Resonance Art

After eating and drinking his fill, Dago lit a candle.

He sat inside the shelter and took out the black leather wizard book, which he had managed to read through without difficulty today.

He already understood the book's general contents. It recorded only a single spell.

A spell born from the wild imagination of a genius wizard from Emerald Life.

Yet it ultimately brought disaster. The spell was sealed by Emerald Life, and the genius wizard was erased as well.

Since ancient times, a wizard's body had always been a weakness, a problem only solved once high-level wizards gained the ability of Body Elementalization.

As for low-level wizards, they often died to all kinds of assassinations.

So one day, a wizard wondered whether low-level wizards could undergo Body Elementalization as well.

The facts proved that before achieving an immortal soul, allowing the body to accept elements was no different from roasting flesh over burning coals. Death was inevitable.

Then why could ancient species wield elemental power through their bodies? Why could humans, the spirit of all things, not do the same?

He believed it was because of their environment. Ancient species lived in places abundant with elements, and thus gained the power to wield them.

Could humans likewise live in element-rich environments like ancient species and obtain that power?

Just as magical beasts that inherited a trace of ancient bloodlines gained elemental affinity.

He succeeded, and he failed.

Making humans live within elemental environments like magical beasts did indeed grant elemental affinity to a very small number of people.

But most of them eventually suffered uncontrollable bodily decay, much like radiation sickness.

As a type of energy particle, prolonged contact with elements would cause energy to erode the body until it finally deteriorated.

Those few people also awakened a trace of ancient bloodline. They were called Bloodline Wizards, the favored children of the elements.

This spell was the Body–Element Resonance Art, or simply the Resonance Art.

Dago's heart pounded. The spell was certainly powerful, but cultivating it to the end would lead to radiation sickness and death by full-body decay.

Gritting his teeth, he still decided to cultivate this spell and place his trust in the system.

Walking out of the shelter, he stood in the clearing where he usually trained. The twin moons still shone brightly.

He built a flame with firewood, then used its light to carefully reread the entire book from beginning to end.

The entire spell had only one incantation: "Veritas." Its approximate meaning was to send lingering elements back to their own world.

During their stay, the elements required only a tiny amount of mental power to sustain them.

Then, mental power was used to control the elements and attach them to the body, applying pressure from the outside inward and forcing the body to adapt to that environment.

At present, Dago could only command ice elements, so he could only use the Ice Crystal Technique to assist in cultivating this spell.

A sapphire-blue halo flowed through his eyes, scattering light as he murmured the incantation of the Ice Crystal Technique.

A small amount of ice elements appeared, awaiting Dago's command.

"Veritas," Dago called out the incantation of the Resonance Art.

Most of the ice elements vanished, leaving only a few scattered specks behind.

He cautiously controlled those ice elements with mental power, guiding them to float above his palm and form a light sphere the size of a fingernail.

Then he controlled the output of his mental power. The sphere's coldness and light instantly faded by ninety percent. Under the usual release of the Ice Crystal Technique, these ice elements should have dispersed long ago.

"Looks like the Resonance Art worked." Dago looked at the ice elements resting in his palm as though asleep.

He then controlled the ice elements and attached them to the nail of his index finger. The lazy ice elements drifted over and gave his nail a snowy white manicure.

His nail instantly felt icy cold. Then the Resonance Art was complete, and the system panel immediately displayed a prompt.

[Detected improvable skill: Resonance Art. Choose to improve?]

As usual, he selected yes, and the panel shifted.

[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 139/1000); Air Bullet (Beginner 166/1000); Ice Crystal Technique (Novice 15/100); Resonance Art (Novice 1/100)]

From then on, he had another skill that could be improved.

He returned to his training, cycling through the Meditation Method, Air Bullet, Ice Crystal Technique, and Resonance Art.

With the Meditation Method at the beginner level, each meditation session was far more effective than before. The rate at which his Soul Entropy was expelled grew faster and faster, and the sphere of light had expanded considerably.

As his mental power increased, the speed at which it nourished his soul would also become faster.

The speed of Soul Completion would increase greatly as well, and his mental power reserves would grow.

The number and quality of his other spells would also rise. At full mental power, firing ten Air Bullets was no longer a problem.

At this rate of improvement, he would soon become a humanoid mobile cannon.

Still, Dago felt that he lacked actual combat experience. Aside from all kinds of animals in the forest, he had never fought another person.

But he was not worried about that. He was already prepared to inflict violence upon this cruel world.

The wind flipped two pages of the calendar. It was the morning two days later.

Dago, dressed in hunting clothes, sat on a stump and wolfed down a simple breakfast of several steamed corn buns.

His large hand, with ten snow-white nails, grabbed a bun and devoured half of it in one bite, finishing one in two bites.

He no longer went to the academy. Wizard Rosalyn had not returned either, and he could not be bothered to go.

