The Fractured Mage

Chapter 15 - Ether Magic

I took in a deep breath, before slowly exhaling as I focused and locked my gaze onto my target...I then raised my hand, taking aim as I formed a swirling ball of Ether in front of my palm, intensifying the force it was generating as much as I could without losing control.

Okay, it's ready...here I go, ready, aim aaaand...fire!

I fired out the swirling sphere of Ether, which rapidly shot forward in a straight line, hitting the middle of the empty glass bottle I'd set up as a target, shattering it into pieces upon impact.

"Damn it...," I muttered, clenching my fist in frustration...so close, I was off by about three inches...

"What's with the sour face? Looked like a bullseye to me," Came Lilac's voice, from over by the stairs.

I glanced in that direction, to see her seated on one of the bottom stairs, watching me. When did she get here? I didn't even notice...I was focusing too hard, I need to be more aware of my surroundings.

"I was aiming for the bottleneck, my goal was to try and hit the top part of the bottle while leaving the middle and bottom intact," I informed her with a sigh.

"I mean, it's close enough, isn't it? It's not like you're a Ranger, so this level of accuracy should be more than good enough, right?" She pointed out.

Ranger is another Ascended Tier in the Physical Class...of all the Classes, the Physical Class is the most diverse and gives you the most options when it comes to choosing an Ascended Tier, each with their own subsequent, unique Apex Tier.

In comparison, the Tamer Class that Lilac possesses only has one path, Tamer, then Summoner, and finally, Assimilator. Most of the Elemental Classes also have only one path, with the exception of the Earth Class, which has three.

And the Physical Class has a total of six paths, easily the most of any Class. Anyway, I got a bit off topic, let's get back on track...

"It doesn't matter what Class I am, the more accurately I can wield my Magic, the better my control becomes. I've made a lot of progress, sure, but I've still got a ton of room for improvement," I replied, staring down at my hand as I clenched it into a fist.

"I suppose that makes sense," She nodded thoughtfully, as she took out a bag of chips and opened it up, tossing one into her mouth and crunching it before holding it towards me, "Wamf one?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full...but yeah, sure, I'll take one. Thanks," I responded, deciding to take a break as I walked over towards her.

"Wait! You're all sweaty and gross, don't want you dripping in the bag...here, let me. Say aahh," She grinned, as she took out a chip and held it up towards me.

"You couldn't have said that in a nicer manner?" I sighed, before tilted my head down towards her hand and grabbing onto the chip with my lips, taking it from her fingers before I pushed it into my mouth and crunched down on it.

Hm, it's kinda spicy, with a bit of a sour tang to it. Huh...I can't tell if I like it or not, I like the spice but I'm on the fence about the sourness.

It's been about three months since the start of my current memories, but it honestly feels like I've been living here for way, way longer than that.

Huh, has it really only been three months?

All things considered, I suppose my rate of progress has actually been really good. I can just about hold my own against Iris with hand to hand combat alone, she's still holding back most of the time against me, and she's definitely got a significant advantage over me, but it's not as overwhelming as it used to be.

Although, my physical strength has pretty much reached its limit in terms of how much I can improve it through training, though since I'm still only fourteen, I'll still grow stronger naturally as I get older.

I mean, I technically can get stronger if I really focus on stuff like weight lifting, but Ifeus advised against it. His reasoning being that if I get too bulky, my speed will get negatively affected. Speed is more important than brute strength for a Martial Artist, the Apex Tier I'm gonna pretend to possess, so I'm better off focusing on maintaining and fine-tuning my current physique instead of bulking up further.

So now it's just about sharpening my technique and honing my martial arts skills, along with factors like my reaction time and instincts, which according to Iris, have improved significantly but are still a bit too dull.

And as for my Ether Magic, I've been progressing steadily. The three Arts that I possess as an Ether Mage, Ether Materialization, Ether Modelling and Ether Emission, I've been concentrating on trying to use the three as one.

I have to activate them in order to be able to fire off Ether, though I can skip the last step if I instead opt to use the manifested Ether at close range instead of firing it out.

The key is activation time, the whole process took too long when I first started training. So, I decided to give training in learning how to activate them without chanting a shot.

Chantless casting is a rare skill, so I only intended to try out training in attempting to use it for a short while, just to see if it was something that's possible for me to acquire. Surprisingly, I was able to use it almost right away, and it turned out to be quite easy for me.

It felt familiar, which likely means that, before I lost my memories, I was already able to use those Arts without chanting. It's a pretty rare skill, none of Ifeus, Iris or Lilac can consistently pull it off, Ifeus can do it with his low level Arts, but not with his more powerful abilities. So, you know, that was a nice confidence booster.

After that, I began training to activate all three fluidly, as connected parts of a single process. I've more or less got the hang of it now, but my activation time still needs work.

When it comes to significant attacks, it takes me a couple of seconds between when I start to activate the Arts and when I fire out the attack, longer if I take the time to charge it up first.

And even small attacks, like the one I used against Iris the last time I sparred against her a couple of days ago, take almost a full second to go through the process.

I want to cut down my casting by at least half the current amount of time it takes, and then even less after that, to the point where I'll be able to fire out my attacks instantly, or as close to instant as I can get. But, yeah, I'm still a ways off from reaching that level...