With the time chamber now complete, Shiro glanced at how much it drained her mana and couldn’t help but widen her eyes.
Even with her new mana realm and monstrous regeneration, she estimated that she couldn’t even keep this room up for more than 5 minutes and that was pushing it.
The realistic guess would be around 2 to 3 minutes outside this room.
Looking at the magic circle, Shiro saw that she could turn this off whenever she wanted but turning it back on would require her to recreate the magic circle since everything will need to sync up again.
Drinking a mana potion to keep this running, Shiro quickly teleported back to training hall 1.
“You’re back. Considering the spike in mana that I felt, you were successful.” Nan Tian smiled as Shiro nodded her head.
“Yup. Though it’s a bit hard to sustain the room. It’s draining my mana at a rate that I’ll be empty in 3 minutes or so. I’ll be drinking quite a few potions today.” Shiro shrugged.
“Well I suppose it is a tier 8 magic. Something that should belong to the gods. It’s something designed to work with divine energy rather than mana so the fact that you can even sustain this for three minutes is crazy.” Nan Tian laughed while Glen was confused about their conversation.
“Anyways, I’ll need to teleport out once in a while to… you know. I hope you don’t mind considering the time dilation so I might actually just be teleporting here every second.” Shiro scratched her cheeks.
“That’s fine.” Nan Tian smiled.
“Be back soon I suppose.” Shiro chuckled before turning to Glen.
“Come on, we’re going to train now. We’re going to a chamber that acts like a dungeon. One hour out here is a day in there. With how long we have left until the event, even if we arrive a little late, I’d say we have around 15 to 20 days at most.” Shiro explained as she grabbed his shoulder.
“Wait I thought it was just a few hours. Why 15 to 20 days?” Glen asked as Shiro smiled.
“Time magic that I learned from Chronos, the primordial god of time.”
Hearing this, Glen paled since he realised his big mistake.
If the chamber makes it so that each hour is a day, that means that he needs to prepare himself for 15 to 20 days of pure training. Perhaps zero sleep with her fire being able to get rid of physical fatigue.
Before he could even cry out for help, both of them teleported away as Nan Tian chuckled.
“Right then, what to do.” Nan Tian smiled as he narrowed his eyes on the rest of the pilots laying on the ground.
Seeing that they seemed a little relaxed now that Shiro wasn’t here, Nan Tian’s lips curved into a smile.
He had seen Shiro’s training style a few times now. If these people thought that he’d go easy on them because Shiro wasn’t here, they’re dead wrong. She had high expectations for him so naturally he’ll meet that.
Suddenly feeling a chill down her spine, Shiina snapped her head around as she saw Nan Tian smiling in his pink wheelchair.
For some reason, she couldn’t help but feel as though Shiro was beside him. Oh wait, she was.
“I’m here to recharge.” Shiro called out with a sigh.
Sitting next to Nan Tian, she held onto his sleeve while drinking another mana potion.
“Blerg. The more I drink this the more disgusting it becomes. Even the slightly sweet taste is off putting now that I’ve drank 5 back to back like this. Even when I was practising with my runes I didn’t drink this many in such a short amount of time.” Shiro complained as Nan Tian chuckled and patted her head.
“Thanks for that. As if my headache wasn’t enough.” Shiro pouted as Nan Tian paused and took his hand off.
“I’m only kidding. Anyways I’ll be back soon.” Shiro sighed and sat up. Teleporting back to Training Hall 4, she continued the training.
###
“The main part of the Takemikazuchi technique is that you’ll run lightning-based energy through your body, emulating nerve impulses so that you can react to split second changes while your body is moving at high speeds. Just because your speed is good doesn’t mean you can put it to use if you can’t react. So a large part of this technique is improving your reaction speed. That way, even without you moving at high speeds, you can still dodge most attacks if you’re careful enough. This is what I want you to learn the most since it’s the most beneficial within the mech.” Shiro explained as Glen nodded.
Currently, he was sitting with his legs crossed and eyes closed. What little mana he had was pulsing through his body as a faint aura could be seen covering his body.
However, Shiro couldn’t help but frown since Aarim was right. This is too little mana and the output is… to put it harshly, trash.
With this kind of output, he would never be able to cast anything higher than a tier 3 magic circle. And that was pushing it. The safe guess is tier 2.
Activating her analysis, she glanced at his links and placed her hand on her chin.
‘With how his links are, I suppose I can try to refine them using the Boreas Rebirth Pill. I still have most of the ingredients but never found much use for them. But there’s also the problem of his man realm being weak. Even if the links are refined, his mana realm wouldn’t be able to withstand the increased circulation. While mine was able to evolve, I don’t know what spurred it to evolve so I can’t do anything with his mana realm. He might have to stay like this for the rest of his life.’ Shiro thought.
“I’ll be honest, don’t take this harshly but frankly there’s no way for me to improve your mana output. Your mana realm is the problem.” Shiro admitted bluntly as Glen furrowed his brows and stayed silent.
“However, I will say that I won’t give up on you. The Takemikazuchi Technique heavily focuses on your body and reaction instead of just raw energy output. If we can improve this technique, we can tailor it to suit you better. Just know that I won’t give up on you so you shouldn’t give up either ok? Plus, with how the system works, there are more than just mana. You know Nan Tian, his levelling can be different to ours. He can cultivate while I don’t know how to. There are always paths that you can choose and you don’t need to strictly stay on the path of mana.” Shiro smiled as Glen opened his eyes and looked up at her.
“Really?” Glen asked with doubt in his voice.
“Yes. Despite the problem with your mana link and mana realm, you instead know how to use your body. There was a point where my main focus was also on the body and technique rather than power output. It was how I could contest against one of my enemies despite having most of my skills sealed. Did you know, back then all I had was a single hand cannon, a few daggers and maybe a staff that I had laying around while he had all of his skills to his disposal.” Shiro explained with a smile since she had an idea in her mind. If Glen couldn’t use his mana due to his terrible mana output and unstable mana realm, she’ll make him tools to be at his disposal. Weapons, exo suits, skills and mechs. She’ll help him find a place in this world where mana was so important.
He decided to follow her so earnestly so she wasn’t about to abandon him.
“Now stand up. I’ll help you master the first few stages of the technique before we work on that body control. Right now, I’d say you’re around 60 to 70%. We’re going to push that beyond the 90% threshold by the end of this.” Shiro grinned as Glen nodded his head nervously.
For the next few days within the chamber, Shiro’s training only got harsher the more he improved. Pushing his limits, healing his wounded body, using mana to reinforce his body so that it could withstand harsher activities, Shiro continued to find ways to help him.
Continuing to drink through the mana potions to sustain this chamber, it was to the point that Shiro wanted to throw up but kept going.
Nan Tian was concerned but seeing her determination to help Glen, he didn’t say anything and only supported her from the side whenever she needed him.
###
100th hour without sleep inside the chamber.
Glen felt exhausted but his gaze was sharp. Holding a nanotech sword in his hand that Shiro had created, he took a deep breath as a single flicker of lightning appeared on his body.
*BANG!!!
Exploding forward with impressive momentum, he struck towards the dummy and cleaved it in half.
