BXBX NOVEL Chapter 52 - Cooperation (8)
The girl thought that she would be punished in some way and was ready to beg to let her family out of that. Still, then she heard something unbelievable… no one aside from the most powerful and skilled members of her tribe knew about that skill. It was impossible that others knew that… even those who had the skill and lost battles fought until their deaths to keep that as a secret.
"What is wrong?" Billy asked. "Show me Zen."
Billy thought that Zen was just an ordinary skill like the others, perhaps one level or two above Meditation. Still, considering how silent the area became after he mentioned the name, it seemed that he had made a mistake… When he joined the guard, he saw several elementalists with that skill, but it looked like only a few of them had it. He used Appraisal on the girl and then Analyze on Zen without any other choice.
Zen
It permanently increases your mana by ten points per level, and it also increases your control over if, granting the power to use more mana at the same time to increase their power.
Billy frowned when he read that… it was a bit different than he had expected. Still, the effects were pretty good. Both passive and the later one was basically what he wanted… a means to control mana.
"Well now… what should I do?" Billy thought.
The girl kept the existence of that skill a secret, and if he suddenly explained what it could do, it would raise suspicion since he didn\'t know what it could do a few seconds ago.
"Well, I suppose showing me the secrets of your tribe wasn\'t a part of the agreement we made yesterday," Billy said. "So, let\'s return to the usual."
Billy just learned a few secrets of the elementalists, so he didn\'t have to hurry. He made a lot of progress in just a few days, after all. In any case, that time, Billy asked how the elementalists could control fire since there was no fire around. Much to his surprise, the girl gave him an answer right away. Basically, they control the temperature around them to make a single place hotter than usual, and they feed that spot in the air with wind magic. With wind magic, they control the shape of the fire spells.
"Basically, one couldn\'t learn fire magic without learning wind magic, is that right?" Billy asked.
"Yes… few people can use fire magic," the girl replied. "We usually learn Earth magic first and then try the other elements in this sequence: water, wind, and fire."
Billy didn\'t have to ask why. The obvious reason was obvious… controlling fire and wind were harder since they couldn\'t see the magic in their simplest forms. That made sense. Fire was probably the most dangerous of the elements. It had a high area of effect, and the damage will last for quite a while…
After that, Billy had to duel with the same guys of the previous day. For some reason, they were all younger than eighteen. The adults would feel ashamed in defeating Billy… not like they could understand how he could interfere with their magic. As for the young ones, they were challenging him because they were stubborn.
In any case, Billy had the chance to see their magic being used up close for hundreds of times. However, he still couldn\'t understand the basic principles of mana control… and he had a lot of it, so the difficulty wasn\'t that big.
"Maybe I should do like usual… try and practice thousands of times," Billy thought while rubbing his chin. "Also, since I already can manipulate Earth, I should practice with water."
Before going home that day, Billy asked the girl to show a demonstration of water Manipulation. Just as he had expected, it was similar to fire Manipulation since she condensed the water in the air to create a Water Ball. While he was playing with his siblings by throwing some droplets of water at them, Billy tried to send his mana to the water inside a pot, but it didn\'t work…
"Zen is a passive skill that has two effects, but it is hard to believe that such a skill can\'t be trained normally…" Billy thought.
If it weren\'t a skill that couldn\'t be used manually, the girl wouldn\'t have panicked before. So, there was a trick to learn it… in the end, Billy didn\'t make any progress during his days off. However, he came up with a theory, and he decided to put it into practice the next day since Edward passed him the message that he could continue with what he was doing while interacting with the elementalists.
Billy just sat there and closed his eyes and then began to meditate. His mana was full, so he was no need to do that. Still, he had a feeling that it was the answer… Nothing happened for several hours, but Billy began to feel his senses improving. His body was recovering mana even if it didn\'t need it, after all. In the end, Billy\'s senses got sharp enough, thanks to the extra mana, that he began to feel like his body was expanding. He didn\'t feel lighter or heavier, so it was a weird feeling. In the end, he only opened his eyes when he felt some presence approaching.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill Mana Infusion.
"What are you doing?" Natalie asked when she, Alexander, and Lily appeared.
Billy smiled and then raised the palm of his right hand before infusing some of his mana into the air. Even though he used enough mana to create an Earth Ball on the size of his fist, only a water Ball on the size of the tip of his finger appeared.
Congratulations! You have learned Water Manipulation.
"I guess I need more training," Billy said.