Chương 73: Chapter 70: Bare Minimum Shaping Skill

My daily routine changed drastically in the last few days. For one thing, flying was taking me around an hour every day, not that I called any of it a waste. On the contrary, I was using it everywhere to save time. Walking to the institution used to take me half an hour at a normal pace, but with the levitation boots at full acceleration, it was only a matter of seconds. If only all that flying counted towards the Way.

It did measure some of it, since I had to use my own kinetic weaves for various manoeuvres, but not all. However, as I learned to control the fabricators better, the need to use my own weaves became less and less. The only problem was how troublesome it was to fully charge the essence cells. A full drain of my essence seed barely filled a tenth of its reservoir. So while I spent all the charge without reserve during the day, my nights were spent charging the cells. Thankfully, I could split my attention.

While a bunch of my essence threads engaged in filling the battery, I could carry out most of my other tasks. Reading, doing research, or doing my homework didn't pose any issues, nor did my other essence-involving practices, once I had adapted to them. Only the regular drain on my essence reserve seemed to be hampering my daily life. The sleep I was getting was the best I'd ever had... and somewhat excessive. Some days, I woke up a couple of hours late.

Other days, even if I did maintain my schedule, my movement would carry a deep-rooted weariness. The exhaustion seemed to be only piling on. If only I could buy essence... Unfortunately, our little town provided no such services. The bodyforging sauna baths helped dearly in quelling the hidden exhaustion, though not all. Even still, the progress I made in it seemed to skyrocket. [Congratulations! Body Forging I (10/10) is complete.] [+1 to all Attributes] [Way of Body Forging II (10/25) is available.] Another week, and I had left Eran far behind. [Congratulations! Body Forging II (25/25) is complete.] [+1 to all Attributes] [Way of Body Forging III (25/50) is available.] Needless to say, having one's body at the brink of falling apart was a requirement for body forging. Mum watched it all from the sidelines, probably thinking I would grow out of it on my own. But as the days flew by, and I still carried on with the same practices, she couldn't take it any more. But Mum was still Mum.

Instead of berating me outright, what she did was hand me a bowl full of sand.

"What do I do with this?" I asked.

"You know when Selene said I wasn't teaching you real skills?" she said with a trace of a smile.

"Well, it isn't true for artificing, but I seem to have overlooked your other shaper capabilities. Consider it a way of rectifying that." That didn't answer the question, though. What was I to do with a bowl of sand? On second look, it didn't seem to be your regular sand either. Pinching a bit out of the bowl, I inspected them with Fractal Sight. There were three kinds in the mixture—white and black sand predominating, with a low volume of gold dust.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary, though I could make out that the sands were enchanted, even if I couldn't find any purpose behind it.

"How is this going to help with my shaper skills?"

"Separate the three kinds of sand, and you'll figure it all out on your own." There seemed to be something off about Mum's expression. The smirk on her lips looked so out of place.

"Separate them..." I muttered, rubbing the specks of sand between my fingers. It seemed impossible to pick them apart by hand, so some other method would need to be used. I didn't ask for a hint, because she was unlikely to give one. She hadn't mentioned any restrictions; that was already good enough. She watched me experiment with the bowl of sand for a while before leaving me to it, thoroughly believing I wouldn't be done with them tonight. The tiny specks of sand were impossible to pick apart by hand.

With careful control of my essence threads, I could separate a single speck, but that was clearly not the lesson here. It took too much effort, and there were millions of specks in the bowl. If I were to separate them like that, it would take weeks—if not months. My time was more precious than that. Thus, I moved to find a more scientific or magical solution to the problem. For the next two days, I carried out various experiments to find a valid way of separating them.

One by one, I began testing their properties, something that would help differentiate them. The essence tests yielded no results, nor did the electromagnetic waves I spent two whole hours setting up. Distillation, filtration, and no form of chromatography would be useful, either. Even melting them probably wouldn't result in a solution. The three kinds of sand were all but identical in every property save for their colours.

I hit the books, searching for new methods I hadn't studied yet, or something stupid I might have overlooked. The number of tests I could perform dwindled, and the bowl of sand remained the same. My frustration knew no bounds after another couple of days, so much so that I considered blasting high fire into the bowl and smelting the blighted sand into glass. But what purpose would that serve...

"Still, no progress?" Mum asked with a dubious smile, as if she had successfully conned me. With my cheeks sullen, I didn't reply, only muttered something under my breath about stupid sand and stupid practice. I still didn't have a clue how it was supposed to help me. She seemed to really enjoy my crestfallen expression. After all, there had never been a test, a challenge, she had given me where I was so thoroughly lost.

