The next morning Havok came up with a plan for, "For now I am going to be working on my control. My teacher showed me what the control of an expert looks like and he told me how to train my control. Let's get started." Havok took a deep breath and darkness appeared in his hand. It was the same as the last time it was just a lump of darkness with no true form. Havok thought about changing its shape and sure enough just like his teacher said he needed to practice the most basic objects.
He thought about the darkness becoming a circle and it worked. However, he got too excited and lost control, the circle fell apart returning to just a black blob. Though he lost control, he still made some progress, so he proceeded to try different shapes. None of the shapes were perfect, but he got it close enough for someone that was trying this for the first time. Any time he tried moving them around his control would falter.
After practicing for a while, his mana was running low and to replenish it he grabbed a blackberry that was the size of his palm and was full of mana. He took a bite, and froze, Havok has only had those water, slop from the complex and elk. He had never tasted anything like this. It was insanely sweet and juicy while providing the added benefit of replenishing his mana.
"Damn, blackberries are amazing. Once I have some free time I need to gather as many of these as possible. I wonder what the other one tastes like?" Havok said as he picked up a strawberry that was the same size as the blackberry and bit into it right away. He realized he made a mistake by thinking that the blackberry was sweet. When he compared the strawberry to the blackberry the difference was astonishing. He would be eating a bunch of both of them, but strawberries were his favorite.
'It's time to get to work.' Havok thought as he sat down.
Ten days had gone by and Havok seemed like a robot as he did not deviate from practicing his mana control. He ended up creating and training a new technique and eating berries. He only slept when he was mentally exhausted. He found out rather quickly that even though his mana core was full he would still need to rest.
Havok came out of his trance-like state on the eleventh day of training. The wall in front of him was covered in lashes where Havok was practicing his new technique. Havok was panting and dripping in sweat as he sat down to rest. He had just run out of berries, and he needed them to replenish his mana instead of just relying on the mana that was in the cave. He decided to put his training on hold and gather some more berries. Although he wanted to eat meat again, the berries were easier to get right now, and he wanted to focus on training for now. Havok left the cave and sped off to the inner forest because that was the closest place he would be able to find berries.
On his way there Havok avoided any of the populated areas and tried to avoid contact with any beast period, he reached his destination. The berries were all around the trunks of these massive trees and he wasted no time in filling up his bag with them. Just when he was about to finish filling his makeshift backpack, the hairs on the back of his neck shot up and he followed that instinct and jumped backwards.
Right when he began to move, a large mouth with razor sharp white teeth was about to clamp down on his neck. Although he reacted in time to avoid dying, the jaws of the beast still landed just above his collar bone and ripped off that chunk of flesh. It didn't hit any bones, which was a bonus, but the pain was tremendous.
"Ahh! You fucker!" Havok yelled at the beast that was responsible for the attack. It was a cougar that was about his height with brown fur and its mouth was currently greedily devouring what it ripped off of Havok. 'How the fuck did it even notice me?' Havok thought to himself. His eyes lit up when he found the problem. He had forgotten to do one important thing before leaving the cave because he was in a rush to get the berries. He didn't activate 'Hidden Presence' and was able to have his mana felt by any mana beast.
'Well, that solves the mystery. Wow, I'm a dumbass. Now what do I do? Do I fight and risk more mana beasts arriving after they hear the sounds of our battle or smelling the blood? Or I can use this chance to try out my new technique? I need real fighting experience to train properly, and this is an opportunity to do so.' Havok quickly made his decision.
He needed to fight in life-or-death battles to become stronger, so he was going to try out his new technique, 'Licks from the Devil'. It was a medium to long range attack that turned his darkness into whips and lashing at his opponent with it. He could use the whips without touching them, relying solely on directing them by waving his hands in the air. However, if he held the whips in his hand the power of the strikes would be stronger than they would be if he just manipulated the whips without holding them.
He created this technique when he thought of a way to attack long range without a weapon and do some heavy damage. His control was still too weak to use the technique to its full potential, which also limited the range and the strength of the attack. Right now, he and the cougar were not too far apart. Less than ten feet separated them, which was not perfect, but it was close enough to use the technique without it falling apart because he didn't have the necessary control.
He tried to ignore the pain as he circulated his mana to heal his shoulder. Havok had to get this over with as fast as possible. He whispered, "Licks from the Devil". He activated his technique and whips of darkness manifested and flew towards the cougar that had just finished eating part of Havok's shoulder and it was looking to get some more. The cougar dodged the first whip, but a second came right after that striking it in the face. Havok stood there waving his hands in the air like a music conductor, the two whips were constantly in motion, when they struck a loud whipping noise was made as their speed broke the sound barrier.
Havok was not as accurate as he would like to be, so the attacks missed about half of the time as this was his first time using it on a moving target. The pain from the bite was also affecting his control as well. That was the main reason he didn't hold the whips because swinging his arm after a large chunk of his shoulder was ripped away would only make the pain worse. A few minutes later he began to become more accurate, which made Havok smile as he knew that he made the correct decision to stay and fight.
Thwack! Thwack! Roar! Thwack! Roar!
The sounds of the cougar getting struck and roaring in anger kept sounding off.
The cougar was a close-range fighter and was constantly on defense with no way to close the gap between them without getting hit. Every time it tried to get close to Havok, it was met with a whip to its face or body. The fight didn't last that long as Havok was in a rush and trying to kill the cougar as fast as possible. He knew that the beasts in the area would be arriving soon, and he wanted no part of getting attacked by multiple beasts at the same time.
Less than 15 minutes after the fight started Havok finally killed the cougar. His shoulder had stopped bleeding and the wound was closing slowly. He didn't have any time to admire his technique or his increase in his mana control as he heard the sound of several mana beasts getting closer to the area of their fight. He grabbed the cougar's dead body that was dripping with blood and wrapped it in darkness forming a cocoon around it to contain all of the blood in order to prevent a blood trail that led straight back to his home. He activated 'Hidden Presence', tossed the body on his good shoulder and activated 'Darkness Dash' rushing to his cave.
Havok made it to his cave without running into any other mana beasts and he was running low on mana after using three techniques in such a short span of time. Luckily, he gathered the berries before the fight. He quickly devoured a couple berries and took the cougar's body to the area he designated for butchery. After a few handfuls of berries, he was back in peak condition as the berries provided him with enough mana to replenish his core and finish healing his shoulder, which now had a large bite mark scar on it.