Warmth spread through Ethan’s body as [Aura Overload] continued its work. It wasn’t a miraculous healing skill capable of restoring shattered bones or regrowing limbs, but it excelled at dealing with the countless smaller injuries that accumulated during battle. The puncture wounds left by the Wendigo’s claws slowly knitted together, while the deep lacerations across his ribs and shoulders gradually stopped bleeding. The ache remained, but after nearly twenty minutes, he could finally move without every step threatening to reopen something.
It was good enough. Besides, he had a feeling he would need more healing in the coming hours anyway.
He pushed himself to his feet, rolling his shoulders experimentally before looking around the stretch of fractured island he had washed ashore on. Mist drifted lazily from the waterfall in the distance, blanketing the shoreline in a constant haze. The river had widened considerably after the fall, transforming into a broad lake whose surface rippled beneath the force of the incoming current. Everything was quiet, almost unnaturally so. The only sounds were the distant roar of cascading water and the occasional cry of some unfamiliar creature echoing through the cliffs.
His body felt sluggish, his aura nearly depleted after the battle and subsequent healing. He needed to fix that.
Unlike mana, recovering aura wasn’t about drawing energy from the world around him. There was no external force to absorb or refine. Aura was produced entirely by the body itself, and replenishing it at an accelerated rate required entering a state of complete relaxation, allowing every unnecessary function to quiet until his body could dedicate itself to creating more of the energy. It was a surprisingly passive process. Fighting, walking, and even remaining overly alert all slowed its regeneration considerably.
It reminded him of his cultivation technique.
Actually… now that he thought about it, the similarities were almost identical.
His cultivation method followed nearly the same principles, quieting both body and mind before refining mana through slow, deliberate circulation. The only real difference was the source of the energy. Aura came from within, while mana was gathered from without. Somewhere along the line, he had unconsciously copied the process while developing his own cultivation technique.
Ethan let out a quiet sigh.
That probably explained why his technique was mediocre. At least by his standards.
He’d built it using what he already knew instead of what mana could do. It worked, but only because the fundamentals were close enough to function. Looking back, it was no wonder he’d always felt like he was forcing the process instead of flowing with it. Even now, he knew he could create a better method, especially with the imparted knowledge [Worldfire] had granted him.
A problem for another day. Right now, he needed to find somewhere safer.
Although he could technically cultivate while remaining aware of his surroundings, splitting his attention slowed the process dramatically. If monsters wandered by while he was recovering, he wanted as much warning as possible before they reached him.
So he began walking.
The water guided him along the edge of the fractured island, its surface gradually calming the farther he traveled from the waterfall. The raging current slowly gave way to something resembling a lake, though powerful streams still swirled beneath the otherwise tranquil surface. As he walked, his eyes constantly swept across the surrounding terrain.
He couldn’t sense any monsters. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Places that appeared peaceful were often the most dangerous.
At least, that was what experience had taught him.
Eventually, the shoreline narrowed until there was nowhere left to go.
Ethan stopped. The island simply ended.
A sheer cliff stretched away on either side, disappearing into the drifting clouds below. There was no visible ground beneath him, only an endless expanse of mist that swallowed everything beyond a few dozen feet. The lake continued onward, spilling silently over the edge of the island like the beginning of another waterfall whose destination couldn’t be seen.
He frowned. His gaze swept across the area one final time before settling on several enormous boulders resting near the cliff’s edge. They weren’t perfect cover, but they were the best he’d found. More importantly, sitting behind them left only a single direction from which something could approach. Behind him lay nothing but open sky, while the lake and cliff naturally protected the remaining sides.
“This’ll have to do.”
He lowered himself onto the ground and leaned back against the cool stone.
Within moments, his breathing slowed. His heartbeat softened. The tension left his body as he slipped deeper and deeper into meditation.
Aura regeneration was a strange sensation.
Unlike mana cultivation, there was no feeling of power entering his body. Instead, it was almost like sinking into a deep sleep while remaining completely conscious. Every muscle relaxed. Every unnecessary thought drifted away until all that remained was silence. Somewhere beneath that silence, he could feel his body slowly producing more aura, tiny amounts at first before steadily increasing as his mind settled further.
Time slipped by unnoticed. When Ethan next opened his eyes, the position of the sun had shifted noticeably across the sky.
He rolled his sore shoulders before closing his eyes once more.
His pathways appeared exactly as he’d expected.
Damaged.
Countless tiny tears ran throughout the network, the channels looking more like frayed rope than smooth streams. The damage became progressively worse the closer he looked toward his arms. There, the pathways were barely holding together at all. Large sections had split open completely, leaving jagged gaps where mana would simply spill into his body instead of continuing toward its destination.
Normally, this wouldn’t be catastrophic. A decent rejuvenation pill. A specialized potion. Even a competent healer.
Any one of those could repair the damage over time. Unfortunately, he had none of them.
Worst of all, he had no time to acquire any of them. There was Seb, but for a healer to repair someone else’s channels, they would need to be extremely high-leveled or possess a high cultivation rank.
Unfortunately, Seb was neither.
Not yet.
He spent another hour turning possibilities over in his mind, discarding one idea after another as quickly as they appeared. Most relied on resources he simply didn’t possess. Others were little more than wishful thinking.
Eventually, only one option remained. Aura.
He knew it was the only option available to him. But this was a big decision, so he had hoped to find a better solution.
Unfortunately, he had come up with nothing.
His eyes opened.
