304 New Mastery
The notifications popped up as Asher was trying to understand the small scripture.
The first thing Asher comprehended was a strange technique that halted his movement art.
The second thing was the technique to counter his swift strike, and the third was the counter to the Fifth Scripture that taught Asher about the Aura Shield.
[ Understanding of the Shard is increasing ]
In this scripture, the ways to counter all the things that Asher had learned were described.
But even then, Asher couldn't understand what the scripture was trying to portray.
As he processed all that information, the fog became clearer, and the pressure on him started reducing.
These counters originated from the very fundamentals of the Sword Art itself.
This scripture was filling the gaps made by the previous scriptures, while revealing the weakness of the sword art itself.
"It shouldn't be this," Asher muttered.
There was something that didn't make sense to him, and he knew that the scripture wasn't as simple as it seemed.
His brain processed every single counter in his head, and he could feel that his fundamentals were becoming even stronger.
[ Node Art's Mastery has increased ]
[ Node Art's Mastery has increased ]
"Something else..." Asher said to himself.
There was something else to the scripture than what he had comprehended thus far.
And suddenly, it clicked as everything started to make sense.
What hadn't made sense a moment ago was now visible to him.
[ Understanding of the Shard is increasing ]
[ Understanding of the Shard is increasing ]
[ Understanding of the Shard is increasing ]
[ Host has found the origin of the shard ]
"Negation," Asher muttered as he understood the meaning of this scripture.
[ Sub Skill Rank S Negation (Passive) has been learned ]
The essence behind this unknown shard and the counter it was presenting wasn't its true intention, but a method to teach another skill or technique called Negation.
Suddenly all the small scriptures started moving towards the big Sixth Scripture and began mixing into it.
Blood started dripping from Asher's nose as he felt a massive burden on his body when the Sixth Scripture revealed itself.
But Asher didn't look at the whole scripture right then.
He looked at the first part, which was about Negation, particularly the essence of Negation.
The skill that could find the weakness of an attack and could negate it if Asher could understand the essence behind it.
It was a comprehension-based skill that allowed Asher to negate the attack if he could understand the foundation behind it.
[ Node Art's Mastery has increased ]
[ Node Art has increased to Intermediate Mastery ]
His eyes started glowing as he could feel that his sense of seeing nodes, the waypoints, had increased drastically.
He had reached the next mastery after novice, and he could feel that his understanding of the Sword Art had grown, but the massive change was the way he could see the nodes that were the essence of this sword art.
But this was where it ended.
Asher opened his eyes, touched his face, and saw that his eyes were bleeding.
He hadn't even seen the Sixth Scripture entirely, having only seen the first part of it, and he couldn't remain there.
A massive headache struck Asher, who remained calm, but his head hurt a lot.
Asher's pain tolerance was inhumane to the point that if his current pain was inflicted on anyone else, they would have rather died than suffer through it.
Physical pain wasn't comparable to the pain that mana doping did to his body and his mana core.
The feeling of his meridians being torn apart, and his mana enhancing his senses to the point that even breathing hurt him tremendously.
If Asher hadn't had extreme control over mana in his previous life, he wouldn't have been able to endure that sort of pain.
Asher frowned as he felt the pain increase, but it started subsiding as he channeled his mana to calm his body down.
The mental strain wasn't something that could be calmed down, and he could only wait for it to settle.
Asher glanced over to the side, and his indifferent eyes looked at Rifir, who was still in the process of absorbing the mana gem.
Standing up, he went to the bathroom, took a shower, and removed the blood stains on his body.
As the cold water fell on his head, Asher closed his eyes as he imagined an opponent from his previous life's memory in his mind.
He wanted to know if his perception of nodes had gotten better or not, and he could see that there were more nodes visible around the imaginary opponent he saw with his eyes closed.
"What is that skill?" Asher asked the system.
He knew the fundamentals behind Negation and even how to use it, but he wanted to see the System's explanation for this skill.
