Chapter 30

Mana gathered in his palm. Hakon could feel it swirl through the pathways and gather. Moving it outside the pathways worked with some effort, yet the difficulty increased as the distance from the pathways increased.

It was not all that dissimilar to moving mana through the steel swords, yet it wasn’t the same. He was still touching the object as he moved mana through the weapons. Now he had it gathered in his palm with the intent to remove it from his body.

His Ancient Power confirmed that he was doing something, and that what he was doing was wrong, which only confirmed that it was possible. It was just that he didn’t do it correctly.

How? Hakon’s eyes snapped open to a ripple in the air around his palm. It was not noteworthy to most, but it was something, and that was enough as a starting point.

He shifted his Skills around until he broke into a cold sweat. As simple as it appeared to be at first glance, the procedure was cumbersome and complex. A single mistake and everything would be over. But how could he improve without knowing what was wrong? Enhanced Comprehension guided him; however, Hakon needed more than that. He had to feel what failure felt like.

So he tried to remove the translucent mana traces gathered in his hand from his palm even when Enhanced Comprehension told him that he wasn’t doing it right yet. It felt like someone had struck the back of his head with a hammer as the mana in his palm loosened ever so slightly, and it was not long before his concentration slipped, turning his attempt into an unsurprising failure.

And that was fine. Hakon tried again, first without changing much to observe everything, then he leaned more and more into Enhanced Comprehension to adjust his already existing Skills.

The adjustments didn’t improve the process much, but they changed something.

It took Hakon a while, but a Scripture appeared before him.

[Proficiency gained. [Mana Sense Lv.13] improved to [Mana Sense Lv.14]]

As soon as the Skill improved, the difficulty decreased drastically. It was almost like he was trying to do something he wasn’t supposed to at his current Level. As if a few more Levels in [Mana Sense] would make everything easier. And it probably would. The Ancestors’ Skills worked like that. Hakon could wield and circulate mana through his body without a Skill; however, [Circulation] made everything easier. The Skill even provided additional benefits in exchange for consuming some mana.

It was the same with [Mana Infusion]. At this point, Hakon could use the Skill to infuse just about everything. But that didn’t mean it would help him here, no matter how useful it could be in other situations. For now, Hakon needed something else entirely. A new Skill to form the foundation of what he actually wanted to achieve.

“That’s it. I am trying to leap at a monster when I can barely stand,” he mused to himself and discarded all thoughts of replicating the Monolith’s glistening mana. It was powerful in its raw form, but at the end of the day, it was not what he was after.

Hakon reached out to his Ancient Power as he closed his eyes once more. His lips curled into a smile when the thunder of wrongness shrank into a small rainstorm. It was still on his mind and occupied nearly every part of it, but he could separate the wrongness and work on them one by one.

That was how he earned another level in [Mana Sense] fairly quickly. He focused on the Skill and the tale Enhanced Comprehension spewed and modified it ever so slightly. Getting used to the changes took a little longer, as they were more substantial than before, but that was more than acceptable. Modifications to Skills were bound to become more and more troublesome as he progressed. At some point, he might not even earn a Level after working on a Skill for moons.

Fortunately, he was still far away from such atrocious work.

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With [Mana Sense] at Level 15, Hakon returned to the traces of mana gathered in his palm. He didn’t separate the traces’ properties like he had done in the Battle of Generation, but moved them away from his palm once more. That much hadn’t changed, so the challenge did not suddenly disappear either. It was just that Hakon had more tools to rely on now. Better tools.

He activated [Mana Sense] and even went as far as to use [Sensory Expansion] the moment he realized that he was getting close to his goal. Then… Then Hakon did it. Just like that, he removed the trace of mana from his body. No part of his body stayed in contact with the traces, yet Hakon retained full control.

“Yes!!” he exclaimed, shattering his focus at once. The mana traces fizzled out and dispersed, and the throbbing in his head only grew worse.

Right. That… was stupid. He thought, but the smile on his lips never faded. It only grew wider when he tried again a little while later.