Chapter 232: [Thermal Empowerment]

Julius had breakfast with Rebecca, Richard, Cory, and Reinera before they went for their daily training session. It had recently become a thing especially since they were already meeting in the morning, it just made sense that they would eat breakfast as well.

It was actually Richard’s idea. One that was becoming a good one as time went on.

Julius learned a lot about the family of three during this time.

Surprisingly, Rebecca was quite the sloppy person in the morning. It took several cups of coffee and a couple of hours until she really woke up. Before then, she could barely stand on her two feet.

On the other side of things, Richard and Cory were both the complete opposite. The two of them were like two peas in a pod. They were abnormally excited to eat breakfast.

Cory loved to have pancakes but in a complete surprise to him and Reinera, the boy didn’t like anything on them. No butter or syrup. Just plain old pancakes.

Whereas his father loved to smother his own pancakes with a criminal amount of toppings, enough for everyone at the table and more.

Usually, Julius was with the two of them. He loved breakfast but this morning he couldn’t help but feel restless the entire time. It took all of his willpower and Inexorable Resolve to not tell them about his recent breakthrough the night before.

Richard wiped the excess syrup from his face and went over to Cory to clean up the flakes of pancakes from his face as well before looking toward the rest of them with a smile.

“Are you guys ready to go?”

Rebecca was still barely awake, sitting there with both eyes perpetually trying to close shut. But she nodded regretfully.

***

After they finished breakfast, they went over to the training course and did their normal routine.

But then it was his turn with Richard for their body skill training.

However, before the two of them could even get started, Richard was looking at him with a knowing grin on his face.

He knows something is up, he told himself with a sigh.

That was sad, Julius really thought he had a better poker face than that. But he wondered what Richard thought he was hiding. Did he suspect it was his skill option notification?

“Did you finally get it?” He asked Julius.

“Did I get what?” Julius acted ignorant.

“My guess was something along the lines of [Fire Enhancement] or [Fire Augmentation],” Richard said with a shrug. “Was it something similar or did you get something entirely different?”

Julius could only shake his head in exasperation. “[Thermal Empowerment],” he admitted with a smirk.

“Really?! [Thermal Empowerment]?” Richard asked in surprise.

“What is that unusual?” Julius asked.

“Absolutely. Empowerment skills are usually reserved for aura-based skills. The modification of your aura skill must have been the main reason for you being offered such a skill.”

“Should I take it?” He asked the man the most important question.

He saw the man shake his head. “I don’t see any reason not to. It doesn’t sound like a basic skill at least. Considering your difficulty in obtaining a skill at all, I think that it’s a good choice to pick it up. If you don’t like it, then you can always try to evolve it and get a better fit for your next skill.”

“What are the odds that it is an uncommon skill?” He asked. Like he had thought about before, he would rather go through the process of evolving an uncommon skill to rare in order to get a rare skill that was a better fit.

“Truthfully, it is pretty high odds that it is uncommon ranked. Fire skills that have the word ‘thermal’ are normally advanced uncommon skills in my experience, there are exceptions though,” Richard told him.

Julius could only smile. He had hoped that was the case. He remembered his previous skill uncommon skill, [Thermal Compression]. It had been a wonderful skill that greatly enhanced the power of his constructs and its evolved version had combined with [Arcane Construct] and [Composite Mana] to create [Armaments of the Arcane]. His very first epic skill.

Realizing that there was no need to hold back any longer, he brought up the notification once more.

Would you like to learn the skill [Thermal Empowerment]?

He mentally selected yes and waited for the results.

He felt the familiar sense of mana flowing through him and information flooding through his brain.

Congratulations, skill [Thermal Empowerment] (Uncommon) acquired.

He did a little jump in joy as he read the notification.

“Quick! Try it out!” Richard exclaimed with wide eyes. The man was possibly more excited than Julius was to see the new skill.

However, Julius wasn’t going to let either of them keep waiting. He swiftly activated the skill and observed the difference.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The first thing he noticed was the warming sensation he felt throughout his entire body. It was like suddenly being dipped into a bath of warm water.

The next thing he did was to dash toward Richard with a grin.

The Tier 5 didn’t even look surprised as Julius threw a punch at him. He only smiled and didn’t move as Julius’s fist crashed into his open palm with a loud thud.

During their attempt to gain a new body skill, they had set up a few rules. One of them was to limit the activation of any other skills that might interfere with it. Skills such as [Kinetic Augmentation] and [Flash Step].

It was the same thing now. He had only used his recently acquired skill to attack Richard.

It was a massive difference already. Now that he officially had a skill, he was able to empower his body with fire mana with an ease that he hadn’t been able to before.