His urgency to train in magic was not just because of the incoming Beast Wave. He would be fine in the wave even if it happened as it is. He could even run away from the city with Daphne. They could leave everything they had at Solhaven because they didn't have anything to care about.
Even if they stayed, both of them were 1st Circle Aura Knights. As long as they stayed inside the city, they would be able to fight off the stray Magical Beasts that managed to enter the city. But Leo wasn't planning on staying in the safety of the city.
The entire city would be in lockdown with the strongest mages in it fighting the strongest Magical Beasts in Valkyr's Woods. This meant that the center of the forest would be completely free. He would be able to easily enter and see if there was indeed an inheritance left behind by a mage or not.
To do that, he would have to prepare to face any stray beasts. There shouldn't be any 4th Circle Beasts, but there was a chance that there was a 3rd Circle Beast there, considering that the outer forest now had 2nd Circle Magical Beasts regularly appearing there.
To start all of this, he would have to first train his aura technique. He sighed and immediately started. He knew that he would only train his aura to become shadow natured for the first two or three days.
He needed to actually face off against real Magical Beasts to showcase the true power of an aura technique, so he was going to go to the forest after those two days. He pulled out the manual for the Twilight Veil Slash. It was a sword technique that harnesses the power of shadows.
When the technique was initiated, an aura of darkness would envelop the blade, making it shimmer with a faint bluish hue akin to the twilight sky. With swift and precise movements, the swordsman would then unleash a series of slashes that cut through the air with an eerie grace.
As the blade arced through the target, a veil of shadow would trail behind it, momentarily obscuring the surroundings in an ethereal darkness. Upon impact, the Twilight Veil Slash would release a burst of suppressed energy, causing an illusionary wave of twilight shadows to ripple through the air. It leaves behind an afterimage of darkness, momentarily blinding and disorienting the opponent. The technique not only inflicts physical damage but also disrupts the enemy's senses, making it harder for them to counter or evade subsequent attacks.
The hardest part about learning the technique was making his aura become imbibed with the power of shadows and darkness. To Leo, this was the easiest part because of his proficiency with the shadow step. He already experienced the shadows himself. Since he knew how the shadows interacted and how they felt, it was just a matter of turning his aura to be more inclined toward that.
He thought about the shadows that were under his feet and circulated his aura. He then tried to coat his dagger with that aura. His attempt to coat the sword with aura failed miserably, but the aura had a hint of shadows.
He shook his head and tried coating the dagger with aura again. He forgot that for him, controlling the aura to coat his weapon was harder than imbibing it with an element. He spent the next few hours just training to coat his dagger with his aura. After the first ten tries, he started to get the hang of it.
As time passes, he started getting better at it. Once he got used to that, he started trying to introduce the shadow element to it as well. The manual told him that he was supposed to do that first, but he wasn't too bothered about that aspect.
In just one hour, he was able to coat his dagger with a shadow aura. He smiled, pleased with his progress. He decided to take a break from training in aura for the rest of the day and went to train magic for a few hours before resting for the night.
The next morning, he woke up early and started with some aura training. He took an Aura Gathering Pill to see if it still had an effect on him. He felt the aura and circulated it around his body. It was still the same amount of aura, but he realized that compared to the aura he needed to become a Peak-Stage Apprentice Aura Knight, he needed a lot more to become a 2nd Circle Aura Knight.
For the former, he took 3 pills, but for the latter, he expected he needed at least 30 pills. Those pills would only help him become a Peak-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight. He expected that he would need another pill like the Swift Ascension Pill to form his second circle too. This meant that he would need to somehow get his hands on 1 million Starcoins to buy the rest of the pills he needed to reach the Late-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight like he wanted to.
The only good thing that he got from the entire realization was that he was a lot faster at absorbing the pills. He used to take 8 hours to circulate the aura in the pill till it became tame. Now he only took 3 hours. He still needed a break before taking them. If he took them consecutively, he would be exhausted.
He decided to only take one pill before going to train his Twilight Veil Slash. He still hadn't started training the main part of the technique. He still wanted to train his ability to readily coat his dagger with the aura quickly. He also wanted to increase how much shadow element he was imbibing into the dagger.
For two hours, he practiced coating the weapon and for the next three, he practiced doing that with elemental aura. After doing that again for another 5 hours, he finally felt that he was ready enough to face the forest.
Compared to Daphne entering for the first time, Leo already had experience fighting Magical Beasts. He also had the power of a 2nd Star Mage which made him invincible against any 1st Circle Magical Beast.
There wasn't any universe where he would be getting hurt in the process of hunting the Magical Beast. Along with that, with the Beast Cores, he could also nourish the Elderwood plant in his mind. If he didn't, then his plan to train his magic would be halted.
So the trip to the forest would be better if it was as early as possible. It would help him practice freely without him worrying about damaging the house as well. He paid rent on time to the person, but he didn't want to deal with any damages even if he could afford it.
He trained his magic for a few hours in the night before going to sleep. He rested completely and woke up early the next day too. He thought about it a little bit and decided not to take Daphne with him to the forest. He packed up and set out.
