Battle Aura

"Hmmmmm" Allyssa stared at Del as he sat on his bed, staring back at her.

"So... you lookin' for somethin'?" Del asked as he tried to figure out why Allyssa was so intensively staring at him.

"Damn it, I'll just ask you outright, why are you always pushing out manus?" She asked after the need to know has built up in her for a couple of days. It wasn't really something that had to do with her, but it all started with one idea that kept of expanding making her hopelessly curious.

"...pushing out?" Del's face adopted a confused look as he tilted his head, still unable to know what she meant.

"The layer of manus around you! It has no concrete shape!"

"Oh! I'm not pushing out manus, I'm training."

"What, really? I don't believe I've seen, nor heard of a method like that before." She spoke sarcastically.

Del stuck his tongue out in response to her. "Course not, I made it up on my own."

"Then tell me how it works."

"Alright... wait, you can see my manus flowing out?" He just realized that most people couldn't see the layer of manus since it was still relatively thin to techniques like strength.

"My eyes are a tad more sensitive to those kind of things." She didn't say anymore and Del delve no deeper.

"Ah. Well, it would." He said as he held his arm out.

Allyssa leaned in and took a closer look. She nearly gasped at what she saw. Along his arms were actually what looked like hundreds of miniature threads that looked as if they were made of smoke. They would quickly jump out of his arm before slowly weaving it's way back inside. She was in awe at the control level Del seemed to already have.

"How do you control it from the outside?!" She asked loudly, still in awe of the feat.

"Eh, controlling it once it's outside of me technically Isn't correct. It's more like forcing it to move in a certain way before letting go, as if I'm telling it to stay on a road." Del tried to explain, though even he seemed to be confusing himself by it.

"I don't get it." Allyssa responded, having a grin on her face that showed she was obviously making fun of his explanation

"Sounds like you're dumb to me." Del said in response."

"Jester. But anyhow, I saw you disable it when you were fighting last time, yet you began moving faster, how is that?"

"Well it takes up a bit of my focus to do and it strains my body, so when I'm using it I'm often as weak as, or maybe weaker than the average person." He said while looking up and down his arm. He hadn't thought much of the things he does, but looking back at it some of this would definitely amaze some people.

"What? Really? Well then h-"

"Damn, I gotta dip, I'll see you later though." Del got out of the bed and ran over to a corner of the room. He slipped on some shoes and grabbed the big bag with weapons. He then made his way on out.

"...Dip?"

Del made his way to the training field with the large bag slung across his back. Mel had said she had something she wanted to practice with him.

"You're late." Melinda said while her arms were crossed.

"I saw a rock in the path so I took the long way around."

Del said it so naturally that ot flew over Melinda's head for a moment that she had to think about what he said. "A rock...?"

"So what is it that you wanted to show me?" He said dismissing the questionable response he made.

"Er, right. I was told you haven't cultivated a battle aura yet so I was thinking you could help me with mines. Of course you'd help me since you would be getting some knowledge of a high grade battle aura." Melinda said the last bit with her noise pointed high.

"Battle aura?" Del had a dumb look on his face, obviously oblivious to battle aura before now.

"Battle aura's, you know, they give you buffs towards combat." She said hoping that Del didn't actually not know what battle auras were.

"Hmmm" Dell furrowed his eyebrows and brought a hand to his chin trying to think of it.

"You seriously don't know? I knew it, you're and idiot."

Del's face had a nervous smile and he looked away as he thought about why he didn't know. 'Damn, I'm progressively becoming more like a teenager because of this body. There's a good chance Bruce tried to teach me.'

(A couple of days ago)

"Here's the next assignment I have for you, make sure to read it." Bruce said as he gave Del a book.

As he walked away Del looked at the book. "I'm not reading this shit."

(Back to now)

Del looked back to Melinda. "Don't be so harsh, I just haven't had the time to read about it."

"Tsk, do you at least know how to use manus?" She asked, still doubting Del's intelligence. By the look she gave him, he could tell she was.

"Of course I can!"

