Chương 106: Chapter 111: Nice!

A flare of movement came from behind me on the left. I moved a step away as a spike missed me by a couple of inches, but then I stumbled as a layer of aura covered my foot. It was stuck. I pushed with my own aura against it but it was unyielding. Then orange ribbons tore free from the ground around me, snatching my arms and legs, tightening around me and holding me in place. Like a mummy, I got covered from neck to toe, preventing me from moving at all.

I pushed and pushed, trying to rouse my aura out of my body, but his own was overpowering mine, sealing it inside me.

"See? Nice trick, right? You can copy it, if you can. I did it. But this only works when your opponent's aura is way inferior to yours, remember that." The blue bastard said as he started walking towards me.

"Not in the mood to speak anymore? C'mon don't be a sore loser, you should have known that you couldn't beat me even with all these limitations. If you could you would be the greatest genius ever." He was in front of me. I was gritting my teeth, not from anger, even if the "trainer" here was enjoying this too much and I wanted to smack him in the face for it. No, I was gritting my teeth because of the strain I was feeling to contain the massive amount of aura that I was condensing.

"Really? Nothing to say? I'm honestly a bit disappointed after all of that…" Take another step. Yes, come closer. I made the effort of looking like I was struggling to get free.

"How abo—""I have something to say…" I managed to spew out through gritted teeth, saliva and blood dripping down my mouth as I raised my head toward him. He looked at me with a raised brow as I opened my mouth.

"FUCK YOU!" VWOOM! A bead of supercondensed shiny grey aura flew like a ray of light out of my mouth and into his face. It was funny to watch his expression morph from smiling to surprised. Then just before it impacted his nose he caught it with a hand. He was pushed a step back before he raised another hand to cradle the bead. Grey aura tried to escape his own as he tried to contain the explosion in his hands.

He started to scream as the bracelet he was using to limit his stats opened and started to fall to the ground. In a moment everything was over. My aura and his own disappeared. The orange coating vanished. Everything returned calm as if nothing happened. Only the sound of the bracelet hitting the ground echoed in the hall. He was again standing composed, all arms behind his back.

"Well played, very well played." I was panting hard. That attack took most of the fight out of me. I was about to respond when I heard a chime. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Ding! ──────────── Achievement Earned: A Drop of Blood Wound a being 1000 levels above your own, solo. Reward: +10% to all stats when fighting an opponent at least 100 levels over your own. ──────────── That would be useful… I'm sure.

"You got an achievement, right?" Vix asked me.

"Yeah, for wounding you," I said while panting. I wasn't feeling good.

"Ha! Nice. Anyway, come with me, we have more to discuss and you need the break." He started walking and I followed him, swaying slightly. We sat down again at the table and he took out another bottle.

"Sorry but I'm in no condition to drink with you right now, I'll have to decline." He waved me off.

"This is a tonic to replenish your aura and heal your wounds, basic stuff. The System doesn't allow me to pull out anything really good, but it should suffice. Here." He slid a glass full of murky green sludge to me. I took it and tentatively sniffed the thing, only to recoil in disgust. The brew made me tear up. The alien was stifling a laugh as he gestured to me to drink. I wasn't sure if he was trying to poison me or something, but he shouldn't be able to do so in a safe zone, right?

I took the glass near my mouth and just tilted it all down my throat. The sludge was slow to descend as I tried my best not to throw up. I finished the foul thing and threw the damn glass at Vix, but he caught it while laughing uproariously. Then it disappeared into whatever magical space he was pulling stuff from.

"Now I think I could use a drink…" I told him while crying. That stuff was horrible. He laughed some more before taking out another green bottle, but this time the liquor looked like absinthe or something similar. He poured me a glass, and I threw half of it down before using the other half as mouthwash.

"Fuckin—" My words got stuck in my throat as a wave of burning pain came from my mouth. Vix was slamming the table with three of his arms as the last one wiped off his own tears. The bastard was enjoying this too much.

"Sorry pal," he said after recomposing himself.

"It's like a tradition to do this. My master did it to me, and his master did it to him, and so on and so forth."

"It's a dick move. At least the tonic will work?"

"Oh yeah it will! But it's funny as hell. When you get as old as me you'll take things less seriously, trust me. Anyhow, you should already feel better, no?" Actually, now that I paid attention to it, my bruises seemed not to hurt anymore, and a warm and cozy feeling spread from my belly to all the parts of my body.

"Yeah, yeah I feel it. So?"

"So what?" he asked while pouring another glass for me and for himself.

"The spar. You nearly killed me like seven times. What is your verdict?"

"That you suck at physical combat," he said, swallowing his glass.

"But you're good at shaping aura, and you have good defenses."

"Sorry if I didn't have a hundred years to focus on perfecting my fucking flowing dragon punch or whatever bullshit martial arts you're using," I told him while taking a sip. The taste of that tonic was still in my mouth and would remain in my mind forever.

"First, I'm a sword user, not a martial artist. I used my hands to give myself a bigger handicap. And second, you are not fit for the more physical side of aura. I noticed that you don't empower your body with it. No, you apply it to the surroundings. While I move myself with it, you move everything else. It's the mark of a very egocentric mind. But many are like you. It's just that my teaching would be wasted on you. Pity, you'd have made for a funny student."

"I have honestly no idea what you are inferring. I can guess, but… I don't know, what should I do with this information?" He sighed.

"What I mean is this. There are a myriad techniques and styles created for using aura. The most common, because that is the normal way aura gets discovered and applied, is to use aura internally to enhance your body. Make yourself faster, stronger, more resistant, and a lot more. You follow?" I nodded after taking another sip. Now that the bad taste was going away I was starting to appreciate this new liquor.

"So people take a long time to learn to control aura, to develop the relevant skill, and to improve their control. And everything stays internal for a long, long time. But you, no. You had to develop a way of using aura that is external to you, with a mutated manifesting skill to boot. Basically, you are fighting like an aura master. It's just that, well, you're not a master."

"So I'm putting the cart before the horse?"

"The hell is a horse? But yes, what you said." I sighed. I knew that here in the tutorial we were pushing forward without knowledge, but even while having that knowledge, it felt like there was nothing I could do anyway. Why did it always seem that after getting some answers I had even more questions?