Matthew hurried home from school to try his new idea. If it worked, it could multiply his progress many folds over.
Heading straight up to his room, he began as usual with his perception training. He was finally able to push his perception to the peak of the major grade and had solidified it up to twelve feet now. This kind of breakneck progress was astounding even among someone hailed as a genius.
Having finished his perception training, he moved on to body refinement where he began to pull mana through his pores and into his bones. He first tired to concentrate on one spot and tried to create a clump of mana to circulate through his marrow. He quickly found that a clump of mana would be impossible, but the fact that he was able to concentrate the mana was already a start.
'This can work just not in this way,' he thought to himself as he tried to figure a way around it.
He decided to give up on that idea for the moment and proceeded with the technique as normal, while forgetting the amount of mana he had accumulated.
Circulating the mana of that concentration created an immediate effect. The mana condensed down into a thread before it raced through his bones causing crackling sounds followed by a muffled *boom* sound.
Matthew passed out before realizing what had happened. The bones over the entirety of his body had cracked simultaneously creating hair like cracks everywhere.
He stayed passed out until his alarm woke him at four in the morning. He had been asleep for twelve hours. Upon waking up, he realized that other than being extremely sore he was fine.
Little did he know that he had made a giant leap in the body refining process. His marrow had been cleansed all at once forcing every impurity through his bones causing them to crack like glass. His improved marrow then proceeded to heal his bones at a breakneck speed while also refining them.
He tried his best to stick to his routine this morning as well. He could barely even stand to do the stretches that followed his perception training. The whole time his joints made popping sounds as they released the tension that had built up. It almost made him feel like his body was falling apart as he showered and made his way to school.
His perception had improved today as well with him being able to hold the twenty foot mark for fifteen minutes and had increased the passive range to fifteen feet.
This new range had allowed him to sense his bullies from around a corner and change his route before they notice him. They appeared to be searching for him to give him another beating. Little did they know that he was slowly changing to the point that he would no longer have to take these beatings.
Matthew Hart
Level - 1
Titles - none
Skills - Mana perception (major), Mana gathering (minor)
Health - 120
Mana - 10
Strength - 5 -> 6
Endurance - 5 -> 6
Agility - 4 -> 5
Intelligence - 7 -> 8
Wisdom - 4 -> 5
Mana core - Tiny cracked core (broken)
The change in his stats had resulted for all of the training he was putting himself through. His strength, endurance, and agility had increased due to purifying his marrow and beginning the refining of his bones. His perception was still gradually increasing his intelligence while the enhanced memory technique was improving his wisdom stat.
"Today will be self study. If you have questions about your skills or techniques, today is the day that I will devote to helping you with them. This was great news to Matthew as he was going to push to complete the enhanced memory skill. He quickly got to work on concentrating mana on the needle point sized sphere he had already created. About and hour in he got an update from his system that startled him and broke his concentration.*Ding* *System Updated**Mana gathering (minor) -> Mana gathering (experienced)* This would be a great help to him since he was actively trying to gather mana. He was surprised that he was able to raise the grade of this skill without being able to gather mana into his core. He smiled as he started to gather mana again that quickly changed the flow of mana around him. The other students couldn't help but notice this change as they all looked in his direction with determined expressions on their faces. 'It appears that he i
On his walk home, Matthew had sensed that Kirk and James had been following him. He had wanted to avoid the confrontation with them if he could help it, but it seemed that this time it would be impossible. Thankfully for him, his stats had improved to the point that he didn't believe they would be able to beat him this time. He had purposely lead them down a dead end alley so that they could have the privacy to hash this out. "It seems that you have no where else to hide from us cripple." Kirk said Matthew frowned at that, considering that he had no intention to stay a cripple. He planned to make Kirk regret making that statement. So instead of arguing about it, he took a fighting stance. Kirk and James both immediately made their move seeing that Matthew was ready to fight. The first to reach him was Kirk since his larger size and better stats made him faster than James. Kirk threw a punch that only connected with Matthew's out stretched hand. Matthew then p