[ Negation is a Rank S Sub Skill of Node Art ]
Rank S - Negation
Limitations: Comprehension
Ability: Negate the attack you have comprehended fully
A skill that was only limited by the ability of its user, and it wasn't something that could be used freely.
Every attack had its own structure, with complex magic and sword art, which would become almost impossible to replicate unless you could see through it.
This was a skill that was more than a simple counter; even when countering, you would feel the impact, but Negation nullified the force behind it.
The only issue was, Asher could comprehend the sword technique of someone below S Rank, but above it, just a simple glance wasn't enough.
And there were techniques that even Asher didn't know how they worked.
"So I can't see that," Asher muttered as he opened his eyes.
There were many things that took people years to understand and even more time to master.
Even now, Asher didn't know the workings behind the Ancient Rune that Farnus possessed or what was later seen with Kevin Whiteheart in the future.
There were even some Tier 5 spells whose origin and working were extremely complex, but even when Asher didn't understand the structure of those spells, it wasn't an issue for him.
Ruler of Mana, the ability that Asher possessed with his original bloodline ability, allowed him to compete against multiple Mages at once.
Asher went inside the Training Room and took his sword with him as he began to practice his sword art once again.
Seeing the flaws in his own techniques gave him the idea of how to improve them and merge the learning of the four Small Scriptures before he once again tried to learn the Sixth Scripture.
The day passed, and Asher was still inside his room, swinging his sword and moving across the room without stopping.
His movement had become more refined, and he even gained a 5% increase in intermediate mastery, but that was where it stopped increasing.
It didn't budge despite Asher becoming faster and sharper in his strikes.
"Swift Slash," Asher said, but the sword didn't move. Instead, an arc of his aura was struck due to Asher combining the effect of Phantom Strike with Swift Slash.
And while doing so, Asher kept gaining extra momentum with his movement technique, which increased the strength behind his strikes.
The second day went like this, and so did the next four days.
Asher didn't stop, as he felt the restrictions on his swordsmanship were lifting, and he could learn even more.
While doing this, he tried to use the Negation Skill, but there wasn't anything to attack him.
Asking Rifir, who was still absorbing the Mana Gem, was useless as it wouldn't help at all.
The requirement to use Negation was understanding the attack itself, and that was the reason Negation wouldn't work on Rifir's attack.
Because Asher had fought with Rifir, and he could see that the black energy that Rifir used wasn't the Black Element but something else.
Asher questioned Rifir, but it couldn't answer and simply tilted its head. Even the System didn't have the answers, as questions about Rifir were at the highest level restrictions.
[ Rifir's level has increased to 15 ]
[ Rifir has unlocked a new skill ]
Asher stopped midway through his strike, as he looked at a snake-like figure materialize from black fumes and appear before him.
Rifir had gotten bigger than before, and its fangs had become sharper, but it regained its original size in a moment.
[ Two new abilities are unlocked for Rifir ]
Asher looked at the new abilities that allowed Rifir to change its size and removed the distance restriction that allowed Rifir to move away from Asher and return whenever Asher wanted.
This new ability made Asher think about a certain possibility.
"Can it carry an Artifact?" Asher asked.
[ The energy around Rifir might cause the artifact to break ]
ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm [ When away from the host, the restrictions of the mark on your hand are decreased, and it can't control the effects of the energy around its body ]
Asher was thinking of having the artifact as early as possible, but it seemed like it wasn't possible.
"Sleepy..." Rifir said as it went inside the tattoo on Asher's arm.
Ping!
A notification arrived on Asher's phone. Upon hearing it, he went outside and looked at the message that was sent by Tom.
<Asher: You can start it>
Asher sent Tom a message while he searched for news about the World Association placing economic restrictions on the Three Continents.
"It seems he noticed it," Asher muttered.
Osbert had returned, and it had been over a week. It wasn't strange for him to notice the mess that was created in his absence.
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