"Hmm, it's no fun if you're completely lost like this," she said.

"How about I give you a hint?" I lifted my head, eyebrows knitting together.

"Sometimes, pumpkin, the answer is already in our grasp," she said, "but we overlook it, thinking there are better answers." I blinked and exchanged a look between her and the bowl full of hateful sand.

"You mean, I have to pick them apart one by one?" Mum shrugged.

"Or you find the better answer." She left me to my work with those words. Exhaling heavily, I stared blankly at the bowl and then towards all the mechanisms I'd cooked up. Eventually, I decided to see how swiftly I could pick apart the sand. My essence control was by no means rigid. Utilising a very measured amount of my power, I picked thirty-two specks of sand at the ends of my essence threads and put them into different bowls.

I could have picked only two kinds of sand, since separating two would already leave the third alone—but honestly, that looked like more hassle than it was worth. It was already a pain to pick specks with measured telekinesis. As I had assumed, my pace rose exponentially after an hour of work. However, even then, I couldn't help but feel there was a better answer. This sand-picking practice was by no means more difficult than some of the telekinesis practices I had already completed.

Compared to them, it was just boring and painstakingly time-consuming. Well, my control would surely improve by the end of it. And I could probably use telekinesis on a lot more objects. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Well, at least it helped me break through the wall I was facing. [Congratulations! Telekinesis VI (500/500) is complete.] [+8 Unallocated Points.] [Way of Telekinesis VII (500/1000) is available.] But no matter how much progress I made, it would still take weeks before I was done with the bowl of sand. I didn't try too hard on it, and instead put more of my effort into the gift I was preparing for Mum. The only thing I had with me that could be of some use to her was the halostone in my pendant. However, even if I made the best fabricator out of it, Mum would likely smelt it down to craft me something else. She had expressed the thought before.

Besides, the pendant was a gift from Aunt Emi, I should cherish it as it was. Since anything I made wouldn't provide much benefit to Mum, I looked for something with more aesthetic beauty. My painting skills were less than satisfactory, but I was more than accurate. It was just that a simple painting of her wouldn't do, so I put some effort into thinking of something better, something grander. What if I used runes to draw the painting?

It was already an art form, though most didn't practise it because of how difficult and time-consuming it was. Mum had made me practise some basic forms of it when I was younger. But to draw a face and background with every bit of detail, now, that was something else. At least it wouldn't be as boring as picking sand, I thought. I also had to work on it sneakily. Many times Mum caught on, but with the painting still in its rudimentary form, she didn't recognise anything.

Nowadays, I only worked on the rune painting at the institution. Some of the kids complained to the teacher, but my results were spotless, so they couldn't nitpick too much. Soon, I stopped participating in the duels, hurdle runs, or other physical activities anymore, since most of them didn't improve in any of the Ways. Defeating the same opponent too many times did nothing. With the conscription, there were no upperclassmen at the institution to improve against, either.

"Well, now that you've found some success in sand picking, it's time for the next phase," Mum said one day. I feared she was going to add more sand to the bowl or something to make it even more difficult. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. Instead, the new practice she proposed seemed to be exactly what I needed. What we were going to do was a spell-weaving duel. One of us would weave their threads into various spells, while the other would try their best to undo them. Whoever succeeds would win.

Of course, if Mum were to use even a bit of her expertise, there was no way I could gain victory. But she was fair and would hold back to match my level. In the end, it was only her experience against my all. The two of us sat across from one another, my eyes narrowed in concentration. I was the first to be the weaver, while she took the role of the breaker. And oh boy, was I mistaken to think it would be fun.

No matter how complex the weaves I knitted together—implementing all the ones I knew—she simply twirled a few of her essence threads into my weave to undo everything. She didn't just neutralise my weave, but unfurled all the essence threads back to their original forms, irrespective of how intricate and complex my work had been. Even though I made some progress, only my frustrated cries rang out from the runes. It had to be said that Mum couldn't see essence threads as well as I could.

Only through her Influence could she detect them—and yet that didn't stop her from thrashing me thoroughly. She was unscrupulously ruthless, not even letting me have a single victory. The skill I had been so proud of—and even looked down on others like Shaper Ao—turned out to be only this much. But then again, when I'd told Mum about it before, she had said that someone with that level of skill wouldn't even pass the preliminary admittance test at the Oracle Academy.

