A boy could be seen sitting in a meditative position. The black-colored energy was in the atmosphere around him. Gathered into blackish smoke, constantly moving like small gusts
The boy kept focusing his mind, his body becoming one with the environment. After gathering his focus, he released his spiritual sense after reaching the epic stage.
While trying to observe the very nature of the shadow energy, time passed by. All he did was observe. On the third day, when he was starting to get anxious, he noticed that the shadow element around him could understand him for the first time.
At first, he could not communicate with it due to his inability to understand it. This time, he was also able to use his shadow orb, which was a shadow spirit. Something born in a place with a high concentration of shadow elements was something that had the potential to become a shadow Elemental.
After merging with him, it transformed into something else, moving away from its initial path. It was now a part of him that worked his organ.
While it could never become an Elemental, a being with the ability to converse with the element itself initially thought that the element itself could have consciousness. It appeared to be sentient too, as it could sense him.
Until now, he thought elements were something that allowed users to manipulate or control things like water, earth, and air. He thought it was more like the laws of nature: "I always believed elemental manipulation was about understanding the law related to the element."
"Now that I think about it, the peak of manipulation could be conversing with the element itself to do the task for you. Maybe there would be no need to spend mana to control it? Will I ever be able to achieve that level?"
He was trying to find an answer to his question, resulting in him getting lost in his thoughts before his focus slowly returned, and he forgot about it for now. "Let's focus on what's important for now; there is no need to think about the future. I will eventually find it out later."
He strengthened his connection with the shadow element around him and started communicating with it. At first, he could not express his thoughts, but soon he was able to do it.
He could not understand the Shadow Element; the only thing he was capable of was sensing its reactions to a minute extent. With this, he was able to create a pact with it and establish rules for his technique.
The first Rule he established was that with each successful attack, he would be assisted by the shadow element to strengthen his Physical and Magical Penetration. Even with Rule, there was a limit to increasing the penetration of his attacks.
From his calculation, he would be able to increase the physical and magic penetration by six times with two stacks.
This technique, in theory, would boost his Adaptive(physical and magnetic) penetration by two times after being activated. Next, he must land a successful attack in the next five seconds to get one stack.
The first stack would increase his adaptive penetration four times from the initial two; now, to get another stack to increase his adaptive penetration further, he had to land another successful attack.
With Second Stack, he would get a six-time adaptive penetration boost. This would let him ignore a large portion of his opponent's physical and magical defense, making his attacks more lethal.
There was a reason he chose adaptive penetration instead of damage. It was because of its synergy with his mana heart's Arcane Fusion Nexus ability.
This ability was available to him after landing two successful attacks in a time frame of 5 seconds.
Upon activation, his next attack became boosted, dealing three times more damage than the normal attack. The only bad part was that this ability had a fifteen-second cooldown, and only low-level techniques like 'Quick Draw,' 'Stab,' and 'Cut' could be boosted.
It was then that an idea came to his mind: why not have his first technique increase adaptive penetration? With this, would his attack deal more damage to the opponent with a higher physical and magic defense?
As for those with less adaptive defense, he could efficiently deal lethal attacks to them using his physical strength alone. With the physical strength boost from mana veins, even his regular punch would be lethal.
He wanted to create powerful rules but was still not knowledgeable enough to create stronger rules that gave him more power with stronger restrictions. The ones he could use right now were the basic ones. Knowledge might also not be the only missing criterion.
It took him a day to converse with Shadow Element and ask if this type of Rule could be established. Without any prior knowledge, he had to use trial and error.
His high cognitive abilities only assisted him in succeeding by using such a method: "My mental energy has already depleted. If even with the mental world, I don't have enough energy, wouldn't it take months for other people with a similar level to me?
"While the blessing given to my mother didn't make me overpowered, it did help me have a solid foundation. A smile appeared on his face as he thought about her. It's been a while since I met her."
"Focus, Rishi!" he clapped his cheeks, reminding himself not to get distracted. "Let's train Mana Veins for some time before taking a rest."
He performed the set of exercises that he was slowly refining each day. Making them more efficient; each move was fluent and linked with another move.
Two more days passed, and he got used to the rules. It was now time to integrate another rule into his technique. This Rule was needed to increase his adaptive penetration further.
While six times adaptive penetration sounded good, from his calculation, he needed at least ten times boost to hurt the opponents with high adaptive defense. This time, it was easier for him to create a rule; the hard part was integrating it.
After trying different ways for two days to use rules, he found out that if he wanted to use more than two Rules, then they needed to be linked.
He decided to sacrifice two seconds to get two seconds. Now, he would get a two-time adaptive penetration boost after using the technique. The only change was that he now only had three seconds to land his next attack to get a stack.
The good part was that he could stack his attacks four times, giving him a maximum stack of ten times the adaptive penetration boost. With his original adaptive penetration being boosted by ten times, his attacks were now more lethal to tanks and warriors.
"It's just the start. Now comes the main stuff." He started working on the second technique. This one didn't need any rules. This one tested his mastery of runes, arcane magic, and umbrakinesis.
"For this technique, I will have it charged by using shadow energy, mana, and the energy I released in previous attacks on the atmosphere. Similar to Glacial Execution but faster to charge," he said, looking at the notebook.
In this technique, he would create tiny, invisible, and untraceable particles called 'Shadow Flares.' These particles would then be released with the burst attack he releases and enter the opponent's body.
He could explode them later inside the opponent's body, which would fill their body with internal injuries. Even opponents with high defenses would be rendered useless by this type of attack.
While the concept sounded great, there were many challenges to achieving it. The first was creating these shadow flares that have the ability to explode. It needed a high level of rune mastery to make them small.
The second challenge was to make them invisible and untraceable. It was still relatively more manageable, as he was very proficient in concealment.
The last challenge was how to make them enter the opponent's body; waiting until they got wounded was unreliable. He wants to create such a technique that it can still critically wound an opponent who can block most of the attacks.
It was not that he had no clue; he had an idea of how to achieve it. The only problem was that he had to find a way to apply the concepts of his second technique of 'Nebulous Melding Secret Art' called 'Passing Through Matter,' which granted him the ability to pass through objects.
If he could study it to a deeper level and then somehow replicate its effect by creating different Runes, Then he might succeed in achieving the effect he wanted.
This was the most crucial step of his battle Art, as his ultimate technique, defended on the number of Shadow Flares inside his opponent's body. He was thinking of letting his Final technique grant him the ability to merge all the Shadow Flares inside the opponent's body.
He can then explode it like a Bomb, "It would be cool," he said as a cold smile surfaced on his lips.
#NOTE# Please read Author's Note
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