After coming back to his base and getting a good night of rest, Edward took a day off to assess what happened the day before and his new capacities. Ok, so let’s summarize. I can now teleport, my aura perception has at least doubled and I can see auras with my naked eyes. That is a lot of things to process. I feel like I just got Christmas. With all of the new powers I got, I can safely assume that I reached the next level, becoming an awaken. This means I should be pretty powerful, at least for rural areas. If I remember correctly, in the village, before Marc arrived, there were only two awakens. Caspian the captain of the guard and Balin who is a senior guard.

However, Marc has displayed several powers that I don’t have. He was able to send energy waves from his sword or to shape and keep the energy around his blade. I have no ideas how he was able to do that, I don’t know either if this is something common in awakens. On the other side, he wasn’t able to teleport and I can do that. It is possible that awakens have a different set of abilities. I don’t have enough information to compare my fighting prowess to an average awaken. I shouldn’t get cocky yet even though I got an awesome power.

Now, before experiencing my power and aura perception let’s check my physical capacities too. Edward ready himself to check how many push-ups he was able to do in one series without stopping. He went into position and did one push-up after the other going at a steady pace. What the fuck? I’m not even feeling tired after doing seventy push-ups? How long can I go like that? He continued at the same rhythm, going up and down, not stopping while a look of incredibility was growing on his face. I’m at 150 push-ups and I can still go on. It’s like push-ups are not enough anymore to get me tired. I could go like this for the whole day. My body is recuperating faster than the push-ups can exhaust me. The whole exercise has become completely meaningless.

He stood up, a little shaken by his discovery. I didn’t realize my body changed this much, with the regular increase in strength provided by the monsters I thought I would have been able to do a little more than a hundred push-ups in one go. But this? This is on a whole different level. Although I have the feeling that it is not really my strength that has increased tremendously but more my capacity to recover. I weigh what? Seventy kilos? It means I can lift seventy kilos with both arms without getting tired.

How I am supposed to test my strength now? Push-ups were such a convenient exercise. I don’t think lifting random heavy things will give me a good measurement of my strength. I don’t even know how to reliably estimate their weight. If I just estimate the weight of rocks by how much trouble I have to lift them, how I am supposed to check my improvement? If my strength increase, I will have less trouble lifting the same weight, but then I would think it is weighing less.

I could try to punch things too. Just like in animes when characters are able to punch through rocks or trees, but even with an increase in strength, I don’t know if my body grew more resistant too. I don’t want to end with a broken hand, alone in the wilds. Let’s leave it like that for now. Time to check my aura perception now.

Edward went on the outside, not going to the forest but simply staying near the exit of the ruins. He slowly extended his aura perception. As the terrain was rocky, there wasn’t much life around, it prevented him from being flooded with information. How far can I push it? Ten meters…twenty meters…Fifty meters seems to be my limit. I can feel some life below the rocks, it is coming as numerous small spots of life blurring together. I am even able to sense life coming from insects even though I can’t distinguish one from the other. I can also feel the rocks around me, they are not alive, but in my mind, I am able to know their location as well as if I was looking at them. Except the color is coming a bit weird, every inanimate object is in a tone of grey, whereas living organisms come out in green. Well, this is not important, what matters is that when I walk at night, I finally won’t stumble on treacherous rocks anymore. "Yes!" He said, pumping his fist into the air.

He looked around, but he wasn’t able to see the aura of the insects with his naked eyes even though he could sense them. Their aura is too weak for me to be able to see it. Now that I think about it. If I can see the aura of other beings, does this mean I can feel my own aura too? He activated his aura, even increasing the output so that he could see it clearly.

Wow…I can really see it and not just sense it in my mind. He was able to see a bright blue flame flickering around his body. It wasn’t bothering his vision, he was still able to see everything normally, and not colored in blue. He stayed like that for a few minutes watching the scene. Even when he wasn’t able to see it, just being able to feel his aura gave him a comforting feeling, soothing his mind. However, being able to see it, dramatically increase the feeling, invigorating him with a sense of confidence. Being able to see the flame with his own eyes, proved to him that he wasn’t dreaming. Everything was real, he hadn’t gone mad, and he had acquired this power by himself.

