Yesterday I couldn’t properly explore the new effects of vitality that I discovered, so I was planning to rectify that by properly examining everything about it today.

“But, your wounds really do heal fast, its already healed enough to form scabs“

Lea was covering my body with bandages, which were claiming fewer parts of my body day by day.

“That's good, cause our food and supplies are running dry. We are going to have to go out again.“

“Yep. Not looking forward to that,“ said Lea as she removed the bloody dressing for new ones.

True. We shouldn’t go without a plan like last time. We have to properly examine what we would be getting into rather than going in blind.

Obviously, the last mart we went to is a no-go, but thankfully we didn’t have to, since we don’t need as much as medicines or other supplies this time around.

“Yep, that should be fine, “ said Lea as she smacked my back or more-like slapped it after taping it.

I got up and stretched my body before I was going to test my new ability.

“So, what’s the plan today, more sparring?” Lea asked me while I was stretching.

"No, I want to test something, so we can do that later“

“Fine... Guess I’ll practice moving my fireball” She said with a dejected face.

Just how much does she want to hit me with a steel rod?.

That said, I left Lea to do her own things while I moved to get some random trinkets and items to test my new ability.

First things first, the durability. I used vitality while holding the stick I used yesterday and hit the beam of the building like a baseball bat with all my strength.

It held. Damn, that was with my strength in vitality. If this thin stick didn’t break, then it’s safe to say that any actual weapon I hold is nigh unbreakable. I thought with a smirk.

Next, I took a bulb. I wanted to test if anything could be strengthened to this point of durability.

If it does and the next test is also successful, this ability could have a lottt of uses.

I raised my hands and was about to smash the bulb to the ground, but hesitated at the end and pulled back my strength because glasses were glasses and I was unconsciously afraid of it breaking and getting it in my eyes or hands. Even though I knew it wouldn’t break.

The bulb touched the ground lightly, and I instantly keeled over with my head to the ground.

I was hit by the most penetrating pain I have ever felt in my entire life.

It felt like my testicles were smashed but that, on the entire body. I groaned while squirming on the floor. In the corner of my teary vision, I saw shards of the millions of pieces of glasses that were shattered.

Fuck. Fuck. The pain was piercing through my hands to my skull. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to puke or cry.

I stayed there curled up in pain as my drool and tears poured out, waiting for it to reside as some small part of my conscious mind figured out the cause for all this, amidst the pain.

After a few moments which felt like an eternity, I let out a ragged breath and sat upright on the floor; the pain was a lot muted now, but I was already drenched in sweat.

“OK...” Why?

I knew why. My soul, or rather my aura, was flowing through the bulb. Not as strongly as in my body, only faintly enough that it seemed to look like a fog to my inward senses.

But the question was, why did it break?

I didn’t use much strength. In fact, I think I didn’t even use enough strength to break a normal bulb.

Does it only work on weapons? No, that seems stupid. This isn’t a game with that sort of restriction.

I looked at the pieces of glasses. It was broken into fine dust, with no solid piece of glass bigger than a grain to be found.

Or it did have an effect? My mind thought of a plausible reason.

But I don’t know if that is intended by the manufacturer or not. I’ve heard that a lot of glasses in cars were designed to be broken into small pieces for people not to be pierced by them.

The bulb didn’t seem to be carefully manufactured but rather looked like cheaply reproduced, but you never know, this could be the norm in this country.

And I also didn’t have the guts to bear that pain for testing that further.

I got up; the excruciating pain was completely gone with no traces as if it never happened in the first place, kinda reminded me of something else, but I paid no attention to that.

I couldn’t let this stop examining my ability. This was actually good, better to know these things now in safety rather than out there.

I moved to the next test. I picked up a knife that I left on the floor and stood up to a throwing position with the knife in hand.

I moved my hands to throw it towards the wall, but the knife stayed in my hand. My hands started shaking as my body refused to let go of the knife even after trying to throw it 3 more times.

I looked at the knife in hand in fear and anger.

Goddamit. It's only pain. It's temporary. Fear is not logical, not right now.

I psyched myself up and activated vitality, letting it hold for a few seconds in case the problem last time was that the aura didn’t have enough time to flow through the object.

And threw into the wall as I inwardly cringed and closed my eyes.

….Nothing happened? I opened my eyes to look at the knife to see it completely lodged inside the wall.

Ok...a normal knife couldn’t do that, which means it worked. The infused objects were still infused and strong even after losing physical contact with myself, though I would wager that it would only be for a few seconds.

But this opens a lot more new avenues. Ones that I don’t have at the top of my mind but I could feel that I could think up a lot of things with this.

I walked closer and tried to pick the knife out of the wall and failed to do so; it was completely stuck.

