The last surviving monsters having fled away, Edward was left alone in the nest, surrounded by fleshy egg-like structures of his size pulsating rhythmically. Edward sighed before taking care of the eggs. This feels more like a clean-up than a fight. “Ugg, this is disgusting,” Edward couldn’t help but exclaimed aloud as one Lusus naturae fell from the cut egg. Alright, this is enough. I’m coming back to the surface. I killed more than my share of Lusus naturae already. And I can’t bear their eggs anymore. He shuddered in disgust.

Not having been able to absorb their blood essence because he had been using his aura manifestation on his daggers, Edward took the time to absorb the power from all the slain monsters. Now that he had reached the predator stage, the Lusus naturae’s blood essence was left to be desired. The power provided by an individual body had decreased a lot compared to the total amount of power he had.

Now, what should I focus on first? I experimented with my limits for my aura and teleportation. I feel I still need some practice with my accelerated state, and even with my capacities without accelerating myself. My physical prowess has increased greatly. Obviously, my aura manipulation also needs practice if I want to throw aura blades around.

My greatest weakness is that I’m not able to maintain my accelerated state for a long time because it is too taxing. However, this is not a problem that can be solved with a week of practice. One adventurer talked about healing potions, maybe I could buy some to recover my stamina during a fight.

So, for my training planning, first simple physical exercises, then add the accelerated state sprinkled with a few uses of teleportation. And on the other end, meditation to increase my mana. It is necessary if I want to keep using the enhanced perception spell. And least but not last, aura practice to improve my aura dexterity.

Edward left the nest, using one of the tunnels leading upward. He walked to the surface with satisfaction, the strong and nauseous odor from the monsters washing away and getting replaced by the forest smell. Finally, he wasn’t in the dark anymore, and with the sunlight, he realized that his eyesight had also benefited from his breakthrough, everything seemed clearer and more detailed.

Even from the exit of the burrow, he was able to distinguish the leaves vein from the trees dozens of meters away. He noticed one squirrel scurrying away and climbing a conifer. He could see the sun’s rays cross between the trees’ foliage. He heard the birds singing and could determine where they were singing from and which different individuals were singing due to the difference in their tonality. The forest suddenly felt a lot more alive. That wasn’t all, with the extension of his aura range, even when the small critters were out of sight, he could still sense them in his perception.

Edward felt alive with the need to move, to let his body roam free, to go on an adventure. With an excited giggle, he started to run, gaining in speed with each step, until the trees blurred around him. Even with such speed he was still able to control his direction, and avoid face planting against a tree. He suddenly exerted more force and jump onto a tree, able to continue running vertically alongside its trunk with the speed he had accumulated. As gravity was catching up to him, he jumped from the trunk and caught a branch, on top of which he lifted himself. This way he had managed to climb up to fifteen meter high. Of course, he could have directly teleported to this spot but this would have been no fun. Edward laughed loudly feeling liberated.

He stayed on his branch for a moment, simply enjoying the life of the forest before getting up. He teleported in the air above the tree lines and let himself free fall. Before he got too close to the ground he teleported again near a tree, as he kept his fall’s momentum, he ran on the trunk in his descent. Then he jumped from this tree to another one five meters away, and he kept jumping from tree to tree in this way. Finally, he jumped from the last tree, put one hand on the ground, and did a somersault before falling back on his feet.

Even experiencing everything, his incredible physical prowess felt like a dream come true to him. The wild environment stopped being an obstacle to turning into his playground. Who would want to stay pent up in an office, chained with paperwork, when you can have so much fun outside? Seriously, Gobéliard influential families have it all wrong.

Let’s add the acceleration now. Edward started to run and excited by his performance tapped into his acceleration power before enhancing his perception. He immediately ran headstrong into a tree. Leaves fell down around him from the impact. Luckily for him, his body was now also more resistant and it didn’t hurt too much, an ordinary human would have broken something impacting a tree at such a speed. “Okay, enhance the perception first. Duly noted,” Edward grumbled.

