Manaless Mage

Chapter 165  The other voice’s words

 Just like the last time, Harry also sensed the energy within him flowing once more, except this time, it was flowing through his legs, boosting his speed.

One thing he noticed was that the amount of energy that was being utilized by the system to activate <nulli>[Accelerate] was a lot more than the one needed to activate <nulli>[Rock Fists].

 However, this didn't surprise him. After all, the skill level of the former was a lot higher than that of the latter.

 Harnessing his energy, Harry directly increased the amount of energy flowing through his legs.

  And unsurprisingly, he could feel his speed and agility increasing even more, rising to levels he never thought was possible before today.

 Although no notification about more stat points being added to his agility appeared in front of him, Harry could feel that his agility had already increased even more than before.

 "Wow." He mumbled, with his eyes widened in surprise and amusement.

<nulli>Screech!!

 A loud sound suddenly reverberated in the air, as a huge rabbit with a long blue horn in the middle of its forehead suddenly jumped at him.

 Its mouth was wide open, revealing a set of small, yet deadly fangs as it jumped towards Harry, with a loud, and annoying screech.

Harry, who was still taken aback by how much slower the world around him seemed, <nulli>'slowly' turned his head towards the mana beast.

 From the long blue horn on its head, he could recognize that this mana beast was a blue-horned rabbit, just like the one he killed on his first day in the beast forest, except that it was in the second stage.

However, what surprised him the most was how <nulli>'slow' the beast was jumping at him, it was as things were playing in slow motion.

  Though this was something he was already used to, as objects and people around him tended to move slower when [Accelerate] was active, this time just seemed a like a whole new experience.

 It should be noted that horned rabbits were a race of mana beasts well known for their high speed and agility, and even the last one he met had an agility stat well into the 80's despite only being a stage one mana beast.

So the speed and agility of this particular rabbit jumping towards him was surely be above 120 at least, which only made the new heights of his <nulli>[Accelerate] more impressive to him!

 The skill was already overpowered, and with this new discovery of his, it had become even more overpowered.

<nullb><nulli>[-70 Energy Points]

 A system notification appeared in front of him, but Harry ignored it. He wasn't too worried about his energy depleting, since he knew it would completely recover within seconds.

 For some reason, his energy regeneration seemed to have gotten even more faster ever since he started channeling his energy directly.

 It was as if, the more he became more attune with the flame within him, the faster his energy regenerated.

<nulli> 'This is just amazing!' Harry thought in excitement.

  "Hehe." Harry chuckled in a low voice, before turning his head back to the mana beast with a wide smile on his face.

 Stretching one of his hands towards the rabbit, Harry used another skill.

 "Wind Blade." He muttered, while also harnessing his energy and directly increasing the power of the skill. He only pumped a little more amount of energy into the skill, since he didn't just want to squander his energy points.

 Immediately, a long, thin blade made purely of wind rapidly formed in front of his palms.

 The amount of wind compressed into the blade was more than the usual amount, and the blade was sharper also.

<nullb><nulli>[-54 Energy points]

 With a mental command from him, the blade shot towards the rabbit at astonishing speed, closing in on it within the blink of an eye.

<nulli>Swoosh!!

 The blade hit the neck of the blue horned rabbit, slicing through it easily like the beast was made of paper, and ending the beast's life.

 The body of the rabbit fell on the ground, making a low soft thud, with its head missing from its neck, and blood repeatedly spurting out of its neck.

<nulli> 'Wow…' Harry thought, with a slight smile on his face.

<nulli> 'Maybe I shouldn't have done that… so at least I would be able to sell it. Dammit.' He thought, but didn't ponder on it for too long before brushing the thought out of his mind.

 However, he didn't plan on absorbing the mana in the body, since he still wasn't sure if he wouldn't be able to sell it. While he had cut off the head of the beast, the body was still in good condition, so there was a chance it would sell for a good price.

 He stored the rabbit in his storage device, but not before removing the beast core in its head.

