Ah, Friday—the last day before the weekend.

Even though weekends aren't really observed in this agrarian feudal society. Weeds and hunger don't take time off. Time off certainly wasn't something that the village did; I would say the fact that most of them just spend the day fishing is restful enough.

For me, I decided to make it a day of science! Due to grinding and a currently low level, a few advancements had taken place without time to sufficiently explore their abilities. Despite the main source of a player’s power being locked up in Class Abilities, there hadn't been the time to delve into their new-world capabilities. That meant being weaker than my level, which no one wants.

So this is what is meant by needing to stabilize my cultivation before advancing. Hmm, well it seems like I can always go back over my skills, so I'll definitely grab easy levels even without having a firm grasp on what I already have.

Eating, feeding Ria(props to Rion and Tagalong Girl), time to head out. I helped out around the village frequently, but nothing would collapse without me. Only beholden to the place by my own whims; I didn't inform anyone before heading out to the forest.

Reaching another non-descript patch of forest, Hans und Franz and company were let out to prance around. Upon closer examination, Hans and Birdy were both raal hands, exhibiting better capabilities all around. They still only amounted to hand spiders, so no need to mind it too greatly.

As the minnies came out to play, the master got to work. My prime concern being with {Negative Energy}. With a frankly disgusting mana expenditure, there had to be a way to reduce it. The easiest assumption would be practice, but it lacked a spell shape. Then again, practice always seemed to improve things, even if the reason can't be discerned.

Of course with about 24 seconds worth of mana, brute force practice didn't sound like an appealing path. Improving the mana efficiency was good, but there were no guarantees such a simple method would work; more importantly, I didn't know the extent {Negative Energy} would be useful. So testing needed to be optimized for resources.

Gathering a few random forest items, a few stones, branches, and green plants, I sat in front of a tree. Safety first, I willed some Negative Energy to appear in my hand. Then I poked a finger into it. That's actually not a very safe thing to do in itself, really instead of ‘safety first’ it was ‘see if I’m damaged, thus evaluating the safety of the following experiments’. Happily, for both utility and consistency, the Negative Energy did not damage me. If it had been harmless to one hand yet afflicted the other, that would have stumped me for a good while.

Immediately releasing the grey wisps from existence, even if there weren't even seconds in between trials, that would still waste mana. Or would it? An object in motion stays in motion—it may not literally apply, but there is the concept of startup costs. New test!

Focusing on my mana, I began to channel the Negative Energy. Feeling the moment it started to drain away, I watched for the grey flames to flicker into my palm. As soon as they appeared they were released, and I tried again. At the same time I learned that the mana cost was reduced in proportion to time(though I couldn't shorten the period any more than about 0.2 seconds), and that there was a slight lag before it appeared. For slightly under a second, mana would be consumed before the Negative Energy appeared.

Wastage, and quite severe if it kept being used in short bursts. To be more efficient by keeping it on, that meant I had to have less than a second delay between each experiment though. Given my penchant for pondering, I decided intermittent activation remained the most optimal choice. That way the speed of activation could be practiced as well. Why train one skill at a time when you can train three?

Picking up the objects I gathered, I tried to create the Negative Energy as quickly as possible, and then placing the item within. Not holding them beforehand in the location was to help search for differences in mana consumption, on the off chance that would happen.

Results came not predictably, but within the bounds of reason. Branches, though already dead, seemed to shrivel slightly. The bark would start acquiring the greyish tint of the Negative Energy; some turning to straight to dust. These effects were visible to the naked eye, but if you stood 15 feet back you probably wouldn't be able to tell. The Negative Energy also acted very much like an actual flame, inflicting greater change near to itself, with its ability diminishing 3 cm out.

Greens, and twigs pulled off trees suffered more drastic effects. I guessed there was more life in them; at first life seemed like it should be able to resist Negative Energy, but things that weren't alive had less to affect. Or so my hypothesis went. These more living pieces quickly started to resemble their dead cousins, but the ‘shock’ of it caused more drastic changes. As for when applied to the trunk, there were almost no effects; perhaps since the tree was still a uniform organism, I had to use enough power to affect the whole thing? The other objects were only suffering localized damage though. I put off the question for when I had more power.

On stones, my mana drained a few time making sure I’d investigated them properly. Though with no immediately detectable outward signs, running a finger over the affected portion would let one feel a chalky texture, rubbing off some dust. After multiple rounds, it became possible to scratch with just a fingernail, even pick off a chunk. Soil seemed much alike, but didn't require as much mana; it turned grey, somewhat grainy, and somewhat chalky, and would easily crumble to dust with a squeeze.

In all cases, it seemed that Negative Energy weakened matter.

