Calamity Upon This World

"Try to feel the energy inside your body," Michael advised.

Right now, William was sitting in a private guild training hall, trying to improve his aura manipulation with Michael helping him out.

The mission they had taken didn't start until three more days.

While William wanted to rest today due to his body still having accumulated fatigue from his time in Zunesha village that he had forgotten about, Zephyr strongly advised him to work on his aura manipulation.

While William didn't remember it, Zephyr clearly remembered how William almost got killed by an aura master.

And he wanted to prevent a similar scenario in the future, so he advised him to ask Michael to finally take his responsibility as his master seriously and teach him about aura.

While Rex had taught him the basics of aura and what it was, he hadn't spent enough time yet to teach him to use the power.

He probably planned to take things slow in the aura department until William's body was a bit more mature and developed; he had no way of knowing that William would leave the house before he could teach him.

But thanks to William's [aura genius] skill, he was at least able to sense and feel the energy inside him.

The problem came when he tried to move this energy.

No matter what he did, it refused to listen to him like Mana did.

His whole life, William didn't need to try to move Mana; from the moment he was born, Mana just listened to him.

Whenever he thought of something, Mana responded to the wishes of its child.

However, the same wasn't the case for Aura; despite his best efforts, it wasn't listening to him, so he now had to learn and practice it like everyone else.

From what he had learned and understood so far,.

Aura was the energy of self, which came from within the body, more specifically from the heart.

If mana was the energy of the universe capable of being used by most people and races in the world, aura was the energy of the self, which can only be used by very specific individuals and races.

According to his knowledge, beasts, folk, and humans were the only races capable of harnessing the power of aura.

But the universe was fair; if it gave something, it took something else.

The beast folk, in exchange for their talent in aura manipulation, didn't have access to mana.

Humans are one of the most versatile races in the whole world, capable of using most energies in the world under the right circumstances.

They can use mana by awakening, aura by training, and spirit energy through a spirit by forming a contract, assuming they have the right talent for it.

Heck, they could even use miasma by forming a devil contract with a demon; such humans were called devil humans.

These devil humans were a huge problem 6,000 years ago, but now, over the years, they have been persecuted and executed for siding against the world.

But in exchange for all their versatility, humans lack talent in the manipulation of all energies and even have the lowest life span out of all races out there.

In a way, humans are the perfect example of jacks of all trades but masters of none.

But he was getting sidetracked. The point was that he had trouble using aura, and to help improve this, he asked Michael for help.

A decision he very much regretted now due to the latter being a genius himself, just like William.

"Why are you having so much trouble doing something so simple? Aren't you supposed to be a genius?" Michael asked, annoyed to see his disciple having trouble doing something that was supposed to be simple.

Basic aura manipulation can be divided into four parts.

Aura enhancement is the stage where a person uses their aura to enhance their body and stats.

Aura refinement is when a person refines their aura to the best of their abilities to increase its power and toughness.

Aura weapon is when a person coats their weapon in aura.

And last but not least is aura manifestation, where a person manifests something made of aura based on their life experiences and personality to aid them.

Out of these 4 stages, aura enhancement was supposed to be quite basic and not give someone who understood the concept of aura trouble to use it.

'Didn't he tell me he had a skill to help him with using aura? Did he lie? '

'No, that shouldn't be possible. My skill wouldn't alert me if he had lied'

"I'm not sure what's going on exactly," William replied as he rested his body. This was a first for him in his second life.

When he started training today, he expected to be in the aura enhancement stage in just an hour or two.

But now he had been stuck doing the same thing for almost four hours with no progress.

He could feel the dormant energy inside his heart, but it just refused to listen to him and move, regardless of what he tried.

"This sucks," William muttered, having trouble doing something for the first time in his second life. The worst part was that he was having trouble, which was supposed to be basic.

If he didn't have [Aura Genius] skill, he would've just assumed that maybe he wasn't talented in aura and given up.

After all, not like you need aura to be strong, his talent in mana is more than made up for by a supposed lack of talent in another field.

But that wasn't the case, and he felt he'd be wasting his talent if he didn't learn and master aura, which he didn't want.

'Just what exactly am I missing? '

Seeing him struggle so much, Michael had the hypothesis that maybe John didn't have faith in himself.

He didn't know what he wanted to become in the future or what he even wanted in the moment.

Aura isn't like mana; it comes from within, and in order to use it, a person needs a clear image of why they want it.

But he wasn't sure yet, so he didn't bother telling him yet; he needed to observe him more before he could give him some advice.

After that, William trained for another 5 hours, only to end the day with zero progress in his aura manipulation.