The Insider System

Chapter 307: Magic Deal

Losing control of the ball of mana in front of him Lake weathered the explosion and stood up from where he had been sitting for the last two hours. Training had gone well and he had gotten really close to the 15 rounds of compression he had been told would get him equal on the two factors the cube method trained.

Stepping out into the main part of the training room Lake saw a lot of familiar faces inside all doing various tasks to get ready for their trip. Taking the fact they were in here to mean he had time to do a few other things he tried to think of what he wanted to actually do. Usually most of his free time was spent running from place to place but with him not traveling right now he was running out of things.

Reading and training were both usually good time sinks but he wasn't in the mood for either. While thinking, two people sparring with swords caught his attention and Lake wondered if it would be safe for him to fight someone he didn't want to kill. Just activating two of his skills at the same time could cause an explosive effect on his stats and he could end up killing someone by accident.

Deciding he was willing to take the risk he walked towards the people who were also watching the fight and asked. "Are you waiting to fight next?" There were two of them so it made sense to him that they were going to have a duel next. "No, one of us will be fighting whoever wins if they're up to it."

"If they aren't up to it?" There was really only one answer so he wasn't surprised when the guy said. "Then the two of us will go." Hearing how this worked, Lake got in line and started to wait for his turn. After about twenty minutes he realized why the other two were doing other things while waiting passively and formed his ball of mana back to continue his training as he waited.

After a while he made it to the 13th round of compression which was where he had failed earlier right before he had decided to be done training magic for the day. Squeezing the mana ball as hard as he could, Lake made slow but noticeable progress but really started to struggle towards the end and eventually hit another wall like the one he had asked the Temple Head about where she told him what he had been doing wrong.

He was about to give up and dissipate the ball of mana before it exploded when he heard. "What's your goal?" It took him a second to realize they were actually talking to him but once he saw them looking at him and motioning with their hand towards the ball of mana he said. "To make the ball smaller."

"No, you're forgetting to control the mana's principles. This is training your ability to control the mana's principle that gives it its state but all you're doing is pressing it together as hard as you can. You need to be doing both at the same time." Thinking back to when he had first started training with the Wind mana the guy was definitely right.

Back then he had been actually feeling the properties of the mana that were its different principles but he had stopped doing so when he had started to feel like this training was easy. It was deeply ingrained in people to only do what was necessary if they were successful from the very start of something and never had to try a bunch of different things and he had fallen into this pattern as well.

"Thank you for the help. I was about to go and find the Temple Head to see if she could help me." The guy who had helped him started to laugh at what he had just said before saying. "It's best to ask others who are close by first. The Temple Head is very busy and this problem could have been solved by almost everyone in this room."

Lake guessed this guy didn't know how close he was to the Temple Head but Lake didn't say anything in case this man could help him more as he trained next to him. Tuning himself to the mana so he could actually control the principles, Lake started to picture the ball of mana growing more dense and solid.

Seeing the ball start to shrink again he wasn't the only one who reacted. "That's great. It takes real talent to fix a mistake that fast." Hearing what the guy said he was happy he hadn't told him off earlier because he would have missed out on this complement. "Thank you."

"No problem, so are you interested in fighting me using Wind magic only? It might not happen naturally right now because of the way we're taking turns but fighting people with one hand tied behind your back is a great way to train a certain skill." Hearing the guys offer, Lake was interested but he wanted to make sure of something first because he wasn't sure about the original offer.

The way the man had asked made it seem both of them might be using Wind Magic and with the fact this guy had helped him with his problem Lake felt there was a good chance the guy had Wind Affinity as well. "Will you be using Wind magic as well?" Seeing the guy's Head start to nod, Lake quickly agreed. "That sounds good to me but I don't really know any spells."

Lake had a few but they were so weak he didn't think he could cut through more than a few inches of wood. "That's fine. You're clearly able to unlock higher rank spells and since I know them you can just try and copy any I use during our fight." Lake guessed that worked for him and he said. "It's up to you to make this happen since you're in front of me in line. You better win your fights."

The man who had helped him was in the front of the line so he would be next to fight whoever won the current fight and would need to win against the reigning champ and the person in line between them. "If he wins I'll let you go next. I'm fine with waiting."

Hearing the person in between them would give up their spot to Lake if the guy ahead won his first fight Lake said. "Thank you." He really had no idea how strong the guy he would be dueling with was so this could have really helped them. "It's no problem just promise whoever wins your fight will duel me. No one has lined up so if neither of you want to continue to fight I might have waited for no reason."

Lake and the man he had made the deal with agreed at the same time. "Good. It looks like the current fight will be coming to an end soon so get up there." Right as the guy in the middle said this one of the two people fighting on the platform when flying into a wall that softly caught them. A second later the person who had lost climbed out of the wall and yelled. "Good fight." To the person who had won.

Watching them walk away, Lake turned back to the one still on the stage who seemed ready for another battle. With their decision to fight again it became necessary for the guy he had a deal with to win so as they were walking away Lake reminded them to be serious. "Don't mess this up for us."

Lake was tired of waiting already so if they ended up losing they would have to set the battle up for later and the amount of time they had before leaving the Temple was uncertain so it might never happen if it wasn't soon. "Don't worry, me and Kell have fought before and I won." Seeing how certain they were that they would win as they climbed onto the stage, Lake stopped thinking about them losing and went back to focusing on the ball of mana.

He was really close to getting to the 15 rounds of compression now that he was doing it right so he wanted to get it done before his battle started. He also needed to start on the speed training since he still hadn't fixed how far behind it was to the solid principle. Starting the expansion on the 15th round the ball of mana had gone through Lake started to struggle.

Usually this was much easier than the compression but you couldn't let the new mana you were gathering into the ball drop its density or you failed so the amount of mana he was gathering was thousands of times greater than the first round since it multiplied each round and he guessed his affinity just couldn't handle this amount of mana at once.

This made him wonder how he was supposed to fix this problem up until now the problems he had faced were on him but now his affinity was what was slowing him down and that was granted through a skill. He guessed it was time for him to ask someone like the Temple Head what he was supposed to do about a skill that you thought was lacking at level one.