Manaless Mage

Chapter 164  Manual Skill leveling

<nulli> 'Now… let's see if I'm right.' He thought.

   His fists rapidly hardened, turning into thick brown rocks, however, Harry's focus wasn't on that, but on the energy swirling within him.

   Just then, he sensed it again, the separate channel of energy flowing through his body.

   He sensed as the white flame within his chest stirred suddenly, before flowing down to his fists.

At first, keeping track of the channel of energy was quite difficult, but by putting more of his concentration into sensing his energy, he was finally able to properly follow the <nulli>'channel'. He deepened his focus on that feeling, and could finally sense it, his energy was continuously flowing through his hands, keeping the skill <nulli>[Rock Fists] active.

    By concentrating more on it, he didn't just sense the energy channeling through his arms, but also the thin layer of white energy that was coating his fists, maintaining the skill [Rock Fists].

<nulli>'So this is what the 'other voice' meant when he said the system automatically channels my energy and activates my skills, without me actually doing any work.' Harry thought, with a slight smirk on his face.

   Just then, a notification appeared in front of him.

<nullb><nulli>[-20 Energy Points]

At first, he wasn't able to completely understand what the <nulli>'other voice' meant by that statement, but as he grew more proficient in controlling his energy, he started to become more attune to the white flame swirling within him, and also began to understand it better.

   As he channeled his energy in the fight against the dire wolf pack, there were a few thing he began to notice, but he wasn't able to focus properly on it due to the wolves continuous attacks.

Channeling his energy into his legs, and using that to boost his speed, felt a lot like using <nulli>[Accelerate], except the speed boost was a lot lower.

   At first, he didn't catch on to this, but the more he channeled his energy in the fight, the more it became clear.

    The reason the speed boost was a lot higher, was because the system was the one doing the channeling, which made it a lot smoother.

The system wasn't just harnessing the energy within his body, it was also so continuously channeling it out of his body, which was the main reason why <nulli>[Accelerate] gave him such a huge boost in speed.

There was also the fact that the energy cost to activate <nulli>[Accelerate], kept increasing with every level up the skill had.

   That was because the more the skill leveled up, the more energy the system had to harness.

  Thinking about it now, it was all so simple, the fact was he was just understanding it better was because he had always relied fully on the system.

All he knew was that the system required energy to activate skills, he didn't properly understand how it did it, and all he had was <nulli>"surface knowledge".

   Even now, he was still ignorant on a lot of things about his energy, but he planned on finding out everything… with or without the system's help.

   His understanding of his skills and energy only increased because of how much he trained his energy control, which he also did through the help of the system.

   However, now that he gained a better understanding of his skills and abilities, he didn't just plan on stopping there.

   Harry stared back at his fists, which were still hardened into thick rocks, and a slight smile appeared on his face.

Putting his concentration back on the <nulli>'second' channel of energy flowing through his arms, Harry started channeling his energy, except this time, he wasn't just harnessing it, but was following the same channel already <nulli>'created' by the system.

   If his theory was true, then there was surely a way for him to increase not just his energy control but also the power of each and every of his skills.

Compared to harnessing it all over from the scratch, redirecting it through the path already <nulli>'created' by the system was a lot more easier.

Since he could already sense the energy flowing into his arms, all he had to do was control a little bit of his energy, and channel them through the same <nulli>'path' the system was using, hence, directly increasing the energy flowing through his hands.

   It was just like tracing a drawing, except this required a lot more focus.

   Just then, another notification appeared in front of his eyes.

<nullb><nulli>[-40 Energy points]

And right before his eyes, his fists hardened even further, the dark brown rock<nulli> 'coating' them thickening and doubling in power.

   One would expect this to make his hand feel heavier, due to the increase in mass of the rocks, but to his surprise, they felt even lighter.

    Harry threw a few punches in the air with them, and his lips curved into a slight smile, as he realized that handling them had become twice easier.

   It was just as he expected, he could indeed increase the power of his skills by directly increasing the amount of energy flowing through them!

    Yet, the most surprising thing was the notification that suddenly flickered across his eyes.

<nullb><nulli>[Rock Fists Level Up!]

<nullb><nulli>[Skill "Rock Fists" now level 2!]

<nulli> 'It… leveled up?!' Harry thought, his eyes widening slightly in shock.<nulli> 'I guess it makes sense… by increasing the power of the skill, the system automatically regards it as a level up.'

   "Heh Heh." Harry chuckled, before de-activating the skill.

   He couldn't help but imagine just how much more powerful he would become when he tried this with his more powerful skills.

   Just thinking about it caused a slight smile to spread across his face.

  Among all his skills, one particular ability piqued his curiosity the most. He wondered just how much stronger it would become if he directly increased the amount of energy flowing through it.

<nulli> 'Accelerate!' Harry hurriedly activated his most powerful speed-boost skill, while still keeping <nulli>[Energy control] active.

<nullb><nulli>[+100 Stat points temporarily allocated to agility]

During his times training in the beast forest, he was able to level up <nulli>[Accelerate], and with the level of the skill now level 5, the amount of stat points that were temporarily added to his agility stat rose to a whopping hundred!

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Two chapters released today! Don't forget to drop votes for manaless mage!