What did she mean by kissing me…?

Sitting upon the corpse of a three headed wildcat and savouring the way its wiry fur tickled his legs through the holes in his pants, Brock sighed and took another bite of his Treasure. Flavour burst within his mouth, and energy washed down his throat, continuing directly into his bloodstream. His cells blazed with fervour, craving more.

Quickly, he finished off the rest, eager to prevent himself from losing any of the fruit’s efficacy. Belching and feeling a drowsiness overtake from the warm sensations spreading through his limbs and stomach, Brock glanced over at Mio. Currently, she was sitting crossed legged against a boulder, her eyes closed and mind elsewhere.

To him, it looked like she was meditating. I mean… she had seemed to have broken through with her Augment before…

Briefly, he recalled her saying ‘disturb me, and you die’. He decided it was best to listen. In silence, Brock summoned his phone and pulled up his updated map. The locations of several Treasures now appeared on it, bearing the icon of a blue ball surrounding by wispy energy. He’d checked over the map soon after Adam had sent it, and they’d made a beeline straight for the nearest location.

It had taken three days though. The next one… is probably about two days from here. Good.

Under the shade of the trees, only the sound of rustling leaves accompanied him. Mio was deathly silent, so much so that she could have been a corpse. Her aura neither flickered nor twitched, entirely frozen. And slowly, with nothing to occupy his mind, Brock’s thoughts turned back to the kiss he and Amara had shared.

“Fucking h-”

A tentacle rose up out of his shadow and caressed his neck. The threat was apparent. He glanced at Mio. She hadn’t moved at all. -ell.

They’d broken up years ago, although Brock supposed that if he still had lingering emotions, then there was nothing stopping her from as well. Despite that, he didn’t want them in the first place. If he was honest, the time they were in now wasn’t much different from when they’d broken up.

He was busy, overly so, not just saving his life, but figuring it out too. Surviving in the new world. Everything was new and confusing, and still, he wondered who he truly wanted to be. Hell, he even wondered why he wanted to pursue power in the first place. It only brought him injury and death, yet here he was…

Forget Amara. I need to get myself together first. Brock sighed, now having more to think about than before. Unfortunately, it was nothing he wished to address. Instead, he opened his status, noting an increase from 73 in his race to 76. He was getting closer to his goal. Then what am I gonna do after I evolve my race…

He resisted the urge to curse again. Evolving his race only solved one problem, while leaving one last glaring one. Zin Keene was probably still on the planet and searching for him. He doubted he’d be able to surpass the man any time soon, which left the issue of what he supposed to do about it. Idly, he noticed his aura was beginning to churn according to his emotions.

Brock took a deep breath and soothed himself. Zin Keene had been a monster, evidently having a powerful Augment hiding amongst his aura, as well as possessing an immense control and ability with that very same aura. In fact, while horrifying, it was rather inspiring. Even if it might be impossible to surpass the man within the next while, it wouldn’t hurt to try, right?

Just… Breathing out, Brock closed his eyes and focused upon his aura, envision the way Zin had created those aura tentacles that grasped onto space. He held no delusions that he’d be able to do something similar, at least currently, but if he could at least weave his aura into an appendage, it was progress. Twist it together.

Slowly, he edged out his aura and attempted to twist it into a tentacle. It moved around, passing through itself with effect. He’d forgotten how gaseous his aura actually was, and how much trouble that spelled for his plans. This… is literally impossible for me. Unless I find some way to fucking hold the aura with my hands or someth…

Wait… Brock’s eyes flashed. It’s not that simple, right?

As he activated his only usable Technique and the surroundings darkened, Brock recalled what he knew about aura manipulation. Every use by some had intent, a purpose or goal for what they were trying to achieve with their aura. Mio folded it to contain her presence. Donte let it flow to enhance his creations. Zin empowered his limbs and created constructs to harm.

Each use had something in mind, an intention. He was certain he had intention. Power, enhancement. He was trying to empower his limbs, much like Minerva and Zin had. But unlike them, he lacked shape, meaning. Liquid metal had no meaning as defence or offense unless cast as a sword or shield.

Ignoring the way the shadows were roiling around him in annoyance, Brock used Oppressive Might… to contain itself. Much like he’d seen occur with the activation of Salvation, he used his Aura Technique to encapsulate itself and create a shell around his arm. And slowly, Brock concentrated and instilled intent into that shell’s contents.

Power, strength. Enhancement.

Even with closed eyelids, his eyes witnessed the churning, gaseous aura within that shell begin to slow and flow in a way that seemed… not random. Purposeful. Despite that, he kept the grin off his face.

Carefully, as not to disturb his concentration, Brock fell down off the corpse and wandered over to a tree only a few meters away. Aura wafted out of what appeared to be a trio of claw marks to his closed eyes, speaking of the beast’s own capability to use aura. Focusing to a pinpoint, Brock glanced to his shell of swirling dark energy and kept it stable.

Then he swung forward.

His eyes snapped open as he felt flesh touch wood and splinter it, and he watched as nothing seemed to happen for a second. Then, as if all the force finally reached his shell, it contact point shattered, and the swirling midnight contents rushed forward, obliterating the tree into shard of wood and continuing onward.

It only had an airtime of about a meter before the current of intent lost shape as dispersed to the atmosphere. Brock noted that the reaction of his shell seemed to be delayed, and that it wasn’t as powerful as he’d expected it to be, but none of that mattered right now.

