The Next Day
Daron went to Mr. Gail's classroom as he forgot to talk about the one thing he meant to bring up during the conversation the day before. The Scan skill he had gotten when injecting his energy into a power artifact.
"Ah, Daron, I have good news. The administration agreed to let you have free roam for the last few weeks of school. So you can focus on training before heading off to college now," Mr. Gail said.
"Thank you, Mr. Gail, but there's something else I wanted to talk to you about. I meant to bring it up yesterday when talking about the system, but I guess it slipped my mind when we started talking about the Maken."
"Alright, what is it?"
"Well, when you had me insert my energy into a power artifact, the system actually rewarded me with a skill. It's called Scan, and it allowed me to see a power artifact's ability before use if I insert my energy into it using the skill," he explained.
"You can see what ability a power artifact is going to have?" Mr. Gail asked.
"Yes. Which is why... if the power artifact I was rewarded isn't to my liking, what do you say about me giving it to you for your research?"
"What? You'd do that?" Mr. Gail's eyes widened.
"Of course, you've helped a lot these past few years. Even in the past few days, without the advice and technique you gave me, I doubt I'd have been able to win the competition."
Mr. Gail smiled. "Well, of course, I'd be more than happy to take it off your hands. Though, I assume you don't have it with you currently?"
"Ah, yes, it's at my house. I can bring it over tomorrow if it's not something I need," he said.
"Thank you, Daron."
After their talk, Daron went to sit and took out the technique booklet and opened it to the next section to start reading.
"If you have completed the third step, congratulations. This next step will challenge your control over your physique and energy even further. You will need to freeze and erase the aspect of the physique for this step. Though, the erasing in this step is more of trapping the aspect for your body to not be able to passively use it at all. This step is called Aspect Trapping and needs to be completed before progressing further into the technique."
"To accomplish this step, as said, you need to freeze the aspects in your body. You only need to start with one at first, but it is recommended to be able to freeze all of them at the same time, though not technically needed, as it could be beneficial against things that detect energy."
"Once you are able to freeze an aspect in your body, then you must erase it from your body. This is the trapping part of the step. To do this, you must make the aspect in the energy path be seen as a foreign entity and the other aspects in the energy path to seal it. This will cause any passive leakage from the aspect on the energy path to cease and not be released in the body, and that aspect to be sealed in your body."
"What?" Daron said out loud as he read the instructions from the booklet.
A few eyes looked over to him from around the classroom.
"Oh, ah, sorry," he apologized.
Reading the next part of the technique again, he focused on the freezing aspect part. As Daron had been able to slow the energy in his body down when injecting his energy into a power arifact, he assumed he would be able to do the same thing inside of his body.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the energy path in his body. As for the aspect, he decided to focus on strength; as to Daron, the way the technique was described seemed a bit dangerous, and he would rather have his healing aspect available to him in case something went wrong.
The aspect of strength in Daron's energy path soon started to slow. It slowed, further and further, but then something appeared in his vision.
[Warning! Energy path blockage detected!]
[Employing method to stop blockage]
As these messages went by his eyes, he felt the aspect in his energy path immediately speed up again, much to his chagrin.
Opening his eyes, he rubbed his temples in frustration.
"Are you alright, Daron?" Mr. Gail asked as he walked by his desk.
"Yes, it's just... When I was trying to learn the next part of the technique, the system gave me a warning that an energy path blockage was detected, and it employed a method to stop it. How am I supposed to freeze my aspect if my system won't let me?"
Mr. Gail looked to be thinking for a moment, his hand on his chin as he looked up with his eyes closed.
"Were you trying to slow down the energy in the aspect in the energy path?" Mr. Gail asked.
"Yes, that's what I was doing."
"Right. That's not what you're supposed to do. Slowing down and freezing are two different concepts entirely. I knew I should've edited some of Aaron's writing. Anyway, you need to freeze the entire aspect in the energy path all at once, without causing energy blockage, or else you're doing it wrong."
"All... at once? Through my entire body?" he asked.
"That is correct. I'm aware it's a difficult task, but it's one you must do if you want to continue to learn that technique. It'll help you with other techniques as well, learning to be able to control energy all at once through your entire body."
"Yes, you're right. Thank you, Mr. Gail," Daron said.
"Of course, Daron. In my opinion, it'll probably take you the remainder of your time here to learn the next part of that technique. Especially since it seems your system wants you to be perfect at it as well. Though, for this particular step, I can't say I disagree. It's definitely one of the more dangerous ones. At least the first part of the step."
A bell sounded that marked the end of the class, and people started to move out.
"Well, Daron, it's up to really if you want to head home or stay here for the rest of the day. As the administration agreed to let you have free roam for the remaining few weeks, all you have to do is show up for attendance with me," Mr. Gail said.
"I'll probably head home. Get a chance to check on the power artifact while I'm at it."