Matthew and his father sat down at the kitchen table together and sat in silence for a moment before his father began to speak. "How is your progress with the book I gave you going?" his father asked. "Better than I could have hoped actually. My mana perception is advancing it isn't far from from the greater grade and my body refining has reached the point that I can begin to refine my bones." Matthew said "That's good. Be careful though, the bone refinement will be more painful than the marrow refinement. After that step though, it will get easier as your body with go through a change that will passively refine your body. Even if you stop using the technique, your body will still continue to change." his father said. "Dad, how do you know so much about the technique if you never used it?" Matthew asked "Well, my father invented it after all. I never had to use this particular technique since I was born with a regular mana core. He invented this tec
After his father had left, Matthew got back to his usual routine by getting a bite to eat then heading up to his room to get started on his training. Per the usual, starting with the perception training. After a round of pushing his senses he had hit the twenty foot wall in his perception and was able to push his passive distance of perception to the fifteen foot mark. Now came the hard part. Reading through the section in the book about refining his bones was harrowing to say the least. The whole technique dealt with the inside of the body the most as it basically viewed external refining like the skin as an afterthought. Refining the skeleton was no different than breaking every single bone and remodeling them into a shape that could handle mana better. The process didn't exactly happen that way, but there was a warning that did say that small bones could potentially break. Let it be know that the vast majority of bones in the body are in fact small. With a deep
Matthew awoke at the same time as usual, still feeling like he had been kicked by a horse. It was a feeling like having gravel in your bones. He could swear that he could hear his bones changing. He continued his routine any way with his perception training. He had reached the wall that was the twenty foot mark and now all he had to do was to continue to solidify that position. Try as he might he couldn't solidify it during this session. He had reached a secondary block at the eighteen feet mark. Not knowing how to fix this, he instead began to work on the enhanced memory technique for a bit then head off to school. "Alright class, I have important matters to attend to today so we will be doing another day of self study. Are there any questions before I leave?" Mr. Falls asked "Sir, my perception skill has reached a block of sorts at the eighteen feet mark and I'm uncertain how to over come it. Is there a method that you recommend?" Matthew asked before his
Since the school week was finished, Matthew dedicated himself to completing as much training as possible. The next skill that he needed to work on was enhanced reading. Like the other techniques, it was basically refining his eyes this time. The technique required him to gather mana into his eyes and refine them to basically become jewels. They would be come more durable and would be resistant to damage. This was just an added bonus to what the technique really did. In simple terms, his eyes would become like a camera, recording everything he sees and transmitting it to his mind where it would be stored. Now that he understood how the technique works, he got started. It would be fairly simple to complete this technique as the area that he had to refine was small. Gathering mana to his eyes and gradually increasing the concentration, he started out like he had with his brain since the technique suited him. The same needle point sized mana sphere took shape and
Matthew wanted to start with the second book he had received in class. The Anatomy of Mana was far more important to his situation since his body was changing in ways that were outside the norm. The first chapter read as an introduction of mana to the body. The changes that it brought to the body as the levels increased. The body would gradually improve as more mana was introduced and would even slow the effect of aging. This part of the book wasn't particularly interesting since this was knowledge he already knew in a sense. He was actively reshaping his body instead of the passive change that would happen when gathering mana into a mana core. The second chapter dealt entirely with the mana core. It detailed how the core could change, grow, and be damaged. There was even a section on cracked cores that detail how to heal one provided that it was already filled with mana and of a larger size. If I core be came damaged, a person could use a technique to condense th
With his reading finished, Matthew wanted to get back to his training. Starting with the perception training again, he now had to push and solidify his range to the fifty foot mark. This was a tall task as currently he was still sitting at the twenty-three foot mark. Getting to work, he began to push outwards with his mana sense. Little by little he was making progress and would eventually complete the greater grade and be able to elevate his perception to a true mana sense. Upgrading his skill to mana sense would be as far as he would be able to reach since he didn't have mana in his core to continue to refine it, but that was fine. The book left by his granddad only stated that he had to reach that level. After that, there was another skill that he needed to learn, but he hadn't reached that point yet so there wasn't much point in worrying about it yet. He was able to reach the thirty foot mark without much hinderance, but once he reached that point he couldn't