EmEs_etherious
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Chapter 102- What Am I Even Doing
🕑 Added 2023-10-07 23:18:18 +0000 UTCThe advantage of having a perception stat didn’t only include enhanced vision and hearing capabilities. Whilst the two were incredibly useful in a fight that took place at subsonic speeds, Arthur found that he only truly appreciated the stat when he consumed Alyssia’s cooking.
A dish that was beyond gourmet standards in the pre-system era was enhanced to a sublime, near-godly level of perfection when eaten with 92 perception and no one would ever be able to persuade Arthur that its potential could be put to any better use. Not when he could taste a smell when he put his mind to it, which actually sounded incredibly perverted now that Arthur had thought of it.
He tried to keep a straight face and put a stop to the meanderings of his imagination. Why oh why did he think of smelling different types of shit when eating delicious food. Damn fucking horses. Can't take a step without stepping in their crap. Arthur shook his head and busied himself in eating his soup, bringing up a system notification he’d missed to distract himself from the vivid imagery his mind conjured.
You have learned the general skill Ether manipulation (common)-All sapients eventually learn to control what comes naturally to the ordinary beast. There are better and worse ways to control the ethereal energy of ether. All that matters, however, is that you learn control. The first step is the most difficult, but the path before you is no easier. Congratulations and good luck.
Ether manipulation has reached level 2.
It was the longest and most personal message he’d ever received from the system in a skill description, but Arthur wasn’t so egotistical as to think that there was any specific reason for it. Only that learning to manipulate ether even amateurishly warranted a little special attention from the system, a sort of acknowledgement that you were on the right track.
He doubted he was the first to receive it. News broadcasting and social media had already taught him that his control over magic was a little below average. Sure, his spells had a shit ton of power behind them and his mental stats were well above the curve, but he simply lacked the finesse and ease with which others directed ether.
Magic was dependent on more than just stats, and Arthur was pretty certain he’d need over three times as much willpower to even compare himself to monsters like the Ice Princess or Kazi Alukai. That man wielded ether like he had imbibed with it since his time in the cradle. And the frozen princess matched if not exceeded the Kazakhstan's control of ether. When he compared himself to them, Arthur couldn’t help but feel mediocre. Sure he could tank a tank, but it just didn’t have the same appeal as a master sorcerer. If Arthur could master even a single one of his affinities, he’d be unstoppable, a powerful magician with physical stats that put warriors to shame, immovable and powerful, a walking fortress of destruction and ruin.
“Why the hell are you grinning like a weirdo?”
Alyssia’s sharp words sadly cut through his fantasies like a hot knife through butter and Arthur sighed as he felt his dreams slip intangibly through his fingers. They were nice while they lasted. But reality was a far harsher trial and the records of his failures were dotted around the area in signs of singed grass and overturned earth. They were the results of his pitiful attempts at casting shadow bombs without the system's assistance. According to Alyssia, it should have been far easier than any of his other abilities since it was one of his own creations. Sadly, it seemed like the Alverin woman had over-estimated him and all he had to show for hours of effort was a single measly level in ether manipulation.
He was actually a little surprised that his pathetic attempts hadn’t affected his shadow bomb skill levels in a negative way. His most recent attempts had reached a whole new level of terrible, almost as if shadows themselves had started to mock his terrible ability. Perhaps his disappointment showed on his face as Alyssia offered some words of encouragement.
“Hey don’t worry. Your ether control’s not that bad.”
Alyssia was not a good liar, and her voice betrayed the falsehood in her speech.
Arthur raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“Okay, it's piss-poor. It's like your willpower stat's effect is inverted or something. Either your approach to ether is completely wrong or your affinities are terrible.”
Arthur chuckled mirthlessly. While the truth was a necessary medication to swallow, it didn’t make it any less bitter to take.
“Okay, brakes over,” Alyssia said, springing to her feet. “What are your ether reserves at?”
Arthur checked.
241/5550
“Less than ten per cent. But it should be enough for one more attempt at shadow bomb.” Arthur couldn’t help but let some hope leak into his voice. “Nope, that’s okay." She replied. "I think it’s about time we get back to your aura training. At least we’re seeing some results there.”
Arthur groaned when he heard the expected words. Aura training. The single most uncomfortable experience in his entire life. It was by far the most invasive, embarrassing and irritating teaching he’d ever been through or at least the way Alyssia did it was. As if the entirety of his being was laid bare for examination under a microscope that seared and burned all it saw.
And the claustrophobia.
Getting his aura squeezed to a tenth of its natural size in the name of training did not make the trial any less unpleasant. In fact, the very notion that he was willingly subjecting himself to the torture only made it worse, the idea that he could put a stop to it all with a single word always hanging at the edge of his mind like the temptation of the forbidden fruit of Eden.
Arthur slapped himself on the cheeks and got to his feet before he could let indecisiveness plague him further. I have to do this. I can't just wait for my soul to be fixed and hope my problems just fade away. If it’s so bad already, it’s only going to get worse as I grow stronger. And what then.
Alyssia had warned him of the disaster an untrained aura could cause. Disturbing stories where weak people had to suffer and pay for the lack of control the strong possessed. One particular story had stuck out to him, where an entire rural village of pacifists had been driven to suicide when a grieving gold ranker had passed by unaware.
