The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2) Craig Kobayashi (top 5 books to read TXT) 📖

away, Athios reached up with both hands and pulled him in for another. Hands on her waist, head in the clouds, Garath kissed her again. A few of the best minutes of his life passed all too quickly as they explored each other’s mouths. Then, light-headed and sweating a little too much, Garath finally pulled away from the unexpected intimacy.

“We aren’t an item?” Garath asked, gaze shifting between Athios’ dark eyes and trembling lips.

She shook her head playfully.

“Can we be?” he asked hopefully.

Athios beamed, looking satisfied and perhaps a little smug. She nodded and pulled him in for another kiss. “I think I would like that,” she said, her lips brushing his with each syllable.

Worry made a sudden appearance in the way Athios was looking at the Necrologist. Garath cocked his head in question.

“But?” he asked.

“But nothing,” she replied. “Just don’t start anymore fist fights, alright? You hit like a girl.”

A throat being cleared at the door caught their attention. Garath and Athios, arms still wrapped around one another, turned to see Maimon standing in the doorway. The Rabbi’s poorly concealed grin broke into open laughter. Garath glared.

“What?” Maimon asked, hands up in mock-surrender. “She isn’t wrong there, man. Stick to your Skills. Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt, whatever, but we were all waiting outside for you guys…”

They joined the rest of the group just outside the Guild Hall a few minutes later. Apparently, while Garath was otherwise occupied, Maimon and Obawon had both succeeded in unlocking Mana Manipulation. Garath, not wanting to be left behind, sat down on the grass and once again attempted to focus on feeling the Mana move through his body as he pooled it into the one-second cast of Death Bolt.

With a black magical orb pulsing between his outstretched hands, Garath found it difficult to focus. He couldn’t rip his thoughts away from the twitterpated feeling of a budding relationship, and lost control of the spell. The Death Bolt sailed into the growing forest. Unlike Sharon’s muffed Floral Bomb, Garath’s misfire didn’t do any real harm, apart from draining the life from the oversized fern it impacted and scaring the hell out of a white-tailed rabbit that had been hiding nearby. Sheepish, but still determined not to be outdone by Maimon, Garath tried again. He pooled the Mana into the one-second cast, but canceled the process when he saw Daisy approaching.

“Struggling?” she asked the Necrologist.

“A little,” Garath admitted. “I know you said to feel the Mana moving down my arms with a regular Skill, and I think I do feel that, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“What does it feel like when you use that spell?” Daisy asked. “Does it make you feel hot or cold or scared or mad or anything?”

Garath frowned as he thought about it. “I… I don’t know. I’m going to try again.”

Daisy watched curiously as Garath once again began to cast Death Bolt. He felt the Mana leave his center, moving up to his shoulders and down through his arms to his hands. Then he noticed another feeling, a darkening as the sapphire Mana was converted into a pitch-black orb of Death magic. He canceled the casting and turned to look at Daisy as the blackness dimmed and then sapphire Mana moved effortlessly back to his center.

“There was something, but I don’t really know how to explain it,” he told her.

“Try,” Daisy encouraged.

Garath’s brows knitted together as he tried to find the words. “Well, Mana is blue. Or feels blue, I guess? But just then, I felt it getting darker, black like my Death Bolt, while it moved down my arms. It was like a part of me was getting darker. But isn’t darkness just the absence of light? Getting darker isn’t really a feeling, is it? Am I making any sense at all?”

“What? No, not really,” Daisy told him seriously. “Maybe you’re thinking about it too hard. Just do the same thing you just did, but don’t let the Mana get darker this time.”

Garath stared blankly at the little girl as he tried to wrap his mind around her suggestion. As much as he didn’t like children, Garath had to admit that sometimes the innocent, untarnished logic the little humans employed to make sense of the world was amazing. He didn’t know if he could keep the Mana from darkening to form a Death Bolt, but it was worth a shot. It was when Daisy slowly started backing away from him that he realized his deep-thought blank-stare was directed right at her and he quickly looked away.

Garath tried time and again to keep the Mana moving down his arms from darkening but, try as he may, the result was always a standard Death Bolt. More than a half-hour later, Garath decided he’d have to practice more on his own time as the group anxiously awaited Daisy’s instructions on unlocking Spell Design.

“This one is kind of like Mana Manipulation,” Daisy started.

Garath frowned, figuring he’d have about as much luck with Spell Design as he had with Mana Manipulation.

“Except, like, I guess if Mana Manipulation was like addition and subtraction in math, Spell Design is more like multiplication and division,” Daisy continued.

Garath’s frown deepened.

“With fractions,” Daisy finished.

Garath slumped, defeated.

Daisy went on to explain the different feelings she’d felt while casting individual spells and followed that by instructing her students to create a directed reversal of those feelings. She gave them the example of hot and cold for her fire and ice spells, directing them to purposefully use the wrong feeling. Garath’s hopes of unlocking Spell Design dropped rapidly as she explained the process.

Still, Garath was determined to try. He attempted to ‘feel’ a Felfire Bolt next and began by pouring Mana into casting it. Garath was blown away by the sensations carried from his core to his shoulders and through his arms with the Demonology spell. If the understanding he had of the ‘darkening’ feeling from Death Bolt was like a light breeze, the overwhelming sensation he was