Chương 17: Aura Dynamics

The praying eyes of desperation tended to seek out resources to alleviate their need. And for those knee deep in addiction and pleasure, their way of seeking out resources was always rough, and to a large extent, deadly. The dark underground tunnel shone with sparks of neon and flashes of light, as the sound of a blade searing through flesh, bone and life came at intervals. The battle lasted a minute longer than it should have, but Nero managed to swiftly dispatch the addicts.

Their bodies lay limp around him, blood pouring out from their necks, stomachs, and legs. The stench of sizzling meat and disgusting, foul odors swept up. Courtesy of the Aura of Decay on his blade. Of those who'd attacked him, he'd killed off at least five of them. He didn't look back, and instead sheathed his blade and got on his way back to the house. His heart didn't palpitate, nor did he feel any sadness at killing those he'd killed.

It wasn't the first time he'd done so, although the sky overhead still shone with the marvel and purity of life. A distinct part of him, over the years, had stopped caring about the lives that sought to harm him. It was necessary for survival—maybe someone more capable and righteous would've done better. But he had neither the time nor the energy to spare for such concerns. After returning to his old hut, Nero unpacked his bag and inspected the dagger. On it, he could see slight rust already.

That was odd, because he'd made sure to clean the blade well every time he used it.

"Is it because of the Aura?" He mulled over the idea for a while, and found the notion plausible. The gene talent he'd gotten was extremely powerful. Although, he'd need to experiment a lot more and do some reading at the library to learn the furthest extent of its potential uses. But from what he'd learned so far from using it, it basically turned the blade he'd imbued with the Aura into an acidic, corrosive weapon.

The result was that when he cut into anything of flesh, the Aura's effect would begin melting through the meat on contact. Like a hot knife through butter, each attack made with the infused Aura blade offered little to no resistance, even when cutting through bone. Nero also had another theory he wanted to test—whether infusing his own body with it could make his fists deadly, or serve as a defensive mechanism. First, he took off his current shirt and put on the black one.

Then, he willed the energy of decay from within himself. A sensation of something cold welled up in response. The energy soon flowed from the center of his body to his arm. Simultaneously, he saw a hue of neon suffusing his arm, like fog emanating from something warm in a cold climate. Except this fog wasn't evaporated water, and wasn't white—its color remained green, and sharp. Nero moved his arm around; it felt no different than normal.

Still, he observed the effects for about ten minutes before infusing his other arm too. Next, he turned toward the wall of his styrofoam house. His two arms glowed a predatory green under the hollow night. He punched at the styrofoam, and with a hiss, his fists sank into the thick wall, melting the surrounding foam as fumes of burning plastic wafted up. He retracted his fists and looked down at his own shirt.

Interestingly enough, it wasn't burned or decayed—it remained perfectly fine, without even a trace of a bad smell.

"Hmm, this confirms a few things." He sat back down and deactivated the ability.

"First, this Aura thing isn't lethal to whatever I don't intend to harm, and is only specifically lethal to what I do intend to harm." For example, when he struck the wall meaning to cause some damage, his fists sank into it. While infusing his arm with the Aura, he wasn't consciously intending to harm himself, even though he'd expected some damage to his own body. The Aura had followed his subconscious intent, and left his arms and clothes unharmed.

Meanwhile, back at the underground tunnel, he'd hated the very air of that den of corruption, and so the Aura had literally hissed against the air with the lethality of a beast. That was exactly why it made no sound at all when he activated it in the comfort of his home.

"Now I want to see the extent to which I can sustain this." Since he had no beast core, and thus no extra source of energy to power it efficiently, the ability was drawing on his mental energy as fuel instead. But to use it in battle, he'd need to know the consequences of that depletion—exactly how long it would take before the drain reached a point where keeping the ability active became a hindrance rather than a help. In battle, knowing one's own limits was paramount.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Nero reactivated the ability and began to meditate, keeping both arms and his blade fully suffused with the Aura of Decay. After approximately ten minutes of sustaining it, Nero began to feel mentally exhausted and sluggish. The sensation escalated into an overwhelming compulsion to lie down and sleep by the twelfth minute. He deactivated the ability then, and began meditating normally.

It was a well-known fact among adventurers, new and old, that meditation helped restore one's mental energy. So he did exactly that, counting how long it took for his mental energy to return to normal. After exactly an hour of meditation, the urge to sleep vanished, and his mind began to feel rejuvenated. Next, he repeated the test—this time suffusing his entire body with the Aura. He lasted exactly three minutes before the urge to sleep reached emergency levels of compulsion.

