybe my current output is at an odd number...in that case, let's try dividing this amount into three equal pieces.
Okay, done, but one of the pieces feels a bit bigger than the other two...let's try re-combining and then dividing again. Yeah, that feels right...and now, divide again. Good, I think I'm back on the right track, keep dividing-...oh, I can't reduce the amount anymore, I think this is it, the minimum output.
Now, then, let's double it, halve it and then triple it, halve it again and then quadruple it, and so on. I'll all put all my focus and concentration into this, and steadily and accurately increase and decrease the Aura output until I reach my goal, with as much precision as possible.
I need to figure out and understand exactly how much Aura determines the corresponding numerical value. I need to be a hundred percent sure of the accuracy when I generate an output of 20 Aura. Oh, right...
"Hey, do we have a way to measure speed? If I can measure my top speed without using the Physical Skill, and then measure it again while using the speed boost power, I'll be able to check for sure-," I began to ask Mike, who was seated by the wall, looking bored before getting startled as I spoke.
"Huh? Oh, you finally moved, you were standing still with your eyes closed for half an hour," He responded in surprise.
Wait, seriously? I'd been at it for half an hour!?
"I took thirty minutes to get to an output of 15 Aura? Damn, that's a lot slower than I'd like...anyway, answer my question, do you have a device that can measure speed?" I asked him.
"Nope, we don't have anything like that."
"Can't Neo go steal one from a traffic cop or something?" I suggested dryly.
"...I mean, you could ask him, but I doubt he'll say yes."
"Yeah, I know that, I was half-kidding," I responded with a sigh.
"Only half, huh?" He replied with a wry smile.
"Well, whatever, I'm gonna get back to it, I'm almost there," I remarked, before refocusing and concentrating again as I closed my eyes, channeling my Aura throughout my body...
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Point-of-View: Inoka Fonseka
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"Alright, I did it!" I exclaimed triumphantly, as I produced a stable orb of light with an output of 10 Aura.
"Hmph, don't get cocky, brat, that took you way too long," Growled Tara in response.
What a bitch. A little positive reinforcement wouldn't kill her, you know.
"Uh, right...so, what's next?" I inquired, before she tossed a book at me.
But she threw it kinda hard, and I was a bit startled, so I dropped it.
"Tch, clumsy little shit, can't believe that I have to waste my time on this crap."
...seriously, what did I do to deserve this?
"What's this book?" I inquired, picking it up and glancing the cover...'Light Skill Technique Index'.
Oh, I see, it's a list of Light Skill powers. Cool.
"I'm done here, you loser. Keep working on output control until you can freely control your output at will, with precision to the numerical value. That'll take a few days. Then use the book and learn some techniques. Alright, I'm finally done with this shit! I can finally leave this place!" She declared with a sigh of relief, as she turned around and headed for the exit, taking out her phone.
Not even gonna elaborate any further, huh? Well, I guess I should be glad that she explained as much as she did at all, I suppose. And if there's one thing I can agree with her on, it's the fact that I'm happy she's leaving too.
As she left and shut the door with a loud bang, I started flipping through the book out of curiosity. Oh, looks like the techniques are listed in order of difficulty, which means that the hardest to master ones are at the end of the book.
The first one is 'Light Skill: Illuminate', which is what I've been using this whole time. This one looks interesting and seems easy to learn, 'Light Skill: Flash', creates a blinding flash of light. Ooh, and this one, 'Light Skill: Blast', creates a projectile of light that can deal physical damage. It looks like the key element in using different abilities is visualization, this is pretty cool.
I then let out a sigh and closed the book, before setting it down. Can't get too ahead of myself, first things first. Tara said that output control takes a few days, so there's no point in getting impatient and rushing things.
Still, I'm pretty excited, that Blast technique sounds like anime-style energy blasts, and I bet there's a whole bunch of other cool techniques that I can learn. What's more, once I better understand how the Light Skill works, maybe I can create some of my own techniques.
Alright, time to focus on improving my output control!
Huh, I gotta say though, I'm kinda surprised at how quickly I've adapted to life in this place. Well, I suppose that it's more accurate to say that I've resigned myself to it.
But, that said, I have to admit that I certainly don't dislike it. In fact, this is the most alive I've felt in ages. Also, I'm pretty into this whole superpowers thing, I watch a lot of anime in my free time, so yeah.
And besides, my room here is way better than the shitty apartment I'd been living in, that's for sure.
Another bonus is that I don't have to worry about money here, it's pretty liberating. Man, I can't wait to master my powers, and to do that, I need to complete this training...time to get back to it...
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