Chapter 78 - Cap 78: Answer Within Yourself

I wake up early the next day, but I'm still the last one up, I wonder what time the girls are waking up.

After getting up I go out of the cabin and see only Érica sitting in the shade of a tree reading books, I go to her.​​

"Good morning Érica." (I)

"Good morning Master." (Érica)

"Where are Kira and Ibuki?" (I)

"They went out hunting, Kira asked to say that they will only arrive in the late afternoon." (Érica)

"Why?" (I)

"She said she's going to give Ibuki a lot of combat experience today, so she's going to enjoy every moment of sunlight for her to fight monsters." (Érica)

"Looks like Ibuki is going to have some tough training this time." (I)

"What are you reading?" (I)

"I'm reading a book about family members." (Érica)

"Family members?" (I)

"Families are summoned or contracted creatures." (Érica)

"Most of the time they are monsters, it can be an intelligent monster that accepts a contract of servitude to someone or a summoned that the mere fact of accepting to be summoned shows that they are willing to form a contract." (Érica)

"Why are you reading about this?" (I)

"I was thinking about how after we moved to town to get a familiar, so I decided to do some research on them to prepare me when the time comes and choose how I'm going to get one." (Érica)

"Is there a difference in the two ways of getting a familiar?" (I)

"There's a lot of difference master, to start a hired familiar can be chosen to some extent, monsters and intelligent creatures can be persuaded or forced." (Érica)

"But for a familiar summoning it's different, the magic circle is expensive to build and the familiar that appears isn't chosen by you, but chosen by the magic circle that analyzes the summoner and looks for a compatible creature." (Érica)

"The summoned creature is not brought against its will, it has to accept being summoned and a temporary contract will be formed between the summoner and the summoned." (Érica)

"The problem is that the creature may be weak, it also doesn't give you the right to choose the creature the summoner wants to summon." (Érica)

"You still haven't talked, why do you want a familiar?" (I)

"Most truly talented Mages have family members." (Érica)

"A familiar has many uses, depending on how strong the bond is and the compatibility between the familiar and the mage." (Érica)

"For example, the magician may share one or more senses with his familiar such as sight or hearing." (Érica)

"I've also heard stories of wizards using abilities or spells through their familiars." (Érica)

"For a mage who is normally weak in melee combat, it is very important to have a familiar capable of protecting him." (Érica)

In many ways to fight alongside a familiar, the wizard can use support magic to increase his physical abilities, can fuse spells with the familiar, can use the familiar's affinity to increase his own temporarily, can use mana from the familiar, or sharing your Mana with it, etc." (Érica)

"I see, family members are very helpful." (I)

"The only thing I don't understand is why you're wondering if the answer seems obvious." (I)

"What do you mean master?" (Érica)

"You just said that the compatibility and strength of the bond between familiar and mage is the most important right?" (I)

"Yes." (Érica)

"Then the answer is obvious, you should try to summon your familiar, that way you'll get the best compatibility with you." (I)

"But what if he's weak or doesn't have skills useful to me?" (Érica)

"All you will need is to train him, make him stronger, help him to evolve so he will be more useful to you." (I)

"..." (Érica)

"The master is right, thank you." (Érica)

"But you know what, this conversation about family members reminded me of something." (I)

"Which?" (Érica)

"Unlike you and Ibuki who became my slave and my servant, Kira and Diana are considered to be my family." (I)

"Would I be able to use what you talked to them about?" (I)

"I almost certainly do, master." (Érica)

"But you will need to train with them to learn more." (Érica)

"I'll wait to see that later, maybe after we move to town I can calm down with all this training and test it out with them." (I)

I chatted with Érica for a few more minutes before leaving her alone to read her book, I go to another tree away from her so I don't distract her while I try out some skills.

While I was studying magic I found information about magical elemental affinities, these abilities are inherent to the person, and unlike what I thought they not only increase the power and control over the element of a spell but increase the senses of the skill owner to these elements and this is what allows the user to control these elements.