Naturally, I improved in my control during this time. These weren’t one and done tests; for such an arcane matter as magic, outliers are inevitable, and repetition necessary. My mana pool bounced up and down from depletion to full, and unfortunately while I didn't pass out from mana exhaustion, neither did my maximum mana go up. Well, such a simple thing is easily exploited anyway.

I gained other benefits with the knowledge. Delay and minimum sustainment time were reduced marginally, a change below the significant figures of my detection. Individually at least. If I timed how often it could be activated within a period, I couldn't calculate the decrease in each time, but together there had been a slight decrease. More useful, the cost slid downwards to 9-9.5 mana per second.

Most useful, as the Negative Energy was summoned, I felt the ‘paths’ it traveled through. Just an abstract notion of how I understood it, the result was I could modify how much mana was being spent; not by increasing or decreasing efficiency, but by changing the power. As this was one of the perks from {Negative Energy}, it came as a surprise, however there were still limits as to how far it could be pushed in either direction. I wondered if the perk would provide a bonus to my new affinity, or if through training I had acquired a perk.

I was gaining a lot of information, but it was still just the starting phase. After all, this was just summoning the generic idea of Negative Energy. There were still the actual abilities of {Negative Energy} that I hadn't tried.

First up, spell augmentation! I had no idea how it would work out; thinking of a spell made a spell shape appear, but how did the Negative Energy get there? Did it replace mana in the spell shape? Not knowing what to expect, I followed my instincts. Spells guided me in casting, so I hoped this would do the same.

“. .” Casting two spells at a fallen log to compare their effects. Not paying attention to what happened in the spell shape, I wanted a feel for how it should be done first. 35 mana or so drained away from the imbued spell, a rather hefty price.

Several splinters lightly fell off from both impacts, a sign of improvement on the base damage, but the effect only looked like a quarter had been dropped into some sand. For the Negative Energy dart, the site of damage on the log looked as though the high mana cost might be worth it. Visibly paler than the rest of the wood, prodding at the spot I found it easy to pick apart, like wet fibers, though it was still rather dry.

Even with the large cost, I then began to repeatedly cast . Observing the spellshape, it seemed both mana and Negative Energy were within it, but as the mana seemed to be corroded by the Negative Energy, additional amounts were needed to offset the weakness. Getting a feel for how it worked, I could immediately reduce the cost to 30; further advancement would require more practice and insight.

Absorbed in experiments and theorizing, the sun raced across the sky. Noticing it was already noon, I left further inquiry into that specific field for a later date. Days were short, and I wanted to take a breadth-first approach.

Abruptly moving to the primary attack abilities, I kneeled near the log I used for the spell enhancement. I hit it with my hand and full force.

[Crippled-Minor: Duration 1m]

“Owww….” My hand went numb, only scratching off a bit of bark. I didn't actually expect to do any damage, but needed to test a control group. Grumpily staring at the log, I waited for feeling to come back to my hand.

When it did, I prepared the Negative Energy on my hand. The difference between the attack and merely summoning the Negative Energy is in the case of the attack it feels more like an aura that surrounded the striking portion of the hand. Some abilities higher in the tree allowed Negative Energy to be used as an armor of sorts, and it seemed that would be possible in this world as well.

With a shadowy lining covering the front of my hand, the fingers returned towards the log with a vengeance. Death to you, inanimate object!

“*Ah, ow...rats.*” The Negative Energy definitely had an effect, my hands sunk into the wood as though it were clay. Turning into wood chips and sawdust from the attack, the amount of power used meant the trunk still provided plenty of resistance. I’d made more than a dent, but it didn't quite reach the level of a gouge. Shaking my hand, I sucked it up and repeated the process.

Except for the fact that mana was constantly drained while active(~15/sec), it seemed to be a more efficient attack per amount of damage; though it did do less damage on whole. Spending a little bit trying to time the activation, which took two seconds, after many rounds of combat against the tree, both it and my hand looked to be in sorry shape. My hand got better quickly, and I was able to activate the Negative Energy half a second before impact so less mana was wasted, so I came out ahead.

From all that counting and timing over the course of the day, I felt my chronoperception and mana sense increase. Continuously getting a better feel of my body, Negative Energy seemed to further increase the likelihood of becoming a close combat mage.

At the thought of that, I felt I should strictly do things at range, regardless of poor efficiency. I'll use to eat, and never touch anybody again. Maybe I should go with the Spellsword option instead.

Hate aside, there were a few hours left in the day. Now we came to the final skill of {Negative Energy} from Underworld of Armok. Undead imbuement. While it could be used on the hand spiders, that didn't seem particularly useful. Instead, I would make use of my Level 4 Class Ability.

{Zombie}

A/N: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

In honor of it being Wednesday, and to freak me out into getting back into writing, here is another chapter!

That Roleplay poll was not a dud, I'm just still working out the politics of Braan.