It was then he finally remembered he still hadn't taken the beast core out of the black goat he killed earlier, so he went to it and removed the beast core, placing it in his storage device, before going on to use <nulli>[Mana steal] on the mana beast cut-riddled body.

<nullb><nulli>[+4000EXP]

 The amount of EXP he gained wasn't much, but he wasn't complaining, since it was still something after all.

  After finishing all he had to do, Harry stared off into the distance with a slight smile on his face.

 Just then, another idea popped into his head.

 If he was able to increase the power of his skills by channeling more energy into them, doesn't that mean the reverse should also work? That is decreasing the power of the skill by reducing the amount of energy flowing through the skill.

 It wasn't that he wanted his skills to get weaker or anything, it was just that he knew there were some situations where he would need to need less power than usual, and learning how to control his skills power output would also benefit him.

 Not just in keeping himself from trouble, but also in hiding his identity as a manaless mage.

 He decided to try this, using [Accelerate] once more, however, no matter how much he tried to reduce the amount of energy channeling through his legs, he just couldn't.

 Harnessing his energy was now quite easy for him, but the reverse case was different, as it didn't seem like redirecting his energy backwards would be as easy.

<nulli> 'Whatever… it's not like that's important right now.' Harry thought, all he had to do was train more on it, and he would surely get it soon enough.

 He deactivated the skill, to prevent it from consuming his energy. Though his energy regenerated fast, it still didn't mean he would use it wastefully.

 He turned around and started walking away, when a familiar voice suddenly sounded in his head.

<nulli>[I didn't actually expect you to get this good in controlling your energy within just a few months.]

<nulli>'The other voice?' Harry mumbled inwardly in surprise, his brows rising slightly in surprise.

 One thing he hadn't expected was the 'other voice' to speak to him, at least not at a time like this.

<nulli>[You can see now why I said you should focus more on getting better in controlling your energy, and getting more attune with it.]

<nulli>'Yeah. It really is amazing.' Harry thought, with a weird glint shining through his eyes.

 After saying those words, the other voice went silent, and didn't speak again.

  Harry paused his steps for a second, staring off into the sky with a slight smile on his face.

 The other voice… it was also one of the mysteries of the system, one he hadn't uncovered yet.

It sounded more<nulli> 'human', when compared to the system's flat, robotic voice, which was why Harry gave it the term <nulli>"the system's other voice" or simply <nulli>"other voice" as he always referred to it as.

 However, one thing that had been puzzling him for a while, was that while the 'other voice' seemed like a part of the system, there were also times Harry felt like it wasn't.

 It was confusing thing to explain, and even he didn't understand it very well.

 According to the other voice, it didn't set the quests given to him by the system, and it also didn't seem like it was here just to explain more about the system, due to how it always ghosted him whenever he needed answers the most.

 To put in simpler, it didn't seem like an Ai, programmed only to assist him, but more like an actual person.

<nulli>[You shouldn't worry about things like that too much, if you feel you can't trust me, or the system, then don't.]

<nulli>[But you don't have anything to worry about anything, one thing I can assure you is that I'm not your enemy. And the answers to all these questions you have would be revealed soon... probably sooner than you expect.]

<nulli> 'The answers would be revealed soon, huh?' Harry mumbled inwardly. Sometimes he forgot that the other voice was in his head and could actually read his mind, something which he still found quite annoying.

Nonetheless, what did it mean by <nullb><nulli>"if you feel you can't trust me, then don't", it didn't even seem like the other voice cared much about what Harry thought about it.

<nulli> 'Ahh… I shouldn't think about things like this too much.' Harry thought, rubbing his forehead lightly and immediately brushing the thought off his mind.

While he had his questions about the system and the <nulli>"other voice", it wasn't as if he didn't trust them. They were both the reason he was able to come this far, and he was grateful to them both.

 Besides, there was just this feeling inside him, that he could trust both the system and the other voice. It was more like an intuition, however, Harry trusted on it.

 The system had never failed him, and he doubted it ever would.

***

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