Chapter 116: Nonstop Growth (Part 2)

Have you ever thought about how much pain a migraine patient goes through during their worst moments?

An urge that pushes someone to bang their head against the wall, just to make that pain stop.

The desire to pull your eyes right out of their sockets, just thinking about how relieved they would feel if the unbearable throbbing behind their eyes could find even a little relief.

The pain even makes you forget the motor functions of your own body.

Drool you can’t manage to swallow dries on your chin through the whole ordeal. Your body forces you to keep breathing while your chest tightens so hard that you only notice the pain after everything is finally over.

Magna was currently going through this kind of pain, wanting to pull his head off and set it aside until this whole unbearable sensation finally went away.

He was currently lying on the floor with his eyes closed, just trying to empty his mind enough to forget even the pain itself.

His body spasmed from time to time, all his muscles tensing, his chest forcefully rising and falling, his lungs fighting their way through his body just so it could take in enough oxygen.

Finally, after about a minute of this hellish experience, the pain slowly started to fade.

Magna opened his bloodshot eyes and stared at the ceiling with his gold pupils for a while.

He could feel his whole body slowly relaxing, the muscles that had been clenched returning to normal.

The relief he could feel throughout his body right now was so detailed that he instantly realized his doubled thought process was the reason for it.

It wasn’t just that this new trait doubled his thinking speed, with it his awareness also seemed to have increased quite a bit.

Lying there, he watched the dancing light of the candles burning in the room reflected on the ceiling, and felt that he could actually track their movement patterns with ease.

Up, down, right, left, movements measured in milliseconds that he had never been able to see before, he could now track with his bare eyes.

’This trait would let me solo any complicated boss in games with ease.’ He chuckled, satisfied, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position.

His new gain seemed to make him forget the painful experience he had just gone through.

Next, he checked his remaining mana reserve.

Mana 25.3%

Just as he had guessed, after spending his mana down from 168%, his remaining reserve wasn’t sitting at 68%. It was significantly lower, meaning his overall capacity had once again more than doubled.

Without waiting, he took out two pills from the pouch this time, since one wouldn’t be enough to trigger another option, and threw them into his mouth without wasting time.

Mana 133.7%

The indicator instantly turned from blue to red again, with the system messages once more flooding in front of his eyes.

[Please select a method to utilize the gathered energy.]

Before checking the options, Magna looked inside the pouch and made a quick guess based on the number of pills he had left.

’I think I can trigger the options two more times with what’s left,’ he thought. Of course, that was assuming his mana capacity only doubled each time. If it increased by more than that, he would need to absorb even more energy to reach full capacity.

Triggering it four times in a row in a single day was a huge power up for sure, and he only hoped the remaining three options would be as good as the first, as he finally checked what Gaia was offering him this time.

[Option 1: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase the efficiency of stat gains through training by 10x.]

[Option 2: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to gain a trait that reflects 15% of incoming magical damage back to the caster.]

[Option 3: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to gain the trait to identify the exact elemental affinity of any target.]

"Good. Excellent. Perfect." Magna held back the grin he could feel forming, trying to suppress the incredible excitement building in him.

Option 1 was one of the previous choices, the one that had come to him along with the mana stat option.

Back then he had chosen the mana stat gain option, which he didn’t regret in the slightest, but he had always felt a little down about missing the chance to improve all his stats through training.

Now that chance had just come back to him, just like that.

The second option was also quite overpowered, but he didn’t dwell on it much, since that kind of spell required a tank build.

Since Magna currently relied on dodging any spell that came his way instead of using durability to tank it, this trait wouldn’t be of much use to him.

Though it would make a perfect combo with the spell he had stolen from the Faceless Witch, he still didn’t want to gamble on that kind of build with the enemies he would face in the future.

He didn’t even consider option 3, since it wasn’t a trait he could fully make use of yet.

Being able to tell at a glance which spell type any Witch specialized in was quite powerful, but it wasn’t as good as option 1, which would give him constant growth over time.

Though it would be good if it turned out to be something that showed which elements his targets were weak against.

After losing another 0.2% mana while thinking it over, he made his choice immediately.

[Option 1 selected. Utilizing gathered energy to increase the efficiency of stat gains through training by 10x. Prepare for sudden physical pain...]

Having just gone through one unbearable pain only a few minutes ago, going through the next one made Magna hesitate for a moment, but he still braced himself.

Lying back down on the ground, he waited once again for the countdown to tick down in front of his eyes, like it was happening in slow motion.