The sensation of a full reserve settled comfortably within him. If he couldn’t repair the pathways, perhaps he could reinforce them. He’d already done something similar.
When using [Molten Blast], he’d blocked unwanted channels with aura to redirect the mana where he needed it. During his fight with the Wendigo, he’d also wrapped aura around damaged pathways to keep them from collapsing completely under the strain.
Both methods had worked as temporary fixes.
This time, though, he had no intention of removing it.
Taking a slow breath, Ethan guided a thread of aura toward the damaged network.
The familiar sting arrived immediately.
Mana and aura hated one another. The moment they came into contact, a sharp pain lashed through his body like the crack of a whip. Ethan’s jaw clenched, a grimace spreading across his face as he forced the aura to remain steady.
“Come on…”
Millimeter by millimeter, he wrapped the aura around the outside of each damaged pathway.
It was painstaking work. Every tiny movement required absolute precision. Too much pressure and the pathway buckled. Too little and the aura slipped away before taking shape. Several times, he had to start over, sweat forming across his forehead despite him sitting perfectly still.
Eventually, he finished.
His arms looked bizarre. The mana channels remained shredded beneath the surface, but now they were encased within a thin shell of emerald aura that followed every twist and curve of the damaged network. He had done something similar before, but unlike when he was in the heat of battle, he could now see his handiwork and, well, hopefully it worked better than it looked.
He drew a slow breath.
Mana stirred within his core. Immediately, his aura sealed the remaining pathways throughout his body, forcing the molten energy toward his arms alone.
The first trickle entered the damaged channels.
Ethan’s teeth ground together hard enough that he thought one might crack. Fresh tears spread through the already ruined pathways as the molten mana surged forward, crashing against every damaged section with brutal force.
He didn’t stop.
Instead, he immediately pushed more aura toward each new fracture, reinforcing it as quickly as it appeared. The two energies collided violently, sending waves of agony through his arms, but the aura held.
Every inch of progress came with blinding pain, and his channels were still being damaged faster than they could naturally recover.
Nearly two hours later, Ethan’s eyes snapped open.
He sucked in a sharp breath before letting it escape in a frustrated huff, his entire body trembling from the strain. Sweat soaked his clothes despite the cool air drifting off the lake, and every muscle ached from remaining perfectly still while enduring pain that bordered on torture. His hands were clenched so tightly that his fingernails had drawn blood from his palms.
It had worked. At least partially.
His aura had successfully wrapped around the damaged pathways, forming a protective shell that prevented the mana from immediately bursting through the frayed channels. It acted like a brace around a shattered bone, giving the pathways enough structure to function again.
The problem was the mana itself. Every pulse of molten mana pushed against the aura surrounding it, trying to force its way free. The two energies constantly ground against one another, clashing wherever they met. Every inch the mana traveled became a battlefield, and Ethan had felt every collision as though someone were dragging barbed wire through his arms.
He suspected almost anyone else would have failed before they’d even begun.
His control over aura and his high pain tolerance were the only things allowing the idea to even remotely work.
Even so, he had reached a conclusion he didn’t want to admit.
His pathways couldn’t be patched.
The tears running through them had become weak points, and every time mana flowed through the channels, it found those seams and ripped them wider. His aura could slow the process, even redirect it slightly, but it couldn’t stop it. Eventually, the damage would simply outpace anything he could reinforce.
Which left him with two options.
The first was sensible.
Wait. Save enough PO to repair the pathways properly. Upgrade his core cultivation before attempting to wield [Worldfire] again. Do everything the safe way.
The second…
Ethan stared inward at the tangled network running throughout his body.
“…is completely insane.”
A crooked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He’d always been a brute.
And this truly seemed brutish.
If the damaged pathways couldn’t be repaired, then he’d simply get rid of them.
His aura shifted. Instead of supporting the fractured channels, it withdrew, gathering just beyond them like soldiers waiting for a command.
Ethan inhaled deeply.
“Am I really going to do this…?” he asked himself.
Not for the first time, he wondered what someone like Alex would do if placed in his situation with his knowledge.
“Probably not this,” he admitted.
Then he opened the gates, refusing to allow himself to second-guess the decision.
Mana erupted from his core.
The restraints he’d unconsciously maintained disappeared, unleashing a torrent of molten energy that exploded through his body with all the subtlety of a volcanic eruption. The damaged pathways shattered almost instantly beneath the pressure, cracks racing through the network faster than he could even perceive them.
Agony consumed him. Ethan threw his head back and screamed.
The sound vanished beneath the endless roar of the rapids pouring into the lake, swallowed by the crashing water before it could travel beyond the cliff.
His vision blurred. Every nerve in his body felt as though it had been set alight. It was annihilation. Complete and utter annihilation.
He could feel the system-created pathways collapsing one after another as mana tore through them, reducing them to nothing in a matter of seconds.
He didn’t stop. He couldn’t. The moment the old pathways gave way, his aura surged forward at his command.
Like molten metal being poured into a broken mold, the emerald energy began tracing entirely new routes through his body. It followed the destruction left behind by the mana, wrapping itself around the molten energy in twisted agony before hardening into fresh channels.
They were crude. Imperfect. Barely recognizable compared to what the system had originally created.
But they were his.
Ethan’s breathing became ragged. His concentration wavered.
The pain was becoming too much. His thoughts slowed, slipping through his fingers like sand.
For the first time since regressing—for the first time since stepping back into the Trials with the certainty that he knew what lay ahead—a single thought crept into his mind.
What if I’ve finally gone too far?