TBATE - Making A Much Lighter Path

Chapter 33 - One Day

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WINDSOM'S POV:

'What is the boy planning?' I thought to myself, keeping a fair enough distance from him. I had left him unattended for two weeks, thinking it would be plenty of time for him to have caught a raptor squirrel.

From the fact that I wouldn't have been able to find him in this forest without the help of the bell I had given him, it was obvious that he had mastered erasing his presence. Despite this, Arthur had yet to catch a single squirrel.

The raptor squirrels were swift and highly perceptive. Since their eyes were bad, they relied on their acute nose to sniff for food and their tails to sense any sort of mana fluctuation or even movement in the area. If their tails detected a high concentration of mana or even a minute change in mana levels in the area, it would be difficult for even an asura to catch one.

However, beyond that, the raptor squirrels were rather simple-minded. After erasing his presence, if the boy were to stay absolutely still with some bait in his hands, it would be easy for him to catch one. Yet, the boy had laid out food in front of him, instead.

'Well, he learned the necessary skill that I wanted him to learn,' I shrugged, but for some reason, my gaze was still glued to the boy, as if waiting for something astonishing to happen.

Upon my arrival, it became evident to me without delay that Arthur had achieved a remarkable feat by surpassing the silver stage and attaining the esteemed status of a white core. Asuras, possessing abundant resources and exceptional magical abilities, possess the capability to ascend to the white core stage at a tender age, a process that can be expedited through the utilization of the aether orb, currently under the possession of Kordri. Conversely, the lesser beings, regardless of their age, lack the inherent potential to ever reach the exalted white core stage without the help of the artifacts.

"Yet.. this young man achieved it despite being only in his early adolescence, and is also just a human at that.. i'll have to inform my lord about this" i concluded, still gazing down at the boy which can be considered on par with teenage asuras.

The boy stood unmoving as he continued to wait patiently for a raptor squirrel to draw near.

In the blink of an eye, the boy had suddenly disappeared and reappeared in front of the raptor squirrel with his hand stretched out.

"He..." my voice trailed off in awe.

Right when the boy was about to grab ahold of the raptor squirrel, however, the bell I had given him rang and the raptor squirrel darted away just outside of Arthur's grasp.

"Tch! What a hustle!" The boy yelled, obviously frustrated as he kicked the pile of food he had gathered to lure in the raptor squirrel.

There was no way he could move at that speed without using mana, but...

I couldn't sense it.

That means, he wasn't simply just erasing his presence by withdrawing his mana and hiding his intent. He had been effectively using his own mana while covering it with the pure mana surrounding him

Mirage Walk. It was a rather crude shadow of it, but Arthur had definitely just succeeded in the first step of Mirage Walk. It was a movement technique to put it simply, but it was also much more than that. Mirage Walk was the essence of what made the Thyestes Clan reign over all of the other clans within the Pantheon race.

For a mere human boy to be able to grasp the fundamentals for a mana art that even took me years to grasp... and this was with Kordri secretly teaching me despite his Clan's strict secrecy regarding their mana arts.

For him to be able to get this far just by watching Kordri...

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