Chapter 72 — Savaging Strike

  Savaging Strike was the natural refinement and extension of how the [Berserker Weapon Arts] used Warrior Spirit to imbue intent into movements and strikes, and Toren was sure he’d have no problems performing the technique from the start.

  How wrong he was.

  He soon ran into the realization that Savaging Strike was similar to imbuing arrows with his intent—once no longer in his grasp, the imbued intent rapidly dissipated, even moreso when faced with a mana-resistant material.

  The Skill did grant him enough know-how to perform the technique, but…

  The effect was weak. Embarrassingly weak.

  Admittedly, against a person, the resistance would scale with level, mana density, and aura strength, so it was possible that a similarly leveled opponent would have less resistance than an inanimate tier-2 log.

  Toren could only thank fate that he hadn’t tried to impress Warnel and Laiya with it unpracticed, like he had risked with the Warrior Spirit technique.

  That his weapon arts Skill placed so much emphasis on mastering Warrior Spirit was a clue. He settled into a stance with a knife in each hand and refocused. He was clearly doing something wrong or introducing an inefficiency somewhere.

  Using [Flurry of Blows] to slow his perception of time, Toren tried again.

  In the slowed time, he soon noticed that each knife stab or slash left a small amount of his mana behind that attracted his attacks back to that location. And though the effect was weak, when performed together with Savaging Strike, the resisting mana stayed disrupted at that location.

  His attempts were certainly doing something. Was it a matter of refining his approach?

  Repeatedly striking the same location with further attempts at Savaging Strike increased the disruption—when he was able to get the timing right.

  Sure he could use Warrior Spirit to slice through or stab into the wood, but extending that to ‘savage’ the interior…

  The timing for Savaging Strike seemed like it would be easy, but the intent-imbued mana took focus to properly gather and often just washed over the log’s surface rather than penetrate deeper into the mana-resistant wood.

  Finding a particularly resistant area of the alchemically charred log, he practiced using [Flurry of Blows] to strike the same spot over and over again, each strike pushing his intent-filled mana into the tier-2 wood and weakening the innate mana resistance until, with a final stab, the knife embedded to the hilt and his intent pushed into the interior.

  While thrilled about the [Mana Manipulation] notification, Toren could only groan at the [Flurry of Blows] one.

  He was so focused on Savaging Strike needing to penetrate the opponents’ mana protection that it naturally led [Flurry of Blows] to be refined in that direction. He would have preferred achieving the refinement through battle experience, but it was done now. The choice had been made.

  He pulled up the Ability description.

  Penetration was indeed now listed in the active effect.

  A quick test of the Ability showed that the accuracy and time dilation were also slightly improved.

  Not a terrible outcome since he hadn’t expected a penetration effect to become available until the tier-2 refinement. Whether broadening the Ability at tier-1 rather than specializing it would weaken the result when tiering it up would be something he’d have to deal with when he reached that point.

  Maybe more importantly, after more than a decade of effort, he had finally achieved his long sought goal of external mana manipulation. He sent his response to the waiting Mirror shard.

  Toren was sure Warnel would call him an idiot for taking the gold-rarity skill over using the Core space freed up from the acquisition of [Constitution of the Phoenix] to add viridian-rarity [Unassailable Tower of the Mind], but [Mana Manipulation] was a Skill he could use to increase his strength now… and besides, wouldn’t he need to merge the equivalent of 3 gold-rarity Skills to create enough space in his Core? That would be how many bronze Skills? 5? 6? 10 or more iron?

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Clearly, [Unassailable Tower of the Mind] was a Skill better added while using a full-featured Celestial Mirror of Truth. Likely, leveling was the only way he was going to gain sufficient Core space any time soon, but would waiting for another level even be enough?

  No, the viridian-rarity mental Skill would have to wait, and he might not have to wait long. Even without merging half of his current Skills to create enough room, chances were that the levels gained from surviving the coming horde of beasts would be sufficient.

  He took a deep breath of the jungle’s humid air and looked around.

  A pale green cast had washed over the stead with night having arrived and the moon goddesses Luphere and Kyrella in ascendance. The green light from Kyrella in particular seemed to bolster the remaining life essence in the scorched log Toren had been using as a target. Whether auspicious or not, he didn’t know, but he did feel it wasn’t time to bring an end to his day just yet.

  The smell of smoke from the kitchen and candlelight and soft voices from the common room windows told him the Hatterwicks were also busy working late into the evening rather than resting.

  Toren sank a knife into the charred and pitted wood, sending intent-infused mana deep into the wood, rending the internal structure just past the blade’s tip and spreading cracks further within.

  In the end, overcoming his inability to control mana outside his body had proved key to both Savage Strike and adding Warrior Spirit to his arrows and thrown knives.

  He still had a long way to go before mastering either, and his effective range was still very limited, but now, not only could he keep Yana’s knives from tumbling, their trajectory could be adjusted mid-flight. With enough practice, the effect might well grow into full telekinesis. He could already see that adding the Savaging Strike technique to distant attacks would be a key prerequisite to learning Call for Blood.

  Candlelight gone from the common room windows and the red of Sheveyi and the purple of Arevone having joined Luphere and Kyrella overhead, Toren had done what he could. Further progress with Savaging Strike would require living targets and that meant another hunt or clearing out the mines.

  Seeing four of the moon goddesses’ divine domains together in the sky was the clearest sign yet that there wasn’t much time before the flooding would begin and the jungle’s beasts would be forced to higher ground.

  ~~~

  Name: Toren of Theravos

  Race: Human

  Age: 20

  Profession 1: Level 8 Burningblood Berserker (10766/16000)

  Mana: 56/115

  Strength: 16

  Constitution: 16

  Dexterity: 15

  Agility: 13

  Wisdom: 12

  Intellect: 8

  Will Power: 18

  Perception 15

  Appearance: 9

  Charisma: 8

  Luck: 10

  Attribute Upgrade Points: 7

  Traits:

  Sacrificial Guardian

  Abilities:

  Burning Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: High)

  Control Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: Mid)

  Flurry of Blows (DEX, Rank 1, Proficiency: Mid)

  Ability Upgrade Points: 7

  Profession Skills:

  Constitution of the Phoenix 5

  Empower 6

  Focus Rage 8

  Combat Awareness 6

  Berserker Weapon Arts 6 → 7

  Pain Tolerance 8

  Intimidate 6

  Skills:

  Mana Manipulation 4 → 5

  Danger Sensing 3

  Stealth 18

  Mana Sensing 16

  Wilderness Harvesting 12

  Theravos Language 11

  Religion 10

  Divided Focus 7

  Meditation 6

  Hunting 20

  Archery 19

  Running 15

  Wound Binding 8

  Arithmetic 4