Chapter 144: Matter of How Long

Julius soon forgot all about the confrontation with his roommate. He had bigger and more important things to worry about. Things such as playing with his new [Quick Step] skill.

During the next several rounds with Gabriel, Julius focused a lot on incorporating the skill into his fighting style. If he was being honest, it wasn’t that hard. It fit his style quite well and the main thing that he needed to get used to was the increased speed.

Something that was very nice now that he had the official skill, was that the skill activated much more smoothly and much more effectively. The conversion of unattributed mana to his legs was now seamless. There was no lag in gathering the ambient mana. It was one fluid step. Now it didn’t feel like he was a toddler learning to walk.

Unfortunately, the quick movement skill wasn’t that powerful yet. When used with his kinetic energy it fell kind of flat in comparison. [Kinetic Augmentation] enabled him to empower his entire body with kinetic energy and while it wasn’t as explosive as [Quick Step], the fact that it was almost at the end of rare, meant that it was much more powerful than [Quick Step].

However, that was why he wanted to level up his movement skill. The general upgrade of [Quick Step] was [Flash Step] at the rare rank. After that, he would be offered [Instaneous Step] once he evolved it to epic.

According to Gabriel, once he got to that point, he would need a suitable Concept to evolve with the skill. Hypothetically, Julius would be able to evolve it with his Sharpness Concept. However, it was hard to say what that would do for his skill and what he would be offered.

He would still likely be offered [Instantaneous Step], but Gabriel mentioned that there was a possibility that it would not be the same skill as his own version. Gabriel’s version used his Body Concept, Brutal Surge to evolve with the skill.

Julius would eventually want a similar Concept if he could manage it. Then again, there were many other things he needed to do before that.

The good news was that he had improved [Quick Step] by a respectable amount for an hour’s worth of work. Gabriel knew the skill well enough that he knew exactly where he needed to push it.

The biggest downside of the skill was the long time between activations. On paper, it didn’t seem like it was very long. The reactivation time was around a couple of seconds, however fighting against someone like Gabriel, a couple of seconds would be more than enough time for him to put several fists into Julius’s gut before he could use it again.

That was the reason why the two of them had focused on Julius’s ability to activate it in quicker succession.

Which was exactly what Julius ended up doing for most of the night. He still took breaks in between of course. In those breaks, he would work on his aura and the next Concept he was attempting to get.

After much decision paralysis, he had finally decided on a Fire Concept. He believed that a Fire Concept would have some very nice implications for his new epic skill.

A part of him wanted to see if he could get a Space Concept, but he had zero clue where he would even start. He was hoping that in just over a month when he went back to Dante’s place, he would find some sort of answer there.

While the grumpy Tier 6 didn’t elaborate on his plans for Julius, it was a logical step to reason that it had something to do with [Spatial Perception] and thus spatial abilities, and hopefully a Space Concept as well.

For now, though, he wanted to focus on three main things. One was [Quick Step], he had a feeling that he would see more progress in an uncommon skill than anywhere else, so he wanted to work on that. Then there was his aura, which he always made sure to set aside time to practice. Finally, there was his Fire Concept he was planning on getting soon.

He was already making really good progress on his [Quick Step] skill. It had leveled up a couple of times after the first round between him and Gabriel.

[Quick Step lvl 3 -> lvl 5]

Also, as a little cherry to top it off, during that time he had also leveled up [Barrier of Severance] again.

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[Barrier of Severance lvl 10 -> lvl 11]

It was one of his most beneficial sessions with Gabriel yet. Which is why he had been running suicides with [Quick Step] for the past several hours. He wanted to see just how much he could level [Quick Step]. Whenever he got too tired, he would just give himself a little jump with [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] and he was good to go again.

It wasn’t fighting but the intensity that he was pushing the skill showed its worth. Not only was he trying to activate it almost immediately after its use, but he was manually loading more mana than the skill automatically supplies. This made it take longer to activate, but the power difference was very noticeable. He was able to cross longer distances within the same amount of time.

It was only when he managed to squeeze out one last level that he took another break.

[Quick Step lvl 5 -> lvl 7]

It was the second one of the nightly training session, and probably the last one of the night. He could feel the skill slowing down significantly. It wouldn’t be long until it took an entire night to get a single level.