Wind Manipulation

~

Ky and the Stewart family then went back to sleep, but this time Ky and Ariel were taking turns watching the house.

It was around 3 am and Ky's turn to watch the house next.

"Ky wake up." Ariel shook him till his eyes started to open.

"Mmmmm I'm awake."

His eyes fluttered open.

'She's so pretty.'

Seeing a beautiful woman first thing when you wake up is nice.

Ky grabbed his daggers and went outside.

'Where should I sit?'

He looked up to the roof.

'Perfect.'

Ky walked around the house until he got to the chimney.

It was easy with his current strength stat that was at 14 to latch onto the grooves of the chimney and pull himself up.

It only took a minute or two to climb to the roof of the two story house.

Looking around the neighborhood, Ky could see many more goblins and other weird looking monsters roaming the streets.

None of them were on the block the Stewarts lived on, it seemed like the only one brave enough to bother them was the hobgoblin.

'Finally have some time to try out wind manipulation.'

Ky was getting slightly ahead of himself, he didn't even know how to use mana manipulation yet.

'Wait, how do I do this? Ouranos never said anything.'

Ky decided to just go with the flow and see what would happen.

He sent mana from his core to his palm that was facing the sky.

It only took 2 minutes this time for the mana to reach his palm, as opposed to the 5 minutes it took in the cave.

His arm felt empowered again this time as well.

'Now form a ball above my palm.' He thought to the mana.

It listened.

A light blue ball formed on top of his palm quickly.

It was a ball of pure mana.

Ky could feel that a quarter of the mana in his core was depleted just to form this ball.

Ky took some time to study the ball and even commanded it to travel around his hand.

It orbited his hand like it was a planet orbiting the sun.

'Let's try this next.'

He sent the mana ball out in front of him.

It exploded forward with great speed, but it dispersed after 5 or so meters.

'That's not a bad range.'

Next Ky experimented with using his mana externally.

He tried to form another ball a meter away from him that didn't directly come from his hand.

It took 3 minutes, but it formed just as he imagined it.

This ball not only took an extra minute to form, but also looked smaller and less powerful than the previous one.

He sent this one out as well and it traveled the same distance before dispersing.

'So, using mana without using my body as a medium takes longer and is less powerful.' He concluded.

'Now time to add wind attribute to that mana.'

Ky willed his mana to form another ball on his upturned palm, but this time he commanded it to be a ball of wind.

This time the ball took 4 minutes to form, but was much bigger than the mana ball while also taking less mana from his core.

It felt as if only 20% of his mana was used for this wind ball.

He now had only around 30% of his mana left.

The ball of wind was much more violent than the mana ball that was calm and didn't move.

The wind was constantly rotating around itself and was near invisible.

'This invisibility could be overpowered on enemies that don't have good mana sense.'

"Rasengan!" Ky shouted before thrusting his palm forward.

The wind ball instantly exploded with a, "Pop!" sound.

"Nice." Ky said with a smile.

"Now let's see if it's the same casting time."

Ky used another 20% of his mana to make another wind ball and counted once again how long it took to form.

It took 4 minutes again, but it seemed like it might have been slightly less time.

"Hard to tell. I might have to do it dozens of times before I see a difference."

Ky proceeded to do just that.

He formed 20 wind balls before the sun came up.

When his mana would run out he took 10 minutes to absorb the mana around him and fill up his core.

He was basically using the Mana Infusion technique, but without the added step of overflowing his core and keeping that overflowed mana inside.

He was only filling his core until it was full and then stopping.

"I got it down to 3 minutes and 50 seconds." Ky mumbled to himself.

It took hours to get the casting time down by only 10 seconds, but he knew it would be worth it to continue this type of training.

One day the casting time would reach only a second or two and attacks like this would be usable in a fight.

"Ky! Where are you?" Ariel's voice rang out.

"The roof!" He shouted back.

Ariel went to the side of the house and looked at him.

"How'd you get up there?" Her hands were on her hips and she had a frown on her face.

Ky just pointed to the chimney. Ariel shook her head in response.

Ky climbed down the chimney and walked back into the house with Ariel.

"How are your ribs feeling?"

"Actually I think they are almost healed."

"Huh? How?"

"I tried sending some of my mana to my ribs and holding it there. Have you tried moving your mana through your body?"

"Yeah."

"Well you know how it makes you feel stronger in the parts it's being held in? I figured it might speed up the healing process."

"Ahhhh, okay. You're very smart." Ky told her.

"Thanks."

"Have you tried using your attribute manipulation yet?"

"No, not yet. I wasn't sure how to go about it to be honest." She replied.

"It's a lot easier than you think it would be. Just will your mana to become like your attribute."

"Okay, that does sound easy."

"Yeah. It takes a little bit longer for the attributed mana to form, but it's much more powerful and uses a lot less of your mana."

"But, we can reduce the time it takes to cast by practicing using it. I made 20 wind balls throughout my watch and it reduced the casting time by 10 seconds." Ky continued.

"Let's do that after we send my family off then." Ariel responded.

The duo made their way into the living room where the rest of the family was waiting for them with suitcases.

"I'm going to miss you baby, stay safe." Patricia told Ariel.

"Love you, stay safe." Max said, and looking at Ky he said, "And you two should probably stick together. There's strength in numbers."

Ky nodded his head in agreement.

"Also, here's my old phone." He said while handing Ariel an older model of the Price Phone.

"It has your mine and your mothers number already in it. We'll call you and give you updates every few days."

"Thanks dad." Ariel took the phone.

Bonnie and Rose were crying again, but they managed to give Ariel a hug before they left.

The Stewart family, minus Ariel, walked into the garage and boarded the big white SUV in it.

Ariel waved as they drove off in the direction of the military base.

Usually it would only take 3 hours to drive to the military base from their home, but it would take much longer now.

It would take a day or two because Max would have to take many detours to avoid monsters, or crashed cars on the road.

Luckily they wouldn't interact with many other travelers because most people in town had gone to the military base already.

"So what should we do now?" Ariel asked Ky.

"Train?"

"Sounds good. I think we should go raid a nearby market or something soon though. I don't know how much food is in my house or my parents house."

"Okay. Which house should we stay in though? We can take the food from one and put it in the other." Ky said.

"Let's stay at my house, I'm more comfortable there."

Ky nodded.

The duo then piled food, clothes, and other necessities into the Jeep truck in the garage.

It only took 2 minutes to drive from Ariel's parents house to her's, even when avoiding monsters in the streets.

It had almost become second nature to have their mana sense always active now for Ky and Ariel, so it was easy to be aware of their surroundings now.

~

"How long is your casting time now?" Ky asked Ariel.

They had been sitting on the floor of the living room practicing their mana control for hours now.

It was 8 pm, and somehow they avoided having to fight any other monsters throughout the day.

It was as if they were avoiding the two humans even though Ariel and Ky knew the monsters could smell and detect them.

"It only takes 3 minutes to form an earth ball now." She responded.

"Good, I'm at 2 minutes and 50 seconds with my wind ball."

"What should be our goal before we go fight again?" Ariel asked.

"Let's say 30 seconds."

"Okay."