Possibilities

A small kid was flashing around in a completely white space. Sometimes appearing in the air, other times on the ground while slashing his dagger. With his purple, sparking legs, the only thing to be seen from his actual movement was purple lines.

Having taken the Gorilla's words to heart, I was currently doing some further experimenting with my [Lightning Step].

There was one specific application that intrigued me greatly, starting with the thought 'What if I attacked simultaneously?'

My first couple of tries had been less than successful, mostly ending with me falling to the ground due to momentum.

Now though, after 4 virtual hours of practicing, my movement felt a lot smoother, and I could almost feel the possibility of being able to pull of the sequence, [Lightning Step], split-second attack, [Lightning Step].

The biggest problem with this was to produce a meaningful attack during the time between two consecutive uses. Even if I could do a haphazard attack, most of the time I felt like both my power and technique were lacking.

'Step, attack, step. It shouldn't be that hard!'

Berating myself inwardly, on the surface it shouldn't possess too much difficulty.

At this point, I had already gotten fluent enough in my [Lightning Step] to, relatively freely, move in a 3d space. Upward, downward, backward, and forward, even being able to mix these up with a second step.

Even with that as a baseline, attacking while taking the momentum shifts in mind, was not easy. The reason for this was that I, not only, had to strike between the steps, but also because my momentum got completely negated, resulting in needing to create a new flow and attack before the time ran out.

Unfortunately, had to do it with consecutive steps. If I tried to do a single step in, attack, single step out, it wouldn't work. There was some hidden period of time after the activation of the skill before I could use it again.

Researching this, it was only about 4-5 seconds, but that was plenty enough to get me killed if I got stuck in front of an enemy.

'Does martial skills have cooldowns?'

It had never been a point of thought or discussion for me, as I had never heard anyone talk about it. To be fair, I didn't have many people to talk to during my life as Miren at all.

'One last time!'

I prepared myself to hit a dummy I had spawned, using my new little combo.

Gathering the electric mana in my right leg, I appeared right in front of the dummy. Pushing with the entire right side of my body, I somehow managed to inflict a pitiful stab into the doll, before instantly stepping ten meters back with my left leg.

'It's a start, but it's not nearly enough yet...'

Finishing my practice on a high note, my time in the capsule ran out, and I was back lying in the machine.

Getting up, I raised my arms in a stretch and started getting ready to set out for my room.

Then, another person also climbed out of a capsule.

Silver-gray hair, amazing physique, and a rough-looking face. Bayyan had, seemingly, also spent some of his night in the capsule practicing his techniques.

Meeting my gaze, he started to walk towards me, as the exit was also in this direction. Passing me, he left a couple of cryptic words while still in motion, "Don't think you are something just because the principal likes you."

Leaving me alone, I froze, trying to decipher what he had said to me.

'I think I am something? We haven't even talked to each other before?'

As I began to realize that he thought I was going around, flaunting some sort of privilege, my heart started turning cold.

'What the fuck do you know...'

Maybe I had gotten too complacent, repressing my feelings of desperation by spending most of my time training, and the rest with friends.

I could still die at any time. With my stats, I could easily get swatted like a fly, as durability was a combination of stamina and strength.

Time was running out, and the worst part was, I didn't even know how much time I had. At any time, an incident could occur. We might be sent out to a monster stampede or there could be an attack from a demon or even another human.

The incorrect assumption of Bayyan had reignited a forgotten feeling in me. I was getting stronger to be able to enjoy life, but there would be no life to enjoy if I died.

But I didn't think I "was something", no it was more like the opposite. I thought I was nothing in the present time, and that I would have to wait for the future to become something.

That train of thought was fallible. I could only become something in the future if I started becoming something now. Even if I was already pushing my body to its limits, I had to push further.

I left the capsule room, not to rest, which I was planning to, but to keep grasping whatever straw I could.

****

Covered in a purple shine, with the occasional sparks, I was circulating my lightning mana inside of me to hone it further.

From my stomach to my right hand, to my head, to my left hand, and so on. With each revolution, my purple electricity got marginally stronger, barely noticeable, but many drops of water will eventually produce a sea.

Sitting on the floor in my room, it felt like ages I've shown my inner energy some real attention. Even if I knew that I could artificially boost my mana grade with my Art, I still had to raise it for my un-clocked power to be viable.

I dove deeper inside of myself, completely focusing all of my senses on the purple energy, letting myself almost fall into it. Suddenly, I met another person in myself.

The purple clone, which I had met during the recording even, was once again in front of me. Once again, we approached each other and my imaginary hand touched his. This time, it was a different kind of feeling than previously.

My [Overclock] didn't start to rampage this time, instead, I could feel my pores opening on their own, without being forced to.

Assimilating more and more with my clone, I felt my body absorb the mana in the air, without any pain or angst. Fully fused, my senses got ejected from my inner space and my eyes opened.

My mind quickly got to work, trying to work out reasonable explanations for what had just happened. Having felt no pain or unease while absorbing the energy around me, I quickly dismissed the slight suspicion that it was the work of my Art.

Instead, I felt inclined to think that it was something akin to an effect produced by aligning with my inherent element.

Mana in itself was just energy, consisting of every element in harmony, thus it had very limited effects in itself. It could be used to create general spells, but if one were to want to produce effects that were in line with an element, one had to get rid of the unnecessary elements.

This was the converting process, although it might have been more fitting to call it the filtering process. By getting rid of the superfluous aspects, one would be left with only the essential part left. This was one of the reasons using a dual element was especially difficult, and someone being proficient and having it as their specialty were incredibly rare.

Most of the time, even if one had a dual element, they would try to specialize in one of the basic elements and then complement it with the fused element or the other basic one.

The class of 1-A was, by many different standards, abnormal, as we had four students who, as far as they said during our introduction, specialized in their dual elements.

Continuing with my thoughts, the most probable answer to my observations was that my body was somehow able to naturally integrate only the flame and wind elements, fused to create lightning, as I got more aligned to it.

The purple clone was likely not another ego, it was just a personification of my lightning mana, and as my body got more accustomed to it, the more mana could be taken in. It was similar to traditional honing, except instead of having to create a suitable vessel to suck in the more complete form of mana, I only had to get aligned to one part of it.

Unable to confirm my thoughts, I needed to record my status at a more detailed mana orb to see if there were any changes. Even if I checked my status page now, it would still be recorded as [Lower] as that was what the last detailed measurement depicted.

Closing my eyes once more, I tried to see if I could find the persona once again, but unfortunately, it was impossible.

'Maybe it only happens when I get more accustomed to my lightning, and then it lets me align with it..'

Having made one last conjecture, I made myself ready to go to sleep and meet the next day.