It was a good thing Aaron could go hours without breathing. Otherwise, Ernest’s copious cigar smoke would have made training with him rather difficult.
For a couple of days, Aaron became somewhat of a landmark, meditating in the street. Ernest came and went, giving him tips and blowing cigar smoke in his direction.
On the second day, out of what seemed like boredom, Ernest asked for some tips on how to use different anchors that he had not yet discovered. But after several long hours of zero progress, he gave up.
Aaron continued his training for a while longer until a bearded man approached, offering credits in return for Aaron training within his compound.
It turned out that the man had started his own academy, training those less talented and helping them grow. Levels were straightforward enough, and even fighting styles weren’t that hard to teach, as combat skill seemed to innately transfer when leveling.
However, many struggled with the concepts of mana and other energy types. And that was where the academy targeted its teachings.
“Yes, right there. Take a seat,” the man gestured. “I will have the funds transferred directly to you for each day you train here.”
Seeing no reason not to do it, Aaron agreed. Apparently, the students of the academy could have insights, and even reach breakthroughs just watching someone of Aaron’s skill trying to unlock mana anchors.
It was a little distracting having crowds of students watching and taking notes all day. But he quickly got used to it, and if anything, the extra pressure helped. After all, Aaron had always worked better under pressure.
But after a couple of days meditating in the academy courtyard, he had achieved nothing. Making headway with imbued anchors had been a struggle from the start, but he really thought he would have made more progress by now, and was starting to feel like he was plateauing.
That wasn’t good enough. Progress needed to continue, and Aaron thanked the master of the academy and promised to return if he needed a place to meditate.
Aaron felt like he needed a catalyst to keep working, and luckily there were still more obelisks on the continent not too far away, and Ernest didn’t need any convincing to go clear them out.
Like most top rankers, Ernest wasn’t too affected by the corrupted aether, either. It still weakened him, but not enough to keep him from rushing alongside deep into enemy territory with Aaron.
“Another failure,” Ernest said as they blasted through a defensive line of undead.
The gunsmith was still working with prototypes for Ernest, and so getting some time to test them was useful for him as well.
Busting into one of the obelisks, Aaron took a seat, and Ernest went over his instructions again as he mediated over more food from his storage.
Unfortunately, the results were the same. He cleansed the obelisk, and still felt no closer to another mana anchor insight.
“It didn’t work,” Aaron sighed.
“There's still more of this filth to clear out,” Ernest said with a puff of smoke. “Shall we?”
Aaron nodded, and they made their way to the next obelisk. Unfortunately, it was still more of the same. Ernest wasn’t bothered, as he was happy to be weakening Darius. But it was starting to frustrate him.
Obviously it was much easier for Ernest to use imbued mana anchors. There were likely many reasons for that. It suited his style, among other things.
But had Aaron been looking at the problem too narrowly?
It wasn’t just that Ernest was a ranged combatant. Bullets were an integral part of his path itself; Aaron had learned this when talking to the man. He was a gunslinger, and guns used bullets.
It was kind of obvious. Even before using his mana anchors, Ernest was no doubt using Skills with his guns, which were essentially a form of mana infusion, as were any projectiles that could be empowered by a Skill, since external Skills used mana.
Mana anchors didn’t necessarily change the way someone like Ernest fought, but simply empowered their style further. And so even though he used [ Bombardier Fist ] often enough, he didn’t use it the same way. Instead of shooting an object and empowering it with a Skill, he was firing his very own fists.
Of course, this was fine. In fact, it was more than fine. It suited his style and allowed him to use mana anchors that were more familiar to him, as he could draw out and store mana in his fists without imbuing them, and then fire them.
Same result, different technique.
However, it didn’t get him any closer to improving his usage of imbued mana anchors.
Oookay, but how do I change that?
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that perhaps he was using the wrong objects. Food was near and dear to him, but he didn’t infuse it with Skills and then shoot it at his enemy. What he was doing felt wrong, because it was wrong. This wasn’t how his food was meant to be used, nor was it how he wanted to use it. And he had a feeling the System knew that.
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Unfortunately, Aaron didn’t shoot anything besides his fists at his enemies, and he couldn’t imbue something that was already a part of him. That defeated the entire purpose of the mana anchor.
He needed to think of something. What weapons did a pugilist use besides his own body?
Suddenly, he had a lightbulb moment. Perhaps it didn’t perfectly fit the brief, but he did shoot it at people, even if it wasn’t intentional…
Aaron looked down and thumbed his parasite ring. It had been on his finger for a while now, and he had shot it at enemies multiple times while using [ Bombardier Fist ], but there was something else about it that intrigued him. Ever since returning from the dungeon, the parasite ring had been drawing on his power, and more importantly, his mana.
Huh, I wonder…
Aaron threw the food he had been working with into his mouth, eating it instantly, and focused on the ring.
