When he returned home feeling satisfied with his day, Alexander took a bath, ate, and locked himself in his room.
He didn’t want to risk being interrupted while he was in the middle of it.
After making sure he was calm and in good condition, Alexander picked up the books the director had given him.
The first, which was quite large, was called [Essence Harvester]. The second—a bit smaller—was [Mantra of Madness].
Taking a deep breath again, Alexander picked up the first book and accepted the notifications it triggered.
Ding!
[Skill book identified. Do you wish to spend (1) growth point to learn the special proficiency skill: |Harvest Essence|?]
Ding!
[Instructions for developing an enhancement identified. Do you wish to spend (2) growth points to develop the enhancement: (Essence Harvester)?]
After accepting the notifications, Alexander was overwhelmed by a completely uncomfortable sensation.
It was as if every cell in his body tried to breathe on its own.
As soon as that first uncomfortable stage passed, all the pores on Alexander's body opened and began to gush out his energy.
Knowing the dangers this represented, Alexander enveloped his body in a sphere of water with |Invigorate|. He used |Aquatic Combat| to keep breathing even inside the water—isolated from the outside world.
After all of Alexander's pores opened completely and emitted a considerable amount of energy, it was their turn to begin expelling his mana from every corner of his body.
Feeling the instability this new stage was causing, Alexander created a dense layer of energy—which didn't even allow air to come into contact with his skin—held his breath, and deactivated his technique and his spell.
This last stage was quick and didn't last as long as the others.
Even so, Alexander remained isolated inside his energy until his pores returned to normal. The various impurities from the environment could enter through them more easily while they were all wide open.
When his condition stabilized well, Alexander dispersed his energy and breathed deeply.
He seemed to want to compensate for the time he hadn't breathed.
To Alexander's surprise, his breathing wasn't just pulmonary as before. His body began to breathe as a whole.
However, instead of absorbing and processing oxygen, his body absorbed the very essence of the environment.
After a few minutes absorbing the essence of the mana and energy from his surroundings, Alexander discovered that the enhancement (Essence Harvester) allowed him to passively absorb the essence of his surroundings.
This improvement didn't directly make him stronger at first glance; it progressively increased his amount of XP.
The skill |Harvest Essence| wasn't very different from the enhancement.
It only allowed Alexander to intensify and, to some extent, modulate the essence absorption—like a kind of cultivation.
Knowing he still hadn't finished, Alexander adjusted his breathing, picked up the second book, and accepted the notification generated by contact with it.
Ding!
[Skill book identified. Do you wish to spend (1) growth point to learn the scalable active skill: |Mantra of Madness|?]
As soon as Alexander accepted the last notification, his blood circulation was abruptly altered and accelerated, making him stagger and cough up blood.
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"The director must have pushed another one of those techniques considered evil on me…" concluded Alexander immediately.
Upon analyzing the information he received from the system, Alexander understood why that technique is called |Mantra of Madness|.
Some "genius" thought it would be a good idea to simulate the berserk ability that creatures develop during their 3rd evolution.
The big (crap) issue with this whole situation is that people—at least normal ones—don't have physiques that are even remotely comparable to those of a 3rd evolution creature.
Even Alexander, having the body he had, considered that skill, at best, reckless.
The 3rd evolution of a wild creature is naturally its most important evolution in terms of potential.
It is when the lineage factor of each creature is awakened and enhanced.
The berserk ability that 3rd evolution creatures use when cornered and/or angered usually consists only of using the power of their lineage to the maximum. But what is proposed in the skill |Mantra of Madness| is to use energy to increase the speed of blood flow and, at the same time, use that energy-filled blood flow to improve the body's performance.
Even disregarding its chance to kill whoever tries to learn it, this technique still causes great stress to the user's body.
People with a powerful physique might even use it without suffering damage, provided they learned it correctly.
Still, they would lose the natural regeneration due to the high blood circulation not allowing coagulation in wounds.
Having no reason to worry about it at the moment, Alexander decided to think later about what to do with the |Mantra of Madness|.
His priority at the moment was to increase his number of skills and his power.
For that he learned the techniques |Boost Strength| and |Boost Endurance|, used his (Random Skill Card), and improved |Water Field|.
Ding!
[You learned the scalable active skill |Boost Strength|]
Ding!
[You learned the scalable active skill |Boost Endurance|]
Ding!
[You received: (Scalable active skill: |Shine|)]
[|Shine|: Channels energy or mana to a region of the body and makes it luminous, causing it to release a glowing light. Cost: 10 energy or mana.]
Ding!
[|Water Field (Beginner)| leveled up to |Water Field (Intermediate)|]
Having no more growth points and a lot to consolidate, Alexander spent that month training and fighting in a hybrid manner:
In the morning, he was under Lucas's supervision.
In the afternoon, he fought frenetically in dungeons.
In the evening, he collected essence from the world around him to increase his XP.
Ding!
[You leveled up…]
Ding!
[You leveled up…]
Ding!
[You leveled up…]
Ding!
[You leveled up…]
Ding!
[|Sweep (Intermediate)| leveled up to |Sweep (Advanced)|]
Ding!
[|Great Energy Control (Intermediate)| leveled up to |Great Energy Control (Advanced)|]
Ding!
[|Great Mana Control (Intermediate)| leveled up to |Great Mana Control (Advanced)|]
Ding!
[|Energy Modulation (Intermediate)| leveled up to |Energy Modulation (Advanced)|]
Ding!
[|Magical Control (Intermediate)| leveled up to |Magical Control (Advanced)|]
Ding!
[|Thrust (Advanced)| leveled up to |Thrust (Peak)|]
During this 1-month interval, Alexander gifted Ocean with the enhancement (Essence Harvester), allowing her to level up the same number of times as him. He also learned some more advanced concepts in class.
The most interesting of them was the main difference between basic-level techniques or spells and advanced ones: at basic levels, the user creates the entire process and energizes it; at more advanced levels, the process begins to become increasingly external to its user.
According to Lucas, at a high level, the individual simply triggers a reaction and controls it: the body of any advanced technique or spell—as well as a good part of its energy source—usually comes from the environment surrounding it.
The higher the level of the technique or spell, the purer and denser the energy must be to be able to initiate and control it, because the individual will need to integrate more and more with nature itself to control it.
That's why, for example, aquatic environments are more suitable and conducive to water affinity.
Even though Alexander had that extreme development, Diana didn't stand still that month and also improved a lot.
In that short space of time, she not only finished learning the basics of the 5 books she received, but also learned 1 more advanced spell that her teacher taught her as a reward for her high performance.
Diana always had high latent potential. All she lacked was more spells and confidence in herself.
With the techniques Alexander gave her; the spells |Pain Reduction|, which Mark gave her; |High Regeneration|, which Stella gave her; |Great Heal|, which she received as her reward for the integration event; and |Light Screen|, which her teacher taught her, Diana managed to promote herself to a silver-rank adventurer.
According to what Diana explained to Alexander, the names of her spells are self-explanatory.
The only one that needed some introduction was |Light Screen|, which allows her to raise a magical screen of protection.