Everything was worth it. Who needs a chimney fire when you can watch your own aura instead? He stopped increasing his aura output, watching the flame decrease in size, but still visible to him. I will need to test my aura perception in the forest too. Here it's easy, there is not much life. But I don’t want to be overcome by my perception of the forest. This is a pretty useful skill, without it, it would be harder to keep track of the Teleportcrows. Moreover, I wouldn’t be able to detect if there are other monsters nearby. I need to familiarize myself with it until I can use it properly.

Regarding my aura, the books I read were only presenting the basics of aura control. I need to find other books explaining the other aspect of aura uses. I can control my aura easily now, and it has grown stronger too. I should probably be able to do more complicated things with it. At least I know where to find books, there is a huge library in Oshle Tirion, I will only have to slay all the monsters keeping it.

I don’t know if I am ready for that yet. Even Marc was taken down by them. I could maybe fight a monster one-on-one, but when we fled from the facility there was a shitload of them breaking from whatever they were in. At best I could try to sneak past them. If I am stuck in a fight and attract more of them, I’m dead. I will wait for now. I need to continue to adapt to my powers and I want to explore at least the nearby forest. The forest is too huge so I won’t be able to fully explore it without leaving this place. However, even without going too far, I still haven’t explored the total vicinity yet.

And now, last but not least, let’s test the teleportation power. Edward looked around and focus on a particularly big rock, it was taller than the other, providing a good vantage point. The rock was situated around twenty meters away from him. He tried to reproduce what happened in the forest and to reach it with his thought, wishing to go over there. The next moment a layer of black flashed in front of his eyes before he appeared not on the rock, but still quite a fair distance away from it. He stumbled, having been teleported not directly above the ground but a few centimeters above it. Luckily, he managed to avoid falling face first, as he reacted quite enough to put a hand on the floor before falling on it.

Okay, that was not what I was expecting. It seems I still need a little more practice. Gosh, it would be so embarrassing if I teleported to an enemy and crashed in front of him instead of ambushing him. Let’s try it again. Edward went back to his previous position and tried several times to teleport on the rock he had chosen. But no matter what he did he always fell short, teleporting midway instead of on his target. However, the exercise wasn’t useless as he was getting better to receive himself after a teleport. I’m not able to do it. Maybe it is a problem inherent to the power itself? Am I trying from too far away?

He went closer to the rocks before trying again to teleport, this time he still didn’t manage to teleport on the rock but he was closer to it. Okaaay, I feel so stupid. I did a dozen teleportation attempts to teleport on this rock, and I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t managing it, not because I didn’t know how to use my power, but because the teleportation range was too short.

So, my teleportation range is about...ten meters. That’s not a lot but it will be very useful in a fight. I won’t be able to use it to travel far, however. Can I use it to teleport in locked rooms? Not, that I am trying to steal or loot anyone, but that would make this power particularly useful if I am in a town. It would mean I could simply teleport out of a building if I am trapped inside. Or I could use it to avoid enemies cornering me.

Edward went in front of the big rock, the rock being big enough to mask his view, and to prevent him to see what was on the other side. If the teleportation doesn’t work, I hope I won’t end up stuck inside that rock or something like that. Anyway, this rock is thinner than ten meters so it should be alright, my teleportation will reach further than that. And I need to test my power if I want to use it at its best. I can’t wait to be in a tricky situation to pray that my power works the way I want. I have to test it beforehand to know reliably what I can and can’t do.

Edward tried to teleport to the other side of the rock but it was a lot harder to visualize the place you wanted to reach without actually seeing it. He frowned. Does this mean I can’t teleport if something is in the way or is it not working because I’m not able to picture the destination in my mind? But the result is the same, I can’t teleport. Although…if it is only because I can’t visualize the place maybe my aura perception could work. After all, even if there are no auras on the other side I can still sense and perceive the inanimate objects with my aura.

He activated his aura perception, gathering his attention on what was behind the rock, his aura wasn’t blocked by it, and could perceive what was behind. This time, he didn’t even have to picture the place in his mind as he was already seeing it with his aura. He focused and teleported behind the rock the next moment. Yeees, it worked!! Rock zero, Edward one. From now on, walls won’t be enough to stop me.