This time he used the spell first. “Rèng khwāmrĕw” Movement slowed down around him. Even as he was running at his optimum speed he felt as if he was simply taking a stroll. This enhanced perception is boring without the matching speed. It just removes the speed sensation even when you are moving fast. Edward used his power to gain speed. Immediately he found back the impression of swiftness. He felt as if he was running at normal speed without using any power, his enhanced speed and perception canceling each other.

However, some details were revealing the truth. Even though he felt as if he was moving through the trees at his normal speed, everything was frozen in time. Leaves were suspended in midair, animals were frozen without moving and the wind pressure was greatly increased. Additionally, he had more trouble changing direction, he felt as if he was heavier. Not that it was harder to move, but rather that it required greater effort to turn, even his steps were leaving deep footprints behind him.

He wanted to step on a tree to bounce back and change direction. However, to his dismay, as he jumped on the tree to reverse his trajectory, he felt the tree shake, then break into two parts. He hadn’t been able to bounce back, the tree had only been able to stop his momentum. He stopped his powers, looking at the mess. Wood splinters and leaves had been projected in the surrounding, the majestic tree had fallen in his direction, missing him by a few meters only. Damn, did I do that? The trunk was two meters in diameter, it was far from the biggest tree around, but it couldn’t be considered a sapling.

He was even more surprised not to be injured. The impact was equivalent to a car crashing at full speed, and yet he was perfectly fine. It was another reminder that he was leaving the human domain behind him to become something new and more powerful. I think this is enough for now. Edward thought amazed by his capabilities. Let’s switch to something less dangerous.

Edward drew his daggers and focused on gathering his aura to lengthen the blades. It took him four seconds to triple the blade length. This is taking too long. In a fight every second counts. Especially when I’ll have to fight opponents able to move as fast as me. Seconds lengthen a lot when you move at such speed. He let the aura dissipate on its own and repeated the exercise. Again and again. He wanted to be able to triple the blade length in under one second. Taking too much time to do so was only good to impress a weaker opponent. It was a liability against an opponent at his level or stronger than him. Edward had no illusion that he was the strongest. His improvement was baffling, but all of the Gobéliard families representatives were at the predator level. And they had been for longer than him, he was the challenger here, not the reverse. So, he had to get as strong as possible.

Once he was satisfied with the speed at which he was able to manifest his aura, Edward took a break, several hours had already gone by. My speed is ok, but I still need to improve my aura control. That will be for later though. Training is essential but manifesting one’s aura only to let it dissipate again and again is getting on my nerves. To unwind, Edward ran again between and on the trees, doing numerous acrobatics simply because he could.

I should focus on meditation now. I need more mana if I want to last longer in an enhanced perception state. But meditation will let me somewhat expose myself to danger. Doing it alone in the wilds isn’t the greatest idea. Edward looked back to the Lusus naturae burrows, still reeking with their smell. “Ahhh…Fine,” Edward resigned himself.

He walked back into the nest, the room was full of monsters’ corpses, egg pieces, leftovers, and fluids staining the ground. I’m not meditating in there. Edward didn’t even bother picking the corpses with his hands. Instead, he used his aura to physically lift the corpses one by one and hauled them into a side tunnel. This is actually a good exercise for my aura control. Yes, this is the only reason that I’m doing this. Not at all because I don’t want to touch those stinky, wet dead bodies. The bodies were easy to remove, however, he couldn’t remove the smell and the liquid that had percolated into the ground. He did try to generate wind with a blast of his aura to remove the stench, but it didn’t prove to be very effective.

The room being mostly clean, he collapsed the tunnel entry in which he had stored all of the bodies. All the waste is sealed away. However, there are a few monsters that managed to flee. They probably still reside in this area and they may come back.

Edward proceeded to the other tunnels, collapsing and sealing them one by one, including the one leading to the meadow outside. It may seem as if he was trapping himself inside the nest, but he was able to go past the collapsed sections due to his teleportation. This way he had built a secure environment where he could meditate in peace without getting bothered by wild monsters.

Edward sat cross-legged and closed his eyes, letting his mind focus on the mana in the surroundings and eclipsing the rest.