"Mhm, well come on, I'll lay out the foundations for you so we can do it together. The entirety of it is a family secret though, so don't expect too much." She said as she sat on thr ground with her legs crossed. Del did the same across from her.

She explained it to him with numerous hand movements and attempts to visualize it while moving dirt around. After a few minutes she finished explaining it.

"Ready?" She asked with a slight tone of impatience in her voice.

"Ah, wait a moment." Del had just remembered that he hadn't checked his system in a long while, having found it seemed almost useless. He had remembered though that if had 'plundered' something from Melinda.

Upon further inspection he saw that his manus had raised to a maximum of 152 as of right now. It's way higher than before, but thinking of most rpg games he imagined it was a small amount.

Looking around a bit he eventually saw something that said 'Sword Technique ???'. He opened it up to try and see what it was.

[Sword Technique; Requirement Manus Related]

He was disappointed to find that apparently he didn't meet the requirements to use it. He dismissed it. The last thing he wanted to check out was the systems 'plunder' ability.

[Plunder: Upon dominating a target the system will automatically duplicate a certain numerical amount of skills or techniques. Currently limited to skills and techniques]

Del's eyes widened as he read it. He could take skills?! And all he had to do was dramatically best someone? This is OP! Right? Skills and techniques... Saying it again, it seems a bit underwhelming.

"What are you making me wait for?" Melinda snapped a finger in Del's face. Del dismissed the windows and snapped back to reality, having forgotten that he would just look like he was staring at space.

"Right right, we can begin." Del said to her quickly.

Melinda put her hands out with her palms facing the sky. Del put his palms over hers. They both closed their eyes and started taking deep breaths. They started breathing at different times, but with each breath it became more and more synchronized. They made their manus flow against each other until they could actually feel each others manus flow. They then began to flow in the same motion and direction. Soon enough even their heartbeats began to beat at the same pace.

Ever so slowly did they synchronize. Del began a count in his mind, used to the feeling of being drawn in by the meditation. It was slightly different this time though. There was far moe connection.

One...

Two...

Three...

Del suddenly found himself in darkness. He could still feel the world around him, yet his senses seemed to be within another place too. Within a moment he saw a light orange flow of manus come around him. No, it was more like he was the flow of manus.

Across from him he could suddenly see another manus flow. Unlike his which fluctuated and had different textures and shapes, the manis floe across from him had a stable form and seemed to keep a structure of calm. The texture of the manus even seemed to be silky.

Del was caught up in the beauty of it all. He was then all of a sudden hit with a wave of energy. Right, he had to focus, he was here to train. His flow caught the sphere of manus and shaped it before sending it back. The manus across from him did the same before sending it back.

This was all a mental visualization of what occured within Del and Melinda as they trained together. As they trained Del started to move along the rhythm of Melinda. This surprised her, as this quickly caused his manus to change. She had noticed that Del seemed to use only raw manus without any refinement, but was still somewhat talented enough to keep up with training like this even though the use of raw manus tires one far more quickly. This made her surprised when he suddenly started picking up on her methods of refinement. Not only that, he was putting it into practice as he picked it up, causing Melinda to feel a bit of a struggle as Del could put more power into the sphere with less effort.

Of course it wasn't enough to say he was a genius, just a quick learner. He couldn't compare to Mel's level, though his manus seemed a bit more stable now.

After about an hour they had finally finished. Once they disconnected they were both in a sweat.

"Hah... Hah... you think... you can use the aura now?" Melinda asked in between strained breaths.

"I think I can manage it." Del said, not as breathless aa Melinda.

He started to activate it, but to Mel's surprise not the one she taught him. Del had actually paid attention to more than just the sphere, but as well as Mel's flow and how she was using it. Using what she taught him of the basics and filling missing spaces, he managed to access an even better version.

A thick visible layer of manus covered his body. He brought up an arm and flexed a muscle. This didn't last very long though as he suddenly slouched forward as the aura quickly dissipated. He then started to breath heavily. "Damn... that's heavy..."

Melinda simply looked at him with awe. "How did you advance it on your own?" She asked loudly.

"Gah with all of your yelling. I'm just that great." Del said with a smile.