Chapter 25: Experimenting

Julius thought about just killing the troll quickly and being done with it, but he had a much dumber plan. He wanted to try out his new [Kinetic Reinforcement] skill. He wouldn’t have chosen to try it out with all four alive, but now that only one remained, he felt like it was his best chance to test it out.

He didn’t let it come to him, instead, he charged straight at it. He empowered his body with kinetic mana and whatever leftover kinetic energy he absorbed from his earlier explosion. Right as the troll loaded up a double-handed swing from its right, Julius burst stepped into the left side of the troll, absorbing all his momentum and stopping on a dime. He then uncorked a kinetic strike to the troll’s ribcage.

The difference between the power of the strike before, and now that it was enhanced with [Kinetic Reinforcement] showed. The troll’s skin was shredded apart, leaving a crater of missing flesh. The troll itself was blasted off its feet into the grass they were standing on.

Julius was surprised at the dramatic difference [Kinetic Reinforcement] had on his physical capabilities. The skill was still rated as uncommon, not even rare, and yet he felt like the impact of it was on par or better than [Savage Dance] or [Spatial Perception]. He couldn’t help but wonder how much of a difference activating [Restoration] had on his transformation.

There was a small part of Julius that wished that the trolls were better fighters. It might have meant that he would have a much harder time killing them, but on the other hand, he would be able to test his fighting abilities against a skilled opponent. However, fighting something two tiers above him was going to do a lot for his skill progression regardless, so he didn’t let it bother him too much.

For the moment Julius was going to use the troll as a sparring partner. Julius decided to fight but did not use any of his fire mana techniques to do so. He wanted to have a good old-fashioned brawl with the eight-foot gray behemoth.

It may not have been the safest or smartest decision, but he couldn’t think of a better way to level up [Restoration] and [Kinetic Reinforcement]. He didn’t know when it happened, but Julius had gotten comfortable endangering himself, all in the name of improvement. He had always been somewhat of a training nut, but his recent actions put the old him to shame. However, he could see that his new methods were working very well. In the years he spent practicing, he wasn’t subjected to any real life-or-death situations. Even with Edwin brutally beating him down every day for years on end, Julius knew that he was never in any real danger.

Now, he could feel each fight had a risk associated with it, he couldn’t afford to lose. That also meant his skills increased by leaps and bounds as well. He had made more progress in these couple weeks than he had in years of training. Admittedly, those years of training had built a foundation that allowed him to make such large increases. If it wasn’t for that, he wouldn’t be able to progress so fast. However, it wasn’t until he was pushed to his limits that he saw such distinct growth.

Not to mention, Julius was having the time of his life. He kept telling himself he shouldn’t be, with what happened to Lukas and Edwin. Yet, he couldn’t ignore the way he felt when he experienced the wind of a strike that could take his head off missing by inches. Or how the world seemed to simplify and became so much clearer whenever he fought or trained past his limit. It was like he was finally experiencing the world for the first time and it felt right.

It appeared that Julius didn’t have any more time to contemplate his psychological stability, because a very incensed troll was charging straight at him even more angry than before. Julius prepared himself, ready to go toe to toe with the monster; no tricks, no traps, just pure fist versus fist. Well, more like club versus fist if I want to get technical, Julius thought to himself.

He allowed the troll to attack him at its own pace. He didn’t attack it in return, he just focused on evading its wild strikes. [Spatial Perception], [Savage Dance], and [Kinetic Reinforcement] complimented each other very well. One was able to give him unparalleled awareness, another allowed him to have exceptional control over his movements and decision-making, while the other gave him the power to take advantage of the other skills.

The troll was still vastly stronger than Julius, but his ability to use kinetic energy to accelerate and decelerate so quickly allowed him to keep up. Thanks to his other skills, he was practically dancing around the troll. Although, he still had taken a couple of small grazes from the club. Though he said small, the strength and brutality of the hits still meant he had to deal with several broken and fractured bones. Luckily [Restoration] was healing him with astonishing speed. It was much faster than before.

All in all, Julius could noticeably feel himself getting better as the fight progressed. He hadn’t allowed himself to get hit in the past few minutes, transitioning each burst of kinetic energy to another movement better than the beginning of the fight. He was also using barely any mana. Though, he would have been close to exhaustion if not for [Restoration] taking care of it.

So far he had just continued to dodge, not making any attacks toward it. Julius was impressed at the trolls’ tenacity. It was still going just as strong as when the fight first started. However, it made sense. If Julius was able to heal his fatigue, why wouldn’t the troll be able to as well? After all, Julius’s skill was heavily inspired off of the troll’s healing skill.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

With that being said, he was curious why the trolls needed to hunt for food. He hadn’t felt the pangs of hunger in a while. It could be that his skill evolved differently from their own.

He was getting distracted by his thoughts, and almost took a club in a chest for his inattention. Julius shook his head at his behavior and then grinned like a madman. I think I got a handle on evading, let’s see how I do with going on the offensive.

The entire fight Julius had been the one on the receiving end of the assault, now it was the troll’s turn. Instead of stepping back, he slid closer to the troll’s chest. He unleashed a heavy kick to the troll’s kneecap, causing a loud crunch. The troll, on one knee, tried to sweep Julius off his feet with a wild backhand but he jumped over it and landed a clean punch right to the monster’s temple.

He felt something crack underneath his knuckles and quickly delivered two more swift strikes to the troll. Unfortunately, it recovered very rapidly and Julius had to disengage. He continued this pattern for several more minutes, experimenting with new techniques. He was able to consistently get into a position to strike the thing’s head, but he was unable to kill it in a couple of hits.

He was confident that if he was able to get it to stop moving for several seconds, he would be able to unleash enough strikes to put it down. However, it recovered way too fast for him to get such an opportunity.

Still, Julius had an idea. He had been inspired by seeing how his hardened fire spikes were able to penetrate the troll’s skull and how much more effective an explosion was when it was released from inside the monster.