Skullius ate the food that was in Reon’s spatial ring while waiting for his mana to recover. Unfortunately, while there was a lot to eat, there was not a lot to drink and he had been noticing the rise in temperature during his travel in the daytime.
It was not a case of feeling pain from his skin frying but seeing the mirages in the distance along with the overall effects the heating sun had on the environment.
Furthermore, even though he couldn’t feel it, his body became wiry and heavy making Skullius curse intensely.
‘My mana regeneration still sucks… I guess its different from my Penetrator form. I wish I could… I’m so dumb!” Skullius suddenly slapped his own face and injected his mana into the ring he wore.
The Null Devil’s Aegis of Damnation plopped on the ground, raising up dust with its grand appearance from the spatial storage.
“I could just use the mana regeneration effect of the armour as well as 1500 boost to mana!”
Perhaps it was the fact that he had only worn this thick armour while in his Penetrator form which had created a bias in Skullius that made him forget that he could wear the armour and still enjoy its effects or perhaps it was the heat had made him forget but nevertheless, this obvious method he could use to grind had appeared in his mind.
A 100% mana regeneration rate and an addition of 1500 to his mana pool!
It would make it so much easier for him.
Naturally, Skullius use the armour for combat as it was too large for him to wear but mana exercises weren’t much of a problem.
With a few grunts and great difficulty, Skullius donned the armour even while looking unsightly as the Chains of Damnation dangled and cranked against the armour.
Skullius’ head popped out the armour but his whole body couldn’t fit perfectly as it was way too small. It looked more like he was hiding in the armour than actually wearing it.
Still, it didn’t matter as the effects of equipping the armour immediately began to show.
A massive amount of mana compared to his current capacity gushed through him, the armour acting as a holder of this vast sum!.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Skullius roared with a large grin.
Even though he didn’t quite feel this addition to his reserves while in his original form because of his already vast mana pool (for a white core), his current weak body felt it.
“Now to evolve [Basic Mana Manipulation]!” Skullius said.
This was the skill he wanted to evolve. It had opened up possibilities before and it could do so now.
To do this, he needed to level up six times, a feat which needed him to attain a better grasp over mana and how to shape it.
He had learnt this piece of information when he was straining to pull on the mana that flowed excessively from Dezrael’s armour, the ArchLight Generation Keeper, with his under-performing mana manipulation.
All he had to do was subject himself to harsher forms of mana manipulation that were above his current capacity and push onwards.
For such a thing, Skullius chose something simple.
The thing that appeared in his mind when he thought of mana was the mana core, since forming one was not an easy task, at least for him.
The Discount Human brought his hands together while they were in the enclosure of the armour.
He closed his eyes and focused, bringing streams of mana into the space between his hands.
He slowly parted his palms, gathering more and more mana while also trying to condense it.
This was the way he had forged a strong core when he was in Deadmanland, repeating the process until he built a stronger than normal core.
As an undead, after years of exposure of mana, eventually forming a core was not outlandish but for Skullius, he wasn’t satisfied with one that couldn’t do anything, thus he made one for himself while others sought to cultivate [Boneman of Steel] instead.
Mana focus was the only way!
A small ball of condensed mana appeared between Skullius’ hands, glowing with a bright white light.
Skullius’ brows twitched as he then began pumping more mana into the small ball. The white energy surged, giving the ball a brighter shine that lit up the interior of the armour intensely.
Soon, the ball grew brighter and brighter becoming harder to contain which made Skullius sweat.
‘Crap! This is harder than I thought!’
Skullius gnashed his teeth as he steadily poured more mana into the small ball of mana at slower rates to manage the intensity.
Minutes passed with Skullius pouring and struggling to contain it!
His previous experience with this had been messy with him being unable to fuel even a quarter of the current mana he had managed to contain within his core.
[Basic Mana Manipulation has levelled up]!
[Basic Mana Manipulation has levelled up]!
….
A few notifications popped up over the next few hours as Skullius kept on trying to contain the mana with his mana manipulation.
However, after reaching a certain threshold, his focus began to wane and the capacity he held at the moment became too much for him to handle!
Because of how much power he had packed into this small ball of mana that he kept compressing, Skullius was afraid to release it within the armour.
He hadn’t thought that far as he had instead gotten lost in his task.
The Discount Human took a deep breath as he struggled to focus.
‘What do I do?! Won’t this destroy me and the armour if I just toss it aside?!’
This was a possibility in Skullius’ mind and it scared the fake shit out of him.
‘Wait! How about I change the shape and try to lessen the damage if it explodes or something?!’
There was one level left until the skill was level 20 but Skullius didn’t know if he would survive till then.
‘Calm down, you sockethole!’ Skullius barked at himself. He drew in his focus once again and tried to shape the small ball of mana. ‘Wait. Rather than shaping it, what if I focus it into a skill?!’
A harmless skill that is!
Without delaying any longer, Skullius immediately cast [Evil Darkness Production] with this condensed mana!
FWOOOM!
A massive plume of darkness erupted with a heavy pressure that blew away the dust and air which created a sound akin to a rough, subdued explosion!
The amount of darkness produced in this instance was so ridiculous that Red Rage rushed over to Skullius thinking that the Discount Human had screwed himself over!
As he approached the thick layers of darkness, Red Rage found himself unable to proceed as it felt like he was pushing against an impenetrable wall!
…!
His hands tried to pass through the darkness, but it was impossible!
Moving forward didn’t allow him actually reduce the distance!
The darkness wouldn’t let him in and as it surrounded an area of almost twenty meters, the Apostle felt the need to activate his strongest skills to barge through as his master wasn’t responding.
“Relax, bro. I’m fine,” Skullius said from within the darkness.
Even though the Pelvis Boar-Man couldn’t see it, Skullius was grinning from ear to ear.
In only a matter of seconds, he had received surprise after surprise while in the midst of the cloud of [Evil Darkness].
First…
[Evil Darkness Production has levelled up]!
[Evil Darkness Production has levelled up]!
This skill of his had levelled up twice from this incident alone, boosting the amount of [Evil Darkness] he could produce.
The second surprise was that…
“I’ve finally found a use for this darkness!” Skullius exclaimed.
Who knows that his hardwork would actually net him such a huge boon?
However, with his current level for [Evil Darkness Production], he couldn’t produce such a huge cloud of darkness as he had done after using the condensed mana.
“I’ll focus on that one later. I’ve just gotten a good idea on how to power level all my skills. But first, let’s advance [Basic Mana Manipulation].”
Skullius chose to finish the task he had set to finish first.
The darkness that covered the area cleared when Skullius used [Basic Evil Weaving] which was level 5 now.
Red Rage looked blankly at the scene for a while before turning and heading back to do what he had originally been doing.
Skullius once again drew in his focus and started condensing mana. His previous session had left him having a heavy sensation that pulled him down, but he intended to push through. There was definitely light at the end of this tunnel.
He could feel it.
Within two hours, another super condensed mana ball had been created and Skullius finally saw the notification he had been waiting for.
[Basic Mana Manipulation has reached LV20. Would you like to evolve it into its next form?]
“Hell yeah,” Skullius said with a grin as flowing ‘sweat’ trickled down to his mouth.
[‘Basic Mana Manipulation’ has evolved into ‘Advanced Mana Manipulation’]!
“Hoo… Nice!” Skullius screamed in joy while making sure he didn’t let go of the condensed mana he was wielding.
However, in the next moment, another notification popped up, surprising him.
[Due to the repetition of the action ‘Condensing Mana’, the skill ‘Mana Blast’ has been acquired]
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