30 minutes ago, on the rooftop of a building,
A man holding a metal pipe with a sharp tip was looking down at another building across the street.
At the entrance of the building were countless zombies that were forcing themselves in, even to the point of crushing their own bodies.
"It really is the first wave… but how could this be? Did I change something? Or…"
Vance didn't have further time to think. The glass door that was keeping the zombies out was on the verge of breaking.
"This isn't good. I need to do something."
Vance was thinking of a lot of ideas, but all of them were based on his abilities in the past. Sure, he could use his techniques since they were engraved into his mind, but his current body would not be able to handle it. The mere act of activating his technique would surely break his body to dust.
Just as Vance was feeling hopeless, suddenly, a golden screen appeared in front of him.
[Use Elemental Manipulation.]
Vance frowned.
"I just learned that half an hour ago. How can you expect me to use that? This is a serious situation. If I fail, hundreds of lives will die."
[Well, do you have much better ideas then?]
"Uh..." Vance didn't answer the question.
"Fine, how can I use it? Do I need to chant or something?"
[No, you do not. You just have to visualize what you want to do in your mind and wish for it.]
"Visualize…?"
Vance closed his eyes and concentrated.
Visualize, huh? When I studied magic to learn more about it, it said that a chant is helpful to imagine and visualize the spell… Should I do the same thing here? I remember that there was a spell that caused a large-scale land deformation. If I recall, it was—
"Earth, twist and turn, shape and bend, distort and churn!"
"Earth Distortion!!"
…
Minutes and minutes passed, but still, nothing happened.
"What the f*ck is this!? I didn't mispronounce anything, right?"
Vance was quite embarrassed. It would've been fine if something had happened, but ultimately, nothing did. Fortunately, there was no one who witnessed that. If there was, he'd have to silence them.
"Hey, System! What's the meaning of this? You said I just have to visualize it!"
[Pfft— Who said to pfft… chant pfft… a spell? pfft...]
Vance stared at the System. There was nothing else he wanted to do but rip off the golden screen that was floating in front of his face.
Feeling the cold pressure emanating from Vance's eyes, the System hurriedly explained why the spell didn't work.
[*Ahem The spell didn't work because you didn't use any of the Divine Energy that is stored within you.]
Vance reached out his right hand with his palm facing upward. A ball of golden strings suddenly appeared on his palm.
"By Divine Energy, you mean this?"
[What!? How can you already sense the Divine Energy in you?]
"I tried to sense the Divine Energy that you were talking about, and I found it. It was swimming freely within my blood vessels. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted with it."
[You're a monster… Normally, it would take someone a century to reach that stage, and yet you've done it in one try.]
"Was it that big of a deal? Anyway, how do I use this thing?"
[Didn't you say that you felt like you could do whatever you want? Then do that.]
"I see. Then, I just know what I have to do."
Once again, Vance closed his eyes and concentrated. He tried to sense the Divine Energy within him. Like before, it was flowing with his blood. He followed the flow and found out that the Divine Energy also functioned as his blood. It traveled throughout his whole body and delivered nutrients to every part of his organs.
Now that Vance thought about it, he felt like he could release half more power of his stats. He wondered if this was the effect of the Divine Energy.
Well, getting back on task, Vance focused his mind and made his Divine Energy flow faster. This also caused his heart to beat faster and louder.
If someone could see Vance's current appearance, they would see that right now, he was glowing.
Every vein in his body glowed golden because of the sudden rapid Divine Energy flow. His sky-blue eyes also turned golden.
Vance's body seemed unable to handle it, and he was forced to kneel on one knee.
"Damn it. If I continue to be in this state any longer, my body will explode. I need to release it immediately!"
Crack! Crack!
The sound of rocks cracking was heard. It came from Vance's body. His whole body was covered with small cracks. It brought great pain to him, but it wasn't enough to make his mind collapse.
Vance forced himself to stand with difficulty. He reached out his hand and pointed his palm at the entrance of the company building.
"Earth, twist and turn, shape— Screw it!"
"Earth Distortion!!"
Rumble! Rumble!
The land under the swarm of zombies suddenly cracked. At first, it was small, but as seconds passed, it got bigger and bigger until the land gave out.
A large hole formed, causing the zombies to fall into it. The hole was so deep that, when looking from above, all one could see was darkness.
Seeing all of this, Vance let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank god it worked out."
[Why are you thanking yourself?]
"Shut up." Vance chuckled.
Vance wanted to go down, but a sudden drowsiness hit him. His eyesight blurred, and he collapsed on the ground.
"I'm… sleepy…"
[I guess using Divine Energy this intense for the first time is too much for you. You can rest now. This is just the beginning, so you should take your time and rest.]
Vance closed his eyes slowly before going to sleep.