"You'll do better in weave-breaking," Mum said matter-of-factly. With that, we switched roles. The first weave Mum wove was the same one I had used—an intermediate weave of kinetic force. I tried to replicate the same effect, twirling four essence threads in its shape, only to find I didn't have enough Weight behind them. Even after employing more Weight, I found I could only slow her weaving. In the end, I had to utilise an equal number of threads to hers in order to neutralise the weave before its release.

It wasn't an utter victory, but Mum approved. In the next few rounds, I gained some and lost some, but the game became profoundly engaging, so much so that I lost track of time. Mum didn't outright thrash me with her boundless experience, nor was she completely silent. She commented whenever I was heading in the right direction. I mostly imitated what I saw from her, even though I could not unfurl her weaves completely. This exercise didn't cost much essence, but the Will and Weight involved weren't low.

But the improvement I made also far exceeded my imagination. The stupid sand-separating exercise was nothing compared to how effortless my weaving became within a couple of weeks. Even the casting time—something Magus Selene had asked me to work on—improved tremendously. I could now cast the same spell in about half the time, simply because I could channel my Weight better. [Congratulations! Essence Weaving VI (500/500) is complete.] [+8 Unallocated Points] [Way of Essence Weaving VII (500/1000) is available.] [Congratulations! Influence Manipulation VII (1000/1000) is complete.] [+16 Unallocated Points] [Way of Influence Manipulation VIII (1000/2500) is available.] [Congratulations! Weight Distribution V (250/250) is complete.] [+8 Unallocated Points] [Way of Weight Distribution VI (250/500) is available.] [Congratulations! Essence Sense VIII (2500/2500) is complete.] [+8 to Arcane Acuity and Split Focus] [Way of Essence Sense IX (2500/5000) is available.] [Unable to raise Arcane Acuity above the first Threshold (100 Points). 3 points have been converted to Unallocated Points.] There were also various other small improvements I made in other shaping skills. As for the last notification, Mum had warned me about it long ago. Thankfully, it wasn't without a solution. There was a clear way to merge both Arcane Acuity and Arcane Affinity to raise them into a single Greater Attribute.

It would not only free one attribute slot but also raise the arcane power under my control. The only issue was that I would have to wait until I advanced to Noble Class.

"Well, now you have the bare minimum shaping skills to join the Oracle Academy," Mum complimented. Or was it a compliment? If I considered that most pupils at the academy began joining when they were eight—almost double my current age—and we were only counting my shaping skills, it should be high praise. I summoned up my Profile to see how capable the least capable pupil was.

[Profile] Arilyn Arcis O'Ryon Path: Shaper (Common Class) Honours: Wunderkind (Noble), Novice Artisan (Noble) Aspects: Influence: +1 (+10%) Weight: +4 (+10%) Will: +2 (+20%) Attributes [8/8]: (Unallocated Points: 308) Arcane Acuity (Advanced): +99 Split Focus (Advanced): +67 Fortitude (Advanced): +41 Arcane Affinity (Advanced): +78 HyperCognition (Advanced): +52 Alacrity (Elementary): +18 Body Coordination (Elementary): +12 Agility (Elementary): +12 Gift: Fractal Soul Ways: In progress: Duelling VII (512/1000) | Swordsmanship II (785/1000) | Armed Combat II (498/1000) | Balance III (2711/10000) | Ambidexterity II (418/1000) | Swimming II (241/1000) | Sneak II (512/1000) | Evasion III (5102/10000) | Music II (612/1000) | Painting II (751/1000) | Farming II (175/1000) | Archery III (4185/10000) | Pain Tolerance II (21/25) | Arcane Resistance V (187/250) | Hammering II (125/1000) | Blacksmithing II (162/1000) | Body Forging III (36/50) Meditation IX (3966/5000) | Essence Sense IX(2508/5000) | Essence Unification VII (963/1000) | Engraving VIII (1054/2500) | Telekinesis VII (507/1000) | Fire Shaping VI (472/500) | Kinetic Force Shaping VII (528/1000) | Earth shaping VI (410/500) | Water Shaping V (108/250) | Wind Shaping V (219/250) | Influence Manipulation VIII (1025/2500) | Weight Distribution VI (251/500) | Essence Weaving VII (504/1000) | Empower V (241/250) | Refinement V (113/250) | Compress IV(68/100) Artificing V (244/250) | Levitation I (26/100) Demon Slaying (Lesser) I (0/10) Self-Mastery I (3/5) | Perseverance V (133/250) | Fractal Sight VI (256/500)