"What do I do now?" After waking up the next day he realized that he didn't know what he wanted to do. For the past month as soon as he woke up he would eat and then go train, and for years before that he would go to school before "work". But now that he had a week off, he was totally lost. He didn't have any hobbies and didn't like watching tv.
"I don't even have any friends, that's kinda sad." He was sitting cross legged focusing on the flow of mana in his body, with nothing else to do he might as well practice.
Although his mana flowed through out him naturally, he could still optimize how it flowed. Timing, quantity, speed, all of these things were unique to each blood vessel and could lead to a more or less smooth flow; with the amount of mana increasing every second there was no fixed solution. He could only adjust periodically to account for any increases, or eventual decreases, he had. The smoother the flow, the more readily available it was. Less obstacles meant that he didn't need to focus as much when he wanted to use it.
This didn't take long, only about half an hour. And once again he was left with only his thoughts.
"About what she said earlier, skills being like training wheels. If that was the case then why are they so popular? There is no way that something so important would go unchanged for so long." As he pondered about this he got up and started to cook his breakfast, bacon and eggs with toast. A bit lavish for him but with his sudden influx in cash he could afford to spoil himself a few times.
"And why would they use more mana than spells? That doesn't make much… Ah f*ck." As he wasn't focusing he cut his finger with the knife he was using and his skill regeneration kicked in automatically. He had been using it everyday, multiple times a day for a month so it was second nature at this point.
"Huh… Now that I think about it, that did use a lot of mana." As all of his mana was under his control, he was naturally sensitive to how much was being used at any given time, and with the advice of the guild master he was paying more attention. For such a small cut it used exactly the same amount as any other time he used it, even when the injury was far more severe.
He cut his finger and healed it a few more times to properly test it. And to his surprise it used the same amount of mana every time, regardless of how bad the injury was.
"That's…. wasteful." He tried his experiment with one of his other skills [Create fire] and regardless of how big or small the flame was, it used the same amount. This level of consistency may seem like a good thing, but mana was a limited resource and while he could absorb it while in use, if he used too much at once then he would be left with nothing after a while.
He tried with [Create Water], [Stealth] even [Steal skin] but his results were always the same. The only outlier was [Body strengthening], but that skill increased his stats depending on how much mana was used so it was naturally different.
He looked at the only spell he knew, light, and tested that as well. This time the amount of light produced was directly correlated to the amount of mana used.
"Is that what she was talking about? Skills seem much more static than spells. How do I fix this problem? She told me about it but didn't give me a solution." He scratched his head in confusion at his predicament.
Skills wouldn't even activate if the necessary amount of mana wasn't provided, regardless of how small the application was.
He went over all the skills that he knew and remembered [Analysis] when he was learning how to use it. He didn't want to have to say it every time so he mimicked how the mana flowed.
"Now that I think about it, when I use analysis, I use more or less mana depending on how much I am focusing on. If I can use all of my skills like that, wouldn't that be a solution?" Thinking that he was onto something he wrote down his suspension to ask his new teachers in a week's time, they had to know more about this than he did.
First he tried to mimic [Create fire] as it was very similar to light. Put mana in, get another energy out, be it heat or light. He raised both of his palms and from one of them he used [Create Fire] while the other one waited for his mimicking attempt.
Initially he was distracted by the scene of fire spewing out of his fingers like a superhero to sense how the mana was moving but after he shaking his head and closing his eyes he found it strangely familiar.
"Why is it so similar to light? Except for a few differences it's practically the same." As it was so close to the spell he already knew, mimicking it was easy and he found that indeed, save for a few minor changes, the bulk of the spell was the same.
When he got accustomed to how it worked, he discovered that not only were skills less efficient when used under what they were designed for, but even when used as intended they still used much more than the same spell. [Create fire] was most literally burning through his mana, but the spell he decided to call flame was using half of that, even when the fire was twice as big.
"No wonder she didn't want me to train with skills. They are like a handicap that, though helpful in the short term, are detrimental in the long term."
He mimicked a few of his other skills and all of them were more efficient when used as a spell. All of his skills operated almost the exact same when used as a spell, except for one of them.
"Why does steel skin make me so heavy, it's not like it actually makes my skin steel." When used as a skill, all it would do was increase his defenses. Except for a change in skin color to look like steel, no other physical change happened. But as a spell, while it also increased his defense and changed his skin color, it also made him as heavy as if he was covered in a layer of steel.
He looked it up and found a similar more advanced version of the [Skin] series of skills and found the [Body] series. These skills most literally turns your body into something else, not just mimicking it, while somehow keeping you alive.
They were also not just limited to the stone line and had versions of it for most elements.
"That's not exactly what I am doing but it's very similar. Those look like a full transformation while mine just feel like I am wearing heavy clothes."
There was a video of the [Fire Body] skill and the user turned to an incarnation of fire: flying around the room, setting ablaze to everything in his path.
"That's cool." Starry eyed, he immediately looked up the [Fire Body] skill book but came up empty handed. After a bit of digging he found that as skills they are extremely powerful, so the public didn't have access to them. The only ways to get your hands on them were either through the government or a large guild with political power.
"It's even illegal to sell it second hand. How powerful are these skills really?"
Feeling a little down he had no choice but to find another way of fulfilling his fantasies.
"If I can't buy the books, then why don't I just mimic the guy in the video. I already do it with my skills, who says I can't do it with other people's."
While he could wait to see if the Lotus guild had any of these types of skills, that was an uncertainty that he didn't like entertaining. Plus, he had already done something much, much more difficult when he found a new, more effective way of using mana. That was an accident and he managed to figure it out. Now that he knew what he wanted, how it looked and had confirmation that it actually existed, it would only be a matter of time until he figured it out himself.
"But how do I actually do that? I depend on feeling how the mana flows to create spells out of skills, and I don't just want to depend on that woman to get me a skill book, especially after discovering how inefficient they are."
After a short bit of research, he found a few solutions to his problem.
"Well that's oddly convenient."