He deactivated the ability again and went through another round of recovery meditation. This time, it took him nearly two hours before his mental faculties returned to a stable level of function.

"The efficiency of meditation is already decreasing…" That meant one thing—he'd need to purchase a proper meditation technique scroll.

"With an actual technique, I'd recover much faster too. It's worth the purchase." If he intended to consistently and repeatedly take full advantage of his new Gene Talent without acquiring a beast core for mana, a meditation technique would be an essential addition to his arsenal. Having made up his mind, Nero went back to testing the Aura. This time, he kept only a small part of his clothes—a bit around the cuffs—enveloped in the Aura, while making sure not to emit any destructive intent.

Not that he normally walked around emitting those anyway. But even a single bad thought could cause the Aura to harm its target—in this case, his newly purchased black shirt. Although Nero had expected the effects on his clothes to take maybe ten minutes or so of exposure to the Aura of Decay, he instead began to see rot within the first three minutes, the fabric withering and burning at the edges. Nero deactivated the talent.

"So it's confirmed—this ability would harm even me if I keep contact with it for too long, regardless of intent." He repeated the exercise a few more times and gleaned more information. Essentially, the ability's self-destructive rot accumulated whenever it was kept active too long without breaks. The solution was deactivating the ability intermittently. It was like a charge meter of corruption that slowly filled the longer he kept it running, and once full, it began affecting the user too.

By deactivating the ability, even briefly, in between uses, he could prevent the charge from building up.

"Deactivating the ability for at least one minute lets the charge empty out completely," he pondered.

"But that's inefficient. A better method would be deactivating it for two to three seconds every minute—that should let it run continuously without needing a full break." This conclusion satisfied Nero, since the ability had begun decaying his weapons and clothes alongside his enemies—and worse, even his own skin and flesh. Otherwise, it would be more of a curse disguised as a blessing.

After finishing his testing, trials, and analysis, Nero put the dagger away, ate some of the food he'd brought back, and went straight to sleep. … The next morning, Nero woke up to find the snow outside had gotten much worse—so much so that he was forced to cut through part of the styrofoam door just to get out of his house. But this time, the so-called snow posed little issue to him, his enhanced stats making navigation through it an easy matter.

He put on his boots, the tattered ones, and headed straight for the old man's store. He bought himself a new pair of shoes, a cuirass, and an actual short sword. This time, he made sure to buy items of slightly better quality, paid the bill, and made a beeline for the nearby monastery. It sat at the far end of the night bazaar. There, he picked up a meditation technique scroll for fifty copper pennies.

In the seventh district, only guild-associated establishments, sects, and the monastery were permitted to sell techniques related—directly or indirectly—to battle. Among them, the monastery sold techniques, especially meditation techniques, at the cheapest price. In exchange, though, they required an adventurer's ID and demanded attendance at least once a week to meditate and pray.

Nero had little issue with that—the prayer hall of their temple was a far more peaceful and safe place to meditate single-mindedly than his little shack anyway. Next, he headed to the adventurers' library, where he found Sunny sitting at his desk, expressionlessly flipping through books, with a stack more piled in front of him.

Since he'd come this time in a fully intact, fine white set of clothing that made him look like an ordinary civilian, the guardsman didn't say a word, and instead simply raised an eyebrow before returning to his statue-like post.

"How are you doing, Mr. Sunny?" He looked up from his book toward him, expression slightly annoyed.

"Okay, okay, I'll drop the honorifics."

"You mean the sarcasm." Nero laughed, waving his hand.

"Yeah, that too."

"So why'd you come? Judging by your appearance, you seem to be getting wealthier."

"By your prayers and good wishes. But not really—for example, I only have enough coin to buy just enough supplies for a trip to another E-rank dungeon." He tapped his short sword and nearly empty coin pouch as proof of his purchases.

"So I can't even afford a pass to read up on Aura-related gene talents and how they work." Sunny's eyes widened slightly at those words. He'd probably grasped the implications already.

"You've obtained a gene talent?" he asked.

"Sure have." He extended his hand and activated the talent, immediately suffused in neon light.

"It's called 'Aura of Decay'." Sunny leaned forward, observing the foggy, wave-like light closely. And then, suddenly, he grabbed the exact hand where the ability had been applied.