Billy thought that the next few days would be pretty noisy thanks to Helen, but she wasn't much of a crybaby, so he was wrong in his guess. Or perhaps the fact that she slept more than Hector and Christina when they were born was the reason for that… Regardless, Billy never heard anything that the elementalists were Sleepyheads, so perhaps that was due to the mix of Billy and Sarah's blood.
"I suppose she will grow pretty fast and become a tall girl…" Billy thought while he watched Helen sleeping on her cradle.
Lately, Billy has been spending a lot of time just watching her sleep. It wasn't fun, but it was calming… Besides, Billy had his spies ready to inform him if something happened, so there was no reason not to enjoy those precious moments.
Just to be sure that they wouldn't feel jealous, Billy decided to spend some extra time with Hector and Christina, and thus, he didn't have time to do anything else during the day. As such, he had to cut down his sleeping hours to resume his magic training. It was time to take the next step now that his submarine was ready. Fortunately, while he didn't train, Billy had some ideas of what he should try next.
The first thing that Billy tried to do was to improve Mana Shield in a very different way. He still wanted to make the skill work and stay active while he was far away from his family. Still, instead of that, he tried to make his shield being hit by sike stones that he controlled using Telekinesis. As expected, since they would damage him, the shield reacted, but that wasn't what Billy wanted… He wanted to make his shield repel the projectile in the direction it came from with even more power than it was fired at him.
"I suppose I need to control the mana of the shield consciously and then use the kinetic energy and mana to fire it right back…" Billy thought. "However, I need to do that in a split of a second, and I can't use more energy than necessary, or I will end up destroying the projectile."
Billy thought of using Telekinesis to fire it back, but it didn't work the way he wanted. He wanted more of an automatic reaction… Still, he would have to do that consciously at least once to become a skill. Billy didn't expect to succeed on the first day, but he didn't imagine that he wouldn't make even a single bit of progress either.
"I suppose I need to try to try to guess the amount of energy of an attack and try to use that as a basis to fire it right back…" Billy thought. "Using the same amount will stop the attack, but Mana Shield already can do that by itself… Perhaps two times the amount of mana will do the job?"
Billy attempted that, but it didn't work… It was hard to say if it was the timing or if it was the amount of mana. He had no idea.
"Oh well… Let's slack off for the day," Billy thought and then left his underground arena.
In the end, whenever Billy saw himself not making any progress with his training, he would procrastinate by playing with his children and watching Helen sleep. Since she was still too small to laugh or even recognize him, he had to settle just by watching her sleep.
"Are you having a hard time with training?" Sarah asked. "It is rare to see you outside the training arena for so long."
"Well, you are one to talk… What about Mana Constructs?" Billy asked.
"Nothing much progress to report," Sarah said. "Still, something like that sure is useful, so I won't give up."
Billy wasn't planning to give up either, but it seemed that he was entering the realm of skills that took months, if not years, to develop. He could well use that time to train and level up the already skills that he had instead of learning new ones.
"That being said, I like that kind of challenge, and learning new things it is also fun," Billy thought.
"You look like someone who just came with a pretty obvious realization," Sarah said.
"Never mind that. Go to sleep and rest as much as possible to recover faster," Billy said and then kissed Sarah's forehead. "You aren't one hundred percent back yet, so you should use these moments to rest."
Sarah nodded and then fixed her position in the bed to sleep. Billy stayed with them until she fell asleep, and then he left the room. After watching and then sleeping in full synchrony, Billy had the idea of using the same strategy with his training. The idea was simple, instead of using the mana of the shield to repel the attack at the moment of the attack, Billy was going to predict where he hit was going to land, and he will enhance the mana of that area… To make the attack be reflected.
"Instead of acting on time, I should act before the attack," Billy thought.
As one would expect, Billy didn't make much progress in the first few days. Still, he eventually got the hang of it. He learned the final trick to make the skill work after three weeks… the final trick was to make his mana move from the shield and push the attack exactly at the same time. Although Billy succeeded after three weeks, he had to keep practicing for another in order to master the skill and get the result that he wanted.
You learned the skill Reflect.
Reflect: it grants you the power to reflect attacks, up to one one hundred points per level. The cost will be equal to one hundred percent of the damage being reflected.
"Finally, huh…" Billy said and then sighed. "I guess I will procrastinate for a short while. Helen is finally able to recognize the shadow of my face, after all."
That was Billy's plan, but another thing got in his way…
