135 Poor Rat...
In the right hands, what Moby had just discovered could be extremely deadly and versatile. It allowed him to shoot out pure demon energy from his ice shards by focusing it on the tip, charging it up before releasing it out as a blast.
If he could sneak an ice shard behind an enemy and shoot it out, he could easily take them out by a surprise attack. And, if he is able to surround his opponent with many ice shards, he could aim it directly at them with a near 100% accuracy as it would be extremely hard for them to dodge. Also, if an opponent dodged an attack he could follow it up with a demon energy blast in the direction of their dodge, catching them off guard, making it a much harder time for them to survive.
Those were only some of the few use cases that he had thought of off the top of his head which made him extremely excited for the future, when he would have better mastery over his still young and maturing ability.
However, those would only work depending on a few criteria. How many ice shards he could shoot from at once, How much was the cost of such an attack, and, how far he could control the ice and how far he was able to blast his demon energy out of them.
So, he tried his best to form another shard of purple ice just like before, closing his eyes imagining its creation before opening them to find out that he had created another one.
Now he had 2 ice shards floating in front of him which was extremely draining on him both mentally and physically. He then focused his demon energy into both of the ice shards, shooting out weak blasts of demon energy that did little to no damage due to how small they were and how inexperienced Moby still was at handling his new powers.
*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*
"That was excellent my lord! You are improving so quickly!" Abby cheered at him from the side which sounded more like she was mocking him.
Yet, knowing her for as long as he did, he knew that it was definitely not her intensions to do that as she 100% believed in her own words.
The next thing Moby did was try to move the ice away from his body to see the distance of control he had over them.
Next, was the moment of truth, if he was able to shoot out his demon energy from the ice shards at such a distance. He tried his best to focus his demon energy into the tips of the ice shards before firing them out like before. However, when he tried to do it, it did not work at all which slightly worried him.
So, with the last drops of his remaining mana, he brought the ice shards closer to him, testing it out at certain intervals until he found his maximum firing range.
'3 meters… At least it still works at such a range… It's still a work in progress, it will get better over time,' Moby thought, trying his best to stay positive.
Moby checked up on his mana and demon energy to see how much he used. From what he felt, his mana should be pretty much completely depleted and his demon energy should have a decent chunk taken out of it.
'7/529 mana and 377/529 demon energy…' Moby thought, inspecting his energy reserves.
The chunk of consumed demon energy was far greater than he expected at 152. And, it was only for 3 small blasts of pure demon energy. If the blasts were any bigger, he was certain that his energy reserves would be emptied in a heartbeat. Along with the decently long charge up time and Moby's inexperience with his ability, it was one of the major drawbacks of his new technique.
Moby assumed that it was the cost of transferring and infusing his demon energy into the ice shards instead of just firing it out of his own body like he usually did. However, unlike other things in his ability, he was not sure if and how he would improve the transfer process in order to make it as efficient as possible as his demon energy was not as young and immature as his ice ability. All that Moby could do was try his best to train and hope it works out in his favour which he had faith in as he has the power of the first demon lord at his disposal.
The next thing that Moby wanted to test out was the new skill that he gained from the ice dragon skill tree, "Freezing Time". The effect says that time slows down by 10%. However, other than that brief description, he still had no idea what it exactly meant and would translate in a combat-related scenario.
"Hey! Baby! Will this thing do?" A familiar voice came from the entrance of the arena.
It was of course none other than Jayden. And, what was beside her could only ever be described as absolutely hideous. It was a massive, muscular, black rat that stood at around 3 meters in height. Around its mouth was a muzzle and a leash and its entire body was restrained in chains that did not allow him to fight back even if he wanted to. Its stench made the entire arena reek of the smell of shit but somehow even worse as Moby's enhanced senses were quick to pick up on it.
When Moby used his inspect skill on it, he found it to only be a D rank beast which did not pose a threat at all.
"It seems like your back already… How much did that thing cost you?" Moby asked Jayden, hoping that she did not spend too much as he planned to craft and buy new sets of armour for his entire family.
"It was only around $1000, Ratmen don't really give any valuable materials so it was pretty cheap. I just ordered him and went to pick him up from the nearest teleporter that supported living creatures before I came here. Even if it smells like ass, it was pretty funny having him around! You should have seen the looks on everyone's faces as I casually walked with this thing, It was hilarious," Jayden replied.
