Chapter 213: New Spell

The problem was that he was not sure if it would work.

Alex kept experimenting. He felt that he was close to understanding something, but there was still a missing piece. He remained silent for a moment before another possibility entered his mind.

’Should I try compressing the life mana to improve its quality?’

The thought immediately made him hesitate. Compressed life mana was extremely powerful, but it was also dangerous. He had already learned what could happen when life mana was compressed too much and caused abnormal growth in living tissue.

A tumor could be removed from flesh, but blood was different. If compressed life mana caused abnormal growth throughout his bloodstream, he could not simply cut away the affected area, and removing too much blood could cause severe anemia and potentially kill him.

Still, there was one reason the idea was not completely unreasonable.

Alex could level up.

He had already confirmed that leveling up restored his body, including his blood. If something went wrong, he might technically be able to recover by gaining a level, but Alex did not want to rely on that possibility.

There were two reasons for that. First, leveling up at his current stage required killing a large number of monsters, so he could not simply assume that another level would always be available when something went wrong.

More importantly, Alex did not want to become dependent on leveling up to repair his mistakes. The reason he had grown so quickly through combat was because every mistake was dangerous, and if he started thinking that injuries could always be fixed by gaining a level, he might unconsciously stop giving every battle his full attention.

Alex therefore proceeded carefully. He slowly compressed a tiny amount of life mana before guiding it into the blood vessels passing through his lungs. He continued breathing whenever he needed to while observing how the oxygen entered his blood and how the life mana interacted with it. The process was surprisingly easy to sense because oxygen could not be strengthened through mana, making its movement feel like a small light moving through darkness compared to the complicated flow of mana inside his body.

Once he understood the process, Alex tried to mimic it with compressed life mana and carefully infused the mana into the blood flowing through his lungs. He could feel that it was working, although the effect was weak and still far from what he wanted.

Alex continued the process for about five minutes, slowly repeating the same cycle while making sure the compressed life mana remained stable. Then, a notification suddenly appeared in front of him.

[Sustained Breathing Spell detected.]

[Would you like to learn Sustained Breathing Spell?]

[Yes/No.]

Alex raised an eyebrow as he read the notification. It was called Sustained Breathing rather than something like Airless Breathing, which meant he would still need to breathe, but the spell should allow him to survive much longer without doing so.

So, his guess had been correct.

Alex immediately realized that there was probably a way to develop the spell further. If he could infuse more life mana into his blood and make his body rely even less on oxygen, he might eventually create something closer to a Breathless Breathing Spell, which would probably be a higher-ranked ability. He did not try it, however. Alex could already feel the limit of his current control over life mana. If he compressed more mana than he was currently using, it would become unstable and there was a good chance that it would start causing abnormal growth in his cells. Forget obtaining a better spell. He would probably die before he managed to create it.

’Who would have thought that Life Mana, the type of mana used for healing, could actually be more likely to kill me than Fire Mana if I use it incorrectly?’ Alex thought with an inward chuckle.

Since he had no intention of risking his life stupidly, Alex decided to accept the spell. Learning an spell that allowed him to remain underwater without breathing would take a long time if he relied entirely on experimentation, while he only needed to level this spell up to Level 10 before his Talent could evolve it, and give something similar.

[Sustained Breathing Spell learned.]

[Sustained Breathing, E Rank, Level 1]

[Tired of breathing? No longer want to breathe polluted air? Try this spell! It will allow you to live without wasting your breaths! Note: The System does not take any responsibility for any medical complications that may arise from the usage of this spell.]

[Effect: Allows you to sustain yourself for longer durations without breathing.]

Alex immediately used the spell, and it worked surprisingly well. The main problem was not the spell itself but his own biology, because even though this was a new body and it should not have the same muscle memory as his original body, his mind still found it strange to deliberately stop breathing.

Alex persisted and used Advanced Battle Instinct to calm his mind, and fight against his instincts. After several attempts, he discovered that he could remain without breathing for around three minutes after taking a normal breath, while taking a deeper breath beforehand could increase the duration. The increased physical stats should’ve made his body need more energy, so the spell still allowing him to stay without air showed how powerful it was.

’Good spell,’ Alex thought with a faint smile.

With this ability, he at least had a method of fighting if he was dragged underwater again. He would still need to improve his offensive and defensive abilities, but the problem of immediately drowning had been greatly reduced.

Before beginning his next experiment, Alex looked around. The group was still dealing with the Voltserpents that continued attacking them every few minutes, but the creatures were no longer much of a threat, and everyone had already developed a rhythm for dealing with them without wasting too much energy.

..

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