Chapter 18: More storms.

On the way back to the village I noticed a distinct lack of earth mana and nature mana. It appears spring has arrived in some major forest or something.

Ting! A great entity, Oathbound Orthan the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!…Ting! A great entity, Oathbound Jake the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Emperor Alexander the Human!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Oathbound Audry the Human!

Seven for two this time, what is going on?

I look up to mom and dad.

"It's in another part of the world, no need to worry, and if they come for us the Guardian will protect us" Dad reassured.

No point in worrying about it, huh?

Dad is right, it's just a curiosity, that's all.

"There's no nature and earth mana, there will be a bad earth storm as the two mana empowers each other," I informed them.

"I'll tell the Elders." Mom nodded.

I continued to attend the mage dojo. Both to train my tenth breakthrough and my bond. The earth and nature storms are actually a good thing for us as the nature essence will help regrow the burned orchard.

The day the storms came it brought with it nature essence at such intensity I had never seen such a phenomenon before. This storm was a stroke of luck as that fulfilled the last requirement I needed to complete my fourth sense mana breakthrough. Which was to sense a large amount of essence. Something that is surprisingly hard to do even for the place I live in.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 99!

And with that, the two breakthroughs I am officially dubbing "Core Breakthroughs'' are maxed. They are Core Breakthroughs because they played such a pivotal role in gaining other breakthroughs and they relied on others to efficiently level up. But with that now completed maxing my sense mana should be easy, just a matter of time, and since my last breakthrough benefits from the storms they should level reasonably quickly.

This storm however will be marked in my personal history as so much elemental and essence mana has finally let me complete my seventh breakthrough too and push me to level one hundred.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 100!

Sense Mana: You have opened your mind to one of the energies that fuels this world. You can now sense mana in its raw form.1st Breakthrough: You have sensed an overwhelming pressure of mana, now you will be able to better sense mana in such quantity and better see slight differences in mana levels.2nd Breakthrough: You've learned to perceive different containers of mana letting you see the general shapes of mana containing objects around you.3rd Breakthrough: You've learned to see different types of mana, letting you see elemental mana.4th Breakthrough: You've learned how to see mana Essences, letting you see the many types of essences.5th Breakthrough: You've learned to see different amounts of mana within objects, letting you better see how much within certain parts of things and people.6th Breakthrough: you've learned how to expand your aura of sense mana, letting you see farther.7th Breakthrough: You've learned of and seen the relationship of essences and elemental mana. Now you can better study them.8th Breakthrough: You've predicted a mana storm. This breakthrough will help you predict the turbulent behavior of mana.9th Breakthrough: You've learned to differentiate the unique mana produced by people letting you detect unique individuals.10th Breakthrough: You've learned to see the transformation of one mana into another, letting you better see the interactions of natural processes and spells.

Sense Mana: 10/101st Breakthrough: 10/102nd Breakthrough: 10/103rd Breakthrough: 10/104th Breakthrough: 10/105th Breakthrough: 10/106th Breakthrough: 10/107th Breakthrough: 10/108th Breakthrough: 8/10 (Action: 4/5 Knowledge 4/5)9th Breakthrough: 9/10 (Action: 4/5 Knowledge 5/5)10th Breakthrough: 3/10 (Action: 1/5 Knowledge 2/5)

I watched the mana as the floor beneath me trembled. I watched as waves of earth mana swept through the ground and air, as earth mana interacted with the nature essence. There was so much nature essence that something changed in the earth mana and for a brief time it was transformed into more nature essence. It was very weak in intensity and decayed back into earth mana a few seconds later. I noticed that the longer earth mana stayed in the fields of nature mana it'll change into the essence and slowly become more intense. The energy within the nature essence is being transferred to the Earth element through tiny sparks light electricity and reaches an equilibrium.

There seems to be a stabilization point however where the earth mana stops decaying. The opposite interaction also happens to nature essence. Where it is transformed into earth mana but would decay back into nature essence unless it reaches a stabilization point.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 101!Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 102!Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 103!

I marked down the levels I think I got. Storm knowledge had been sitting at four through several storms now and I think this has finally pushed it to five. The others I put into my tenth as that was the only thing that made sense for this observation.

8th Breakthrough: 9/10 (Action: 4/5 Knowledge 5/5)9th Breakthrough: 9/10 (Action: 4/5 Knowledge 5/5)10th Breakthrough: 5/10 (Action: 2/5 Knowledge 3/5)

Just seven more levels. Seven to go and I'll finally cap my sense mana for now.

I've also come up with a further breakdown of action levels. Seeing as how those are usually where I struggle I came up with this:

Action levels breakdown:1 from extreme/ extraordinary case1 from extensive usage1 from a lot at once1 from repeated usage1 from normal usage

I've yet to get an extreme case for my eighth breakthrough. For my ninth, that was gained recently by the dragon. Which leaves extensive usage for my ninth, I'll get it in the coming days or weeks. Not exactly sure for my tenth. I just got it so I can rule out extensive usage. A lot at once I probably just got from this storm so that leaves repeated usage, extensive, and extraordinary. That means I need to look for an extreme case, which will likely come in the form of a storm and that's pretty much it. I Just need to wait for some special storm to cap my levels.

Knowledge is fairly linear so I don't really need to break it down. It's probably something like knowing fifteen percent of all the way to seventy-five or eighty percent of knowledge about the subject matter. I am confident that just because you have the five knowledge levels doesn't mean you know everything.

