Chapter 85: Changes to [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal]

Julius was surprised. The skill didn’t feel bad or anything of the like, but it did feel different. He could sense that some of the life mana was taking a detour of a sort. It wasn’t like it was taking longer to heal or making it more inefficient, if anything this change was making the skill better overall. However, he could feel the mana going through a cycle within his core before distributing it through his body.

His immediate assumption was that Drasil was doing something to his skill. The cute little life spirit was still lying quietly in his core, sleeping or doing whatever spirits do. But Julius suspected the little glutton was doing something or had something to do with how [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was behaving. Perhaps, there was some effect of advancing with Drasil in his core or maybe it was just the byproduct of getting to Tier 2, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

Julius concentrated on using the skill again and focused on how it was different. He took his time, gradually introducing more mana into the skill, little wisps of fire mana were also joining it as well. Funnily enough, the fire mana wasn’t getting siphoned off, it was only his life mana, which further led him to believe that it was mainly due to Drasil.

After observing the skill and how it was interacting with his body, he was becoming more convinced that Drasil was doing something. Julius didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but all he was able to find out was that the skill seemed… more sparkly?

He didn’t know exactly how to explain it, but describing it as sparkly was the most accurate way he could do it.

He actually got a notification for his actions as well.

[Psuedo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 13 -> lvl 14]

He also missed some notifications he must have gotten during his fight with Aubrey, so he checked out those as well.

[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

[Empowerment of Will lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but it was certainly not hurting him at the moment. For now, he would just let it be and keep an eye on it.

Edgar had been watching him from the side, confused as to why Julius wasn’t moving. The large fourth-year felt that he was doing something with his healing skill, but he didn’t know what was going on. He was about to say something to Julius or ask if he was okay when he saw Julius stop whatever he was doing and put his attention back on Edgar.

Julius felt fresh, actually more fresh than he had ever felt from the skill before. [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] had always been such an amazing skill, but the change somehow made it even better. He didn’t feel like it had gotten that much stronger, but there was a distinctive sensation of invigorating vitality that wasn’t there before.

He smiled at Edgar who was looking at him concerned, assuring him that he was alright. Then motioned Edgar to activate the barrier and start the fight.

They didn’t have a countdown, but they were both keenly aware that the fight had already started once the barrier went up.

Neither of them made any moves in the first several moments, both were just gauging one another from a distance. Julius watched Edgar pace around him like a predator tracked its prey. There was still a small smile on the large man’s face and Julius had to admit that it was a little intimidating.

Facing off against Gabriel was different. Gabriel was a grown man with a family, the guy in front of him was just a student, albeit an older and much larger student, but he was still technically a “kid”. So it was slightly unnerving to see such a young person with such a massive stature.

Julius could feel Edgar internally running fire mana through his body and using earth mana to protect it from the outside. Julius had previously thought about doing the same thing with his own fire mana. He believed that if he could use both kinetic and fire mana to enhance his body it would be a good thing to learn and something that would increase his fighting power.

He experimented with it and even talked about it with Edgar from time to time. If anyone knew about enhancing their body with fire mana it would be Edgar. After discussing it with Edgar, Julius decided against it. First off, there was only so much mana one’s body could hold, that was the main problem. Secondly, not all mana types work well together when mixed in a single body, or enchantment. Luckily, kinetic and fire, go pretty well together, but that didn’t solve the first problem.

Julius’s issue was that if he wanted to include fire mana in his body, he would need to use less kinetic energy to balance it out. There was also the case of him already having a dedicated kinetic energy body enhancement skill, so fire mana would be less powerful.

However, even if he didn’t have [Kinetic Augementation] or had a fire enhancement skill on par with it, Julius would have still chosen kinetic energy as his body enhancement energy.

The biggest reason why he liked kinetic energy was its cost-effectiveness. He had so many ways to repurpose other sources of kinetic energy, or to reuse his own, that it didn’t make sense from a cost-benefit point of view. He would much rather use his fire mana for his big flashy explosions or constructs.

Still, when he saw the sheer power emanating from Edgar’s fire enhancement skill, he was having second thoughts. Julius could feel the heat from here and could feel the explosive strength hidden below the skin. Edgar’s fire was different than Julius’s. It wasn’t “hotter” per se, but it held something that made it much more potent than his own. He would have to ask about that later.

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Eventually, Julius was the one who made the first move. He quickly created a dozen orbs of heavy and compacted mana. He didn’t bother with spikes, much like Aubrey he had a feeling that Edgar’s defenses were going to be very hard to break through.

Therefore, he wanted to see if blunt trauma had a better effect on him. Kind of like how fighters in the Medieval Ages used maces and hammers to damage their opponents who were wearing plate armor.