AENEVA: THE PATH TO CULTIVATION by Aaron McKinney

Author:Aaron McKinney [McKinney, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

24

Castle Assault

Kaden

My feet padded as I stepped softly down the stone stairs from the top floor of the keep. Stepping out of the stairwell led to a stone hallway illuminated by a familiar blue mana flame. The hallway had giant pieces of art hanging from the walls, similar to the first castle I destroyed. However, there wasn’t anything flammable in my bag of holding, so burning down the castle was an unlikely option this time. Additionally, it looked like the entire structure, minus the doors, was built entirely of stone.

The knob of the first door opened without so much as a squeak. The room was dark, but stepping in resulted in an automatic mana lamp activating. The room appeared to be some type of wizard’s lab. Books were splayed all over one desk, with a door at the back. I carefully edged the door open and found an alchemical lab with another door at the back. There were beakers, solutions, and various implements an alchemist might use to make potions. The next room had a floor sloping down to a circular depression with gold-inlaid runes and a pool of dried blood. It looked really gross.

Backing out of the lab, I returned to the hallway and heard footsteps. I quickly returned to the first room and hid so that if the door opened, I would be positioned behind it. Sure enough, the door opened a moment later, and an orc in wizard robes walked over to the desk. I had a split second to decide before the door shut. Should I attack the mage or slip out into the hall?

I timed my movement, so it happened right as the door clicked shut. The noise helped to mask my footsteps, and I pushed fifty points into body and fifty points into mind. Time seemed to stop; my foot hung in the air and then slowly descended. The extra reaction time my mind stat gave allowed me to plan my Baji Quan attack perfectly, and I executed the movement just the way I remembered being taught.

I went for the double fist strike, a charge-step technique that used a combination of momentum, body weight, and the full power of my muscles to deliver the most potent physical attack I could. If I had executed this attack against the dense orcs before gaining my ability to use energy, it would have broken my fists and arms from the sheer shock of the impact. However, in the second before my fists connected with the base of the mage’s spine, I switched the fifty points from mind to body for a total of one hundred points in body, which boosted my resistance to damage.

Wham! My energy-infused fists impacted a magic barrier! However, with one hundred points in body, I was as powerful as the combined strength of ten regular orcs, and the sheer power, combined with my martial technique, broke the ward, causing the mage’s defense necklace to shatter.

My body’s momentum carried me into the orc, and we crashed towards his desk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.