Chapter 79 1 Week Later [2]

"You're doing worse than you did yesterday. Is something on your mind?" Tina asked as she stared at the fiery orange chain wrapped around her.

However, despite its complex creation and the artistic detail put into making Lloyd's flames take the form of dense chains, it was far too weak for Lloyd to do anything but trick his opponents into thinking that he had a method to entrap them.

"No... Its fine." Lloyd spoke through gritted teeth as he tried his best to keep the chains in their form without losing concentration since doing so would mean that they would dissipate into thin air.

"Maybe we have to do a little bit of comprehension training? That usually increased someone control over their element." Tina began to speak to herself, but after thinking for a moment, an idea entered her mind.

With twinkling eyes, she tensed her body and destroyed the chains that Lloyd was trying so hard to maintain, yet before Lloyd could even start complaining, Tina spoke first.

"How much do you know about arcane magic!?" Tina asked with the most exciting voice Lloyd had ever heard. It was almost adorable how she had perked up like an excited child.

"Uhm... Not much, I guess? I've seen a few people use it before, but I've never used it myself.

"Do you at least know how mana works?" Tina asked with a slightly disappointed expression.

"Well, of course, I do. I know how arcane magic works too, but since I don't have a class or ability based on arcane magic, I can't really use it, can I?" Lloyd raised a brow.

"That's where you're wrong, and let me explain.

Arcane magic is like any other magic, but it has what we arcane mages call a a neutral property. It can become a beat of energy if we concentrate it on a single area, or it becomes a blanket or bubble that covers us whenever we want to block an attack or contain one, depending on the situation.

Arcane magic is the most malleable form of magic, and despite only arcane mages and artificers using it, if you break it down, it is literally just mana. Every awakened has mana, so why can't you use it?" Tina asked, and once Lloyd processed the question, he could not help but raise a brow.

"We can use things like mana sense and release a magical aura, both of which rely on pure mana. So why shouldn't we be able to use arcane magic? It's clearly not like an element where some people simply don't have an affinity for some of them." Lloyd asked himself.

"Exactly! It's just that having the ability for it makes it a lot easier to control it and, at the same time, makes the spells we use much less mana consuming." Tina smiled widely.

"You've been calling your abilities spells all this time. I thought that it was just another word for ability, but now I'm a little confused." Lloyd scratched the back of his head.

"Think of spells as the magic version of martial arts techniques. They are ways that you use your abilities to make sub-abilities. Of course, these can vary; for example, you have several shadow abilities that could be considered spells.

All you would need to do is find a way to combine them when you reach the first commandment and make them into something simple like shadow control." Tina explained before continuing.

"Having only arcane magic is both a blessing and a curse. I am one of the most malleable mages. I sometimes call myself a 'Jack of all trades, master of none.'

I can manipulate the elemental particles to create a spell from any element that is abundant in the area I am in, but it also makes it so that I'm not specialized in any of them, nor can I use them if the element isn't abundant in the area.

Lastly, my elemental manipulation only extends to basic elements, so I can't use darkness, light, and all their other sub-elements. I can go on and on, but just think of it as me only being capable of using the main elements like water, lightning, air, fire, and earth." Tina explained while Lloyd tried his best to absorb to information dumb that she had just laid on him.

Tina and Lloyd continued speaking for a few more hours about the theories of mana. For the final two hours of the session, Tina chose that the best course of action would be to teach him since teaching and training someone to manipulate pure mana is almost the same as teaching them to manipulate all the elements despite most elements having one key feature that made each and every one of them different.

Water is cool, smooth, and calm, while fire is brash and quick, representing its user's rage.

Wind represents a human's constantly changing emotions, while earth represents a powerful and sturdy mind. Each element represents the person's state of mind, which means that as a person becomes stronger over time, they are more likely to represent the characteristics of his element...

This is why only one question lingered at the back of Lloyd's mind at the end of their conversation...

'Is that why most void walkers go insane? Is it the curse of becoming too strong?'

"Hey! I need you to listen here or all of this will be for nothing." Tina shouted while snapping her fingers in front of Lloyd's face.

2 hours passed in the blink of an eye as Tina tried her best to teach Lloyd how to manipulate pure mana, yet with so many things lingering at the back of Lloyd's mind, it became nearly impossible for him to concentrate.

"Well, I guess that's the end of our session." Tina sighed as she created a fireball in the palm of her hand and incinerated one of the monsters that remained outside even after the sun had risen.

"Should I start then?" Roderick asked after having appeared out of nowhere.

The group had split up into three different groups. The front group was a few meters in front of both Lloyd and whoever was teaching him at the time, and the back group stayed a few meters behind the middle group.

This method was mainly used to accommodate Tina since she didn't feel comfortable speaking around anyone except Rex and Lloyd and since Roderick didn't want to make her feel weird about it.

"Y-Y-Yeah..." Tine stuttered before jumping to the back group where Rex was.

