*BOOM!*
A bright light shot out, and a ringing sound came after. Then, another explosion rang out, and another.
"Hah..." Ryu panted, beads of sweat covering his temple. Then, he lifted his hand again, and said;
"Fireball."
A ball of pure flames shot out from his hand and exploded shortly after just before it touched the wall.
'Its speed is just a bit faster than I am,' Ryu thought as he launched another fireball, 'Its strength is far higher than my punches, magic is truly amazing!'
The explosive strength of the fireball was truly frightening, Ryu thought. Every single explosion was many times stronger than his own punches. Not to mention, this was a ball of pure flames! The explosion could burn his enemies.
"Fireball," Ryu called out expectantly, but this time, nothing came out. Ryu clicked his tongue and repeated the name of his magical skill again. However, nothing came out once more.
Ryu sighed when he saw this and brought down his hand. He had been experimenting and training with this fireball skill for almost 12 hours now. In those 12 hours, he noticed that every 10 fireballs or so, Ryu wouldn't be able to shoot another one, and had to wait 2 to 3 minutes before he could do it again.
He didn't think this was a cooldown that set into the skill, rather, he thought that it was something about himself. Every time he shot out a fireball, he felt a bit drained- mentally, that is. It didn't feel like casting this ability took away his stamina as much as it put a strain on his mind. He felt like there was something in his mind that was being pulled away bit by bit with every fireball he cast. Then, after every 2 to 3 minutes, his mind would return to its peak conditions, and the thing in his mind would regenerate at the same time and reaches its peak before the resting room effect even came. This made Ryu feel a bit better.
"Phew..." Ryu wiped the sweat on his forehead, "Even though I can't spam this to my heart's desires, it is still incredibly powerful."
Ryu then sat on the ground while he waited for his mind to replenish. He glanced at the timer in the room and noticed that there were only 11 hours remaining. Then, he brought up the system window with a thought, and chose 'status'.
Although Ryu didn't feel like anything had changed inside his body when he had learned the fireball spell, something new appeared on the status page that clearly showed something had indeed happened.
[Magic: 1.1]
It was an entirely new stat that wasn't there before. It had appeared the moment Ryu got his fireball skill, and although Ryu was happy that he could actually use magic now, he was a bit confused. He had thought that his magic skills would work based on Ether, but till now, he didn't have a single point in it. He was confused about why a stat, that had no points in it, was in his status from the beginning but magic wasn't.
Ryu eventually pushed those thoughts away and decided to focus on his magic stat even more. It had 1.1 points now, but when he had first gotten his fireball spell, it was 1.0 points. After he had used his fireball skills many times and experimented with ways he could use it for hours on end, his magic stat had increased by 0.1 points.
'This means I can raise my stats as long as I train. Although I don't know if this is specific only to magic, even if it was, that was still pretty darn good.' Ryu thought as time passed. This meager 0.1 increase in magic had actually boosted his fireball skill by quite a lot.
With a thought, Ryu opened the statistics for his fireball skill.
Its level was still the same, and nothing had changed in its description. However, what did change was the explosion radius.
[Explosion Radius: 0.6 meters]
Although it was only a meager 0.1 increase, Ryu felt like the strength of his fireball skill had increased by a very good margin. Ryu could previously only shoot 8 fireballs before becoming tired, but after his magic had increased, he could shoot 10 fireballs now. Not only that but as Ryu trained with the fireball skill, he had discovered many ways of using it and ways that he could amplify its strength by a massive amount.
As 3 minutes passed, Ryu felt like he had regained his mental strength, and the strange thing in his mind was replenished to its full. Ryu inhaled deeply and stood up. Then, he brought up his hand and pointed at the wall a couple of meters away from him.
"Fireball."
Ryu commanded, and out of nowhere, a fireball came into existence. However, this time it didn't shoot out. Instead, it floated in front of Ryu's hand, simply rotating at a high speed. Ryu noticed in his experiments that casting this skill depended on both him calling its name and both his thoughts. If he thought about the fireball flying forward and destroying whatever was in front of him, the fireball would respond and do exactly that.
If he thought about the fireball turning into many smaller fireballs in mid-flight, it would do that as well.
Additionally, if he thought about the fireball staying near his hand, and gaining power, then it would do that as well.
The latter was exactly what Ryu was doing.
Beads of sweat started appearing on Ryu's forehead again, but he didn't falter, his eyes still focused on the fireball. The fireball began to slowly accelerate, its size increasing bit by bit. Its ball's size was originally only a few inches in radius, but now, that increased with each passing second.
1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds, and 5 seconds...
The moment it had reached 5 seconds, Ryu's face contorted, and he faltered. The fireball stopped gaining power and instead shot out like a bullet toward where Ryu was pointing it.
*BOOM!*
An explosion of power, far superior to before, caused Ryu's ears to ring loudly. The bright lightly caused his eyes to wince, and he felt the extremely strong wind pressure pass through his body, even causing a few internal injuries.
This was a blast of pure power, pure annihilation. The radius of the explosion was 1 meter, and although the increase doesn't seem that big, the power it showed far surpassed what a normal fireball would do if it wasn't charged. Ryu knew it wasn't a simple two times power increase, but much higher. Ryu felt like if he was hit by this fireball, then he thought he would definitely be dead, and would more than likely lose half of his body. Hell, its shockwave alone had caused a few of Ryu's organs to be injured. Had it been a normal person, then many of their organs would be fatally injured. If they were to be directly hit by this fireball, however, then Ryu thought they would be turned into burning pieces of flesh, instantly dying.
