Chapter 67: Chapter 67 The building charge

Nathan felt more at ease over the next few days. He’d accomplished his goals at empowering the Heirs. They were deadlier than ever, and Nathan felt like his own increasing power wouldn’t end up eclipsing theirs anytime soon. If anything, he was the one falling behind!

Sarah was still practicing with her guns. She spent a lot of private tutoring time on target practice, either at the shooting range that was the Caxols’ basement, or out of the city with Stanel working on long-range shooting. She’d apparently dropped an old utility skill called [Straight Flight] that let her compensate for the effect that wind or other effects would have on a projectile for a new one, [Gunslinging]. It improved her smoothness drawing and reloading the guns. In practice she could have her guns out and aimed in a split second.

Meanwhile, Stella started practicing with electricity spells. Her parents had been hesitant to teach her very many, since they were costly spells in terms of mana, and very dangerous. But there was no holding the excited mage back from practicing with her new mana type.

After all, she had a tool nobody else did - magnetic mana. So she was mostly reinventing existing lightning spells - the most complicated parts of those spells were directing and guiding the lightning. But magnetic mana changed that whole dynamic, and allowed Stella to create much more efficient and accurate lightning spells.

In helping her practice, Nathan got to know the humming crackle of lightning mana even better. It was a great way to quickly and efficiently recharge his stamina, given the cost and speed of lightning mana. Stella’s growing prowess at targeting meant she could nail him from across the battlefield with a lightning bolt to completely fill his Stamina. Nathan tried to dodge the bolts to give her better practice, but they were nearly instantaneous, and Stella’s aim was good.

It was hard to hide that you were throwing around lightning bolts in the practice yard, and after the first practice session there were a number of awed and jealous looks thrown Stella’s way by the other Adventurer mages. Only a handful of mages in Gemore could even use lightning mana. Most of them were over level 243, since they’d had to get the mana type from a class development.

Stella was also experimenting with magnetic spells. She described the mana as ‘slippery’, and hard to control on its own. She was working on a spell that would let her grab and throw one piece of metal, instead of affecting all of the metal in a close proximity around her in hard-to-control ways.

She also didn’t try to get light mana any more. That had apparently been a firm line laid down by Kullal, though they’d promised to help her with it after graduation.

Aarl had been spurred on to improve his own efforts, and was working on using a weapon in each hand most of the time. Stella had charged his new swords with the desired mana types, and they were potent. The force-blade extended far enough to rival the reach of his favored greatsword, and the projected edge could take chunks out of mundane steel.

The lightning-blade struck like a thunderbolt with each blow, zapping the target with electricity while letting loose a directional detonation of concussive force. The sword only lasted for a dozen blows before Stella had to recharge it, but Aarl could deliver those dozen blows in half as many seconds. It was an impressive display of rapidly delivered firepower that was likely able to take down the toughest enemies.

Khachi hadn’t been slacking either. His divine mana was more potent, quicker to activate and more focused. He could heal at range now, and was working the magic into his fighting style more.

Nathan himself felt like he was getting quite competent at hand-to-hand combat. Most importantly, he was getting comfortable parrying weapons with his bare hands. The benefits of the Rage were clear, with the enhanced speed, strength and toughness allowing him to catch a full-strength strike from one of Aarl’s unenchanted swords on his outer forearm. He’d stop the blade cold and come away with little more than a swiftly healing graze.

More and more Nathan was coming to view the spear as a tool specifically for tough-skinned monsters. The spear was fragile compared to Nathan, and he was more skilled with his bare hands. His practice bouts with Aarl were quite even, with Aarl frantically battering at Nathan and to try and keep him from getting in close to grapple. Every time Nathan managed to grab hold of Aarl he was able to overpower the younger man quickly.

Nathan had also been cashing in on his [Magic Absorption] for favors and profits.

Herdin had called him in to help cursebreak on a few items she’d had stored away. It had been a challenging afternoon, and Nathan had had to regenerate his hand after a cursed bow ate the original. Literally ate it, growing a pair of wooden jaws and snapping off the limb.

He’d broken a few items, but managed to uncurse some others. Herdin was pleased and paid Nathan in both favors and coin, promising that she’d help him figure out if the next item he cursebroke was safe to use.

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