Chapter 542: Truly a Monster

Julius cracked his neck, stretched his arms, and allowed his spine to realign. He had made another small mistake and paid the price. The mana during the last attempt had collapsed on itself and twisted into an ugly mess. His spine had been punished for his miscalculation. It had buckled and shattered under the immense pressure he had placed on it.

He had been going at it for the past hour and hadn’t quite managed to consistently cycle the life mana through all of the exercise without mistakes. Each time, something went wrong, and he had to start over.

Freya seemed to accept that he was going to keep going at it until he was satisfied. The only reason she was allowing this to go on was that she understood that there weren’t any real threats or risks of danger to him. Sure, he was destroying his body, but his soul and mind were still fine.

She also knew he was too stubborn to give up until he improved a little bit. So she stood next to the circle he was sitting in, ready to step forward if anything went wrong.

The circle that Freya created for him was a modified version of the circles that healers used in hospitals and medical centers. Not everyone had such immaculate control over their mana, and these circles helped reduce the risk of something going wrong. They also had other helpful features.

Freya was using the pain-reducing feature to help Julius, knowing that he was likely going to get injured. To her credit, she was absolutely correct.

He began the exercises again, and this time around, he wanted to try something a little different. However, it was a bad idea, and immediately, he felt the mana go out of control. He tried his best to contain it, but it was impossible, and he needed to vent the mana somewhere before the pressure exploded on its own.

He grimaced and forced it through one of his arms. The circle thankfully blocked the explosion of blood and bone, but he still made a mess of things. He sighed and rubbed his head with his already regenerating limb.

Then waved around the nub into the air lazily with a thoughtful frown on his face as he tried to come up with other ways to get a handle on these exercises.

These exercises that the book had him doing were very dangerous. He didn’t know how Tezuko even thought about using life mana in such a weird way. It was so hard to control and, to be honest, a little stupid.

Just balancing the mana took a lot of Julius’s focus.

What made it more ludicrous was that this wasn’t even the real technique. The modifications he would be doing later down the road would be much more taxing and require a higher level of control.

If he couldn’t manage this, then what hopes did he have of successfully creating a mana heart or other body modifications?

He needed to take this more seriously.

His aura reacted to his change of mindset, and he could feel the Ruinous Crown on his head start to feel motivated as well. It flared up in response, flickering with excitement. He gave it a gentle reminder to remain silent for the time being.

To his satisfaction, the crown listened and stood by as Julius did his thing. Ever since he had fought that chimera, the crown had been much more responsive and listened to him more easily. He must have earned some of its respect or something.

Once he felt he was prepared, he went for it. For the past hour, he had been taking it slow because it was new to him. However, he no longer needed caution. He needed to be bold. So with a deep pull of mana, he started the process all over again.

He noticed that Freya reacted instantly, taking half a step closer to him, but ultimately holding back.

The life mana spread throughout his body. It violently carved out pathways in his channels. His channels rejected this and did their best to fight back, slowly healing over the sections his life mana had chiseled out. This meant he had to continuously carve these markings even deeper with the next cycle of life mana.

It was a delicate balance of power and control.

He felt his life mana flare out of his control, just like how it had been doing for the past hour. However, this time, he wanted to try something.

He took control of his ruinous aura and formed a sort of barrier around the pathways he was creating. It was easier said than done, though. It wasn’t like he was creating a physical barrier around his body.

No, this was a hair-thin barrier that he created inside his mana channels. He was hoping that he could destroy any bits of life mana that tried to go out of his control. Those flare-ups were usually the start of his problems. Once they began, it was almost impossible to stop them, as it triggered a chain reaction.

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Of course, it would be naive to hope that it would work perfectly the first time around. That was why he wasn’t surprised when the ruinous aura went too far and completely vaporized all of his work with the life mana.

The mana inside his channels slowed to a crawl. However, there was a good thing about this. He didn’t lose any limbs or require any healing.

He frowned and lifted his bloody shirt. He saw that a small hole the size of a coin appeared in his chest from the leftover mana he wasn’t able to take care of.

He shrugged. Okay, not that much healing at least, he corrected himself.

While it didn’t work exactly as planned, he felt like there was some promise. And so after a few moments to allow his chest to heal, he went at it again.

This time, he was a little more aggressive with how much life mana he was using. With the ruinous aura taking care of the flare-ups, he was much more comfortable utilizing more mana than before.