They invited him again on the weekend but he refused. Today he wanted to try his new barrier control ability. He did not have time or rather he chose not to use it during their hunting sessions and they lasted until late, so he couldn't practice later as well.
He went to the field of white essence lilies where his first mission was. It been a while since that day yet he remembers it like it was yesterday, he did have perfect momory after all.
However it seems the ability barely worked because he did forget somethings, or maybe his brain subconsciously removes that information or something else was interfering with his mind, he does not know.
He stretched his hand forward and casted a small hexagonal barrier around 30 cm in size. He waved his hand side to side and the barrier moved along slowly.
It was hard, it was like trying to sink a very large balloon. Not impossible but extremely resistant to it. This ability will need a bit more practice for it to be of any use in battle.
He wanted to try the second ability of barrier control, technically it was the same ability barrier manipulation had but stronger, or atleast the description said it was.
He tried to change the shape of the barrier to a square. The sides stretched and outlined themselves to a square. The process was inefficiently slow but not unbearably so.
With a bit of practice he might be able to change the shape of barriers mid battle. He tried growing spikes on the barrier and the entire barrier turned into one spike. This time the process was weirdly faster.
It was as if the barrier wanted to take that shape. Ofcourse the barrier itself shrunk when he used it mass to create the spike. If he wanted it to retain it size and overall shape he would have to add more mana to it.
Thinking of these two abilities he could already think of all the possibilities and that made him excited, inside, his face was still stoic as always.
He continued practicing for a while. He created larger barriers and grew spikes on the front. Sometimes he would grow the spikes on the sides of the barriers.
He was now largely aware of the limitations. The larger the difference in shapes the harder it is and the longer it takes. For instance he could not change a square into a cube.
Although one might think they are the same they are also extremely different in terms of scale. Turning most shapes into spheres was extremely hard as well.
He also could not cast any 3 dimensional barrier away from his body. He could cast them around himself or close to himself but can not cast them away from himself, especially if there is something where he want them to be.
He casted a semi-spherical barrier around himself and watched it stretch outwards. He could mentally decide what he want in and what he want the barrier to block from coming in while casting it.
That means he can place a barrier around himself and everything around him while simultaneously pushing away the things he does want around him.
He tried casting the barrier around a tree five metres away from him and nothing happened. He tried the same with rocks, twigs and other things and still nothing.
He then approached it differently. Instead of casting the barrier away from himself, he casted it from himself meaning the barrier would stretch from his body but not around his body.
He tried it. He watched as a blue transparent barrier stretched from his hand and encompass the tree. The expansion was fast but not ridiculously so.
It speed was obviously limited by his own power but he could already imagine how he can use this. With an evil grin he looked around and saw a horned rabbit eating the lillies without a worry in the world.
He approached the thing, it saw him and ran. It was fast but not fast enough to outrun him. He did not need to chase it though, he stretched his hand and a small blue spherical barrier appeared infront of his hand.
The barrier stretched and expanded without not leaving his hand and it cought up to the rabbit and before it could react it was already trapped. He released the barrier and let the thing go.
He was not one to kill weaker creatures for no reason unless they are a dangerous bunch. This thing only ate plants and bothered no one plus it would not benefit him at all.
He whistled and another creature came running from within the flowers. It was happily chewing the buds of the lillies. This was the flickering rabbit he had met before.
It had decided to follow him for some reason. He named the thing Snow. It broken horn was a bit longer now, only by a few millimetres but it was a start.
He had tried to heal it but healing the stupid thing was extremely hard, it took all of his mana just to heal around a millimetre of it. Snow jumped into his embrace.
Her fox tail wagering left and right with excitement. She seems to really enjoy this more than the veggies he had been feeding her. You really like this don't you girl? Squak squak, it seems to agree.
Alright, you can go eat some more and play with the other rabbits I still have a bit more things to try. Snow jumped off and ran further into the field of white lillies.
Noel watched this with a barely perceptible smile. Let try this, he casted a circular barrier with tiny thin saw like teeth at the edge. He willed the barrier to spin and so it did.
The spinning was slow at first but grew faster and faster, within six seconds it was spinning so fast the saw like teeth looked like a single smooth but sharp edge.
Stretching his hand as if grabbing the spinning disk, he swung his hand forward and the dusk barrier flew at high speed. It cut through multiple trees like a hot knife through butter.
He watched with satisfaction as the trees toppled slowly and fall down. The cuts were strangely clean and smooth for a jagged edge. The best part was that the barrier did not disappear and he did not need mana to control it only his will and his int stat.
He knew that a higher int stats meant better control of spells but he thought since he was not good at using magic the stats was useless to him other than increasing his overall mana, which was unfortunate since it was his highest stat.
Now that he can use this though, he can imagine the possibilities, this would probably be his strongest attack beside death touch which he would rather not use,with that in mind he put 20 of his free stats to int.