I stare down at my black sword. It begins to glow red, flickering with crimson flames as I charge it up with two C-Class MP bottles worth of mana worth 5k points.
Fisher may have said brute force won’t work, but he doesn’t know what kind of brute force I’m capable of. Activating all of my stat-boosting skills I begin to glow red and gold.
I release the charged-up blast straight at the stone cliff before me. It explodes into a fireball just like my previous attack, making a deep crater in the rock. Fragments of mountainside fly everywhere and the dust settles a few seconds later.
Looking at the hole in front of me, I grin while reaching for more potions to charge up a second attack.
“This is gonna be easy…”
Over the next 30 minutes, I throw 9 more attacks. This is roughly 50k MP output in total.
The first 3 or 4 of these strikes are pretty promising blows, they look less than 5 minutes altogether. They blast chunks of boulders in all directions allowing me to make my way further into the mountain’s side by about 5 meters each time.
The problem I begin to run into after these initial strikes is the leftover rubble left in place after each explosion… When I first pictured digging a hole through this mountain of rock, I didn’t take into account the fact that I’d have to put the excess waste somewhere…
Luckily, I have just the place to carry large amounts of immovable matter.
“Spacial Magic.”
Opening my white spinning pocket dimension that I use as item storage, I carefully move large pieces of stone from inside as I continue to dig deeper into the mountainside. With every full power attack I throw, the same size explosion is created, making the tunnel into this mountain base about 4-5 meters wide.
I think about using both of my blades. It would surely make a bigger explosion, but the amount of physical strain one of those attacks does on my body is pretty damaging. One sword is more efficient on my body as well as MP stores.
Another 30 minutes pass and I let out another 8 attacks.
My breathing is starting to get heavier and the excess amount of mana being used is beginning to take its toll on me already….
I’m just about 100m into the mountain, with 18 attacks thrown at it. That’s around 90k MP worth of potions, at this rate, It’ll be just enough to make it though….
There are two problems I’m facing so far. First, the timeframe. A full hour to only make it 1/10 of the way through isn’t going to cut it.
I grit my teeth and begin charging up my blade again.
“I’ll just have to go twice as fast.”
Secondly, all this mana excess usage is tiring me out. Nearly 100k MP an hour is impossible to keep up for long. Using a million in a day sounds insane…
My joints are starting to itch with that sore feeling that I get after overseeing mana. My muscles are tightening up too, but it’s not that bad just yet.
I’ve had it way worse. I can keep this up, I just need to figure out how to improve…
Hacking away at this stone wall isn’t helping me train in the slightest. My mana control may increase in proficiency by a small amount from using up all this MP, but that isn’t the point of Fisher’s training session. There must be some kind of trick to this…
Gripping my glowing blade and staring at the cave wall before me, I let out a frustrated grunt. After thinking things through for a few more minutes, I start again.
“All-Seeing Eye.”
Letting out another 10 attacks in record time, I make even more good headway. This barrage is complete in under 20 minutes. Along with trying to limit my break times in between slashes, I focused on the density of my mana control. I fine-tune each attack to make sure more power is stored into smaller and denser attacks.
This is what helped me cut through that white wall in the Titan’s Domain. It must be how Fisher can cut through rocks like butter. Making my attack denser and stronger is the only way it’ll cut this mountain in two without blowing up in my face. Right..?
After going all out, using up another 50k MP and clearing all the excess rubble with my spacial magic, I lean up against the cave wall about 150m into the mountain.
It’s pretty dark this deep within the cave. The white light from outside barely makes it in. The only way for me to see is with the flames from my sword after each attack and the use of my perception skill.
My fingers are starting to tingle, my ankles are weakening, and a sharp pain in my lower back irks me every time I put too much pressure into my attack stance.
“I’m using too much mana…”
Over 150k MP has been run through today, and in a very short amount of time too.
I let out a sigh, using self regeneration to the best of my ability on my tight muscles and worn-out joints while sliding down the cool cave wall.
“I didn’t get anything done today…”
It’s been almost 2 hours and I’ve already worn myself out to the limit. There hasn’t been any noticeable change in my attack power or precision. I just don’t have enough time or mana to figure this out…
Using my perception skill hardly helps at all. I can see the flowing mana around me, and watch the energy become a highly refined, dense attack before letting it fly, but I’d be able to do mostly the same thing without it.
Feeling the flow of mana throughout my own body isn’t too difficult, especially with the newfound level of control I’ve obtained recently.
I let out another long sigh, racking my brain for any potential ideas.
“There has to be a trick….”
I grit my teeth, standing up while igniting my sword into flames.
Fisher said I’d learn how to do all of this my own way, and brute force wouldn’t work… Maybe he’s right, but how am I supposed to figure this out without any guidance? I don’t even know what he wants me to do… Cut a hole through a mountain? His mana control is on a whole different level than mine. I’d need dozens of times more MP to get to that level.
He said it took him a full week…
I don’t want to spend a week meaningless slashing at a stone wall… I’m not learning anything.
Placing my sword back into my item storage, I begin to pace up and down the 150m long cave. After thinking over every word that blue-haired swordsman said, still, nothing stands out in my mind.
Angrily, I start dumping piles of rubble in the grassy clearing outside the cave entrance. There’s no point in leaving these rocks in my storage any longer than I need to.
Before going back inside, I stare up at the portion of cliff that still reflects light off of its glossy surface. Other than the crater I blew into the mountainside right next to it, every bit of the rock wall is perfectly smooth.
“How…?”
I activate my All-Seeing Eye and look closer at the sliced rock above me. This is the only clue I have left to solve this puzzle.
I air-step upwards to get a much closer look. Sitting on the ledge of the cliff, I start my examination. The stone’s surface is smooth to the touch, almost like I’m rubbing my fingers against a freshly cleaned glass window.
Squinting, and bringing my head closer with my perception ability active on full blast, I let out a curious whisper.
“Now this… is interesting…”
Usually, when I use my All-Seeing Eye on anything within a dungeon, intense mana readings pour out in all directions. Swirling clouds of pink and white energy seem to flow like air in environments like this.
This rock on the other hand… The surface that’s been sliced is not giving off any readings. It’s almost like Fisher was cauterizing a wound. The smooth surface of the rock face is acting like a miniature mana shield to its own magical pressure.
That swordsman’s attack was so thin and precise, it sliced through this mana-based dungeon material with little to no resistance at all.
Remembering back to that thin blue energy wave, I realize he hardly even charged his sword. He used under a full bar of MP.
With my head spinning at all this new information, I jump down from the ledge with a smirk across my face while walking back into the tunnel.
“So that’s what he was trying to tell me… It’s not all about power…”