Chapter 336 - Barrier

Eiro continued trying to improve upon his aura while Armodeus fiddled around with his tail. He was placing some metal plates onto Eiro's stinger and trying to come up with new ideas or putting everything he already made together. 

It felt rather uncomfortable, considering that the Demon's tail was somewhat sensitive. It's why he didn't use it for combat all that often, except if he knew that he could safely sting his enemies. The most sensitive part of Eiro's tail was the sharp stinger. It felt like having someone press their finger into his eye and rubbing around in there as Armodeus as the elder Dwarf attached the special poison-metal tip to improve upon the Demon's poisonous sting.

It just felt uncomfortable, even if he himself touched his stinger, so having someone else do it felt even worse. It gave Eiro goosebumps, something that he didn't get for quite a while.

"Are you done yet..?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, unable to properly concentrate on his Aura Manipulation practice, and he could practically hear Armodeus' broad grin, "Nearly, nearly. Just another little bit."

The Demon grumbled quietly to himself after hearing this. Sure, having his stinger become weaponized, more powerful, and giving it more defense was a good idea, especially because it was just so sensitive to pain, but the fact that he had to go through this in order to get there was something that he still didn't particularly like.

The fact that all of Eiro's senses were extremely strong obviously didn't help either, and this was a new sort of feeling that Eiro didn't experience in quite some time now. But in the end, to get through this, Eiro just concentrated on something else. He took a deep breath, and looked inward to continue trying to manipulate his Aura, filtering anything out that didn't belong in there as the aura exited the Demon's body.

Eiro took a deep breath and practiced more and more, and he was able to nearly grasp it until he felt a sharp pain at the end of his tail and was once more pulled out of this meditative state, "Armodeus, what are you doing..?" The Demon asked while grinding his teeth to get through the discomfort.

"Ah, sorry, I hoped you wouldn't be bothered by it... Well, I tightened the attachment-ring a bit too much. It squeezed your stinger a little, and it-"

"So it wasn't my imagination... You cracked my tail?" Eiro asked as he moved his tail away from the craftsman and right in front of himself to get a closer look at the wound, "...Please, be a bit more careful. I know I don't react to the pain, but it hurts just as much as getting stabbed in the gut." The Demon pointed out, making Armodeus feel even worse about hurting him, while Eiro just pressed onto his tail's carapace to press the crack shut to get it to properly heal back together. 

Due to the fact that Eiro had a rather intense physical regeneration, even something like this healed instantly if Eiro focused his Life Force on the area.

"Continue." Eiro grumbled quietly, as Armodeus continued attaching everything to his stinger. But for some reason, Eiro was able to connect something in his mind through that wound.

The only places where he had something like a carapace was his tail, and a little bit around the area where his tail connected to his back, but that was it. It was a rather new thing for Eiro, since compared to having regular skin, the carapace experienced senses a lot differently.

And it completely replaced Eiro's skin where he had it. This part was exactly what helped Eiro figure something new out. While making the 'Aura Barrier' to keep his Aura inside of his body, he shouldn't make it another layer separate from his skin... Instead, he should make it his skin itself.

As if fusing this concept with a part of his flesh, creating something new in the process. Something that he could experience in a new way. Slowly, Eiro focused everything on the center of his chest first. He wanted to create a barrier there to begin with. Eiro knew how to change mana into some sort of 'concept' already, it was the basis of casting most types of magic.

Elemental Magic required Eiro to change his mana into the specific magical essence that he wanted to use, while using Non-Elemental Magic required him to change it into a specific concept related to what he wanted to do. Sure, Eiro didn't use Non-Elemental Magic that much, since it was usually a lot less potent that Elemental Magic, but he did know how to use it.

So maybe now, Eiro had to do something similar, albeit with the third force of energy that he could now sense flowing through his body. There was Mana, Life Force, and then there was his Aura. It was of course a bit different to those other two, but it still was something technically tangible, considering that Eiro was able to sense and manipulate it in the first place. And through that, if Eiro treated it the same as he would treat Mana, he could turn it into 'Aura with a Concept' infused into it, before then making that Aura become part of the Demon's skin.

The concept in this case was of course to not let Aura actually flow through this, and once Eiro figured this part out, he quickly made it part of his skin.