“Oh, using that, are you?” Ernest said as he watched. “Interesting choice.”
Imbuing an item with mana didn’t require it to necessarily be detached from the person. It just had to be something other than them, and as Aaron played around with it, he immediately felt like this was the answer.
It was nothing like the food. In fact, it was the polar opposite. Instead of feeling like he had to constantly stop his mana from dissipating, the ring felt like it was trying to greedily suck it all up.
Instead of struggling to hold the mana in place, he was suddenly struggling to fuel enough mana into the greedy ring. This was different, and completely up his alley.
Aaron grinned widely and gave the ring all the mana it could devour, pouring energy into it as he focused on imbuing it.
And within less than an hour of training, he saw the notification he had been waiting for.
You have gained insight into a possible upgrade path for Mana Anchors. Current discovered upgrade paths:
Streamlined Mana Anchors (10%)
Partitioned Mana Anchors (45%)
Reverse Mana Anchors (5%)
Elemental Shift (Void) (10%)
Expanded Mana Anchors (5%)
Imbuing Mana Anchors (10%)
Aaron’s face widened with glee. It had taken a while, but he felt like he was on the right track now.
“I sensed that,” Ernest said. “You got another one, didn’t you? Not bad. Though I would have had a few by now if I’d had all that mana when I started learning.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” Aaron smiled back. “But yeah, I did. And I didn’t even use the obelisk this time. You wanna go find another?”
“Do I?” Ernest grinned as he spun his revolvers. “I’ve been waiting too long.”
They quickly moved to another undead obelisk, and this time Aaron played around with the parasite ring while cleansing it. He also fired off [ Bombardier Fists ] while meditating and sensing the mana. It was a herculean effort, rippling mana arcing a line of pure energy as the ring consumed everything he gave it.
Most would have quickly drained themselves, but this was just what he needed.
The hungry ring drew in everything, but Aaron just cycled his true core harder, feeding it the enormous amounts of mana it asked for. But not just that; he also converted aether and ate soul-mending food as he pulled in energy from the atmosphere to be converted and fed to the limitless hunger of the ring.
Since all of the mana he was imbuing it with was consumed almost immediately, the ring wasn’t a viable weapon. But he wasn’t intending to use it as such. This was just a training tool, and it was working marvelously.
You have gained insight into a possible upgrade path for Mana Anchors. Current discovered upgrade paths:
Streamlined Mana Anchors (10%)
Partitioned Mana Anchors (45%)
Reverse Mana Anchors (5%)
Elemental Shift (Void) (10%)
Expanded Mana Anchors (5%)
Imbuing Mana Anchors (15%)
“Another one already? You really are a monster,” Ernest said. “That is impressive. At this rate, I’m going to have to get back to training. I can’t have you getting ahead of me at my own specialty.”
“Yeah, nah, I did alright, I guess. But I feel like I’ve got a long way to go. I have a feeling there are still more mana anchor types to discover,” Aaron said, thumbing his ring.
“More? Insanity. Why not just pick a path and follow it?”
“This is my path,” Aaron said.
In truth, he wasn’t sure he really needed to train his Imbuing Anchors any further. In fact, he didn’t know how far he needed to train any of his other anchors. But he knew he was heading in the right direction.
A little practice with his Partitioned Anchors revealed that he could now choose between imbued mana and tested it with a rock.
It wasn’t too powerful, and nothing compared to Ernest’s bullets, but it was impressive when he could switch between styles as he fought.
Aaron wasn’t sure what would happen if he fully unlocked Partitioned Anchors before improving his insights into the other anchors, but he had a feeling that it would weaken his potential.
That meant he had quite a bit of training ahead of him. But the results would be worth it. It would give him a truly adaptable style, and with his extraordinary energy control and pools to draw on, having reduced skill in any particular anchor type wouldn’t be such a big deal.
“What now?” Ernest asked. “You gonna push them further?”
“Not yet,” Aaron said.
His thoughts were already wandering. He wanted to discover the rest of the anchor types as quickly as possible. If he was going to finish upgrading his anchors before fighting Darius, then he was going to need to get on it.
The capital of the Alliance was a huge city, quite possibly the biggest in their world, and so heading back and asking around was the obvious first option. And if that failed, he could always keep moving. After all, he had an itching desire to visit those underwater obelisks, though he would first cleanse the rest of the continent.
“Wanna head back to town?” He said. “I want to ask around. See if I can’t discover the other anchor types there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ernest said. “But let’s not wait too long to finish off the rest of these obelisks. The situation is better, but we can’t go underestimating Darius. Trust me, he will have noticed all the damage you’ve been doing, and is no doubt already planning a way to deal with it.”
Aaron nodded. He was right. Just because he hadn’t seen a real counter from Darius yet didn’t mean the necromancer wasn’t planning something.
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