Chapter 162: Wonders of Body Magic (1/2)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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A shadow rushed between two Forbidden Forest trees, cruising through the forest, zig-zagging among the trees. The figure seemed to know its way around the woods as they sprinted through the woodlands without losing much speed while twisting, turning, and jumping through any obstacle that presented itself in the path.
”This! Feels! Great!”
Quinn didn't know his way around the Forbidden Forest woodland; sure, somewhere in his mind, he had the layout of trees he had seen memorized, but Quinn never accessed or immersed those memories; it was inefficient for him to do so.
So how could he move through a densely packed forest with plenty of short-range altitude obstacles? The answer was pure athleticism — an elevated level of athleticism enabled by the use of body magic.
”These enhancements are mad!” he grinned as he spun to the side to avoid a tree, and then without missing a beat, he kept running.
Quinn was a fifteen-year-old with an above-average base physique granted to him by genetics. He exercised regularly without fail and took care of his body; as such, Quinn was the most physically fit among his weight class. His jogging speed was higher than others' sprinting speed. And currently, that person was accessing ninety percent of his total physical capability.
He kept running, running, and running. Quinn didn't stop, which was unusual as he couldn't keep running for this long, even at his ninety percent.
The answer was once again body magic.
There were two different ways a user could improve their body magic skills.
First, they could increase their percentage accessible throughout the board and enhance every category simultaneously. Quinn had employed this method to get himself access to ninety percent of his physical capabilities. But that was it — ninety percent was Quinn's limit; he couldn't push it above ninety as his magic failed due to instability. He didn't have the skill to bring his body above ninety percent.
He had reached a cap — a cap that restricted his progress, and Quinn didn't like his progress to be hindered, so he set on looking for ways to kickstart his progress so that he could continue to grow.
And from that came the second method.
Body magic was divided into five broad categories: Speed, Strength, Endurance, Durability, and Reflexes.
For Quinn to reach ninety percent, he had to access ninety percent in all five categories. He had done that and thus had reached his current limit, and that's where the second method kicked in — if he couldn't pull all five at the same time, how about tackling the five categories one at a time. One was much easier than five. Quinn didn't have to corroborate five different sets of magic and only work with one-fifth load — that was something he could work with.
Thus he started working using the second method. According to the instructions, he targeted one of five — Endurance: the ability to sustain the prolonged physical effort.
The start was slow: the first step along the way was to push his natural endurance above the ninety percent he had complete control over. The last ten percent was a tricky block to cross; his human body showed resistance against his wishes. The limit that could be achieved by pure physical exercise was eighty percent, with the last twenty percent reserved for life-and-death situations. Quinn had already encroached half of that reserve, and his body wanted to keep the remaining for its original purpose — for emergencies.
To perform any magic, the user needed to believe that what they were doing worked — During his occlumency shields build, he had believed that his hexagon design would be solid and stable. While understanding took care of the actual functionality behind the magic, it was imagination that took shape to that functionality.
So it was a slight problem when his physical instincts ”believed” that the last ten percent of his physical capabilities wasn't there at all, that there wasn't anything to access, and Quinn was already working with hundred percent. Talk about a wrench in his plans. It took Quinn a lot of time and effort before he could override that physical instinct that limited him.
He did them all while channelling magic, trying different ways to mold magic to gain desired effects by running, shovelling ground, boxing, and whatnot. The result was access to one hundred percent of his stamina. He could keep doing things longer, much longer than his non-magical-base sixty percent.
Now, as Quinn ran, he passed the cautious acromantula infested area, the troll clearing, and kept running. Soon he reached yet another clear area — it was dark as the surroundings' canopy was so outreaching that they covered the sky above the clearing.
”Finally,” said Quinn, leaning forward as his hands on his thighs supported his body. ”Oh boy, didn't think maintaining a hundred and twenty percent of stamina would require that much control.”
No matter how hard Quinn trained, he couldn't keep running at speeds closer to sprinting than jogging for a dozen minutes. To achieve that, he needed to surpass the natural hundred percent limit and enter the realm of magical augmentation.
”As expected,” he mused, ”I can only augment my stamina by thirty points over the all-around ninety percent. Anything above that will collapse the magic.”
