A new spell, a spell that used his fire affinity?
Now that he had a new spell he wished to go and learn how it worked.
He left the area without really doing anything with the bodies of anything he killed until he finally passed the barrier to the village.
He decided he would use slimes a target practice instead of the actual range since he could get experience as well this way even if it was minuscule.
He started by casting the fire orb which was not very powerful compared to the mana orb but he saw that it actually had a very high chance of causing its dot effect.
When a slime was not instantly slain by his high damage it would usually be killed by the burn effect.
The more he cast the spell the more he was able to master it and with his mana sense he saw something new.
When casting the spell another energy would begin to saturate the mana moving through his arm, this energy was a deep orange which he assumed was his fire affinity.
Now that he knew what his affinity actually looked like in his body he began to focus on it.
By focusing on his elemental affinity he saw that his body was saturated by a very thin aura of this orange mana... except it didnt feel like mana.
The more he studied it the less it felt like he was seeing mana and the more it felt like he was looking at nothing but a color.
Stumped by this he sought out other ways to understand it.
He started to explore the village while using his mana sense constantly and what he discovered was shocking.
He had previously known that with his mana sense he could effectively see the mana in the world as long as it was within the range of his skill.
Now that he was using mana sense constantly he saw that the raw mana of an area was not all there was.
In certain places he could see that raw mana had different colors from the normal.
Near a torch mana was orange, near a fountain the mana was a deep blue, near the ground the mana was brown.
By approaching the orange mana and using his mana control on it he found that it was actually much easier to manipulate than his own affinity.
When bringing that orb of mana into his body to absorb it like everything else he saw that the element and the mana separated.
The mana moved to his core while the element was absorbed into his flesh.
~~~~~~~~~~
Elemental Affinity (Fire) Increased.
~~~~~~~~~~
'Huh.... thats new.'
After feeling this strange sensation he began to cultivate his mana under that torch but even after twenty minutes the only change he saw was another level of his mana core.
'Just one torch seems to only give a small amount of elemental mana but what if i made more torches? Or a fire!'
With a new discovery to explore Ezekiel left to find a place with a lot of heat.
~
Approaching the smithy Ezekiel could already feel the heat wash over him.
The only places he could think of immediately were a smith or a baker and the smiths usually used hotter flames.
He approached the front of the shop nervously and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more...
Until finally he was seen by someone bringing a finished blade out to put on a weapons rack for viewing.
"Oh, hello there!"
A young man who was already showing signs of the giant he would become due to the physical strain of smithing greeted him.
"What brings a mage like you around our little smithy? Usually its the warriors or the archers coming to buy."
"Um... im trying to cultivate my mana and i have an affinity for fire, would i be able to cultivate here?"
The young man seemed to be confused before he just left the area to go to the back.
Ezekiel thought he messed up somehow at first and was going to leave until the man returned with a much larger smith.
"So my apprentice here says you wanma cultivate yer fire eh? He's new dont mind him."
"Um yes i want to make my affinity increase."
"Yeah yeah i heard it all before from the other mages. Look kid in this smithy we allow mages to cultivate near the fire but you cant do so for free because you'd be in the way so ya gotta make yerself useful."
The smith opens the door and leads Ezekiel in to see a large forge in the middle of the room with workshops around it.
The center around the forge was left empty but the smiths would go back and forth handling metal of a bright golden hue from their time in the fire.
"In that ring you'll find a circle of runes, you sit in those runes and it will drain yer mana into our storage."
Ezekiel nodded and approached one of those circles while trying to ignore the heat but soon he was sweating profusely.
"Mana is used to power the silence runes so we dont disturb the village, mana also gets used enchant certain weapons."
Ezekiel nodded and as he sat in the circle he felt his mana being drained at a rapid rate as if he were casting multiple spells a second.
When the circle was activated he could no longer hear the sounds of hammer on metal which shocked him before he remembered what the smith said about silence runes.
He delved into his mana sense and while doing his best to ignore the heat he was shocked by what he saw.
Everywhere the mana was practically a fog in the room.
He saw the smiths glowing and mana flowing in their bodies to their arms and chests in ways he could not begin to guess the purpose of.
All of the excess mana they released as well as rhe natural mana in the air was infused with the fire element by the forge... all for him to use now.
With the spell circle draining his mana constantly he could not increase the level of his mana core but he could increase his affinity.
He soon dedicated himself to cultivating his fire affinity, his concentration so deep that he didnt even notice the heat anymore.... though it did still affect him.
Minute after minute, hour after hour, he cultivated all of the fire elemental mana he could access.
When an area was no longer saturated he moved to another space quickly to continue the process.
Mana particles were like pollen he had noticed.
They would remain in place unless something manipulated them the way air pushes pollen or gravity makes it fall.
Mana was not affected by the air or gravity but it was affected by mana control which meant with enough time he could drain the mana particles in an area forcing him to move to another space.
After cultivating his affinity for hours he was eventually interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.
Looking up he saw the smith from before motioning for him to move so he got up and left the circle.
"Damn kid, yer the most dedicated mage ive seen in here. Most of em quit after the first hour when they start getting dehydrated."
The smith held out a mug of water for Ezekiel and began walking out.
"Come on kid we gotta close shop for the day so the fire will be out, you gave us a hell of a lot of mana for the shop though so feel free to return!"
Ezekiel drank the water greedily and once done he left the shop with a grateful nod to the smith.
When outside he checked his status panel to see his progress as he had muted it to avoid losing concentration.
~~~~~~~~~~
Elemental Affinity (Fire) Increased.
10% -> 17%
Skill Obtained!
Fire Resistance lv1 (N)
Reduce the damage taken of fire element damage.
1%
~~~~~~~~~~
A new skill... he knew that gaining a new skill was incredible but only a single percent of resistance was disappointing.
With his time near the forge he knew that eventually he would make it increase in tier which would make its maximum value increase but that was still something that took time.
At his current rate of gaining skills and leveling them he knew that eventually he would fall far behind his fellow players.
With this he chose to go out to start leveling up again.... but then he saw something.
Having his mana sense up for so long had made it feel almost natural to move with it and when he left the shop he noticed that it was dark, but not only was it dark...
Every bit of mana in the air was black.
The darkness was making all of the mana in the air gain a shadow affinity.
When he saw this he began to walk while cultivating.
It was slower than he liked because he had to split his focus but he could do thia while looking for a good place to absorb the mana.