Chương 90: (B2 Chapter 41)

She trusts me…? Why…?

"Why?" I decided to vocalize my question directly.

"I don't know, I just do!" she shrugged, swinging her legs happily on the chair. Her response confused me. I didn't understand how someone could trust a person they had just met. Was she naturally a trusting child? Hadn't her parents ever warned her of 'stranger danger' or something along those lines? Hmmm… I don't know what to do with her right now. Guess I'll just keep ignoring her and get on with my magic experimentation… I didn't know if that was the right call to make, but it was the one I was making.

Thus, I simply nodded to her and then went back to the experiments I was doing earlier. I conveyed my intent of wanting to make myself stronger, faster, and more durable to my mana as clearly as I could. For now, I was only focusing on the small wisp that was on my palm, but I don't think it was the right method to go about this. The wisp of mana was so small and affected about an inch of my palm, so I couldn't even feel it if my intent worked on it or not.

Experimenting on a tiny amount of mana was easier, sure, but in this case, I realized that I may need to work with a larger amount. So, I started conveying my intent to the entire mana within my right hand instead of the small amount on my palm. It seemed like the right move, and my mana immediately started responding to my wishes. Ever since I had upgraded my class, I had noticed that my mana responded to me much easier and quicker than earlier, and the effect was clear to notice right at this moment.

Either that, or it was the recent acquisition of mana mastery that was showing its effect. Whatever the reason, the mana in my hand changed. Through mana sight, I could see the mana swirls in my hand spread throughout it evenly and then arrange themselves into a sort of arrangement or pattern. However, the patterns were ever-changing and had different levels to them that was hard to follow.

Luckily, I had arcane comprehension, which allowed me to understand that the mana was improving the base characteristics of my hand to make it better. Mana seeped into my bones, making them denser, while at the same time it saturated throughout the small muscles in my hand to make my hand move sharper. Mana also spread throughout the surface of my skin, making it tougher while at the same time making it more flexible. Wow! I stared mesmerized at the constantly changing mana within my hand for a few seconds.

It was honestly breathtaking. I almost didn't want to, but I had to tear my gaze from the mana and instead try to see whether it had really worked or not. So, how do I see if my hand is better now…? I tried waving it around to see if it was any faster, but quickly stopped when I realized that was my forearm and elbow doing all the work, not my hand. Moving just the hand didn't seem any different, but when I tried moving my fingers, the difference was clear to see.

They were moving much, much faster than the fingers on my left hand could, and it wasn't just the difference between the dominant hand and the non-dominant hand either. This was something more. To confirm, I stopped boosting my right hand and instead tried boosting my left one. Once the mana was arranged in a similar manner to what it had been on my right hand, I tried moving my fingers again. This time, it was the fingers on my left hand that were moving much faster than the ones on the right hand.

More excitingly, I also noticed something else. Since I had just tried the same thing on my left hand without it being boosted, I knew how much more awkward the movements had been compared to my right hand. It was a natural limitation of being the non-dominant hand, and despite all the dexterity I had gained, my left arm and hand was still a few steps behind my right one. However, now my fingers on my left hand were not only faster, but much more fluid and dexterous as well.

It felt like I had improved my fine motor skills as well while making it faster. Moreover, it felt like my grip strength had increased by a few magnitudes too. All in all, I felt like the test was a great success, but it had one glaring limitation. The creeping headache I was starting to feel was a clear indication of my dwindling mana, and I let go of the crude boosting skill with a sigh. Just boosting a single hand had drained me dry of mana within a couple minutes at most.

At this rate, I would barely be able to boost my entire body for a few seconds. I placed the mana stone back within my inventory and settled in to wait for my mana to regenerate. Do boosting skills just take up a lot of mana…? Or am I trying to do too much right now? While waiting for my mana, I thought about what I was trying to do. I was trying to make my mana make me stronger, faster, tougher, and more dexterous, all at the same time. Was it too much? Should I just try for one thing at a time?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. But I still remembered my fight against the kobold elite in the tutorial. Going past the threshold in agility had suddenly made me much faster, but I had no control over my speed due to a lacking dexterity. Wouldn't boosting just a single aspect have the same effect…? It's pointless to speculate. I won't know it for sure till I try…

After my mana had regenerated, I gathered mana within my right hand again, and this time just conveyed my intent to make it faster, nothing else. Perhaps I was becoming better at conveying my intent, as it only took two tries before the mana responded. This time, the mana arranged into a specific swirly pattern that arcane comprehension informed me was to make my hand swifter.

