Destroyer of Ice and FireChapter 172: Holy Gate of Life
"Only… the power of arcane skill still depends on the strength of arcane particles," Ayrin then immediately said, vexed,
"The more arcane gate you open, the stronger the arcane skills will naturally become."
"Only, there are countless types of arcane skills, some have very unique methods of combining particles with arcane energy…"
"Teacher Liszt! If I understand you correctly, you already have your eyes on a suitable skill?" Ayrin interrupted Liszt before he could even finish.
"Truly surging with excitement." Liszt smiled. He said, imitating Minlur’s tone, "You were wounded heavily enough to be unconscious for three days, but you’re already this full of fighting spirit just after waking up. That’s right, you hit it on the nail, I already prepared for you an arcane skill that’ll make you even stronger."
"What arcane skill is it?" Ayrin asked, full of excitement.
"The secret skill Holy Gate of Life," Liszt said.
On the side, Cana almost fell down head first when she heard.
"Holy Gate of Life?" Ayrin’s eyes widened under the surprise. "Teacher Liszt, is that the secret skills rumors say you’re the only one to grasp in Holy Dawn Academy?"
The next second, what made Cana almost blanch in fright was, Ayrin almost leaped down from the bed.
Her hand subconsciously pressed oneAyrin’s shoulder, but the latter still looked at Liszt in utter excitement, happily shouting, "Teacher Liszt, are you really going to teach me this secret skill, the strongest skill in Holy Dawn Academy?"
"The issue isn’t whether he’ll teach." Cana couldn’t help inserting a few words.
Ayrin looked at her in confusion. "Teacher Cana, what do you mean?"
"Because this secret skill is simply too hard to learn. Apart from him, no one in Holy Dawn Academy managed to learn it during all those years." Then Cana looked at Liszt. "Do you think he can actually learn it?"
Liszt smiled and made no comment.
However, Cana saw a definite answer from his eyes.
"Ayrin’s self-regenerative ability is already stronger than the vast majority of dragon bloodlines, and he can also learn Holy Gate of Life. What on earth…" Shocked, she suddenly had a little trouble continuing her train of thoughts.
…
Cana realized after her shock abated that she would protect Ayrin’s secrets all the better the less she knew, so she left the sickroom. Inside the quiet sickroom, Ayrin looked at Liszt, and couldn’t refrain from asking, "Teacher Liszt, what on earth is Holy Gate of Life like as a skill? If no one can learn it… Since you’re the only one to have truly grasped it, then you should be the only one to know its real secrets, right?"
"It’s a little complicated."
Liszt looked at him and said, "You know by now that each of us has seven innate arcane gates inside of us that can store arcane particles…"
"Could Holy Arcane Gate open all seven arcane gates?" Ayrin subconsciously exclaimed.
"How could it be so powerful? That said, it’s not entirely unrelated…" Liszt made a don’t be hasty gesture at Ayrin, then lazily said, "You won’t be able to sense more arcane gates without enough spiritual strength. Like you right now, you’ll only be able to sense the existence of the third arcane gate after your spiritual strength grows a little further. However, Holy Gate of Life can allow you to store arcane particles inside these arcane gates even when you can’t sense them."
"What does that mean?" Ayrin looked on blankly. He had a little trouble wrapping his head around it.
"Let’s directly talk about the practical effects." Liszt looked at him and said, "Holy Gate of Life can divide the arcane particles you usual condense into seven equal parts and store them separately in the seven gates inside you. You have two open gates now. Usually, you can’t perceive the arcane particles stored inside the five other gates. In other words, you’ll feel like these particles vanished from your body. However, apart from partitioning the storage of arcane particles, Holy Gate of Life can also allocate these particles. During a fight, though you still won’t be able to perceive the existence of the other five gates, you’ll be able to draw on these arcane particles nevertheless."
Ayrin still had some difficulty understanding. He looked Liszt in shock. "Then, apart from the difference in the arcane particles’ strength, isn’t it almost the same as opening all seven doors?"
"It’s not the same. An arcane master who’s truly opened all seven doors can allocate and use the arcane particles any way he wants. But with Holy Gate of Life, you can only use the arcane particles stored in the five gates you can’t sense all in one go," Liszt said, shaking his head.
"Using them in one fell swoop?" Ayrin shook all over. He still didn’t have a clear concept of it, but his subconscious mind already felt this was an extremely frightening thing.
