"Arrgh, you dimwit!" Grandmother smacked my head with a little bit more force than should be necessary. "Stop acting like you're the second coming of the Primordial of Creation! We already have enough arrogant assholes in this world!"
I scratched my head and awkwardly smiled. "I thought I could do it though…"
She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, accentuating something that shall not be named or else I lose my sanity.
"I admit that you are very skilled. But letting it get to your head could lead to your death. If you always overestimate yourself, someone's going to put you on your ass and you'll have no clue how."
'She's right. Ever since I lived through Rex's memories, I've been acting arrogant. I need to reign it in before I get myself killed.'
"You're right," I said, agreeing with her. "Thank you for slapping some sense into me. Ever since I found out I was more talented than others, I've been arrogant."
Grandmother's frown faded back into her normal look of indifference. "At least you are honest about it. You don't need to be humble, but keeping your mind sharp will never hinder you."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Alright. Now, what do you think you did wrong?" She asked.
"Well, I gathered and condensed the mana like normal. Then I let it leave my hand while I made a tether to connect it…" My mind raced to find the answer, but I came up with nothing. "I don't know."
"When you use energy for something, you don't just gather the energy and then it works itself out, right?"
My eyes widened in understanding. "I have to keep sending mana to it!"
"With condensing your mana, you simply need to gather and assemble the particles, and it will have the desired effect. However, when expelling your mana, you must continuously supply it with energy. This is because mana outside of the body loses energy the longer it remains disconnected from its host."
"Is it that easy?" I asked, surprised at the simplicity.
"Yes, it's 'that easy'," She said sarcastically. "Now try again."
Again, the mana flowed down my arm and condensed at my palm. The particles bubbled off my hand and floated into the air with a string connecting it to my skin.
This time, I kept the mana flow on and kept supplying energy to make up for the loss. The tether to the orb didn't break and held steady, fluctuating with light.
"Hah! I did it!" I exclaimed.
"Very good. Now, control the movement of the mana. Even if the tether is stable, what's important is that you can still control it accurately."
As I kept feeding the orb with more mana, I commanded it to spin around an axis. Sweat formed on my brow as I concentrated on keeping the power output and movement steady.
Next, I changed the shape of the mana from a sphere to a square, then a cylinder, and more shapes. As I was trying the form it into the shape of a pawn chess piece, my mana reserves finally bottomed out and I collapsed on my bed, exhausted.
Grandmother stood over me with a proud smile. "Great work today. You've improved by leaps and bounds from yesterday. Get some rest, we'll be doing something new tomorrow and you'll need your energy."
I could only muster a slight nod in response. She left me in the room alone and my drowsiness took over my consciousness.
…
I woke up later that day to a calm, female voice.
[Master, someone is ascending the tower.]
My eyes slowly opened and I raised up from the bed, looking out the window.
Outside, the sun was nowhere to be seen and the one moon in the sky illuminated the Raijin estate.
*Yawn*
I heard the familiar footsteps of a graceful gait and the door to the room opened, revealing Francesca with a much larger platter of food than the previous night.
"Good evening, young master," She said as she walked over to the desk and set down the food. "Lady Raijin asked me to prepare a larger meal portion for you tonight. I hope it isn't too much."
"No, that's perfect. Thank you, Francesca."
The elegant maid curtsied and left me to my meal.
When she left, I began eating with fervor. The mana imbued into the flesh of whatever beast I was eating replenished what was left of my empty mana reserves. I closed my eyes, relishing the feeling. If eating was pleasurable to the taste buds, filling my body with new mana was pleasurable to the soul.
I licked the plate when I was done, grabbing any last particle left. I belched in satisfaction and laid down on my bed again.
"Emy, what's my XP looking like?" I asked the ceiling.
The silhouette of a woman, which I hadn't seen in a while, faded into existence above me.
[Currently, you are nearing level 7. After upgrading your mana control, improvement decreased but didn't disappear. Your stamina and mana capacity has also increased by a decent margin.]
…
Name: Kaiser Raijin
Level: 6
XP: 2100 / 2500
Skill Points: 2
Status:
Health: 100%
Stamina: 100%
Mana: 100%
{Skill Trees}
…
"I can probably level up tonight with a workout. I haven't exercised since a couple of days ago and my body's starting to get weaker, even if it's minuscule."
I begrudgingly got up from the sweet embrace of the bed and lay on the floor with my back up.
I warmed up with a scorpion stretch, followed by multiple other stretches. Then, I did some light calisthenics to break a sweat and after that, worked on endurance exercises like wall sits, planks, and push-ups.
After a couple of hours of going through all the possible exercises I could do, my stamina decreased to around 40%.
"Haah… wow. I thought I was pretty weak after working with mana arts, but I guess it's that much more exhausting than regular exercises."
I would have gone until I completely exhausted my stamina to get as much XP as possible, but held back. I had no clue what Grandmother is going to make me do tomorrow, so I need to be prepared.
