Chapter 32：Experimenting (2/2)

For his next goal, Arthur decided to kill the violet-gem goblin ant. To achieve that, he would have to learn the proper use of mana, even at a beginner level. There were no shortcuts around this that he knew, nor did he have skills regarding mana control. He'd have to exercise daily to strengthen his link. As he was tired right now, he decided to rest.

Opening his eyes, Arthur found that it was pre-noon. As he still had some time before lunch, he wanted to test a few more things. He closed his eyes and sensed his mana as he tried activating his camouflage skill. He felt a portion of his mana leave his body and envelop it. This time, Arthur felt his mana leave his body through somewhere else from his 'consciousness.' If his mana was the target of his link, and his awareness being the origin of the link, then the skills were an intermediate between his awareness and his mana. If Arthur had to visualize it, then his skills were like gates that filtered mana. His awareness gave commands to these gates and they would drain mana and produce and manifest that mana into the world.

Arthur did another experiment with his runes. He used the Strength-I rune while he focused on his mana. Unlike before when he tried pulling mana directly, there were route-like pathways that his mana could travel in and the rune would be manifested this way.

All of this was novel to Arthur as he never studied them, but he found the difference simply fascinating. Why would these three things have different ways to manifest? What was the difference between abilities and skills, other than the former being simply instinctive? He felt that they were linked somehow, but one was simply 'artificially' made and one being inborn with the person.

There was a reason that abilities were a lot more preferred than skills. First was mana usage. Skills used more mana. For example, his F rank Poison strike used 2/30 of his mana. However, his strength amplification used 1/30. The same could be said about his Protection-I, which had an evolving feature along with his strength, as it would simply drain 10/100 of his strength in terms of mana. These runes were versatile but they were also cost-efficient, and Arthur attributed this to the 'pathways' his body had that could manifest his ability.

He had spent hours simply trying to get a better grasp of his mana that he even forgot his hunger. Arthur stood up and brought out a primitive creature he hunted yesterday, bled, skinned, and skewered for today's meals. It was one of a boar that had horns radiating electricity. The funny thing is that because of this ability, it looked like a furball with all of its fur standing erect. Arthur decided to start eating monsters of primitive grade because he thought their meat would be more enriched with mana.

As he watched Kira grilling the meat, Arthur felt affectionate toward his new friend. If it wasn't for it, Arthur would have faced a lot of inconvenience and danger. Even more, he would have probably starved.

As he watched the flames cooking the meat away, Arthur remembered what Solomon told him. Everything here was summoned from elsewhere, and maybe that's why he met Kira again. What exactly happened that had led them to be summoned here? It was only a few days between his meeting of young Kira and the trial. However, since time here was frozen, he had no way of explaining things right now. Maybe this was a portion of the future or maybe Kira got here a lot of time before he did, he didn't know.

Arthur studied the scars on Kira's body as he imagined the blood and death it had to walk through to survive. Did it deserve this? Solomon's words rang again in his head.

'Every thirty years, monsters are summoned from the outside world. They are then trapped here until they kill or get killed, what fate is this?'