133- Devouring part 1

When Bela and I went to the side she showed me all she was capable of doing, she had a problem with rubber, a technique of using water in the middle of water's liquid state and its solid state.

"Your problem is controlling the state, you need to find a balance in the middle, all you need is practice, you can try practising on your own," I said.

"Thank you, and when can I come over again for instructions?" Bela asked.

"It won't be possible, I will be going into seclusion for a while," I said.

"What?" I heard from behind me, it was Isabella, I had yet to tell her of this.

"I want to get ready for this year's competition," I said.

"And what about me, are going to leave me," Isabella asked while gripping my arms.

"It will only be a week, so don't be worried, he'll be out by then," I said to calm her.

"Thank you for your time," Bela said with a bow and left the mansion.

"Since you have done that I want to see how far you have gotten.

With a smile, Isabella walked back a few steps. From the shadow under her feet, she pulled out a sword, it was pitch black making it look like it had been cut out of the shadow. The shadow extended also to her feet and made boots around her legs.

"I learned how to use my darkness to form physical items when Professor Max taught me how to form darkness constructs." She said. This was when realised how much of a genius Isabella was.

"That is wonderful," I said, she had done me proud in just a couple of days.

"That's not all though," She said,this caught me by surprise.

"What else is there," I asked. The sword in her had become rubbery and whip-like, but it soon dissipated.

"I haven't gotten that used to it yet," Isabella said.

"You've done well," I said as i patted her on the shoulder.

"it's nothing. What do we do now?" Isabella asked.

"Accumulation but in a different way than What you usually do," I siad

"And what method will that be?" Isabella asked.

"Instead of the normal method of sitting down to draw in mana, to be able to do that, you need to spread out your darkness thin in the air and using it's devouring capabilities to absorb mana from the air. This will also help you also power up it's ability while accumulating at the same time." I siad.

"That seems easy enough," she said out of the confidence she had.

"That's not all, you need to be on a floating darkness construct at the same time." I said.

"Now that is going to be challenging," Isabella said.

"But it will be worth it," I said.

"And what will you be doing?" Isabella asked.

"I already told you, ill be going into seclusion, but before Max comes I'll be meditating on the side,I have some ideas I want to think through,"I said. In that day I had been able to get several ideas and wanted to test them out, if they turned out to be true then It would help me improve my strength a lot.

Isabeela proceeded to do as I told and I took a mat from the side of the room and sat cross legged on it,I need all the concentration I could get.

The first thing on my mind was what I had learn from Max's devouring shadow. If will was what could allow darkness to devour mana, then other elements could be used to take mana. Since I had great knowledge on will, I could use it to try and understand my predicament, sadly that was not the case,for the next three hours I tried and tried to but I was only able to add mana to the manifestations of my elements. I tried over and over but nothing happened according to what I expected, this was the first time ihad gotten stuck wiith anything, and it was not a good feeling. I woke up to leave out of the frustration I wasfeeling and at that moment Max walked in, he seemed to be in a good mood,hehad to be, after all, I had given him help to increase his potential.

"How did it go?" I asked Max.

"Good, thanks for the advice,it helped a lot." He said and cast a spell of black mist. Aldin knew directly what Max wanted him to do and he formed a light orb and Immediately it got into contact with the cloud, it's mana disappeared and the light faded away in an instant. Aldin was surprised by this and formed a denser light orb and placed it in the cloud and again the orb disappeared instantly again. this might be what I had been looking for all this time. I formed one this time and among them I made some of the particle in the orb. It disappeared again but it left the particles still floating in the air.

'My will is stopping those particles from being reclaimed, this is more complicated than I thought,' I thought troubled by what I would do next. I want back to my mat and began reflecting on what had just happend and what I could possibly do to solve my predicament.

Max

After Aldin gave me a hint I rushed to my place. I closed the door and used a spell to muffle the noise of the outside world from getting in. I say down and the about what Aldin had told me and what I knew.

From what I knew will was the control of mana, my perception had always been. I thought about it for a long time and nothing came to mind but I got a tip unexpectedly

I was still on the mat angry at not having made a breakthrough, to relive my nerves I played around with a piece of darkness. I darted it from one side of the room to the other and that was when it hit me, of will was the control over mana then it meant that I had always had it, in the third tier was it more accessible.

If control was what i used to control mana, what did my darkness use to absorb mana, after all that mana was not under my control.

'How does my will come into all of this, will is control over mana but what i do with darkness is take mana controlled by somebody else. It's almost like stealing.' I thought to myself and in that thought I had gotten the solution.

If absorbing mana using darkness was like stealing then it meant that using will I would be stealing mana from other users, and if I was right it would mean that absorbing mana meant I had to wrestle their will using my will to get the mana.

I ran back to the mansion to test it out with him. When I got there I made a darkness cloud and controlled my will to devour Aldin's will. It was successful, I had now made my ability to absorb mana greater. Aldin did it a couple more times and with more mana. After which he left and that was when it came to my notice he was sulking.

Isabella who had been in the air floating on a darkness construct with a cloud of darkness around her.

"what happened experience her?" I aksed her curious what could have made the ever jolly Aldin look so down.

"He just stared sulking after sitting there for a couple of hours." Isabella said.

I now understood why he was so down. He must have been struggling to understand a enlightenment he got. That was really frustrating and I could say that confidently.

We both went down for lunch. Darvin was down there as well and was having his lunch. I left leaving Isabella with Darvin.

******

Darvin and Isabella were having lunch in silence and Darvin was tired of the dead silence among them.

'Where is Aldin?" Darvin asked to kill the awkwardness.

"He is in the training area," Isabella said.

'That's odd, whenever he's hungry he stops everything to eat, there had to be something more to it that I don't know.' Darvin thought to himself.

"What happened, this is unlike him." Darvin said.

'You really must care about him,' Isabella thougy to herself. She had thought that Darvin was a heartless person only aiming to be the best, after all he had not acted when they were getting bullied and when she wa getting narrowed, after all, she had no idea what professor Earl had put him and Marcus thought.

"Yous should go check up on him, he doesn't seem that good."

"What do you mean, did something happen, why didn't upu tell me earlier?" Darvin bombarded Isabella with lots of questions out of worry for Aldin's safety.

"It's nothing serious, he just seems very down," Isabella said. She too was worried but she was never close enough to be able To comfort him without making it weird and she did not think that Darvin was that caring towards Aldin.