Bam!
90 kg.
"W-What?!" Ran dropped his jaw in disbelief. His head turned back and forth between the machine and Auric.
"Is there something wrong?" Auric asked while tilting his head.
"That result alone is wrong." Ran covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head helplessly. "This is wrong. Normally, a new student like you can at most increase your physical strength by 10%. Those geniuses with good backgrounds can probably reach 40 to 60%."
"Is that so?" Auric finally figured out the reaction. His number almost doubled. "But it might be just because of my low initial value?"
"Nope. By pouring your magical energy into your fist, it will also improve your momentum. That means even if you have a low initial value, the number won't swing by more than 10%. The difference will be in how you are able to utilize your energy."
Auric smiled wryly. "Well, it must be because of my profession. Thanks to my experience, I'm able to control my energy better."
"That might be. This is too much. Do you know that Ellia Stroph just broke the record last year? She increased her strength by 82%."
"That much?" Auric thought he was an anomaly because he was already an evolution master. But it looked like Ellia was an anomaly in another way.
"Yes." Ran raised one finger. "And that's only because she used her fist. When she used her sword, the score increased further by another 13%."
"What's with the sword?" Auric tilted his head in confusion.
"You don't know about it?" Ran was surprised that Auric didn't even know this kind of information, especially with how close he was with Ellia. "Her talent is extraordinary. With just her space element alone, she is practically untouchable among us. And that gap widened even further with her sword."
"She is that strong?"
"Yep. You can say she is a freak among geniuses. That's why people feel a bit ashamed that she couldn't advance due to her element limitations. Now that it's cleared up, she is probably going to get her top spot soon."
Auric thought for a moment. He rarely paid attention to the news, so he never knew about her.
It was no wonder that Arina was surprised when he revealed he didn't even know her.
Lindwurm suddenly roared. "Waaaaaaaahhhhh!"
"W-What?" Auric's body shook as he turned his head toward Lindwurm.
"What's wrong?" Ran was startled by his sudden reaction.
"Ah?" Auric almost forgot that Ran was in front of him. "Sorry, I thought I heard someone screaming from that direction. I guess it was my imagination."
Ran shook his head. "I didn't hear anything. It must be your imagination."
"Probably." Auric nodded to Ran while complaining inwardly to Lindwurm, 'What the hell are you doing?'
"I have just finished the calculation!" Lindwurm was screaming in front of him. "Our increase is 94% if we round it up. It's 1% less than hers!"
'No, what's the problem? I'm not really a fighter…'
"No can do. We can't afford to lose to her!" Lindwurm was fired up. "All right. I am going to teach you something. This was originally my purpose for coming here."
Auric didn't say anything. It wasn't like this was a problem, so he chose to play along with Lindwurm's instructions.
"Now, you try this again." Lindwurm clapped his hands. "On your first try, you just gathered everything into your hand. However, this is not how you are supposed to do it. Rather than blind gathering, you have to concentrate your power into one single point."
Auric was confused, but he turned around as if he were ready to try again.
"What are you doing?" Ran thought about stopping him so that he didn't waste his strength on just one test.
"Well, my inner demon is telling me not to lose to her." Auric just made a light joke. He wasn't exactly wrong, since he was the only one who could see Lindwurm.
Lindwurm didn't care either. He just wanted to make sure they won.
"Concentrate that energy to the front of your fist. However, you need to keep a single channel that allows a continuous flow of your energy from your heart to your fist. In other words, don't separate the concentration of your energy from your anchor, which is your heart."
Auric didn't understand what Lindwurm was trying to show, but he followed his instructions.
He first gathered the energy into his fist and let it move toward the front of his fist. Then, he formed a channel that connected the energy from his heart to his fist.
The moment he finished, he realized what was actually going on.
'This is…' Auric didn't expect this magical reaction just by creating the connection.
"All energy comes from the source. By blindly gathering your energy into your fist, can't you say that it's the same as releasing your energy? But since you can use the Dual Fusion Method, you can use that channel to connect it to your fist," explained Lindwurm.
'As a result, you are able to create a much more solid layer. So, that's how it is. Without the proper connection, the energy from the previous punch would slip away before the punch could even connect.'
"That's right. With this small addition, you will be able to give a more solid impact. Try it again."
Auric took a deep breath before punching the machine one more time.
Bam!
Ran dropped his jaw. The first punch already shocked him, but this second punch blew his mind. "What the fuck?!"
His reaction was normal upon seeing the number on Auric's machine.
110 kg.
It went up by 20 kg.
"You…" Ran stepped back, looking at Auric as if he were a monster. He certainly didn't sense any battle techniques, so the test should be valid.
Auric was surprised as well, but what surprised him was the thought that appeared after testing its power.