"So... You two have been really hitting it off." Roderick tapped Lloyd's shoulder with his fist while giving him a grin that most men could understand with a single glance.

"No."

"Oh, come on! She's cute. She's a little older than you, but age doesn't matter after age 20 since most people over the second commandment stay that way until their early hundreds." Roderick shrugged, yet Lloyd still shook his head, yet he had a weirdly warm smile on his face.

"Tina is nice, and she's cute. She had the enthusiasm of a hundred scientists combined, and she is one of the hardest workers I know." Lloyd spoke, making Roderick widen his eyes.

While Roderick knew that there might be a chance that Lloyd might have liked Tina, this was the first time in the 350+ hours of knowing him that Lloyd had truly complimented so much in such a short span of time.

"Soooo... You like her?" Roderick gave Lloyd the same grin while poking his elbow into Lloyd's side.

"No, and even if I did, I woudln't go for it." Lloyd sighed.

"Why not?!"

"A girlfriend is a commitment I am not willing to have right now. I am 16. I have my entire academic life ahead of me, and I need to focus. Otherwise, everyone else will suprass me..." Lloyd shrugged.

'Doubt it...' Roderick inwardly thought before sighing a beginning his lesson.

Their lesson felt much longer than it usually did. While Roderick didn't mind teaching Lloyd since it was a way to pass the time, Lloyd, on the other hand, had too many things on his mind to truly take in anything that Roderick was saying, and they both knew that.

"Do you want to take a break? Your mind seems a little cluttered right now." Roderick commented with a hint of worry in his voice.

Of course, Roderick still thought that there was a possibility that Lloyd was a Void Walker, yet until that suspicion is proved to be correct, which he hoped would never happen, he wouldn't act upon it in any way, shape, or form.

To Roderick, Lloyd was just as human as everyone else, and that opinion only strengthened over time as Roderick watched Lloyd work day and night to improve himself and be of worth to the team. How could he not respect Lloyd after seeing that?

"It's nothing... I'm just a little exhausted." Lloyd sighed.

"Don't worry about it. Even I'm tired, so I can only imagine how you feel." Roderick sighed and patted Lloyd's back, yet before he could continue-

"Incoming!" a voice cut through everyone's conversations, causing both the front and back groups to merge into the center, blocking Lloyd from all sides.

*Clang*

A silent gust of wind smashed into Lloyd's face before the sound of two metallic objects clashing entered his ears.

Looking forward, Lloyd saw a talon pushing against Veronica's blade before it was forced away as a gust of wind hit both of the creature's wings.

With her open palm outstretched, Veronica's eyes glowed with a fierce crimson before three words left her mouth.

"Blood Control - Cripple"

The sound of soft flesh tearing from the inside squelched into Lloyd's ear as a shiver went down his spine.

He could see and hear the creature's blood bubble and boil before the pressure from within caused them to explode, and within the blink of an eye, the creature was falling to the ground with blood leaking from its orifices.

*Thud*

"Well... That was brutal." Lloyd chuckled, yet the creatures were clearly not done.

Dozens of piercing blue eyes stared from within the shadows of the forests, and while the rest might not have known how many there were from only glancing at the shadows of the trees, Lloyd saw right through them and widened his eyes.

"There are a few second commandments. I've never seen or even heard of this monster species, so we don't know what makes the special." Roderick informed.

"Nope... We've seen it before; you just didn't pay attention to it." Lloyd retorted while tapping on his watch and opening a hologram with two drawings of the owl-like creature on it.

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The creature was quite large, yet Lloyd knew it could be larger since the size clearly varied from adult to adult to adult within the species.

"The first one we met was around the size of a cow. On the other hand, this one was a little larger, yet for some reason, it was weaker than the last one I saw." Lloyd informed while quickly scanning the page he had created on the creature.

"Its fast and almost completely silent. Its feathers might seem white, but they can become close to transparent. From what we've seen, they use their talons as their main weapon, but that could change if we fight a few more." Lloyd continued.

"Thanks for the info." Hime thanked before releasing a spiritual aura that Lloyd didn't recognize.

While the color of the aura represented a many things, the color itself was a play on the mind. It didn't really exist, yet because anything with a soul could sense it, the body is tricked into thinking of it as something normal eyes could see.

"Orange?" Lloyd muttered.

"The warrior's aura, Battle Intent. You can think of it as a way to show someone's fighting spirit without having to spell it out for them. It can also be used as a weapon, but that's a lesson for another day." Rex patted Lloyd's shoulder.

As Hime's battle intent spread throughout the forest before her, all the owls retaliated, sending out their own killing intents to clash with Hime's aura and push it back.

"Now!" Hime shouted, causing everyone except Lloyd to act on her command.

"I guess we're really doing this, huh..." Lloyd sighed as he slowly sank into his shadow with his eyes flickering violet with an excitement he felt like he hadn't truly felt in a very long time.

The excitement of a real battle.