As the name suggested, body magic was magic and thus supernatural. It allowed Quinn to go above hundred percent and enter levels not achievable by his body. To achieve it, instead of his body, his magic covered anything above a hundred.
Currently, he could only make his magic cover thirty points on his muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance (ability to transport oxygen throughout the body).
”Yeah, this was the right decision,” affirmed Quinn, standing up straight, ”Going with augmentation rather than hundred across the board. This will be a better fit for me.”
When Quinn reached the ninety percent block, he was presented with two choices. The first was to get every individual stat to a hundred and then learn to manage all five on a hundred percent before entering the field on augmentation. The second choice was to get one stat to a hundred and then learn to artificially (magically) augment and repeating that with every stat before moving on to merging them to push his entire physical above its full capabilities.
Both were equally apt, but Quinn went with the second as he thought if he learned to augment, it would be easier to grasp how to merge and manage all five when he learned it.
”Alright, then, let's move on,” said Quinn, ending his body magic thoughts, ”now, where am I.. .”
He looked around, and there wasn't much to see except for a tree-free area surrounded by many trees.
”Well, let's move on, I guess.”
He took in a deep breath and checked how long his body could take getting its endurance augmented; body magic had its limits — out of the one hundred and twenty percent that he was pulling, a hundred was his body's natural endurance, and the magic would stop if he went lower than a certain point.
”Hmm.. . without a rest, I can go another fifteen minutes,” he formulated. ”Let's go —”
Suddenly, Quinn felt someone was staring towards him. His attention to his surroundings peaked, and he looked around to see what had triggered his senses. His dark vision eyes peeled through the darkness.
”Found it,” he whispered. It was very faint, but Quinn caught it among the tall grass and bushes present on the base of trees.
He slid his hand from left to right for an arc of water to manifest in the air. He snapped his fingers for the water arc to become razer thin and cut through the air towards the one who was watching him. The razer sharp water cut through the tall grass and bushes, but there was no one there.
”Hiding behind the tree, huh.”
Magic concentrated in front of him as Quinn cast a potent piercing spell; he was going to nail the offender by going through the tree. But just as he was about to unleash the attack when he heard a growl behind him. Immediately, Quinn raised his left hand behind him and initiated a spell that could disintegrate flesh and bones on contact while holding the piercing spell in his right.
He looked back, and his eyes weren't already diluted; they would've diluted to their fullest as ten feet away from Quinn stood a wolf, and Quinn could immediately tell that this wolf was of a magical species as even while on four legs, the wolf's height came to his chest.
Quinn heard a rustle where he was about to shoot the piercing spell, and he turned his head just enough to see another gigantic wolf walk out into the clearing.
”Why do you invade our land?”
The second he heard the words, Quinn's eyes widened, and he immediately cut the supply of magic to his spells and instead charged a brand new spell and shot it towards the wolf closer to him.
The aurora blue spell hit the wolf right in the face, and Quinn watched in anticipation to see the effects, but nothing came. The wolf, other than being startled, stood there unaffected.
”Huh? why didn't it —”
Quinn didn't have time to finish his sentence as he heard a roar from the second wolf behind him. He turned to see the enormous wolf charging towards him with a snarl. The sight of the giant wolf was scary, and Quinn didn't want the wolf anywhere near him.
He tapped his foot on the ground once, and his magic responded as metal chains with cuffs shot out of the earth and snapped around the running wolf's ankles. The wolf's speed was so high that it didn't get time to stop in time, and the chains became taut, pulling all four of its legs, causing it to slam onto the ground.
Quinn didn't have time to celebrate. He turned back and saw that the first startled wolf had recovered and had just pushed the ground to charge Quinn. He breathed out, and a large strip of earth between them froze over. And from the layer of ice covering the ground, dozens of big gnarly spikes shot out with crunching and crinkling noise.
The wolf didn't seem bothered as it continued to charge, and the moment its front paws came one step within the iced region, the wolf planted its feet before taking a might leap.
”Oh, shiiit!” uttered Quinn, his eyes wide as he saw the wolf's feral face and sharp bite coming towards him.
He raised both of his to the front of him and cast. The air in front of his hands seemed to thrum in power as a circular ring distorted in front of Quinn.