An aura was literally someone imposing their will on the world, a projection of their soul. And Arthur's soul was abnormally strong for his level. With the addition of his soul affinity, Arthur's aura would one day reach a truly absurd level of power. And if he couldn’t control it, then….
Arthur didn’t want to continue down that line of thinking. Fear was a good motivator, but it had been proven time and time again that it lacked the fine touch required for learning. It got you started down a path but didn’t give you the necessary push when the going got tough, just as likely to drive you into the ground as it was to raise you to greater heights.
“Are you sure this is the best way to help me control my aura?”
Arthur couldn’t help but ask the question despite his resignation with the harsh training. It wasn’t his first time doing so.
“No, actually,” Alyssia answered bluntly as she had every time before. She went on further this time. “My mother would kill me if she ever found out I was training someone like this but we don't have the time for anything better. This way, your aura will be difficult to read, even for masters at the art like me. It's a stop-gap measure but this way, you'll at least be ready for the dangers waiting outside instead of being read like an open book.”
"The normal methods don't work very well for you." She continued. "At first, I thought your fractured soul was inhibiting you a little. Now though, I think the black panther's heritage that you claimed requires a special touch to control. I'll try to look into it but I doubt I'll find anything."
"So I can’t use magic properly, my soul's fucked up and my aura, something that's supposed to be one of my greatest assets probably requires instruction from apocalypse beasts to be used properly. You know, the ones that are known for destroying entire planets. Have I got that right?"
Alyssia nodded her head.
When he laid it out like that, Arthur's current circumstances sounded a lot direr than they probably were. At least he hoped that was the case.
“Enough dilly-dallying. Are you ready? Whilst I can't teach you how to master your aura, I can make you one of the best on this planet.”
Arthur nodded his head, gritting his teeth in preparation for the expected pain of having his aura compressed to a tenth of its size. It came slowly at first, just a mild discomfort that felt like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. It only got worse from there.
“Hey, Arthur, you're not trying here. Work with me,” Alyssia said quietly, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead as she used her vastly superior aura to compress his own.
He mentally groaned. C’mon Arthur. What the fuck are you playing at. Stop being a little bitch. Psyching himself up didn’t make the process any easier but it did distract him. There was nothing else for it. Delaying the ordeal only made it worse.
Arthur let his aura loose.
It extended to its full twenty-meter radius, a beast given freedom and let loose.
And it met a predator.
The second Arthur's aura met Alyssia’s, he shivered. Not in fear, per se, but that emotion was certainly present. It was just the wrongness about it all. Maybe Arthur didn’t know enough about auras to form an informed opinion but to come into contact with another with his own without raising any defences felt like taboo as if he was exposing himself indecently in public for everyone to see.
If he had a modicum of control over his aura, perhaps that wouldn’t be the case, but as it was, he’d never get used to the sensation. That’s when Alyssia’s aura began to close in.
Her training regimen was simple and crude. According to her ‘professional perspective,' only the most barbarian methods would work on a dunce like him. In essence, her plan was simple. She’d use her much stronger and more disciplined aura to crush his own like a vice until he either learned the requisite skill to keep it condensed or it adhered to a smaller form.
Arthur hoped the former occurred first. He didn’t know how long it would take for his aura to be squished into shape. The stuff always seemed to bounce back like a spring the second Alyssia let up.
At three-quarters of its size, it felt like he was submerged in a pool of water, uncomfortable but bearable. At half, it felt like he was in the depths of an ocean, crushed under thousands of tons of pressure. At a tenth, it felt like he became the water itself, losing all sense of self as he was mixed and dilated with everything around him. Things got weird fast at that point. It reminded him of being high on his medication.
Time lost all meaning and seconds felt like eternities in which he experienced lifetimes of happiness, sadness, regret and joy. His tongue transformed into a sea serpent that spent aeons wondering the dark waters until one day it leapt forward and soared forward as a dragon now on a conquest to make the skies its own.
Arthur experienced the briefest flash of clarity among all the madness. Mathew would love this. He quickly let go of his lucidity and welcomed back the insanity. It was far easier to face than a reality of pain and anguish, where his failings were laid bare in an aura that refused taming.
Another eternity passed, this time one where Arthur spent most of his days crawling on all fours in a box of steel that protected him from everything out there. It was only after the box finally broke that Arthur realised he’d been trapped for millennia. He marshalled his willpower and stepped forward to freedom.
And spent the next decade falling into an abyss of darkness that looked like it would swallow the world. Those were the few visions he could later recall. The rest were lost and forgotten. The few brief moments of clarity became more common, and slowly he learned to hold on to them, not really knowing why, only that he should.
Finally, after two hours of aura compression, though it felt far longer to him, he finally received a system notification.
What am I even doing?
You have created a UNIQUE variation of the skill Aura compression. Skill has been renamed WhatamIevendoing (Rare)
Congratulations on creating your first unique skill. The nature of your aura makes the skill too complex and niche to be added to the system archives so you shall not be awarded anything for your efforts.
WhatamIevendoing (Rare) Level 1- Many wish to expand their auras, to seek out and dominate all those around them. You have sought the opposite, to reign in and isolate yourself from all others. Makes it easier to condense your aura per level of this skill.
Fucking finally. It took long enough, Arthur thought as he vomited the contents of his stomach all over himself.