And now, while Aura was still flowing out of Eiro's body in other places, it didn't flow out through the center of his chest. Eiro slowly and carefully extended this Aura Barrier from the center of his chest outward to other places, until it covered his whole torso, then his legs, arms, tail, head, and even wings.

It was tough to manipulate to this extent, but Eiro managed it after losing control of it a handful of times.

"Oh~! You already did it!" Lognir exclaimed with an excited smile as he looked at Eiro, who turned his head toward the Dragon with a slight frown on his face, "Mhm, I did... Thanks for the help."

"Hey, I already told you that you needed to figure this out on your own. Now, let me take a look at your control of 'Aura Blocking'..." The Dragon muttered, placing his hand onto the Demon's head. Eiro could feel warmth flow through his body, filling him out as if he was some sort of glass carafe slowly filled with water.

Lognir slowly took his hand off of Eiro's head and thought for a while, "You're already pretty close to having this completely figured out, there's only a few minor details you can improve on. One, instead of fusing it only with the outer layer of your skin, fuse it with all layers of your skin, simply strengthening and focusing the barrier the further it reaches the outermost layer. Not only does it help your control, but you won't have any Aura flowing out of your body when you randomly get a cut anywhere on your body." Lognir explained. 

Eiro raised his brows and thought about what Lognir said. He was right, that would be a lot better and more efficient. The Demon slowly nodded his head as he slowly tried this out, extending the barrier further inward into other layers of his skin. It worked, although it made Eiro feel slightly different. It was like his concentrated Aura was changing the receptors for touch all over his body. 

Not by a lot of course, but just a little bit. It actually helped Eiro ignore Armodeus fiddling around with his tail a bit more.

After that, Lognir gave Eiro a few more tips to help him improve on his Aura Blocking, all of which were rather simple, but improved upon the strength and efficiency of his Aura Barrier.

And luckily, the manipulation of his Aura Barrier helped Eiro concentrate on anything beside what the craftsman was doing behind him, so when the Demon finished this part of his practice up, Armodeus had enough time to properly finish everything up. He went through tests, prototypes, and then finally managed to get everything done in a small package. And all of that within what was at most an hour total.

Armodeus was incredibly skilled, after all. But once Eiro got rid of his barrier to take a look at the item on his tail, he was rather surprised. It actually wasn't all that bad. For one, it blended in with Eiro's carapace pretty well, since Armodeus painted the metal with some matte colors that fit the color of Eiro's tail, while even shaping it in a way that continued to look like parts of Eiro's carapace overlapping with each other.

At first glance, the only thing you would notice were the small vials that were set around the base of Eiro's stinger that were meant to help Eiro keep some more poisons saved. Eiro was mostly impressed with the system Armodeus added to his actual stinger though, it was like some form of pump that pulled all venom out of Eiro's tail through a hollow needle placed around the tip of his stinger, and right into the target with impressive force. And all that Eiro had to do to activate it was to eject venom from his tail, the rest happened automatically.

Of course, it was really easy to remove this as well if Eiro wanted to, but it wouldn't just randomly fall off in the middle of a fight. It was surprisingly lightweight as well.

All in all, this ended up much, much better than the Demon tought it would at first. He really, really liked this item, "This is honestly great... Good job, Armodeus." The Demon pointed out, and the craftsman stood there with a smug grin on his face, "Of course it is, lad. I made it."

Eiro rolled his eyes a bit as he continued playing around with this new item, before Armodeus placed his hand onto the Demon's shoulder, "Now, lad, strip down."

"...Excuse me?"

"Well, I want to make Armor for ya. Lognir prepared the scales I can work with while you were practicin'. And I can't see yer body properly under those baggy clothes. So take 'em off and stip down to yer underwear."

"Alright, that's fine, but next time start with that." Eiro grumbled quietly as he pushed himself off the ground. He pulled off his shirt and pulled down his pants to let Armodeus properly measure out the Demon's proportions to make proper armor for him.

"Ah, and don't make me something that's going to make it hard for me to move. Make something that I can easily wear under a cloak, and something that I can quickly put on or take off if I need to." Eiro suggested, and Armodues immediately took those ideas into account, although he was smirking slightly, "Oh? You have a girlfriend, lad? Or why'd you have to take the armor off quic-"

"Armodeus..."

"Right, sorry."