Skill of Life

What felt like hours later had passed. Velios was sitting atop a huge pile of monster corpses, staring into the skill menu to see if anything had changed, more specifically to see what he had got from the curse. When did I get this ability? Velios thought to himself. A skill named 'Heart Piercer' had appeared. Velios had no recollection of ever attaining a skill like that and the descriptioning of it didn't ring any bells inside his head either. 'Heart Piercer: Level 1, obtained in fighting by successfully piercing through a part of a creature's body. Heart Piercer is an enhancing type skill which can harden and strengthen a specific body part for an enhanced piercing effect.'

A whole hour later, Velios was still going at it. More monsters had come to take him on but it ended the same. Instead, Velios deliberately got himself hit just so that he could get extra seconds of pure focus. What Velios was trying to accomplish, was to apply the skill to its utmost potential. He had become proficient enough so that he could apply it to either of his arms and their respective fingers, becoming strong and sharp enough to cut a whole sandworm in half. What Velios saw was different, ideas without science but instead with probability and effort to back them up. To use skills not for their innate purpose, but to master them to a point where the rules of the skill don't matter and he could theoretically do whatever he wanted as long as it had a correlation. His goal was to master it to such a degree that he could keep it up on his whole body for as long as possible, strengthening and sharpening his body, making it a true weapon.

As a side effect, his manahearts strength was slowly increasing. Multiple hours of trial and effort had gone by and Velios' focus had also been increasing. Once activated, his Heart Piercer skill had grown so much so that it was now possible for him to coat the majority of his body with its effect, making his veins pop out, his fingers becoming sharper and overall increasing the strength of himself. The previous sandworms and other monsters more commonly found in the desert he was located were not particularly an easy fight as a decent amount of effort had to have been put in. This time however, they were no more than a matter of training tools for him to experiment on and become stronger. While caught up in his major improvement, all of the monsters in the visible landscape were gone. Now, only a huge pile of their corpses remained.

Although his curiosity got the better of him, he would later come to admit for once that he was a little fast to get carried away. This sudden change of attitude was only caused by one thing. One of the skills, one of the many other ones, hidden away basically in the corner was the most important and precious skill he had ever laid his hands on. A power from fairy tales, a power that most of the players thought unreachable, even in this fantasy world. Something that was only ever a dream, something even Velios would dream of, a power of opportunity, growth, change and challenge. A skill so tremendously important that Velios thought that he had read the title of it wrong, twice. 'Magic: level 1, obtained through incredible hardship and challenges, it is the cornerstone of all life. Magic, an application of reality and all life with it, possessing the power to manipulate and control different parts of the world itself. It is without a say, the most fundamental yet complicated thing in this world.'

He still had chills running down his spine tens of minutes after finishing reading everything about the 'magic' skill and the skills that branched off. He had been sitting atop the pile of monsters as usual, but now completely still, meditating, trying whatever he could to replicate the feeling he had felt earlier while training. A sort of energy coming straight from the heart, radiating, pulsating and spreading out throughout the whole body. That was the only hint he had. Deep in thought, he had no command over his own body and yet, it moved on its own accordingly with the thoughts. Fire... His body reacted naturally by turning his palm, pointing it up at the sky while sticking out his arms slightly in front of him. What is meat-- What is magic? An application of reality? An application of your mind? An application of one's desires? What life is made of? What life creates? Maybe all of it.

His thoughts continued on, meanwhile, a small flame had been created in the palm of his right hand, no bigger than the fire on small candles. What is fire specifically? The visible effect of the process of combustion. Made possible with fuel, oxygen and heat. But what is fire on a smaller spectrum, on the atomic level? The actual fire consists of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen. The chemical reaction produces different molecules and releases energy in the form of light and heat. In theory, you could make fire as big and as hot as you want if you were able to perfectly control every part of it with magic, so what is the limit? Even with all of the intense thinking, Velios was still perfectly calm on the outside. He had not himself noticed it, but an aura was now surrounding his own body. The flame started to slowly increase in size and temperature. Velios started sweating profusely and started breathing even heavier as if he was gasping for air. Suddenly, as a result of this, his concentration broke and the dull red flame, the length of a little finger, disappeared with it. 

Velios was still light-headed. He was more exhausted from that than actually fighting monsters. He felt as if his energy was actually sucked out of him. Not the kind of depletion you feel from doing hard work, but something completely different and much more severe. What's happening? Did I focus too hard? No, I would never be this tired normally. Most likely, it was a side effect of using magic. Maybe I still have too little of it to actually create and control stuff like I tried to do? Maybe so, but then- His thoughts had stopped. Velios started to get a new yet familiar feeling. As if it was something so natural that he barely had to think about it, yet he knew that it was something he had only felt twice before. That feeling was the circulation of mana in his body. He was feeling the mana evenly spread out throughout the whole body. It was a feeling that he knew he had to get used to, something he had to master, the very fundamentals of mastering magic.

The insane amount of training Velios did was insane, which any other person most probably couldn't handle. That much was only normal for Velios. Even though he had his mind full with having to learn and figure out how magic works, there was something that pondered Velios in the back of his mind. At that point, he must have spent at least over twelve hours, but the sun didn't seem to have changed its position even once and it was still as bright now as it was when Velios first woke up. To Velios, it wasn't important enough that he had to figure out why or what happened if anything had happened at all. But as he kept on training, everything seemed to be going fine. Out of nowhere, Velios aura around himself dispersed, his strong and capable body started to shake and shortly after fall to the ground face first. It started off with him being light headed which quickly turned into a loss of consciousness. Monsters were still all over the place and if Velios was left unconscious, he would have no way to defend himself. But just before he had become completely unconscious, Velios felt as if someone was talking just then. "Such a pain in the ass, having to clean up the lowly unintelligent scraps you couldn't even finish off you incompetent fool of a master. I'm only doing this so that I get to live, nothing other than that."