[Good job, master. You gained enough XP from improving your strength, stamina, and endurance to level up!]
…
Name: Kaiser Raijin
Level: 7
XP: 15 / 5000
Skill Points: 9
Status:
Health: 100%
Stamina: 38%
Mana: 100%
{Skill Trees}
…
"Now that I have the prerequisite for Crystallize, I can unlock it right?"
[Yes.]
"Finally! Let's do it!"
[Commencing upgrade of -Crystallize- at the cost of 5 skill points.]
My head hurt at the level of a migraine and it quickly subsided.
"Wow, the structure is a lot different than what I learned."
Bright, yellow tendrils flooded down my arm, and my entire hand was covered in an intricate array of mana particles.
"If before it was like carbon rings stacked on each other, now they're connected on all sides to each other. It looks like a bunch of tetrahedrons connected to each other."
I poked my hand and unlike last time, where it was like soft rubber, now it is as hard as a diamond.
"Hehe, I've got an idea."
I picked up the empty plate from the table using one hand, and with my other hand, I focused my mana, shaping it into the form of a blade.
'I've got to thank Asuma for this one.'
The mana began to form serrated edges that rotated around the blade, making a low-pitched, fluctuating hum.
I held the metal plate in front of me and raised the blade to it and began to cut downwards.
The hard platter offered no resistance as my mana blade cleanly cleaved it in half. The half I wasn't holding dropped to the floor with a loud clang and I dissipated the mana around my hand, staring in awe at the plate.
On the edges of the line I had cut through, there wasn't a single jut or point. It was smooth and sharp.
"This is a little more dangerous than I thought it would be," I said. "Maybe the serrated edges were a little too much."
I picked up the other half of the plate and set the two halves on the table.
"I've got four more skill points left. What should I do…" I sat on my bed and pondered my options. "I've only been mainly improving my strength and stamina, so the other body upgrades should be fine. It's not like I'll lose out on a ton of XP. Emy, show me the Body skill tree."
[On it.]
…
Body:
Strength: N/A
[Amount of power generated by the body. Muscle size can be customized while retaining strength.]
Stamina: N/A
[Amount of reserves of energy in the body. Determines how long the body can generate power.]
Agility: N/A
[Ability to easily and quickly move the body.]
Endurance: N/A
[Strength of resistance to outside forces. Allows for control of bodily functions (precision of control relies on Intelligence stat).]
Flexibility: N/A
[The body's ability to contort. Allows for control over range of motion.]
{Fight Technique Skill Trees} [Locked]
…
"Go ahead and upgrade Agility, Endurance, and Flexibility. I'm excited to learn the fight techniques."
[Commencing upgrade of -Agility- to tier one at the cost of one skill point.]
I could feel the pain of my muscles tearing and repairing in a different way than before. Once it was complete the next one started.
[Commencing upgrade of -Endurance- to tier one at the cost of one skill point.]
This upgrade was a lot more painful. It felt like my whole body was being torn down and rebuilt. I winced and clenched my teeth, which wasn't a good idea because they were not spared from the upgrade process. I quickly released the clench and just sat there, unmoving, trying to avoid involuntarily making anything hurt.
Again, as soon as the upgrade finished, the next one began.
[Commencing upgrade of -Flexibility- to tier one at the cost of one skill point.]
The bones of all my joints distorted and changed shape, allowing for more room to move and twist. It didn't hurt as bad as the other two but was very uncomfortable. It felt like something crawling underneath my skin and burrowing into my bones.
[AN: Insert Transformer noise here]
I tested out my new flexibility and smiled. "This is going to be very useful for my workouts."
I looked around the room, trying to find anything to test out my new abilities with.
"Guess I'll have to wait for another time to test them out."
…
The next day…
"Are you sure Grandmother?"
"Of course I'm sure. Do you not trust me?" She asked, incredulously.
I shook my head. "I trust you… but I'm worried."
Currently, Grandmother and I were standing 10 meters apart from each other in a wide room designated for training. The room was bare, with only windows along the walls, letting in the early morning sunlight.
I had both my hands held up, my mana in the form of serrated blades around them. I was using the way she taught me to condense mana. I didn't want to reveal all my cards.
"There's no need to worry about me, you won't hurt me," She said.
"I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about me. You're like ten times stronger than me."
"Oh, I'm a lot more than ten times stronger than you. But that just means I can hold myself back that much more. So stop being a wuss and attack me."
I sighed. As much as I wanted to fight her, I knew I had no chance.
'Well, at least I can test my new abilities in a fight. Wait… now that I think about it, I've never been in a fight before. Even if you count Rex, he's done some sparring but he wasn't much of a fighter. Yeah, I'm severely fucked.'
I sighed again and increased my perception to the max. I steadied my breathing and tensed my muscles.
I took off in her direction with my enhanced agility, making me faster than any animal back on Earth. But before I could even put my foot down for my first step, I saw a flash of white hair and golden eyes and I was suddenly shot sideways and careened into the wall.
*BOOM*