Chapter 183 Glowing Eyes
The group spent the remainder of the day just relaxing and conserving their energy. It was similar to when they were all stuck together in the cave during the rainstorm test. However, this time they had opened up a lot more to each other, and now they were all sharing stories about each other and having a good time.
During their talk, Mako suddenly brought up the topic of Bill's and Iris' eyes glowing different colors while fighting the giant Puffclaw beast. Bill and Iris were both confused as they had no idea something like this had occurred but then Leon butted in stating that during their fight with the Frost Cobras, he observed Erin's eyes glow white as well.
This came as a shock to Erin as she had no clue that such a thing had been happening to her. From her perspective, she just felt a wave of strength wash over her whenever she was focused and used the ice ability, and she believed that she was just tapping into the strength that a resonated ability possessed.
It was true that a resonated ability would be a lot stronger than the base abilities, but with it still being Level 1, her glowing eyes were the only explanation that explained her terrifying growth in strength, and it was also a sound explanation for Bill and Iris as they also exploded in strength after their eyes started glowing.
It was at this point that Iris came clean that she had seen Erin's eyes glow before while they were fighting the 8 cadets on the way up the mountain but she wasn't sure of it as she had only seen it for a split second.
Erin sat there in disbelief, as she realized that she had such a power and had no idea that she was using it subconsciously.
"Hey Mako, you can sense energies right, can you see what is happening in our bodies?" Erin asked Mako.
"Hmm... I have never sensed anything out of the ordinary but that said, I have never used my skill when your eyes are glowing, so maybe it will only show when your eyes glow." Mako hypothesized.
It was a valid hypothesis because even if he hadn't actually used his Energy Sensing skill, he had used Analyze on them plenty and had never noticed a change in their stats, or abilities.
"Alright, let's do it!" Erin exclaimed as she activated her ice aura and concentrated as if she was about to fight an enemy until she felt that wave of energy and strength flow through her.
It was at that point that she opened her eyes and revealed her beautiful glowing white eyes to everyone. All of them were shocked to see them glow in person and jumped a little but they quickly composed themselves and began staring at it closely.
Erin was quickly weirded out by all of them staring at her and she quickly pressed Mako to his thing and figure out what was happening to her.
Mako did what he had set out to do, but this time he tried his new skill before using Analyze. He wanted to see just what would happen after activating his new skill.
The moment the skill activated, Mako's eyes glowed ever so slightly green that it was almost unnoticeable. From Mako's perspective, his entire vision turned black and white with many colorful streams of energy flowing through everything.
Mako focused his skill only on Erin and he could clearly see all the different types of energy inside of her. A ball-sized bubble of blue and green aura representing her Water and Wind ability, but the bubble for her ice ability was nowhere to be seen. Mako zoomed out a bit to locate it and it was at this moment that he saw...
Erin's entire body was covered with white-colored energy. Her ability bubble had burst and now her ability aura was dispersed through her entire body and a concentration of it was surrounding her eyes, giving it the white icy glow.
Mako instructed Erin to stop her eyes from glowing while he continued to observe her energy and as Erin did what she was told, and stopped using her ice aura, all the aura started to move back toward the center of her body and recollect into a bubble, just like the Water and Wind bubbles, only a little smaller in size.
Mako canceled his skill and it put a slight strain on his eyes which was why he quickly closed them and allowed them to rest while massaging them with his fingers.
"What...? What did you see?!" Erin asked with anticipation as she eagerly wanted to know what was happening to her body.
Mako slowly stopped massaging his eyes and slowly opened them again, he looked at Erin who was almost right in front of his face eagerly waiting for his answer.
"Somehow, you have been able to burst your ability bubble!" Mako replied.
"Huh!? What does that mean!?" Erin exclaimed as she grabbed onto Mako and started shaking him to get him to tell more.
"I don't know!! I am not an expert at this, I can just sense it!" Mako shouted which finally made Erin stop shaking him.
Iris butted in and separated the two, holding Erin back and telling her to calm down and listen to what Mako had to say.
"Thanks, Iris," Mako said as he caught his breath after getting violently shaken.
"As I was saying, I was able to sense your wind and water abilities in the form of small bubbles of aura near the center of your chest, but I am sure you guys already know this as you would have sensed this much yourself." Mako began to explain.
This was true, even if everyone didn't have the ability to sense auras and whatnot, they could sense what was within themselves, and they had sensed balls of auras inside them that they used to cast their abilities and skills.
"However, your Ice ability aura wasn't contained in a bubble, but rather it had burst and dispersed throughout your body, mixing with your blood, and once you stopped using your ice ability, it reformed back into a bubble-like your other abilities," Mako said as he finished his explanation.
This time, Erin didn't react right away and slowly began to understand what Mako was telling her.
"I don't know how you are getting strength from this, but if I were to guess, I would say that the ability aura is entering your blood cells, and strengthening them so that you can use the ice ability more freely and gain so much strength," Mako said.
"So my ability is alright?" Erin asked cautiously.
"Yes, it has reverted back to its original state and I don't see any changes," Mako replied.
Erin was relieved to hear that her ability was alright because the only reason she jumped at Mako was that he said that her ability had burst. She didn't know what it meant but feared that something had happened to her ability which made her worry and she wanted to know what it was.
"Is it safe for me to use that glowing ability?" Erin asked
"It should be, your ice ability bubble is exactly the same as it was when you first obtained the agility so it hasn't done anything to it at all. However, we should still inquire about it with a military person to get to know what this phenomenon actually is." Mako suggested.
After Mako reassured Erin that nothing was wrong with her ability and that this was just a bonus that she had somehow unlocked, Erin started feeling a lot better and apologized for the sudden outburst of emotion.
"And what about us?" Bill asked pointing at Iris and himself.
Bill and Iris were also curious about this special ability as they don't even remember if they were stronger or not as they just wanted to kill that beast at that moment.
"I have been trying to get my eyes to glow but so far I wasn't able to," Bill said with a defeated look.
Mako hypothesized that it might be situational and because Erin had been using it for a while, her body was able to replicate that situation at will and thus she could freely make her eyes glow. He recommended Bill to focus on his wind aura as his eyes had glowed green and he recommended Iris to focus on her water aura as her eyes glowed blue.
For the rest of the day, both of them started to focus on their abilities to try and make their eyes glow while Erin gave them tips about how she was able to activate hers. Leon was a bit saddened as he didn't have such a skill yet, and he just sat beside Mako who was observing them practice their new skill.
However, Leon wasn't too upset about this as he was the only person in the group who had four abilities, so he couldn't really complain about being left out and so he began practicing with his fire ability a bit, trying to see if he could upgrade it by himself.
Everyone made sure not to use too much energy so that they could recover in time to be at full strength and energy against the final horde wave.
Meanwhile, Mako's focus was completely on Erin who was demonstrating her glowing eyes to Bill and Iris for the seventh time. He was quite intrigued about this special skill, and he had observed it using his Energy Sensing ability, but he also wanted to know its description which was why he had used Analyze on it and was currently reading the detail provided by the system.
[Analyze]