"$1000… that's not that bad," Moby nodded as he was happy that not much money was spent.
For now, to get rid of the awful smell, Moby decided to do what he wanted to test out with the Rat first instead of his "Freezing Time" skill.
"GRAWWR" The beast roared in a muffled voice, trying it's best to get out of its restraint.
"He's all yours!" Jayden said with a smile, kicking the rat-man all the way to Moby's location.
Looking, at the ugly 3-meter tall beast in front of him, Moby was not at all scared or intimidated. If anything, he just wanted to get it over with so he could get rid of the awful odour attacking his nose.
Currently, Moby was still out of mana and somewhat low on demon energy so he used "Nature's Stimulation" to regain them, completely ignoring the roaring crazy beast in front of him for 4 minutes straight before opening his eyes, ready to start his testing.
The first thing that Moby wanted to try out was if he was able to freeze people or beasts from the inside out, something that he saw nobody in the FireWatch video do. But, something that he decided to test anyways just in case as every living creature had water in their blood.
So, Moby tried it out from a close distance, not touching the still struggling beast at all.
'Failure…' He thought with a hint of disappointment before moving onto the next experiment.
Moby tried to do the same thing, but this time, he made direct physical contact with the ugly, disgusting beast, something that he did not want to do but did anyways for research purposes.
For this attempt, Moby saw a small sheet of purple ice slowly begin to engulf the rat-man until after around 30 seconds, it completely covered its stomach area in a sheet of purple ice. However, the ice was only on the outside and had no effect on it from the inside and from its inner blood stream, something that Moby fully expected. For now, what he did was way too slow to be used in actual combat and it was way too costly, using up almost half of his mana to do so.
The next thing he wanted to test out was what would happen if he stabbed right into the rat-man before injecting his sword into it with his icy, demon energy-infused mana to see if it would end up any better.
Out of his inventory, Moby pulled out his trusty black and purple novice demon katana before stabbing right through the rat-man's chest making it cry out in pain with a muffled voice as it began to struggle even more.
Then, out of the wound in the rat-man's chest, a thin, purple sheet of ice began to form and expand until it covered half of his entire chest and neck in the span of only 20 seconds, much fast than when he was just touching it with his bare hands. Also, from around the wound, he did notice some internal damage to the rat-man's innards around the area of the stab which was a very promising sign in Moby's opinion.
Moby only had 1 more thing to test out before he could finally kill the rat-man.
However, he needed to once again use his "Nature's Stimulation" to restore his lost mana as his ability was way too inefficient and mana consuming in its current state.
"Hey, Abby, do you still have that bucket that you used to dump water on me a few minutes ago?" Moby asked Abby who was spectating his movements with clear focus.
"Y-yes my lord! I put it in my inventory! Here you go," Abby replied, pulling out a red bucket from her inventory before handing it to Moby with a bow.
"Thank you," Moby casually replied with a smile before going to the nearest of the many water fountains in the arena, filling it up all the way with water before slashing it all over the rat-man.
Then, without even touching it, he lifted his hands up and focused on freezing the water on the rat-man which turned out to be a huge success. In the end, he was able to completely freeze its entire body in a thin sheet of ice in the short span of 20 seconds. And if it was only 20 seconds to fully freeze it without any contact, he would have undoubtedly frozen it much faster if he actually touched it. And, not only did it freeze faster, but it also consumed less mana.
This made moby come to the conclusion that freezing water was much faster and more efficient than creating ice out of nothing like he did before, which did make sense in his head and from a theoretical standpoint. So, in a more moist environment and, if he got his opponent wet, he would definitely have an advantage which was a good thing to know.
"I am done with you. You served my purpose, now die," Moby said, in a casual tone, punching the frozen beast so hard that his ice body shattered into a million pieces.
[ You have defeated a high D rank, rat-man]
[+ 500 XP ]
Now that Moby finished what he was doing, wiping his hands before putting the icy, shattered remains of the rat-man in his inventory, telling himself that he would throw it out later, he focused his attention on the original thing he wanted to test out, his new "Freezing Time" skill.
"Hey, Abby, can you spar with me for a little bit? I need to test something out. Also, Jayden, I need you to stand a little farther back and spectate the little spar for me," Moby said with a smile, looking at his two family members that were casually talking to each other while they spectated Moby experimenting and killing the rat-man.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