Chapter 56 One Last Stand [3] - Trapped
The vortex of topaz-colored mana with traces of emerald streaks increased in its speed, encapsulating silas within it and ensuring that no one on the outside could see him.
In every mage's life, there are a few bottlenecks, the first one being the awakening of the mana core.
After every bottleneck, the mage would break through and create an event like Silas', but of course, not to the same extent. After all, Silas had 4 times more mana than the average mage with an S-rank affinity.
The color of the mana that comes out of him when breaking through was supposed to symbolize his affinity, but since his affinity was to light, life equation, and quite literally mana, it simply just came out as the color of his core.
The breakthrough would probably take a few minutes to complete, but until it was done, he essentially had infinite mana.
The moment he broke through, his core became a hungry beast, absorbing as much mana as possible to fulfill its hunger and allow it to reach the next level.
Silas felt his body get stronger. Every cell in his body reacted to the breakthrough, and the mana infused and intertwined into their DNA was also doing the same.
While his physical strength without any fusions might have been considered to be at the solid topaz level, which would make him physically stronger than the earth bear the first time he met him.
However, now his strength was reaching a new level. He could feel mana pumping through his veins every time his heart beat. Every time he breathed, mana entered his body and made it feel like his entire body breathed with him.
He felt his control over mana increase significantly, too, as if every mana particle within a certain area around him had suddenly become his, and only his.
'Dull-Amethyst.'
Silas concluded as his body flickered from its place.
In the next instant, he found himself behind the commander, his arms loaded back before a barrage of fists descended upon him.
He swiftly turned around, his movements defying the laws of physics, and intercepted the onslaught. But there was an unsettling aura about Silas. Not only that, his attacks carried an uncanny force, as if they bypassed the commander's defenses and struck his very essence.
The commander's widened eyes gazed deep into Silas', revealing a flame burning within them. A flame fueled by unwavering determination and boundless strength, as if his entire being was consumed by it.
Silas unleashed a relentless assault, each strike surpassing the previous one in power, draining the commander's toki faster than it could be replenished.
The flurry of attacks blurred into a mesmerizing display, too swift for the naked eye to fully comprehend. Yet, they were calculated with precision.
Every punch and kick targeted vital weak points—joints, organs, pressure points, and blood vessels—intended to incapacitate and devastate ruthlessly.
The clash between Silas and the commander intensified, the battlefield resonating with the echoes of their fierce struggle.
Normally, Silas wouldn't have been able to even land a scratch upon the commander, but he had put him in a losing position where everything worked against him, and to explain it, one must know how the stages of toki work.
The first stage of toki is to have the ability to coat one's own body in toki. It was the initial stage of toki, and essentially gave a person a natural toki that always strengthened their body without them knowing it.
Silas was unable to see that before due to how weak he was. His mystic eyes are purely designed to show him what the naked eye cannot see, but they depend on the purity of his mana to see those things.
When he reached the pristine garnet core and was essentially one step away from reaching the topaz core, his eyes finally allowed him to see his the natural toki of those around him.
After mastering the first stage of toki, one can extend their mana into their weapons or armor to make them tougher or more deadly if need be. Though, the toki does dissipate when the object is no longer in contact with the user.
The second stage of toki allows a person to call upon the mana around them. While natural toki uses the flow of ambient mana to create a protective shield or a natural strength buff, calling upon more toki was more of a temporary power boost.
Reaching the second stage of toki also allows the user to embed their toki into something for a certain amount of time without having to be in contact with it, arrows being the main examples of this.
Those with elemental affinities toward light are also capable of embedding it into their toki, making it stronger and giving it different properties.
The third stage of toki allows the user to use toki itself as a weapon. They can create arches of toki by slashing their weapons through the air. They can flare their toki and decimate everything around them down to the molecular level.
They can create armor, weapons, shields, and so much more. Silas had only really seen Diveen use it until now, so he assumed that it had something to do with the fact that she had a light affinity, but now he knew that wasn't the case.
Toki was an amazing and transformative product of magic that humans are simply incapable of understanding, especially these moronic ones that go through the movements every day without doing anything else...
However, understanding toki and its fundamentals also exposed its biggest weakness.
Toki users were essentially powerless without it, and since Silas knew how to siphon away pure mana rather than just its elemental aspects, he was essentially the bane of all warriors.
Before Silas, who was essentially absorbing mana like a gluttonous battery, they were nothing.
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