Taking a deep breath and hoping it would work, I started moving my fingers up and down as I had done earlier, and I admired the speed with which they moved for a split second before it all went wrong. A few loud cracks echoed throughout the silent room, making Alexandra jump in shock and ask what had happened. However, I ignored her, mainly because my attention was completely taken over by the intense pain that had shot throughout my hand. Shit! I had looked at my hand and found a mangled mess.

My fingers were all pointing back towards me, bent too far back in the wrong direction. A throbbing, intense pain was coming from my knuckles and all over my hand, and I could barely even think straight at the moment.

"Alex! What's wrong?" asked Alexandra again, but her voice barely registered to me. I got up, fighting through the pain and clutching my hand with my left one, hiding it from her view. I smiled at her, though I think it must have looked more like a grimace with the way she flinched back.

"Nothing, just my experiment didn't work, nothing else. I just remembered that I need to do some important work, so why don't you go play or something? There are plenty of kids around…" I said in a strained voice. I thought I had learned to deal with pain a bit better, but now I realized that had always been during life-or-death battles and with adrenaline coursing within me. Right now though, all I could think of was the pain.

"No… I don't want to go… I want to stay here!" she immediately protested, but I wasn't in the mood for tantrums. I simply told her sorry but I was busy and left the room, speeding into the hallway and going downstairs one flight before finding the nearest unoccupied room and going inside it. The door shut behind me and I collapsed on the floor, letting out a whimper of pain in the process. I saw my mangled hand again, which looked the same as earlier.

For some reason, the pain continued to radiate outward, somehow growing in intensity. Shouldn't pain decrease as time goes on…? I opened my status and saw my health had decreased, but my sight went straight towards my mana, which was steadily going down. What…?! I realized that somehow, throughout all the pain, my mana was still boosting my hand's speed. Which is probably why the pain hadn't gone down at all but had instead increased. The continued movements of my hand probably worsened my already serious injuries.

I focused through the pain and asked the mana to stop boosting. Soon, my mana stopped decreasing, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I closed my eyes and settled in to wait for my health regeneration to heal me, but time continued to pass and while the pain lessened somewhat, the effect wasn't as significant as I had hoped. I opened my eyes back again and looked at my hand, which was now swollen and a mix of maroon and purple all over.

Tearing my eyes from the sorry state of my hand, I instead opened my status and kept an eye on my health. The seconds passed and soon, my mana ticked up… but my health didn't. Huh…? I waited, and kept on waiting, but the health stayed the same while my mana ticked back up again after a minute had passed. Has my health regeneration stopped for some reason…? I took my dagger in my left hand, struggling to grip it properly, and pierced myself with it on my calf.

The pain barely registered within my mind as it was still focused on the much more intense pain from my hand. Besides, I had made a very small cut, which I don't think I would have noticed even with me being completely fine. Blood pooled on my calf, and I sheathed my dagger back again. Re-opening my status, I waited, noting my health had dropped by one point now. A few seconds later, both my mana and health went up, though my health only went up by one.

I wiped the blood away and saw the small cut I had made was now completely gone. Health regeneration is fine… so why…? Oh! Does it have something to do with my bones being broken…? Does health regeneration not work if bones are broken? It could actually be the case, and I think I had just discovered a limitation of health regeneration. Well… at least something good came out of that failed experiment… With yet another sigh, I got up and went downstairs in search of a healer.

Once I reached the ground floor, I saw Mason and asked him where the healers were, while keeping my hand out of his view, something I hadn't needed to do as he seemed pretty distracted. He simply pointed me towards the left, and gave me hurried directions. Relieved at not having to explain my injury, I followed his directions and ended up in a large room full of people in wheelchairs. The people seemed to be the ones who were the most severely handicapped and needed constant attention.

A couple of healers were walking around, monitoring the people here, and I quickly approached the one nearer to me. Thankfully, she just gave me a strange look but healed me nonetheless. Her spell took longer to complete than Marcus's usually did, but that didn't matter to me at the moment as the blessed relief from the constant pain was taking up my entire attention. I thanked the healer sincerely and looked down at my repaired hand in admiration. Having magic healing on hand is such an amazing blessing.

I exited the room, intent on going back upstairs and figuring out where I went wrong so I could continue on the experiments, this time much more carefully. However, I had taken just a few steps when I saw Sam rushing down the stairs in urgency. Our eyes met and he called out without breaking his stride.

"Marcus has woken up!"