The week of rest, or at least partial rest, brought about the final moments the party needed to complete their various projects. They had been putting the pieces together since they started training, but it was during these final moments of rather peaceful training that the party finished up their upgrades. Naturally, a lot of the progress had been made during the previous week, when their training had gone nonstop, and all that training was now bearing fruit since they had time to consolidate it.
The things that clicked first were enhancements, as they were the simplest to understand. Now, in addition to a General Enhancement, the three party members and eventually Arelion could focus on a particular type of enhancement. It was an important aspect of magic to learn, as it would allow them to further enhance their bodies in an aspect that was generally better suited for the type of fighting they would be doing. These enhancements were broken down into speed or agility, strength, and resilience.
However, those were not the only enhancements the party had worked on; they had also practiced the art of further sharpening their various senses. Plus, it was always nice to be able to climb on surfaces or walk on top of water. Essentially, the party had diversified into skills that good adventurers would have. Of course, all of these things had been taught to the twins and Rose during their previous training, but it was one thing to be told and shown something and another to actually have the time to do it. After all, their training had been more focused on combat and learning about the world than on expanding the skills available to them.
Again, this was the same reason Rose hadn't been taught a bunch of different techniques: it was often better for the individual to tailor their skills to what they felt was best suited to them. This had also been the philosophy of Luxana’s church when teaching the twins, though to an even greater degree, considering their special situation. Likewise, Lili had let Tesilim make his own progress with techniques, as even though they seemed to fight similarly, his unique circumstances gave him an entirely different way to approach battle. And it went without saying that Alyx had also used the same approach when teaching him magic, even if he had been a bit loose with spells at the beginning.
After getting the hang of their enhancements, what came next was the completion of their various techniques. For the trio of trainees or sometimes a squad of trainees when Drex was on board, the techniques came to them in different ways. Sometimes, one of them would be in battle and use an incomplete technique, then something would click, and they would think of a final improvement that made their ability feel complete. Other times, they weren't in battle, but after reading, hearing, or even seeing someone else's technique, the same thing would play out, and they would be able to complete their own. Finally, there were times when one of them could figure out their technique without further outside assistance, and through sheer willpower, meditation, and imagery, they would put all the puzzle pieces together, completing their technique.
One of the people with the most varied approaches to finishing her techniques was Rose. The red header had been working on a total of five techniques, and it had taken a little bit of everything for her to properly complete them. The two easiest had been the ones that she had made to help heal her allies, both when in close quarters and at range. These two techniques had taken some work, as even though the redhead's divine mana was positively aligned, it did not directly boost healing. Even so, it wasn’t hard for her to get the mana to heal, and that, along with actually finding the right method of delivery, plus also working on the other techniques, was the reason why it had taken her so long to finish them.
Of the other three techniques Rose had been working on, the next fastest to complete was one directly related to defense. The main reason for the delay was that the image and workings of the technique were initially hard for the redhead to comprehend. She had been approaching the creation of her Solar Armor technique from a technical standpoint. Rose had been trying to understand how armor fit and why it could provide defense. This had led her astray, but she found her way back through reading about her fellow armor-wearing warriors. After some actual battle testing, she finally realized the innate connection she had to protection when using Sol’s mana. With that realization, she eventually got things together and realized that sometimes techniques didn’t need to be so complicated.
The last two of Rose's techniques took the longest, not only because of her initial approach to them, but also because of the concepts that one of them used. These two techniques were related to entrapping monsters or drawing their attention during combat. Out of the two, the one she had had the least amount of problems with was the one she would use to immobilize monsters. Meanwhile, the other had dealt with Mind Magic and the concepts related to it, which was not something the redhead had the most experience with. Due to all of this, Rose had needed plenty of combat practice, reading, seeing, and general advice to wrap her head around what she wanted to create, until finally she had managed to get her techniques to an acceptable degree.
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Contrary to Rose, Jasmine had easily breezed through most of her technique creations. Not because her techniques weren't complicated or powerful enough, but because of her general attunement to what she wanted to do and the mentality she had when approaching their creation.
Jasmine and her divine mana were suited for each other, and her mind was able to mold it without issue. Jasmine’s mind could understand the possibilities of the mana, and due to Jasmine’s own understanding of self, she had a firm grasp of who she was. So, when it came down to it, the twins’ intelligence, creativity, and firm grasp of what she wanted allowed her to create the techniques she wanted to with greater ease.
