He took the entire day to figure out how the plant worked. After getting back to his original condition, he got ready to open the second item he bought.
The first item more than lived up to its price. The amount of help it would give him in the future when training was not measurable by money. He wouldn’t need to buy any pills from the Thousand Treasure Tower masking his identity to train his magic.
He was planning on doing that because of how hard it was getting to use Beast Cores. Now he could just use the Beast Cores to feed his plant.
He now had to see if the Swift Ascension Pill was actually worth the price. It would be as long as he got to the 1st Circle. He prepared himself to take the pill.
The first thing he did was shut off himself from magic and started circulating the aura in his body. He did this to get his mind and body more accustomed to aura than magic because of how often he uses the latter. He did this for an hour to get the hang of it.
Once he finished circulating the aura around his body, he took the item out. It was an exquisite box made of wood. He opened the box to reveal the sky-blue pill with clouds etched onto it. The box emanated a sweet fragrance when he opened it. The fragrance itself had hints of aura that agitated the aura in his body and made it circulate faster.
He smiled and took the pill in one go. He immediately prepared himself to form the circle. He didn’t know what a circle was supposed to be initially, so he peeked into what Daphne’s aura looked like beforehand. He wasn’t strong enough to see every detail in her body – he would have to be at least a 5th Star Mage to do that – but he could see where the majority of the aura was and how it circulated.
He combined this with the instructions in the aura manual he bought. The manual told him to congregate all the aura into his dantian and then form the circle. He knew from experience that the aura would be a little wild in the start so he started circulating it.
The pill dissolved instantly into his mouth when he took it and the aura within it surged into his body. The aura that entered his body from the Swift Ascension Pill was a lot more dense and malleable compared to the aura from the Aura Gathering Pill. It was less wild and became tame very quickly.
He guided the aura to his dantian after he circulated it around a few times. Once all of the aura settled there, he started forming the circle.
Forming the circle was drawing a circle with aura around the dantian that would make the flow of aura a lot easier and allow him to store more aura. The way the circle accomplished this was by using runes to expand the dantian. So for the circle to be effective, he would have to draw the runes in the circle properly.
He failed previously because the aura he had was too wild for him to control. If he ever tried to control the aura while still maintaining control over the magic, it would fail. He could let go of the magic if he wanted to, but he would then not be able to distinguish between the two separate entities of aura and magic. So he would treat magic and aura the same if he let go of control.
After it wrapped itself around the dantian, it solidified. Leo let go and took a deep breath. He had succeeded in forming a circle. He was now a 1st Circle Aura Knight. It was a lot easier than he thought because of the pill and he was happy it was like that. Now he wouldn’t have a problem until he had to break through next.
But that was not in the near future. Now that he had finished breaking through, he had only two more things to do. He checked outside to see what time it was. The sun was still up, so he got out of the house. He walked to the Thousand Treasure Tower. He was going to buy an Aura Technique. Daphne was still in her room training, so he didn’t bother disturbing her.
Even though he was officially a 1st Circle Aura Knight, he had no technique to use like Daphne. If he got a fire-based technique or a shadow-based one, he could mask his use of magic. It would also help him in the future when he was battling if he had a shadow technique.
He got to the tower and went to browse through the techniques that he thought would help him. He looked through all the descriptions of the techniques that were slightly more expensive and finally settled on two techniques. He still had to pick between both of them.
[Scorching Fury Thrust]
[A blade that radiates fiery heat as it strikes with swift precision. Upon impact, a burst of scorching fire engulfs the target, leaving them scorched and defeated.]
[Twilight Veil Slash]
[A blade that cuts through with swift grace, leaving an afterimage of darkness. It disorients and blinds foes, inflicting both physical and metaphysical damage.]
After thinking for a while, he decided to go with the Twilight Veil Slash. Either way, the technique wouldn’t do any damage compared to his mage techniques. It would be better to have a technique that supported him by confusing his opponent than a technique that produced a worse version of what he already could do.
He took the book to the counter and bought it. He still had 450,000 Starcoins left from his original loot from the Blacktooth Gang. He bought another 3 Aura Gathering Pills that cost 150,000 Starcoins along with the Aura Technique that cost 300,000 Starcoins. With this, he was completely out of money to even buy Aura Gathering Pills. He would have to hunt Magical Beasts again to start gathering money.
He took the book with him back home. On the way, he planned out his routine for the next few days. The second thing on his agenda was solidifying his ability as an Aura Knight. Optimally, he would become a Late-Stage Aura Knight and learn how to use his Aura Technique with Advanced proficiency.
There would be setbacks in the future if he progressed that quickly in aura – he would be weaker than other Aura Knights if solely aura was being compared. However, he didn’t mind that. Aura to him was only a facade. After he believed that his aura was strong enough, he would focus on training in magic. He was, after all, a mage first.