'Lindwurm. Can't I actually use this method to enhance my body armor? Wouldn't that make the body armor stronger?'
"Yes." Lindwurm nodded. "But you need to create more than just one channel and maintain it throughout the whole battle. Can you do it?"
'Okay, I take that back for now.'
Just focusing on one channel was already quite hard for him. At most, he could maintain two channels at the same time, but he couldn't fight while doing so.
Auric asked, "Will this cause me any problems?"
"I don't know. Don't ask me." Ran noticed that people started to look at them. His reaction earlier had already grabbed their attention, so Ran hurriedly grabbed Auric's arm and dashed away. "We need to escape first."
Ran decided to bring him to another section to hide.
"Haa… Ha…" Ran was short of breath because he still didn't know how to react to Auric's test result. "I don't know what to say about you, man. I believe you can surpass Ellia, but I expected you to surpass her in the magical section, not in the strength section."
"129%." Ran was gnashing his teeth. "I don't know how to react to this anymore. Aaahhhh!"
"…" Auric was silent the whole time. Since it would still take him some time to calm down, Auric chose to speak to Lindwurm instead. 'If this is your purpose in coming here, it doesn't look like you're planning to teach me only one thing, right?'
Lindwurm smirked. "Of course. If I have to give you a clue, coming here is to teach you the foundations of battle techniques."
The battle technique was not his priority, but this knowledge might actually help his understanding of his gathering technique. He also planned to understand the concept of improving one's affinity grade, so by understanding this, it might lead him closer to his goal.
'That's interesting.'
"Just remember this. Focus on what you do best—the control of your energy. In that case, the reaction speed test is the most useless one, but you can try it."
Auric started looking around, wondering which section Ran had brought him to. The machine here was similar to the one in the test room, but it looked more advanced. "Is this… the magical section?"
"Ah?" Ran had regained his composure and looked around. "Yeah. This is the magical section. Do you want to test it? This time, nothing is going to surprise me anymore."
Auric nodded. "All right. What should I do here?"
"It's easier to show it to you." Ran stopped in front of the machine. He placed his hand on it. "Place your hand on the machine and release your energy as much as possible. You have to discharge it all in one go. The machine will measure the amount of energy you can discharge."
Bam!
The burst of his energy produced a small gust.
320 points.
"Just like that." Ran casually pointed at the machine. "Before you ask, the average is 90. My expectation for you is 320 points, like my score right now."
It looked like Ran intentionally used that much power to show his control.
Auric nodded with a serious expression. 'You're not going to say anything yet?'
"I will let you take the test first so that you know the difference."
'Fair point.' Auric placed his hand on the machine and gathered his power into his palm before releasing it in one go. "Ha."
Auric let the power burst.
Just like Ran, his power produced a small gust.
It looked like Ran's estimate was quite accurate. He had adjusted the score after witnessing Auric's control in the strength section.
346 points.
Still, Auric managed to surpass his number slightly.
"As expected." Ran nodded with a smile. "The scale for this magical test is around five times that of the strength test. That is because the strength test considers the sharpness of a weapon, while this test measures the purest form of your power."
"That's understandable. Can I try it again?"
"Well…" Ran was a bit speechless. He wanted to say, "Brother. Why don't you just go all out at once so that you don't have to keep shocking me? Are you doing this on purpose?"
Unfortunately, Auric would leave if he ever said those words.
"Sure. Try again."
Auric smiled as he placed his hand on the machine again. "In that case…"
Lindwurm was advising him, "Now, we will do something a bit more advanced than the one in the strength test. Instead of pouring it into your hand first, I want you to concentrate that power near your heart and then discharge it to your hand through the channel."
Auric immediately felt the increase in the difficulty of this control. Because he concentrated it first, it felt like a massive ball being forced through a small hose.
He had to forcefully push it outside. "Ha!"
Auric let out a sound to get the last push. The energy immediately burst with a much more violent power.
"!!!" Ran had expected he would be shocked again, so he had prepared himself, but this was simply too much.
What kind of freak was actually standing in front of him? The violent energy caused the people around them to be startled. Fortunately, this was the section only for those with baby-form avatars since the intensity of their power increased after the evolution.
Still, Auric's result was simply too shocking.
Lindwurm smirked when he saw the result. "Do you understand now? If you concentrate your energy into your roots and connect it to your body, you will have created a more sturdy root. At the very least, they will be sturdy enough to stop Simon's Lightning Discharge.
"The same applies to this technique. If you can release the spikes like this, you can release much more powerful and faster ones.
"Before you ask me why I didn't teach you, it was simply that there wasn't enough time for you to master this advanced control. This is the change that control will bring to your battle techniques. Mastering the control of your energy will make adjusting or creating battle techniques effortless."
Auric couldn't help but agree with Lindwurm, simply because the result was too high to brush off.
606 points.