At least that's what I thought, I asked Érica that after the meetings and she confirmed it, so I thought if this is how it works for magical elemental affinities, then it should work the same for non-magical elemental affinity abilities.

For example, if the fire elemental affinity magic allows the owner to sense the fire element mana and use it in the same way as normal mana, then the fire elemental affinity can be used to directly sense and control the fire elemental energy.

I hope you're right, I want to use this theory to try to use a skill that I couldn't do so far, that skill is [ Weak Blood Elemental Affinity:1 ].

My plan to train this skill and hopefully acquire more skills of this type is to try to feel the energy of the blood element during meditation, as I have done in the past by feeling the energy of EXP to increase my level meditating or feeling the mana to train my magic skills.

The first thing I do is sit cross-legged and start meditation, I clear my mind, calm my emotions and synchronize my breathing with my heartbeat.

As soon as I start to meditate I feel my focus and senses becoming stronger, I can feel the mana, Ki, and spiritual energies more easily, I tried to ignore these energies and increase my focus.

Over time I felt the mana of some elements like fire mana and earth mana, I tried to seek more, I continued meditation and looking around, but no matter how much I concentrated I just didn't find the energy I was looking for.

I even felt the Mana, Ki, and spiritual wind energies when a gust of wind passed over me, I even felt the energies of the wind element itself even faintly, but I couldn't feel any blood energy.

I woke up from my meditation confused and in doubt.

"(Was I wrong?)" (I)

"(I was so sure this training would work, I was sure my theory was right.)" (I)

"(Where did I go wrong?)" (I)

"(My theory should be right, I could feel the mana of the fire, earth and wind element.)" (I)

"Wait, that's it." (I)

"I felt the three types of wind element energies when I felt a gust of wind before." (I)

"I even felt the owner's wind energy, it was stronger than the Fire Mana energies." (I)

I finally understood where I was going wrong, the explanation is simpler than I thought, I was just making it harder by thinking it was more complex.

The elemental energy is going to be stronger where your element is, I felt three types of energy in the gust of wind and the elemental energy of the wind itself because that's where that element is.

I'm sure if I light a fire I'll have the same result I had with that gust of wind, but feeling the fire element.

So the answer is simple, all I need is to feel the blood element where it concentrates, I wasted a lot of time looking around me when the answer was inside of me.

The answer was the blood running through my veins, all I need is to meditate I focus on feeling this blood and maybe I feel this element.

I, who was pacing back and forth while I was thinking without realizing it, sat back down cross-legged and started to meditate again.

Within seconds I am meditating and I focus all my attention inside myself, I use all my focus and senses to feel my blood rushing through my veins, I can clearly hear my heart pounding.

I try to increase my focus to the limit, and finally, I feel a faint wave of energy, I keep feeling that energy, I try to get familiar with it.

I tried to feel how this energy behaved, little by little I felt this energy variation, besides the pureblood energy, I felt the mana, Ki, and spiritual energy of the blood.

My theories were right, I wanted to have read the book about the blood element, but before I had to test the theory I had thought, I was afraid to focus only on what was in the book without knowing if what was there was true or a lot of bullshit, after all, according to Kira this is forbidden knowledge, so what's in this book could be wrong or incomplete.

I spend the rest of the day meditating, deepening my familiarity with these energies, I haven't tried to control this energy yet, I wanted to see how it flowed through my body, how it interacted with my organs, I spent the day that way.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

<[ Your skill leveled up [ Weak Blood Elemental Affinity: 1 > 3 ] ]>

.

.

<[ Your skill leveled up [ Ki Sense: 2 > 3 ] ]>

.

.

<[ Your skill leveled up [ Spiritual Sense: 1 > 2 ] ]>

.

.

<[ Your skill leveled up [ Weak mana sense: 8 > 10 ] ]>