Chapter 48: [Mana Manipulation] Evolution

The first thing Julius attempted was the mana layering Orus had talked about. It was a more mage-focused technique so neither Declan nor Orus were able to explain that much to him. But Julius got an idea from the name alone.

The main issue for him was how to connect multiple layers in a construct. He had tried it before, but every time the construct would fall apart or turn into two instead of one. He needed to find a way to merge multiple layers into a single construct. He might not find a way tonight but he believed that the act of practicing might be enough of a challenge to evolve his skill.

He tried and tried for hours, but didn’t make any progress. It was only after he unraveled two layers and tried to weave the separate layers together did it work. He had been trying to combine two completely finished layers seamlessly, while in reality, it would only work if both layers were incomplete.

Julius needed to leave room in each layer so that the other one could intertwine with the other. It was a simple answer but it took him stepping back for a few minutes and backtracking his process to find it.

It seemed that his skill had approved of his success as well because it finally reached level 10.

[Mana Manipulation lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

It had only been a few days, but he was already able to evolve the skill. All of his hard work had paid off and he was very interested in what some of his choices might be.

Skill [Mana Manipulation] has reached level 10. Would you like to evolve [Mana Manipulation]?

He mentally accepted.

Skill [Mana Manipulation] is evolving… possible advancements: [Advanced Mana Manipulation], [Mana Hardening], [Mana Overload], [Mana Weaving], [Mana Absorption], [Mana Saturation], and [Mana Layering]

Damn! That’s a lot of options, Julius thought to himself.

Way more than any other skill. Was it because of his own various uses of mana, or do most people get a lot of options? He recognized and understood many of the options, they were skills that Julius had been able to do on his own for a while now.

[Advanced Mana Manipulation] was the typical direct upgrade, but unlike other skills, he felt like it might be a good decision for him. He was already good at a lot of the options on the list, if he were someone else who got the skill early he probably wouldn’t have considered it. But a general enhancement on all of his manipulations was tempting.

[Mana Hardening] was a nice-sounding skill. He assumed it was from when he first was able to harden mana and create a physical construct. Very useful, but he didn’t think he had a problem of hardness. His constructs were hard, but they were also brittle. So he eliminated that one.

[Mana Overload] was interesting. From the name Julius assumed that the skill would allow him to use more mana than he could otherwise control. It sounded nice if he wanted to use techniques like the kinetically enhanced fire that used so much mana that he couldn’t control it. But was he going to get a skill for a single technique? He wasn’t exactly lacking in offense, he would rather have something that would help him comprehensively. But he was still tempted by the allure of bigger and more powerful explosions.

[Mana Weaving] didn’t sound very powerful based on the name, but Julius understood how much weaving mana had helped him. If he hadn’t learned to weave mana, he would have never been able to replicate the troll’s healing skill. Weaving mana saved him a lot of mana, not requiring him to compress a massive amount of mana to do more damage. For that reason, that skill was high on his mental list.

[Mana Absorption] sounded cool as hell too. He figured that recycling his mana like he did was what allowed him to get this option. It was honestly something that he did automatically at this point. Whenever he used a technique, he would subconsciously keep control of any excess mana to use for another technique. He wasn’t able to reabsorb into his core, but as long as he kept it under control he would still be able to use it. Maybe this skill would allow him to absorb mana into his core or something similar. It was tempting because he already had a huge capacity and wondered how his future opponents might feel when he was able to bombard them with mana and then quickly regenerate it and keep on doing it.

[Mana Saturation] was probably similar to [Kinetic Augmentation] except for all mana types. He was guessing that he would be able to saturate mana into objects or his constructs to make them stronger. He was already thinking of the possibilities. Once he could create armor constructs he would be able to reinforce them with mana to make them even stronger. This was another top contender for sure.

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[Mana Layering] was a weird one. He only just did it several minutes ago so he didn’t really know much about it. Also, he didn’t know if it was smart to get it because he hadn’t gotten good with it yet and wanted to at least be proficient before he relied on the skill to do it for him. Or if it would save him a lot of time down the road. It was a complicated process and he could see how it being done automatically be a useful tool. But he realized after practicing mana control without a skill for so long, how much more he was getting out of the skill because he was already able to do it without the skill.

In the end, he didn’t make a decision yet. He thought it would be better to wait and see if Declan might have an opinion tomorrow when Julius asked him.