Chapter 153 - 153: Dangerous Methods

After watching how easily Hope figured out the cultivation process it was obvious that Keith and Layla would wish to try the same.

Since both mages had figured out the process it was decided that they would each coach their own ally through it.

"Ok so you need to start by turning your mana sense inward, as you look through your mana sense I want you to feel for things that just seem wrong."

He gently placed a hand on either side of her head to create a thin barrier around her ears so only his words could be heard, no distraction would make it through while he taught her.

"How do I know what is wrong?"

"Just trust your body, your mana sense will naturally pick up on the impurities no matter what form they take so you simply need to let your own consciousness flow through your mana sense."

She focused on her mana sense and as it sank deep within her body she let her mind trail along as if it were a rope dangling in the wayer behind a ferry.

She continued to dive deeper until she saw the first signs of discomfort from discovering something akin to a harmless tumor on her own kidney, when she explored further she finally understood what Ezekiel meant about natural discomfort.

She wanted to vomit when seeing the clouds of impurities throughout her body.

"Oh now that's going to make me puke, hurry up and tell me how to get rid of it!"

He began to explain the process of pulling mana in and infusing it with the life affinity like Hope had described to them for the method she felt work, the process of using life mana to push another affinity infused mana source through the body.

"Ok start by creating streams of life mana that will flow to every single cloud of impurities in your body while you use a destructive mana type to turn those impurities into particles small enough to be carried away by the life mana."

He watched inside of her as she tried to use what was nearly a blind grasp over her internal mana compared to the mana sight gifted by his godly eyes skill.

She used a mixture of fire mana and life mana to carefully destroy the impurities before she started to pull mana in through large pulls of the ambient mana, during this practice he quietly nudged her in the right direction of cycling mana she expelled to take back in and conserve the ambient mana usage.

"Remember, it's like you're sifting sand through a cloth. Every pass will require more mana to accomplish better results but the mana coming in doesn't change so reuse that mana."

He saw the mana begin to swirl around her body as each expulsion of mana slowly returned to the cyclone of mana being used to purify her internal systems.

He could see the slow buildup of black specks escaping through her pores as she pushed the impurities towards the skin like they had done before.

While Ezekiel and Layla were the perfect showcase of fundamentals carrying the learning experience, Hope and Keith were struggling.

The flaw in being a prodigy is that you do not have the same number of failures to learn from, you do not have the same level of inherent teaching capabilities that come with learning the subject as a person struggling.

Hope was a prodigy.

Using mana came so easily to her that she could maintain dozens of constructs at any given moment simply because she was naturally good at it while players like Keith were far from being prodigies.

This was the first instance of Hope actually paying attention to how Keith manipulated his mana and she quickly realized that Keith was not good at it, in fact the majority of the mana he collected actually slipped from his mental grasp while he was trying to use it.

"Your mana shouldn't be leaking when you control it, why is it leaking?"

"It was always like this."

She was astonished to understand thay her friend struggled to accomplish the basic task of manipulating mana so she got even closer to observe what he was doing.

When Keith was pulling mana towards himself she noticed that the main leakage came from the mass being pulled in, leakage that resembled water slipping through cupped hands.

When this realization hit her she leaned away to explain what she saw.

"Ok Keith are you picturing your own hands pulling the mana in? Can you show me what you are picturing in your mind by moving your arms?"

He nodded looking somewhat embarrassed as he began to move his arms like he was physically grasping large blobs of ambient mana, a method that had worked until now but due to the intense mana consumption of what they were attempting to learn had finally revealed a flaw in his mana control.

"You need to spread your mana sense out as wide as possible and then envision your mana control moving like a whirlpool towards you Keith."

"A whirlpool? You cannot be serious is that what you imagine when you absorb mana?"

She nodded before she cupped her hands together to create a small area that she could focus her mana control on, when she began to absorb mana through this location she even did so slowly to show Keith how she did it.

"I can barely handle mana control using my method, no other game goes this in depth for something like this."

The teaching continued for a few more patient hours until Layla finally broke through, it took her nearly three times as long as the mages of the party of they did not complain.

Ezekiel had explained how he noticed that the increase in stats for his breakthrough had given at minimum a single rise in rank.

"It would be a great idea to get Keith a magic tutor so he can catch up while we are looking for more about cultivation."

As they stood to return to the dungeon crawl Layla asked Keith a few burning questions.

"Hey man you were using your skills through the system screen all this time right? You never got to the point of manipulating the skills yourself?"

The elven man simply nodded in return.

"So you dealt with those stupid cooldowns? The only reason cooldowns exist is to make sure the system doesn't drain your mana spamming a single skill."

"Yeah yeah yeah, it also has the slightly longer activation time compared to you guys and it relies on my awareness of what is happening to make sure I don't screw up."

The conversation ended there as they found their next prey, a swarm of centipede monsters.

"Guys those things suck to fight up close because they will latch on and start to inject venom while their legs are stabbing all over you, and those gross things will swarm you together."

The others shivered at the description of how the centipede monsters fought against enemies so they kept their distance as they used ranged strikes and aoe spells to destroy them.

Ezekiel made sure to throw a larger number of Freznied Void Novas while Hope and Layla kept them at bay using their own ranged attack methods.

Keith had pulled out the faster fire rate bow to apply Reapers Marks as fast as possible while they were keeping the enemies from swarming them.

With all four being serious about their method of slaying these monsters it was not long before every single one was dead.

With the party on the move again Ezekiel felt like things were looking better for them.

~

Amadaya turned a seat for Lucretia to take while she sat herself down with a glass of golden tea.

"Tell me Lucretia, what makes this mate of yours so special?"

Lucretia thought back to when she first met the young male devil with shadow magic affinity and how he used spells so strangely that she was fascinated by them, then she remembered the day he evolved into something that resembled a devil but had so much more alien beauty than their species was ever capable of without finding a very beautiful fae or elven bloodline.

"He is strange and he has the affinity I decided I would wait until marriage for, I do not even have a proper coven Ama."

She sighed and leaned back in her seat as she thought about the implications.

"The Devil Queen! The first devil queen in history to use shadow magic without being targeted by every grand hero and the first Devil Queen to recognize no one as her coven."

Thinking about it brought a small tear to her eye for a moment before she quickly shook those thoughts away.

"The main reason is because I do not think it will ever be possible to find someone like thim, the people of their world apparently treat those who come to our world as children..."

"Children?"

"Well I have heard reports from certain otherworlders that the people who spend many hours a day just coming to our wolf are weak will people wasting their time