He spent most of his mornings hunting. He chose the forest's southwest, where the lake containing Moonlight Flowers lay.

He intended to cautiously advance in that direction step by step, familiarizing himself with the terrain ahead of time.

Rising to his feet, he found that his body had grown several more centimeters. He was now around one meter seventy-eight tall.

His flowing long hair was beginning to reach past his shoulders, and Dago did not like that.

It would obstruct his vision while hunting. Pulling out the cold-glinting dagger at his waist, he grabbed his hair and began cutting.

Before long, he had dealt with the troublesome hair and brushed the loose strands from his body.

He then slung his pack over his back and strode toward the southwest of the forest.

Since this area had barely been touched by humans, there were far more animals.

Dago had to remain constantly alert. From time to time, he took out the small notebook on his person to record the nearby terrain, landforms, and distribution of trees.

After circling around an enormous tree, he made a mark and continued onward.

After walking for roughly ten minutes, a dense forest appeared in his field of vision.

The trees in the dense forest blocked out the sky and sun. Not even specks of sunlight could penetrate it.

This place is much quieter than the others, Dago thought, growing more wary.

As he carefully observed his surroundings, a low, rumbling snore echoed through the dense forest.

A low-frequency vibration like "Hrrr—rumble... Hrrr—rumble..." made Dago afraid to move. He remained still where he was.

He carefully listened for the source of the sound and saw an enormous black leopard sprawled across a tree ten meters away, sleeping soundly.

This must be the magical beast known as the Shadow Leopard. Dago stared at the sleeping black leopard, his pupils contracting.

This was his first time seeing a magical beast. A living magical beast.

According to old Mariko's description, this was a magical beast with a strong sense of territory. It rarely traveled in groups, so there was no need to worry about being attacked by a pack.

The Shadow Leopard could run incredibly fast. It liked to lurk in the shadows and launch fatal attacks, tearing open its prey's throat.

Its fur was an excellent magical material and was highly sought after in the Wizarding World.

Its meat and bones were also delicacies fit for mortals, and noble lords were willing to pay high prices for them.

Its whip in particular was always in demand and never available.

It hasn't woken up yet. I have to seize this chance and hit it with an Air Bullet in one strike. Dago made his decision immediately.

Sapphire-blue light lit up in his eyes. The airflow suddenly accelerated, and an Air Bullet the size of a fist gathered two meters before him.

Several seconds later, the blue light in Dago's eyes flared brightly as he fully activated the Air Bullet and fired it at the Shadow Leopard.

Dago stared intently at the Shadow Leopard in the tree. Its ears instantly perked up, its eyelids snapped open, and its pupils narrowed into vertical slits like two poisoned daggers.

Its body stretched taut like a drawn bow, its forepaws straightened like sickles, and the muscles in its hind legs erupted with unbelievable force.

It had noticed too late. This charged Air Bullet was too fast, and its usual comfort had dulled its awareness of danger.

Boom! The Air Bullet still struck its hind leg, and the violent blast sent its body flying.

In midair, mottled light and shadow flowed over its body as though it wore a black cloak woven from slaughter.

Dago aimed at the airborne Shadow Leopard again and fired another Air Bullet, less than ten seconds after the first.

The Shadow Leopard twisted in midair, its tail controlling its posture like a propeller...

The Air Bullet streaked past its abdomen on a powerful current.

It then exploded against a distant tree, and Dago's heart sank...

The cooldown for Air Bullet had not ended, while the Ice Crystal Technique took too long to cast.

The Shadow Leopard landed and lowered its body, stretching out its forelimbs and raising its hindquarters. The first Air Bullet had seriously injured it; one of its hind legs was already twisted and broken.

Its tail swung left and right like a rudder, adjusting its attack angle. Then it used its remaining hind leg to launch itself toward Dago.

Ten meters, nine meters, eight meters, seven meters, six meters, five meters... Only the heartbeat of prey drummed in its ears—the beat of death's countdown.

Just as the Shadow Leopard rapidly closed in on its prey as usual, ready to tear open its throat as easily as ripping paper—

Its world fell silent. An ice pillar as thick as an arm had pierced its forehead, and its body rolled across the ground, kicking up a trail of dead leaves.

In a world where the strong devoured the weak, elegance and cruelty had always been twins, while death was merely the most precise punctuation mark in life's cycle.

Dago elegantly blew the lingering chill from his fingertips and patted his wildly pounding chest.

The snow-white color on his ten nails faded, returning to flesh color. This was another discovery he had made about the Resonance Art.

The ice elements attached to his body could be instantly awakened to form a weakened version of the Ice Crystal Technique. It had only one-third the power of the full version, but its casting time was much shorter, taking only around five seconds.

"Looks like I'll have to get another manicure when I get back," Dago muttered.