Of course, it was important to note that this didn’t mean Jasmine didn’t have some hurdles. Even if she knew what she wanted and had the tools available, she still had to create the process that she would use to turn her mana into actual magic. She might have had greater mailability over concepts, but she still had to put them together and imagine the magic working in a way that didn’t backfire on her as the different aspects of magical creation mixed and turned on each other. This particular aspect of technique creation was demonstrated as she attempted to create illusions of herself.
For Jasmine, using Luxana’s mana for illusion was much easier than most, but it still took creativity to adjust how the magic would work with reality. How well could she create the illusions? What actions would the illusions perform? How possible was it for someone else to detect that they were illusions? It was these and many other hurdles that Jasmine faced as she created her technique. And more importantly, her illusory technique hadn’t been the only one the twin had been working on.
Tesilim had been the one who had recently been exposed to actual magic, not the simple stuff Earth had had. Luckily, the amount of time one was exposed to magic didn't always mean they would lag behind. This was very important because, despite struggling with the techniques, he hadn't done so for the usual reasons. Tesilim had plenty of imagination, and he had played enough games and spent enough time wishing he had the magic to create his own, which led to a relatively short creation period. Not only this, but because of Earth's schooling, he also had a mind that could view things from a scientific perspective, yet was intelligent enough not to get bogged down by it. After all, Tesilim might be a jokester at times and often did not take things seriously, but he had a brain on him.
However, what was holding Tesilim back was the sheer overwhelming amount of information. It was often easy to forget that he had only been on an entirely new planet for a couple of months. Emphasis on an entirely new planet. Thankfully, his language ability had helped him a lot, but even then, there was still so much to process, especially when he was learning freaking magic. Essentially, Tesilim had been playing catch-up with the rest of his friends in all fields. And this was not even counting the fact that he was still trying to enjoy the things his new home provided, even more so now that he had a beautiful girlfriend.
With all of this in mind, something Lili had told him was that his progress was impressive. Tesilim was learning techniques, spells, combat styles, culture, magic theory, Presence casting, and Presence usage all at once. Then there was the fact that he was still adventuring and, more importantly, dealing with his chaos nonsense. Basically, from what Lili said, Tesilim was a little monster, both in bed and in his new world, and when he actually caught up with things, his level of power would far surpass almost everyone. There would still be people like Alyx, or even the twins, who were outliers, but when it came to everyone else, he would be at the top. Though to be fair, he was an outlier himself with his Chaos Mana, among other things.
All in all, Tesilim had struggled to develop his techniques and learn the enhancements, but these struggles were brought on by taking on too many projects at once. Granted, he still had some issues properly forming the concepts into techniques because it was all new to him, but in due time, he had gotten things down, and his techniques had been created. Furthermore, he hadn’t just made his new techniques, learned enhancements, converted one spell into a technique, but he had also finally gotten better at Presence casting. Tesilim could now officially use all his magic missile spells with his Presence. Granted, they weren’t as strong as when using the actual spells, but he would get there eventually. After all, he still had to struggle with some things, unlike a certain drake.
Drex had shown them all. He had gone to training and, in a matter of days, had left with two new techniques. Of course, he had to partially thank his dad, as he had been inspired by some poke monster show. See, Drex still had memories from Earth trickling in, and often he could pull the threads on some of them. Recently, he had been enjoying this one show where monsters fought each other, and in particular, an ability that some of them could use.
This ability allowed them to cover themselves in flames, then spin like a wheel and strike their enemies. Drex wasn’t sure why the ability called to him, but it did, so he had decided to make something like it. Obviously, the first problem that Drex ran into was that he couldn’t breathe fire, well, not just fire. Luckily, that had been a good thing, and after some thinking, he had decided there was no reason to only use fire. Drex wasn’t a Fire Drake after all, no, he was a Chaos Drake, and had a Chaos Breath. So, he had decided to create his own Chaos Wheel technique, which would cover him in a random element, let him spin really fast, and then he would strike his enemies.
Finally, the second technique Drex had made had been even easier. He had been advised to create a defensive technique, and when thinking of defense as a drake, only one thing came to mind: scales. Then, all Drex had to do was imagine having impenetrable dragon scales, and that was it, just like that, Drex had created two techniques, leaving everyone else in the dust, as a future dragon should.
