Chapter 219: Blurred Lines Between Genius And Madness

The other three explosions were not much weaker, and the remaining tentacles were caught in the shockwaves as well. Enormous amounts of steam spread through the flooded forest while the water around Alex shook violently from the force of the attacks.

This was the result of being able to compress Fire Element Mana much further than normal by infusing it into water. Unfortunately, Alex was not spared from the consequences. He could barely remain standing, and even that was only possible because the explosions had occurred some distance away from him. The initial launch explosions had happened much closer, however, and they had increased the temperature of the surrounding water so rapidly that Alex felt a burning sensation spread across his entire body.

Blood rose through his throat, but he swallowed it before it could escape. Alex gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the pain while keeping his attention on the monster and trying to understand what he had just discovered.

’Fire Bullets are a bust underwater. The launch explosion becomes too powerful to use since I can only fire the bullets from nearby, so I can’t keep firing them like this.’

He steadied himself against the current and continued thinking about the problem. ’I can create much stronger Fire Bullets by compressing Fire Element Mana into water, but the explosion created during the launch is too dangerous, and using them nearby will hurt me almost as much as the enemy.’

Alex continued sending pulses of Mana Sense through the water and soon sensed the tentacles beginning to recover. The monster was regenerating again, but its movements were different from before, and Alex could tell that it had become much more cautious after suffering his previous attacks.

That hesitation gave him time to act. Alex began infusing Fire Element Mana into the water around himself, starting with the area closest to his body and carefully increasing the amount of mana inside it without reaching the point where the water would explode. As more of the surrounding water became infused, Alex confirmed that he could control it to a certain extent because the Fire Element Mana inside it still belonged to him.

His improved mana control allowed him to take advantage of that connection, and he slowly began moving the water around himself. At first, the movement was weak and irregular, but he continued adjusting the flow until the water started circling his body, gradually forming a rotating current.

Alex increased the speed little by little, and the glowing red water began spinning faster around him. A whirlpool slowly started forming as he continued infusing Fire Element Mana into the surrounding water while maintaining control over its movement.

Every droplet had a limit, and the moment a droplet reached the maximum amount of Fire Element Mana he could safely compress into it, Alex stopped adding more. If he continued even slightly beyond that point, the droplet would explode.

He then infused a small amount of Will into the droplet, hardening the Fire Element Mana so that it remain attached to the water for a few seconds. Once he was certain that it was stable, he allowed the droplet to move freely with the current, and because the water was already rotating around him, the infused droplet remained within the whirlpool even after Alex stopped directly controlling it.

Then he moved to another droplet and repeated the process. Again and again, Alex infused Fire Element Mana into the water, stopped just before the point of instability, reinforced the mana with Will, and allowed the droplet to join the rotating current. The process was incredibly demanding, but his improved mana control allowed him to continue without losing control of the growing whirlpool.

His mind began buzzing from the strain. Something warm flowed down from his nose and across his lips, while his vision gradually became darker around the edges. His eyes felt strange, almost as if the nerves inside them were being pushed beyond their limits, but Alex barely noticed any of it because his attention remained fixed on the glowing water surrounding him.

He continued.

More and more droplets became infused with Fire Element Mana until the water around Alex was almost entirely filled with them. Eventually, he found himself standing inside an area nearly devoid of water while the glowing red-orange water spun around him at tremendous speed.

It was as if Alex were standing in the eye of a hurricane. The wind whipped against his wet hair and torn clothes while the massive whirlpool continued growing around him. Even the tentacles hesitated to approach, seemingly remembering what had happened when Alex compressed Fire Element Mana into water earlier.

Alex took advantage of their hesitation and continued pouring more mana into the water droplets. He repeated the same process until he had emptied more than fifty percent of his mana pool, yet he still did not stop.

The feeling was exhilarating, but it was also incredibly dangerous.

If even one droplet received slightly more Fire Element Mana than it could withstand, it would explode. With thousands of unstable droplets rotating around him, Alex was essentially standing inside a massive collection of explosives that he had created himself, and any mistake could kill him along with the monster.

Still, Alex had a faint smile. He was enjoying the sensation of using mana creatively. He moved on to the next step.

He used normal mana to create a large star-shaped structure with a hollow space inside it. He had seen something similar before, when the Fire Mage Wild Orc had created a star-shaped construct and used it to fly while bombarding him with Fire Spears as he tried to reach the high school.

Later, Alex had tried to guess how the Wild Orc controlled the construct, and now he finally had a chance to reproduce the basic principle.

Alex stood over the star-shaped mana construct and carefully controlled it. Since he could anchor his mana objects to himself or himself to his mana objects, he tried to reverse the usual process and make himself levitate on top of the star.

Normally, Alex could make mana objects levitate by manipulating the mana connecting them to himself, so doing the opposite should also be possible. The problem was that the mana object needed some kind of support or connection, and maintaining that connection while keeping his own body balanced was much more difficult than he had expected.

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