Chapter 146: Human Torch

If there was one thing that Julius wished he could go back in time to fix. It would be the exact moment he arrogantly stated that learning a Fire Concept would be easier than learning the Sharpness Concept.

He quickly found out how very wrong he was about that. He initially believed that since he had already touched upon the realm of Concepts it would make his next one that much easier.

It was a claim only a person like him with little experience would have been able to make. He was glad that nobody had heard him say that out loud. If the others had heard it, he would not have heard the end of it for the rest of his days.

Though to be honest, he did feel like he was genuinely close to learning it. It was kind of like trying to thread a tiny piece of string into an even tinier needle and every time he was just about to get it through, he did something to fuck it up.

Without fail he would flinch or drop the string, ruining everything and making him go back to the start.

The first couple of days that he was unable to learn the Concept were frustrating, but he assured himself that it would just take some time and dedication. However, when over a week crept around, he started to feel like something wasn’t working.

While he hadn’t spent his entire time on his Concept training like he had done with other things in the past, he still spent a lot of time. Whenever he wasn’t going to class, eating, practicing his aura with Lily, or training his other skills, specifically [Quick Step], he was meditating like some monastery monk.

Yet, nothing.

The only good news was that during the past week or so, he had almost gotten [Quick Step] to level 15.

[Quick Step lvl 7 -> lvl 14]

That wasn’t all though. Some other skills made some impressive progress as well.

[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

[Barrier of Severance lvl 11 -> lvl 12]

[Empowerment of Will lvl 15 -> lvl 16]

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 16 -> lvl 17]

He managed to level up [Barrier of Severance], [Empowerment of Will], [Kinetic Augmentation], and surprisingly [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal]. The first three were given, considering that he had been spending a lot of time using those three skills alongside his [Quick Step] training.

[Empowement of Will] had seen some great improvements from his practice sessions with Lily whenever they had a chance. He always enjoyed it when they trained together. He was actually surprised that the skill only leveled once. He felt like his aura had made way more improvements than a single level might indicate.

[Barrier of Severance] was the newest rare skill in his arsenal and he had found himself making excuses to use the skill whenever he could. Even if it was just for layering a barrier of sharpened mana over his utensils to cut through his food easier, he made sure he used it as much as he could. Thus, it was not a surprise that it leveled up during the past week.

Plus, it also worked well as willpower training if he infused it with his Concept of Severing Will.

Getting another level in [Kinetic Augmentation] wasn’t a surprise either. He had been using that skill the most with his [Quick Step] skill. The two of them worked well together. The kinetic body skill was able to reinforce his body well enough that he was able to push more mana through [Quick Step] than he normally would have without it.

One thing that he had learned about the difference between using kinetic energy and using [Quick Step] to move, was the fluidity of his movements. [Quick Step] was quite an impressive skill because of its ability to maintain a certain level of control of his movements while still being explosive. Whereas, blasting kinetic energy from his feet was just plain explosive and sheer acceleration.

The real interesting thing though, was when he used both in conjunction. This, by the way, was more difficult than one might think, using both manual applications of kinetic energy alongside [Quick Step] was challenging. They both functioned fundamentally the same, yet there were unique tendencies for each ability that made it not so easy to use together.

However, the final result was pretty funny. Not only was his movement faster once he used both of them, but they also produced an interesting byproduct. Whenever he would stop, a blast of mana and kinetic energy would explode from him, creating a loud boom and shockwave.

He didn’t see any practical reason for this technique yet, but he did think it would provide a very nice surprise to anyone he was looking to scare. He was going to keep it in mind for whenever Aubrey or someone else annoyed him.

His healing skill came as the most surprising level increase. However, when he thought about it, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been using the skill often. In fact, it was the opposite. He had been using it almost constantly to heal his fatigue whenever he got tired from using [Quick Step] so many times in a row.

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Perhaps just the sheer amount of times it was used in succession caused it to level up. Usually, it required a more unique application of the skill to gain levels, so gaining a level from simple grinding was not expected, but very appreciated nonetheless.

Still, not getting a Fire Concept was a bit of a sore spot for him. He had been really hoping that he had some talent with Concepts. He had accepted that his affinities weren’t the best, but his large mana pool and his ability to train for endless hours were more important in his personal opinion.