Chapter 225 Chapter 225 – Dagger Mastery Lvl.4

It had been two days, and Aiden was still unable to form an aura around his weapon. No matter how he tried to do it, all of the energy he had mustered would simply disappear right in front of his very eyes.

“You still aren’t able to do it?” asked Isolde, who sat right beside him.

Aiden was extremely frustrated hearing that question, as he hadn’t stopped trying for a single moment.

Not once had he taken a break for those two days, trying again and again.

However, the thing that frustrated him the most was seeing Isolde, who had no experience with close-range weapons, succeed in the first trial before him.

‘How did she do it yesterday, when I can’t even begin to form that fucking aura?’ said Aiden to himself, insulting that aura, which was in the process of ruining his life at the moment.

“Aiden?” she said, muttering his name once again.

Hearing his name being pronounced, he dismissed those thoughts of him that were currently making him aggressive and turned to look at Isolde, who was sitting by his side.

“No, I still can’t do it,” he replied, curtly, not wanting to see that face, which would surely contain pity toward him.

He didn’t need pity, especially from someone who had just beaten him at something that she wasn’t even good at.

“Well, I know I already told you, but what helped me the most was the mindset in which I was. You need to have a calm mind to form it; the rest of the process is simply to concentrate that mana toward your weapon,” said Isolde, trying to give him tips as she was feeling bad that he was still at the first challenge.

If she had reached the second trial, then he should have been able to reach it too, especially since he was experimenting with the dagger.

In fact, Isolde had never expected to achieve an aura before Aiden; she was really surprised when that happened.

When she heard the advice coming from Isolde, it humiliated Aiden even more, as he had no choice but to think that he wasn’t as good as her in his domain of predilection.

It was so humiliating that Aiden forced himself to change the subject as soon as he heard that.

“What about you? How’s the second challenge?” asked Aiden, hoping that she could give him some information about it.

But every time that he asked, he would always receive an evasive answer, as if there was a rule that restricted her from talking about it.

That was probably the case, but Aiden could only guess.

“You already know that I won’t talk about it, ahaha,” said Isolde, as she giggled at the end.

It seemed that Aiden was right once again and that his intuition had told him the right thing.

“Then, if you can’t say anything, just leave me alone; I need to get back to it,” said Aiden as he slowly stood up, having a little bit of difficulty doing so.

Doing something without even a break for two days, even for an Awakened was hard, especially when it was related to Mana and Qi which Aiden needed to wait for those energies to regenerate before attempting again.

He didn’t exactly know how fast those two energies were regenerating, but it was quite fast since he felt that he could try again every five to ten minutes, depending on the amount of energy he had used for his attempt.

Isolde, hearing what Aiden had just said, was somewhat angry. However, she knew the reason why he was talking with such an inappropriate tone, so she didn’t comment on it.

Not wanting to distract him any longer, the old man, who was still sitting with his eyes closed, slowly opened his eyes when he noticed that Isolde had left the training grounds to go toward the second challenge, which wasn’t too far from here.

The reason he had opened his eyes was to observe what the Reaper was doing, as he was quite interested in his progression.

Truth be told, he was extremely confused as to why he hadn’t been able to succeed yet since the real challenge in the first challenge was to figure out that you needed to use aura, and creating one wasn’t that hard normally.

However, it had been two days, and he hadn’t even succeeded in doing it a single time; forget about being consistent.

But every time that he was looking at him concentrating that mana around his dagger, he couldn’t help but feel that something was weird, as if he was using something that he shouldn’t.

‘I just don’t know what it is, but something really feels wrong about this whole thing,’ thought the old man as he decided that he would finally help Aiden a little.

He had seen the hard work that he had put in, so he decided that it was for the best if he were to help him a little; this was a training camp after all.

“Young man, come here and show me what you’re doing,” said the old man, not even standing and waiting for Aiden to get closer.

Aiden, hearing that voice, was surprised since he would never hear it since that old man was always sleeping and not paying attention to anything. Well, from Aiden’s point of view.

Still, at the start, Aiden hadn’t wanted any help since he wanted to reach an aura on his own, but he realized as time passed that he would need it.

He hadn’t expected this aura thing to be so complicated; in fact, it had never even entered his mind.

“Sure,” responded Aiden as he slowly walked toward the old man.

A few seconds later, he arrived right beside him and didn’t waste any time as he started combining both Qi and Mana into his aura, trying to make them solid.

But it seemed that this whole thing was useless as it once again failed seconds later.

The old man who had been able to get a closer look had noticed that something had been weird, but he didn’t comment on it; he simply asked for Aiden to try again.

“Do it again, take your time.”

Then, Aiden, who could feel his reserves in both Mana and Qi started to be at the bottom of the barrel and pushed through, knowing that the old man probably wouldn’t wait on him for it to fill up.

He saw that blue and gray energy mixed together just like it would always flow one with the other. However, it was always the same problem, whenever he would get close to succeeding, everything would fall apart for no reason.

‘Maybe I should just try with Mana, it would be easier either way,’ thought Aiden, as he started to feel impatient in reaching the second challenge. He didn’t want to be left behind by Isolde after all.

He also needed that technique from Melinda at the end, even if it wasn’t essential to him.

“What’s that?” said the old man, unsure of what he saw, asking Aiden what he had done.

‘What’s what?’ thought Aiden, confused.

“Aren’t you the expert? Why are you asking me the reason as to why I can’t do it?”, said Aiden.

The old man hearing this couldn’t refute him, as he simply stopped talking, seemingly thinking about what he had just seen.

“Something is wrong with your Mana, it seems to be reacting strangely for unknown reasons,” said the old man, as he couldn’t really give a more appropriate answer at the moment.

He really was trying his hardest to help Aiden at the moment, it wasn’t his fault that the problem that Aiden was facing was completely unknown to him.

Nonetheless, hearing those words facilitated the task for Aiden, as he now knew where his problem had been this whole time.

The reason he couldn’t form an aura wasn’t because he was talentless or anything like that.

It was because of the use of Qi, that was the reason from the very beginning.

“My mana is acting weird, huh?” mumbled Aiden as he started to move away from the old man with a smile on his face.

He had finally figured out his problem, and honestly, he should have figured it out a lot faster.

The old man, seeing Aiden slowly moving away from him with a smile, didn’t know what to say. He had only said a single sentence, and it wasn’t anything concrete, so what was happening?

Then, as Aiden was now far away, right in front of his boulder, he waited five minutes so that he had enough mana to try again.

After accumulating enough mana, he immediately started to guide it in the direction of his dagger, hoping that it would work this time.

The Mana was slowly approaching the tip of his dagger, which was usually where everything would fall apart.

However, this time it seemed that it was working, as the Mana didn’t disappear from the blade of the dagger, simply enveloping it.

Then the usual beeping sound resounded in his mind.

*BEEP*

[You have levelled up one of your skills.]

[Your Dagger Mastery is now Lvl.4]

Aiden, reading this, was obviously surprised, as he had forgotten that the skills he had could actually get stronger.

He had forgotten since it had never happened to him, and basically, no one had talked about it before.

Then, as he was about to open his system to look at the changes, he started hearing clapping from the old man behind him, seemingly congratulating him.

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