After three hours, teacher Niria left Shang's room while Shang continued sitting on the ground.
'I should have asked the teachers earlier on how to train my Affinities,' Shang thought. 'There are so many applications.'
What had Shang learned about the Darkness Affinity?
Well, there were several things he had learned.
For example, Shang had learned that he could unleash his Darkness Affinity on other parts of his body but with diminished effects.
If his left arm were severely damaged, he could theoretically use his right arm or his legs to absorb the enemy's life force. Of course, the absorption would be far weaker, and the life force would need to travel through the body to the left arm.
Sure, that wouldn't be such a big issue with the Darkness Affinity, but it would be a problem for his other three Affinities. If a line of Ice Mana went through Shang's entire body, for example, he would severely injure his organs. Basically destroying his left arm wasn't such a big issue, but nearly destroying his organs would be.
Shang wasn't certain how to train his other Affinities, but he guessed that he could learn to train them by extrapolating the methods he had used to get in touch with his Darkness Affinity.
The special kind of meditation Shang had entered allowed him to enter a world of darkness. Of course, that world wasn't real, and it was only a representation of his mastery of Darkness Mana.
But in that world, Shang had it way easier to control the Darkness Mana. His sensitivity had spiked, and the Darkness Mana followed his will to a certain degree.
Of course, that was only relative. His control over Darkness Mana was better in that world, but it definitely wasn't good.
But it helped Shang in getting more familiar with Darkness Mana.
What had surprised him was when teacher Niria had told Shang that this was the kind of meditation Mages learned spells with. They entered this world to get more familiar with their Element. Then, they would follow certain guidelines on how to manipulate the Mana.
When the Mage was able to perfectly emulate the Mana manipulation and Mana movement without the meditation, they would have learned a spell.
Of course, that took a long time and a lot of work. On top of that, it needed these guidelines, which were the instruction manuals for spells.
Sadly, Shang couldn't learn any spells. He had a warrior's body, which made his mind far too weak and slow. In a sense, Shang's mind was on the level of an Initial Apprentice, the equivalent of an Initial Soldier Stage warrior.
Apprentices on that level didn't even have the ability to learn spells. Their sensitivity to Mana was just too weak.
But the meditation technique was still useful to Shang since it opened the door to actually controlling his Affinity.
Shang wouldn't be able to do many complex things with his Darkness Affinity for a long time, but with enough training, he could learn additional attacks.
Teacher Niria told him that one of the more common attacks with the Darkness Affinity was an instantaneous burst of absorption combined with a punch.
As soon as the punch hit, the life energy at the spot where the punch hit the enemy would be sucked out, severely weakening their defense. The power of the punch would then have a devastating effect.
Sadly, this more common attack only became common in the General Stage.
There was also a way to infuse one's weapon with Darkness Mana, which would then draw the life energy out of the target it struck.
However, that attack needed three requisites.
First, one needed a weapon that could absorb Darkness Mana.
Second, one needed to have great control over Darkness Mana.
Third, one needed to be in the General Stage since a warrior could only release their inherent Mana into the surroundings at that Stage.
Teacher Niria had said that this was a Mage warrior technique. Getting one's sensitivity of one's Affinity to that level required a lot of work and time, and most warriors would rather do something else.
Shang would have it especially difficult since he had a warrior's body.
Funnily enough, that also meant that Darkness Affinity ore was really not important for Shang.
It wouldn't increase his Battle-Strength since he couldn't use the effect.
Luckily, Shang had a potential workaround. Although, it was questionable if it worked.
At the moment, Shang's Darkness Absorb simply summoned Darkness Mana inside his left arm. Darkness Mana pulled life energy towards it wherever it existed, which was how the Darkness Absorb worked.
The theoretical workaround was for Shang to summon the Darkness Mana and shoot it out of his arm, similar to his Ice and Fire Blasts.
Of course, that would also come with problems.
As soon as the Darkness Mana left Shang, it would pull Shang's life energy with it. That would basically give it the same drawback as Shang's Light Burst.
But if Shang could deal with that drawback, he could theoretically blast his weapon with Darkness Mana and then attack the enemy. That would have a very similar effect to that Mage warrior technique without the troublesome training.
There were also other applications for Darkness Mana. For example, one could also infuse the enemy with Darkness Mana and sabotage their body. That effect was even more destructive than Darkness Absorb.
However, the user wouldn't get anything out of it. Darkness Absorb would give Shang life energy, but if he used that other technique, he wouldn't gain anything. Even worse, he would need to spend his own life energy to infuse his enemy with Darkness Mana.
But the effect would be devastating. It would have a similar effect to a Vanishing Snake's bite. The enemy's body would very quickly fall apart in their insides.
Of course, all of this was far in the future. Right now, Shang didn't even have the ability to shape his Darkness Mana into another shape. He had only just taken his first steps in terms of Mana manipulation.
And all of that was only for his Darkness Affinity.
He had three more.
Shang hadn't received teaching in his other Affinities, but he could guess a couple of things he could theoretically do.
After realizing that Shang could theoretically also expel his Darkness Mana, he used the same logic with his Light Affinity but in reverse.
He normally shot out Light Mana with his Light Burst.
So, what if he absorbed it?
Wouldn't he then get life energy?
That should be possible.
Of course, the density of Light Mana in the surroundings wasn't very high, and during the night, it was almost not present at all.
Shang could probably expedite his healing while sitting in sunlight, but his absorption of Light Mana was definitely lacking.
If he managed to manipulate light with way more skill, he could probably strengthen the absorption of Light Mana by a lot, but just like with his Darkness Mana, it would take a long time of meditation.
Luckily, Fire and Ice Affinities had way more applications.
Fire Blades, Ice Blades, Fire Lasers, Ice Beams, Fireballs, Ice Shields, and so on.
There were a lot of possibilities.
However, there was just one problem.
Basically all of these applications were spells…
And Shang couldn't learn any spells.