"Hah... Hah..." Ryu was profusely panting, and he felt like his skull was being split in half. This single charged move had consumed all of his mental strength, and the thing in his mind- which he decided to call mana, for simplicity's sake- had been drained entirely. That's to be expected, for this attack far surpassed that of a normal fireball, and was many times stronger.
Ryu sat on the ground once more and rested. He thought that a charged fireball was truly wonderful, there were 2 glaring weaknesses to it. First, it drained him of all his mana, and second, it took about 5 seconds to charge to its max power. Although 5 seconds might seem like a lot of time, if he fought against someone that was close to Tokugawa's speed, then Ryu would be a sitting duck. In a fight- especially one where his opponent was a superhuman- then 5 seconds was simply too long.
'Still, I guess I can just charge it for a second or two. It would still amplify its power greatly.' Ryu thought optimistically, his face drenched in sweat. He was still delighted about the fireball skill, as it massively improved his combat skills.
'Not bad,' Ryu looked at his hand, his eyes filled with excitement. Even if he couldn't spam the fireball skill, he was still thrilled with him being able to cast magic, 'Not bad at all. Always wanted to shoot a fireball from my hand, definitely filled that desire today.'
Ryu glanced at the timer one last time and slowly stood up as a few minutes had passed. Then, he lifted his hand, and shot out fireballs one after the other, until all of his mana was exhausted. Then he rested, then he trained, then he rested, and then trained, over and over again.
Eventually, Ryu decided to train his swordsmanship when he had exhausted his mana and go back to fireball training once it was restored.
That way, time passed by at a fast rate, and before he knew it, Ryu heard the sound of a bell.
*Ding!*
[There are only 10 seconds remaining for the next match!]
"Hah..." Ryu panted, his hand still lifted. He calmly looked at the floating window and adjusted his breathing. Ryu clicked his tongue as he read the content of the window.
'Damn it, really? 24 hours have passed just like that? I'm really getting engrossed in my training, I haven't even felt the time passing!' Ryu thought disappointedly as he saw the timer countdown. This was just like the last time, he focused diligently on training to the point that 24 hours would be passed in a blink of an eye.
In a mere fraction of a second, Ryu opened his status and checked his magic stat. It had not increased even by a small margin. He then opened his fireball page, and just like he had thought, the fireball skill hadn't increased in level either.
[7 seconds remaining]
As he saw the timer ticking down, Ryu instantly opened the next window; The Next Match Info.
[Name: The All-Seeing
Species: Humanoid ???
Difficulty Level: 8*
General Information:
1. Lacks all senses with the exception of sight.
2. Has Sight Enhancement (Level 10)
3. Has exceptional control over its body (Level 3)
4. Has a single magical ability (Level ?)
5. Has a strength rating of 2, speed rating of 1.5, and durability rating of 1.2.
Remaining tries: 3...]
Ryu quickly examined the All-Seeing page and began to analyze every single thing about it.
[3 seconds remaining]
'His strength is about 0.7 times higher than mine, which could spell a problem.' Ryu thought as he stared at the strength rating of The All-Seeing.
[2 seconds remaining]
'Thankfully, my durability is at 1.6, which means I shouldn't die from a single attack. I hope so, at least.' Ryu nodded at the thought and was extremely thankful for his endurance and durability being his highest stats. If his durability was a bit lower, then Ryu didn't have that much confidence in surviving a few hits from a monster with a strength of 2.
[1 second remaining]
'His speed is slightly faster than mine, but considering my state of instincts, I will be faster when I activate it. His durability is lower than mine by quite a bit, so that's a relief. Maybe... If I charge my fireball right at the start of the match, then... can't I just kill him with a single attack?' Ryu felt a bit excited at the thought of ending a match with a single attack, but he quickly shook that thought away. After all, he didn't know how his opponent would fight.
[Time is Up!
Please choose your match;
1. The All-Seeing. Reward: Sight Enhancement
2. The All-Sensing. Reward: Touch Enhancement
Time: 00:00:59]
Just as Ryu was thinking, the timer had finally ended. The window suddenly enlargened and showed him his available matches. Tokugawa's name wasn't here, which was to be expected.
Ryu stared at the window for a few moments, before returning to the All-Seeing page. After all, he had an entire minute.
'His sight enhancement is at level 10, which is 2 levels higher than Tokugawa's hearing enhancement. I wonder how powerful would his sight be?' Ryu thought, before he eventually closed the window, and opened another one; The All-Sensing.
Ryu casually glanced at the page and clicked his tongue. All of the All-Sensing stats were higher than Ryu- With the exception of Magic, Endurance, and Ether, as the system hadn't shown those stats- and its durability stood at an absurd level of 2.1. After personally witnessing the strength of points difference, Ryu felt like even if he had hit The All-Sensing with a fully charged Fireball, it would barely graze him. After all, Ryu was able to easily withstand Tokugawa's punches and kicks, despite his durability only having been 1.3 at that time, only 0.4 points higher than Tokugawa's strength stat.
Ryu let out a sigh and eventually decided on the All-Seeing. He thought that, if he defeated the All-Seeing, then he would level up again and make The All-Sensing match way more tolerable.
With a thought, Ryu chose the first option.
*Swish!*