Huh. Did I throw it that hard?

It was completely sunk into the wall till its handle.

After a few more tries, I gave up and went to more testing. Which only confirmed my previous conclusions. Items that leave me are only strengthened for a second or two, where their strength is rapidly decayed into the normal level.

And another thing to note was that strengthening different objects took a greater toll on me. After 5 or 6 tries I was already feeling my limits and was even more drenched in sweat than I would normally be when using vitality.

But sparring was also not left out of today's course so, after that whole exhausting ordeal, I was left wheezing and drained.

We were eating canned food in the storeroom when Lea asked, “So... did you find anything?”

It took a moment for my fogged mind to understand her question but I replied after a second “Yeah...well, I found that anything I hold can be strengthened with flowing my aura through it during vitality”

“Huh, kind of like me covering the prana?”

Hmm. I didn’t try that. I should try to consciously move my aura into the objects next time I tr-

Thump.

We both paused. A huge vibration was felt and heard by us both.

Thump.

The whole building vibrated along with the sound as if it created a mini-earthquake.

Thump.

We both stared at each other wide-eyed as we realized that this wasn’t an earthquake but footsteps. Heavy, giant ones.

From the sound, It seemed to be walking on the road from the north side, behind us towards the direction of the mart.

THUMP.

The giant footsteps started to get bigger and louder. As it came closer to us. The building shaking even strongly as it walked through the street just in front of our building, where we even started to hear its heavy breathing.

But instead of the expected next thump, it stopped!

Right in front of our building!

We both stared into each other with pure fear in our eyes as the footsteps didn’t move an inch. Only its heavy breathing accompanying our silent terror as we dared not to make a sound or breathe.

A long moment passed in absolute terror, as even the heavy breathing went silent replaced by painful silence.

Fear and recognition were seen in Lea’s eyes as tears started to well up, as we both started to realize. Realize that it didn’t just stop randomly.

My hand moved silently and shakingly to the pitchfork that was right beside me

And the building just exploded! Debris and huge explosive sound filling my eyes and ears. We both curled up on the ground.

Debris and rocks flew as they hit my back along with a turbulent wind as if a tornado just crashed into us.

I lifted my head from my curled position to see that we were out in the open rather than inside the room, with the entire top half and front of the building destroyed.

I saw the familiar giant hoofs in front of the building. I raised my head, following the giant hoofs to see a hulking red monster that was taller than the buildings that we were on, while it was still standing.

It looked at us with its glowing eyes filled with rage and disgust as if it was offended that we were still alive at this point. Then made a terrifying soul-shaking scream at us, where even the wind pressure of the scream was felt.

It raised its giant slab of red metal that looked like a sword and moved its hand downwards to crush us with it.

I stared at it while covering between myself like a terrified hamster. But at its mid-swing, I regained a bit of myself and picked the still-terrified Lea in my hands and pushed for vitality.

I could feel it. I was already touching the limit, being used constantly throughout the day, but I pushed past it and jumped forward with Lea in my arms.

The giant building-destroying slab of metal crashed behind me as it exploded debris, rocks, wind, and dust all around it. Along with myself.

I momentarily blacked out during my airtime but regained consciousness as my head hit the ground painfully.

I looked at my hands and saw it empty. Lea crashed into the ground a few meters in front of me. The minotaur screamed again as it raised its arms to crush me with the slab.

I pushed for vitality again, even as my body warned me against it, and ran backward, the strike missing me completely.

Lea was exposed, but I was intending to draw its attention. But I didn’t have to do anything as the monster turned towards me screaming even louder as it turned even more red in anger

No, it’s not in rage! Its red-colored face turned even crimson as it turned into the color of flame along with its throat and spat out a long line of fire.

I quickly jumped into a corner of an alley and took cover under it, but the red-hot flame pierced the corner, burning one side of my right arm.

I screamed in pain but moved along the narrow alley away from the monster in fear of my life. It was completely locked on to me now.

I heard its heavy loud footsteps as it moved towards me and another huge explosion as it swung its slab of a sword onto the 2 buildings that made the alley.

It thankfully held, but the debris and rocks fell from the sky like rain. Rocks and small pieces of concrete falling into my body as I ran with vitality at full throttle, hoping that its protective ability also applies to me.

My vision was covered in red as blood poured into my eyes, and my burned arms bled into the ground as it started actually raining.

I kept running at the fastest speed I had ever run, even as the extreme after-effects of overusing vitality made my vision blurry.

I don't know how long I ran but before I knew it, I crashed into a heap of trash on some street in an alley. The loud cry of the minotaur far in the background.

My slipping consciousness briefly returned from the distant roar, as I dug through the trash and waste and hid inside it just as my consciousness faded into black.