He cheered, he hooted, he danced. He’d done it. He’d finally manipulated his aura and achieved something other than nothing. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and was actually rather flawed, but he could improve that. And now that he realised that he could use O.M. to fix his gassy issue, so many new avenues of execution in aura manipulation presented themselves to him.

Fuck YES. Fuck YESSSSSS! Brock was giddy at the mere thought of all the ways he could implement Oppressive Might. Who knew it was more than just inefficient telekin-?

A tentacle of darkness swept his legs out from under him, and he hit the ground with a thump. Brock glanced over as a pair of footfalls resounded, and he saw Mio standing, her expression scrunched into a scowl, “Can’t even keep quiet?”

The man threw a look at the ruined remains of the tree as it leaned and was caught by another canopy, “Uh… my bad…”

“Mhmm.” She didn’t seem impressed.

Fortunately, as she resumed her meditation, Brock sense that her Augment was stable and deadly within her aura, probably having been influenced by whatever insights her meditation had brought her. Actually, now that I think about it…

As far as he knew, Mio was one of the only shadow scouts he’d met that possessed an Augment. It was… weird, to say the least. Perhaps they simply focused on honing their aura instead?

Regardless, Brock felt himself itching to try his aura manipulation again and trekked further into the forest. The trees were an odd shade of pink, and their trunks carried streaks of white, painting an alien-esque environment. The loam was rather dry, and a faded red colour, probably from the leaves that made it up. The calls of birds and beasts echoed through the canopies.

Eventually, he deemed that he’d moved far enough away that his experiments wouldn’t disturb Mio, and he took a wide stance, his aura flowing out and pervading the atmosphere. While already somewhat dim under the thickening canopies, the surrounding area darkened. Brock’s eyes were filled with visions of his own aura, flickering reds and blacks.

There’s so much I wanna try. Damn… He rubbed his chin, considering his options silently. Enchanting, teleportation and making that weird alarm are all way too complex for me right now. That leaves… more physical enhancement or constructs.

Rolling his shoulders, he recalled that blast of force that sent the Elemental scattering. Maybe projectiles too…?

Realising he should walk before running, Brock spared himself a moment to place all that to the side and return to the basics. He breathed out, remembering his starting point in aura manipulation, mostly involving attempts to control how much aura he released or compressing it like Iz’ Takon had.

“That’ll be a good place to start.”

With closed eyes, he brought back the ‘glass cup’ method and envisioned his aura trapped within such an item. Only, this time, he created that cup using Oppressive Might. While it used to be an uneven, ever-changing boundary, the edge of his aura range quickly became a perfect circle.

Brock nodded slowly. Ok… now…

At a pace so sluggish that he was almost sure he wasn’t moving it, O.M. tightened its perimeter. Idly, Brock noticed that his aura volume was ticking down, although it was far far far slower than if he’d been touching a physical item. Good to know…

The time lengthened, from one minute, to three, to five, then ten. Brock managed to tighten his aura to around 50% of its maximum release range, though that in turn increased its density by the same amount. After a few more tries, that seemed to be the demerit, or perhaps benefit, of using O.M. for such a thing.

It meant he could exclude people from the range of his aura, or mask his release further, but only by empowering the oppressive effects it had. It in turn, also seemed to empower the effects and force that Oppressive Might could muster, of course, it was in exchange for range. While undoubtedly useful, it wasn’t entirely the effect he was after.

He found that any further than 50% caused the pressure of his aura resisting against its shell to exceed the shell’s durability. This, of course, resulting in it promptly shattering, taking a small chunk of aura from his reserves and letting the rest flow free once more.

Well… it’s progress.

Brock felt excited, practically overjoyed at this point. After so much struggling with aura manipulation, he’d found a path forward. It might be an imperfect one, he had no clue, but it was a path, nonetheless.

Hours passed by with no sign of Mio, and Brock continued to experiment. His physical enhancement went somewhat smoothly. He was yet to find a way to eliminate the delay in force, though he had a suspicion it was something to do with the shell itself, not its contents.

He’d also attempted created the tentacles like Zin had. They’d worked, though he found that they were entirely useless. It was more efficient to just grab things with Oppressive Might than the tentacles themselves. And until he could find a way to grab onto space, it seemed it was going to stay that way.

As for his endeavours in creating those force projectiles like Zin also had done, he’d found that it was possible, and worked in a similar manner to physical enhancement. Although, without the force of his limb to give the projectile momentum or direction, the shell would explode when he willed it to, ejecting the force in separate directions.

Usually, this led to the power of it being dispersed, making the attack no more dangerous than a brisk breeze. He’d figure it out eventually, but for now, it was also useless.

Still… physical enhancement should help a lot. With it, Brock doubted he’d need to invest in Strength as much. It did make him wonder if there were other physical enhancements, he could make other than force. Maybe I can use it to fix my Dexterity issue too? Somehow?

Licking his lips, Brock gave another attempt at creating a ‘Force Bolt’ as he’d deemed it. O.M. trapped his expanded aura into its shell, and Brock focused as he instilled intent into its contents. Then, slowly, he brought the bolt up, ready to be slung-

“You finally did it, huh?”

Brock whipped around and his bolt shot forward, heading straight for the uninterested form of Mio. His eyes widened, and he tried to alter the direction of the projectile, but it was too late. Its speed was rather considerable, and it was already upon h-

A tentacle rose up from her shadow and took the blow for her, “Hmm. Impressive.”

“Mio, you really need to stop sneaking up on me.”