Ion ➡️ aeon
---
"Janet, what exactly is the difference between humans and elves?"
Aeon asked Janet, who was sitting cross-legged in front of him along with Alice.
Janet answered after a bit of light thinking,
"The elven race has a much greater affinity with mana and mana spirits than humans... while humans have a great superiority in terms of soul strength... right?"
Aeon replied, "Yes, that's correct, and here lies your problem... you have a talent similar to that of the elven race, but you act either like elves only or like humans only, without trying to merge the two."
Janet froze for a moment at Aeon's statement. In truth, she had tried this before, but she didn't know how to truly use her talents beyond a superficial level. She had fast recovery due to her mana affinity, and also had very strong control because her talent as a human in terms of soul strength was stronger than that of elves... so she thought that this was the maximum that could be reached.
She explained this to Aeon, who nodded his head, then shook it left and right.
"You are like someone who covers the paper in front of his eyes from the mountain behind the paper. Your thinking is limited by familiar methods, and you haven't tried to look outside the box."
Janet nodded, then said hesitantly,
"By saying that, do you mean you have an idea of what I can do to merge my talents?"
Aeon smiled gently and said,
"Yes, I have some ideas. First, let's start with something simple... try to extend your senses to the surrounding mana."
"Extend my senses?" Janet said in confusion.
"Yes, extend your senses. Try to see what's around you through the mana surrounding you, not just your eyes. You have such a great affinity with mana that it wants you to use it. Use it as an extension of your awareness," he said seriously.
He had thought of this the moment he saw Janet. He understood her talent well, but her power was weak, and the sense of danger she gave Aeon could barely be called danger... she was simply wasting her talent.
Janet nodded, closed her eyes, and began to do as Aeon told her.
While Janet was trying, Alice had a look of pride on her face. Aeon couldn't help but smile helplessly as he saw his little sister's face.
Janet remained in that state for a few breaths when suddenly she let out an excited shout while her eyes were still closed.
But before she could finish her shout, a rock headed toward Janet's blind spot.
She saw it very clearly, but her body barely reacted before the rock hit her head and made a bump.
"What the hell is that, Aeon!!" she shouted at Aeon, who was slowly withdrawing his aura without trying to hide his action. He had used his aura to move the rock toward her silently.
He replied with a playful smile,
"Well, I was testing whether you succeeded. I got bored of waiting."
Janet replied angrily,
"You didn't even give me time to celebrate and tell you that I succeeded!!"
Alice said laughing,
"Don't listen to my big brother's nonsense. This is one of his habits. He wanted to test your reaction with your new senses. If he didn't do it, I would have."
"Well, this is good. I didn't expect you to succeed this quickly in the first place. With time, you will integrate this sense into your combat sense, and your strength will multiply many times. Now let's see what you can really do with this talent... now create a spell, just the form of the spell, but don't draw mana from your body to do it. Instead, make the surrounding mana activate the spell," Aeon said.
Janet nodded and did as he told her.
She closed her eyes, then sensed that feeling again by merging her senses with the surrounding mana. Once that feeling came to her again, she raised her hand and a green circle appeared in front of her. As soon as it formed, she stopped supplying it with her own mana and began communicating with the surrounding mana.
After a few moments, the mana circle began to glow green, rotating and expanding with force, and emitted a green light that illuminated the entire room.
At first, Alice and Aeon were happy about this, especially Aeon, who did not expect the power of this move to reach such a level.
Eleanor, who was in the middle of her training, suddenly stopped as she watched Janet's spell. She recognized it as a blue-rank spell, but the power of this spell was stronger than any blue spell she had seen before. Suddenly, she saw Aeon turn pale in fear.
He rushed toward Alice, who had also turned pale in fear, pulled her quickly, then went to Janet and pulled her as well, then headed toward Eleanor, who was watching them in shock. He pulled her too and fled toward a corner of the training ground.
"What are you doing, Aeon!!" Eleanor shouted, her face slightly red, but at the same time filled with worry when she saw Aeon's terrified reaction.
But Aeon did not respond to her. Instead, he stared at Janet, with hesitation visible in his eyes. Alice also stood watching her friend in concern.
It seemed that Janet had sunk into that feeling of merging her senses with the surrounding mana and completely forgot the outside world. She continued to drain her soul power to urge the mana to enhance her spell and lost herself involuntarily in the process.
Aeon pressed his finger on Janet's forehead and sent his consciousness into her spiritual sea to examine it. Entering was easy because Janet was almost unconscious; otherwise, Aeon would not have been able to enter her spiritual sea so easily.
Aeon quickly looked at her spiritual sea, then withdrew and evaluated the remaining mana in the training ground with his senses. He could only frown.
"Damn it, she won't last like this," he cursed.
"Alice, start injecting your soul power into Janet. We can't risk what might happen to her if her soul power is completely drained. It will take a long time for her to wake up again," he said, turning to Alice.
Alice nodded quickly, then pressed her palm against the back of Janet's head, and her hand began to glow with a milky white light as she transferred her soul power to Janet.
Then he turned to Eleanor and said seriously,
"We are stuck now. Soon, all the mana in the training ground will be drawn in... we should be thankful that the training grounds are isolated from each other, otherwise I don't know the scale of the disaster that would occur. I need you to protect us. In a moment, I will focus all my power on an attack, and if anything unexpected happens, defend us."
Eleanor could not understand what was happening. She was extremely confused and wanted to ask Aeon what was going on here. How could someone at only blue rank summon such monstrous power...? Many questions ran through her mind, but this was not the time.
She nodded at Aeon, then began gathering mana and focusing her senses to the maximum in preparation for any emergency.
Aeon sighed in relief when he saw Eleanor. In the end, she was someone reliable. Then he turned his gaze toward the mana circle, which had already expanded to more than 15 meters in diameter, and its glow was still increasing. The ground shook beneath their feet, and even the air pressure began to change around them and press down on them. When he saw this and thought about the scale of this power, he could only feel a chill run down his spine.
He exhaled, then slowly raised his right hand, then held his left hand just below the elbow of his right arm.
His aura began to rise from beneath his feet to his hands, then formed into a small compressed sphere in front of his right hand.