"Isn’t it clear enough yet?" Liszt knew Ayrin himself wanted to understand as fast as possible. With a faint smile, he added, "You should be aware that, when you open more arcane gates, not only it represents stronger arcane particles, naturally leading to more powerful skills, your skill-launching speed will also be higher. The reason why Holy Gate of Life is a taboo skill of our academy is that it allows many skills to have a power surpassing that of a genuine taboo skill. It can allow you to launch a skill at an extreme speed once, and this skill launched extremely fast will also come with an astounding quantity of arcane particles, allowing you to erupt with a fearsome power."
"Taking out all the arcane particles stored in the five arcane gates in an instant and fueling the power of an arcane skill with it…" Ayrin was struck thoroughly dumb.
"Some arcane skill won’t become any stronger even with more arcane particles, but with some skills, the more arcane particles you instantly allocate, the stronger the integrated arcane power will be. So you can imagine it: a two-gates arcane master like you can probably output half a gate’s worth of arcane particles at most usually, even when you’re close to your limits. Launching a skill in those conditions might not be enough to let you deal with a formidable secret skill coming from a three-gate arcane master or higher. However, if you can instantly output five gates’ worth of arcane particles, it’s something that even a four-gate arcane master might not be able to withstand," Liszt said, looking at the shocked Ayrin with a smile. "And that’s merely for someone like you with two open gates. If someone with arcane particles as strong as mine were to instantly squeeze out several gates’ worth of arcane particles, there aren’t many people who could withstand it safe and sound. That’s precisely the reason why the Office of Special Affair often moves me around in order to carry out many important missions."
"That said, this is a taboo skill that’ll become weaker the higher your level, the more arcane gates you open," Liszt added after a pause. "Because, the more arcane gates you open, the less arcane gates this taboo skill will be able to use. If you could truly open all seven doors, then this skill would become entirely redundant."
"But those who can open five arcane gates already stand at the peak of Doraster," Ayrin loudly shouted. "Teacher Liszt, hurry up and teach me this skill!"
"Don’t be hasty, I’m not done explaining yet."
Liszt made a stretch, then said, "You have another natural advantage when it comes to learning this skill. The innate ability of your bloodline allows you to absorb quite a few arcane particles from your opponents during a fight. This means that you can also partition the absorbed particles and store them in the other five gates. This way, you might not be limited to a single powerful outburst in a fight between arcane teams."
"That’s right, after using up all the arcane particles in the five gates in one go, I can still try to refill them with some particles during the fight. I might not be able to fill the five gates to the brim like I usually would, but even if the five gates are only partially full, a one-time outpour will still be much more powerful than the skills I normally launch." Ayrin nodded, dazed.
Looking at Ayrin’s young and tender face, Liszt couldn’t hold back from shaking his head, silently saying to himself, "It probably hasn’t occurred to you yet… But in all likelihood, the senior who let you come into Holy Dawn Academy had planned for it long ago. That’s why he arranged for someone like you fated to withstand the onslaught from the shadow of the Evil Dragon to come to our Holy Dawn Academy."
"Ayrin, pay attention."
After gesturing to Ayrin, Liszt pressed his hand on Ayrin.
Ayrin suddenly felt countless rays of light wandering inside him.
This rays of light of various thickness wandered many times inside him in a fixed pattern, enough to leave a deep impression in his mind.
"Did you remember?" Liszt asked him after withdrawing his hand.
"This is?" Ayrin was still a little immersed in this inner feeling. "Is that the skill-launching method? Do these wandering rays of light represent the flow of arcane particles, while the thickness represents the arcane particles’ intensity?"
"This is Flow Transmission." Liszt nodded. "Some arcane skills with particularly complex internal flows of arcane particles are a little easier to understand this way, compared to reading scrolls."
"But, didn’t professor Plum tell me to read many scrolls and train my self-learning and self-comprehension ability?" Ayrin couldn’t help but ask.
"You and Ferguillo became the most crucial figures in stopping the Evil Dragon followers this time. We haven’t tracked down their leader Dias yet, or that Lotton. The Evil Dragon followers are becoming more and more aware of your abilities, so you’ll certainly become main assassination targets for them from now on. They’ll try to eliminate you guys before you become particularly formidable, while you guys have to become stronger as fast as you can," Liszt said, his face impassive. "As to your comprehension ability… Learning this skill this way is basically enough to enhance your comprehension ability already."
"Lotton ran away even in the state he was in? He’s really strong." After saying these few words, Ayrin still couldn’t hold back from mumbling to himself: "This arcane skill doesn’t seem all that difficult though?"
"What, not that difficult?"
Hearing the latter part of Ayrin’s words, Liszt almost passed out head first on the ground.