After a particularly large wave of earth mana I started to hear shouting. I was told to stay inside with Mom and Aunty while Dad went outside. The ground was still trembling but it wasn't like what I imagined an earthquake to be. Well, the large wave of earth mana did feel like one but that only lasted for a few seconds.

Dad didn't come back but the storm ended soon after. I went outside to see what was happening. The aftermath saw three buildings collapse and a giant spike coming out of the ground, piercing walkways and housing. No one was seriously injured. But earth storm tended to be like that. Ice Storm is the worst, followed by lightning, then fire. Wind, water, and earth storms cause damage but tend to not kill anyone. Light and dark are completely harmless if you avoid going outside and even then the harm done is by people walking into things as they can't see in dark storms and in light storms they risk eye damage from the intensely bright light.

I spent the next few days training my Bond at the dojo.

"You are a natural! Alysara!" Chyzu exclaimed as I fired off several beauty beams in rapid succession. I had quickly depleted my mana reserves but apparently, once I get my class at age ten I can put attribute points to boost my mana.

I had already gained three levels by trying new ways to apply my bond skills like using it in rapid succession, something I've for some reason never even thought to try. There is a diminishing returns kind of deal with Bonds and Bond skills. Meaning I'll have to keep trying new things. Makes sense why my leveling has slowed down. I've been too focused on trying to push my current skills further. Which does increase my experience but it doesn't completely outweigh the negatives.

"Next use your fairies to attack the dummy. Make sure to not use all the energy in them. Just enough to distract and annoy!"

Punch the target and deliver ten percent of your energy.

I resummoned and ordered my fairies. This time I had summoned the beauty beam but shaped the beauty essence with my [Shape Beauty] skill.

Five fairies rushed out and began punching the dummy. But due to my poorly worded instructions they did that then stopped, having fulfilled their task. I forcefully took control of them and finished the task.

"Hmm, could be better. Do it again!" Chyzu instructed. I waited for my mana to come back and resummoned my battle fairies.

Punch the target and deliver ten percent of your energy. Fly around the target's head in random patterns and attack once again. Repeat until your energy is depleted.

This time the fairies did what I wanted.

"Excellent! With this you can attack, distract, annoy and do all that without using much focus. Meaning you'll take away your opponent's focus while keeping your own to deliver more powerful attacks." Chyzu lectured. Although she was teaching me it was a learning experience for everyone.

I mentally saved my instructions and dubbed it "Attack Pattern: Distract" I wonder if I need to word it out all the time or just the meaning works

I summoned one fairy this time.

Use Attack Pattern: Distract.

The fairy used the attack pattern. Success!

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 58!

With this, I can pre-program complex attack patterns to use.

Apparently, the other students have a hard time gaining [Impart Instructions]. Even Chyzu is having trouble, so that leads to the question. Can that skill even be gained by an elemental user?

"Why is essence so much easier to control" One of the students complained.

"Elements pack more of a punch, quit whining!" Chyzu chastised her.

"It's a fair question though, why is essence easier to control and elements are more powerful?"

A few eyes turned towards me, they know I have a high level in [Sense Mana] so I am the one most likely to know.

"U-um, Well, Essence is, for a lack of better words, lighter than Elements"

In truth, I only partially know the answer. I know that Essences are 'airier' than elements, it's not as normally dense but it's besed and transformed from an element. does it lose metaphorical mass? is it because it gains something, an identity? Perhaps it's because of its identity that it is easier to control.

The others seem to accept that as a good enough answer, but not me. I want to know exactly what it is that makes mana work the way it does.

I used the rest of the workday to test the limits on [Impart Instructions]. Turns out the limit of five instructions for now. I kinda got lucky with my attack pattern as repeating previous tasks only counted as one instruction. So no super complex instructions, but this should be enough.

Follow the target. Avoid objects and people. Aim for weak or open spots in armor. Hit target.

I dubbed this pattern, Attack Pattern: Homing

Back home I work on my musician skills while trying new things with my [Imbue Beauty] using only on the notes I play and not have it constantly on. Then I tried increasing or decreasing how much mana I put in it for added effect.

Ting! Musician has obtained level 16!

When I woke up the next day I was met with dozens of messages.

Ting! A great entity, Oathbound Bryan the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!…Ting! A great entity, Oathbound Emily the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Emperor Alexander the Human!Ting! A great entity, Oathbound John the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!…Ting! A great entity, Oathbound Audry the Human, has been slain by a Kodoku Cannibal!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by an Oathbound Jordan the Human!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by an Oathbound Jordan the Human!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Emperor Alexander the Human!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Emperor Alexander the Human!Ting! A cursed entity, Kodoku Cannibal, has been slain by Emperor Alexander the Human!

What the fuck happened? Over sixty of those Oathbound guys for six cursed beings!

I attended the dojo for the workday after bathing with my parents in the morning. Myrou's projection held a neutral expression, like most days.

"Alright, Alysara. Today you will be using non damaging fairies to distract and annoy the other apprentices, they need to learn how to deal with such tactics eventually and it's best to start early" Chyzu said.

Today I was tasked with using nondamaging fairies to distract the other apprentices. I smiled with glee I was going to have so much fun poking at them.

Summoning some fairies with just normal beauty essence I sent them to annoy two apprentices sparing, focusing on one of them for a while before swapping to the other apprentice. I manually took control of two fairies to annoy them in more complex ways. Watching their contort in frustration and anger as some lashed out against the reshaped bundles of mana.

The whole day's training paid off with one more level for my bond. I spent the afternoon leisure time working on my music and playing with Tana.

It was at night when we were returning from the evening gathering that I noticed all mana start drifting up and back through the leyline currents

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 104!