Chapter 315: Spatial Crack

He had been playing around with his new skill for hours when he eventually received a message from his communication device. It was from Lily, who asked where he was.

He didn’t really want to tell her that he had been up the entire night. She had been very insistent that he get a good night’s sleep, and she had a good point.

A big reason why he had gotten into trouble with his soul damage was because he wasn’t sleeping for weeks on end. But this was also the first day that he had really stayed up all night, so it shouldn’t be that bad.

Still, he didn’t see the harm if he avoided telling her what he had exactly been up to.

As he left the room, he made sure nothing was too badly damaged. Some blast marks were on the stone, but overall, the room was in one piece. Which was quite an accomplishment for his standards, so he was proud of himself.

He checked the notifications he had gotten during these past several hours of training.

[Spatial Crack lvl 1 -> lvl 3]

[Inexorable Aura of Ruin lvl 8 -> lvl 9]

[Flash Step lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

It was quite surprising that he was able to level up [Flash Step] even though he had not done that much in terms of diversifying its usage. He couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with his new skill correlating with the following general upgrade for the skill.

[Spatial Crack] has also shown some nice improvements. While he hadn’t really learned how or what to use the crack for other than creating a space bomb, he was quickly becoming much more proficient in creating them.

The time it took to create them had been cut in half, and he was beginning to understand the process a little better the more he used the skill.

He really wanted to figure out how to connect the two points, though. He believed that once he did that, he could take the first step toward using these cracks for teleportation. Unfortunately, the only thing he could currently use them for was as a weapon.

Because if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that whatever was sent into these cracks didn’t come out intact. He had even taken the risk of collapsing a crack on purpose just to see what happened in closer detail.

Of course, this was all in the name of science, and he took the proper precautions.

Still, the collapsing spatial crack was quite powerful. The explosion was unlike his other explosive abilities. It was as if space itself was tearing the nearby object apart. It was probably why he had taken so much damage and found it so difficult to heal afterward.

He would even go as far as to say that this new skill leaned more toward the offensive side of things. The only thing that prevented it from becoming an actual viable attack was how long it took to activate.

It still took him several seconds to create the distortion, and then a few more to purposefully collapse the crack in space.

In a fight, his opponent would have already thrown dozens of attacks in that span. Furthermore, he would be relying on the fact that they wouldn’t be moving either. Since the point couldn’t be moved mid-activation, the only way it would work is if his opponent was practically crippled or too lazy to move.

For now, he wasn’t going to be thinking of his new skill as either a movement or an attack skill. It was going to simply be a skill he could use to get a better grasp of spatial magic and how it worked—using it as a way to gain a Space Concept and hopefully evolve his other related skills.

***

He met Lily and the others at the cafeteria, where he spotted them almost finished with breakfast.

“Where have you been? You never miss breakfast,” Aubrey said with a mouthful of food.

“Sorry, I got sidetracked,” he said to her.

“No worries, it just means less food for me,” she said grumpily.

Edgar looked over at her with a baffled look. “What do you mean? How does Julius’s attendance affect how much food you get?”

“What you haven’t noticed?” Aubrey asked him confusedly.

“No, what did I miss? Did something happen?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe you haven’t noticed that whenever we go get food with Julius, the staff always gives us bigger portions,” Aubrey said with a disappointed shake of her head as if she couldn’t believe Edgar hadn’t noticed yet.

“There’s no way that’s actually real. It’s just in your head,” Derek said to her assuringly.

“I am not wrong,” Aubrey argued fervently. “I have taken notes and made extensive comparisons to what I get served when I am with or without Julius. Everything I have investigated shows that whenever I get food with him, I get more food than usual.”

“Why would they do that? It’s not like we can’t get up for seconds, Aubrey,” Derek pointed out with a gesturing look toward the line.

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“The proof is right there,” Aubrey exclaimed while jabbing her finger at Julius’s plate of food. “Look how much more food he got compared to us.”

Edgar leaned over to stare at Julius’s plate. “Hmm, actually, now that you mention it, it does kind of look like there is more than what I was given. I think they gave him the crispy corner piece, too,” he said with a conflicted frown, looking very upset at this spectacular revelation.

“I can’t believe you guys never noticed. It is a big reason why I missed him when he was gone for those several months and is the reason why I always try to get served with him,” Aubrey stated while throwing her arms up in the air.