Freedom Jumper-Chapter 132: Intricicies of Mana

Elijah sighed at himself, a simple mistake had almost ended him. Instead of taking it wrongly, he used it as a lesson.

There was one piece missing from this puzzle. The reason for the traveling caravan of goblins.

While healing his body, he began to scan the area for Niko, but instead saw a lifeless body that was most likely a clone unceremoniously walking through the underbrush.

Bam!

The clone had been bursted into smithereens by a stone bat adorned with spikes. Maybe Niko had seen this coming, or maybe he was just taking a precaution. One similarity between any pack of beasts was that they all had a leader.

Instead of the green skin and humanoid features, a towering and muscular figure a little under seven feet tall with the skin tone of a gray whale stood staring at the pile of blood and guts.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up..." Elijah muttered while reaching his arm over his right shoulder.

With only two people, and no clue of where Niko is hiding, he was worried about confronting what Enida had said was a goblin lord – the leader of the caravan. Contrary to his time in Astraea, none of the goblins so far have used any magic. However, there were a few without weapons and those were the ones that had fled after Elijah's confrontation.

"NIKO!!" A scream that would only be heard within the close vicinity came out of Elijah's growing vocal cords. An attempt at regrouping for a combined attack.

From the near distance — within a thick overgrown bush attached to a towering tree — was Niko screaming as loud as he could. "ORANGE!!!"

At first, Elijah was confused, then realized his silence was due to him advancing to the orange core stage.

"Finally..."

After waiting only a single minute as the pain in his back completely disappeared, Elijah flew down to where the thick bushes were being rustled.

Boom!

While he did not put his all into his attack, he was still surprised at the large fist that had caught his attack. However, he made a crucial mistake by revealing his position — by breaking a branch — which caused the goblin lord to become aware of his position instantly.

Compared to the ordinary goblins, this one had to have been a seasoned veteran with the way it fought. The missing swings of his spiked bat hit the trees violently causing the splintered wood to get in the face of Elijah while flying between trees. His only goal was to land a devastating punch, but it was nearly impossible. The only progress he made was by slowly destroying the bones of the hardened body.

The last thing Elijah wanted to do is cause damage to his own self.

However, this brought the question about the dynamics of this artificial power. Mana is released within the body, held there, and once an impact is made, disappears. The result of using too much mana does not exist due to his body being fundamentally changed, so why was there still damage after the fact?

Thinking back to his forceful fist that wreaked havoc on a group of hunters trapped inside a small inclined alley, and Elijah's feet first piledrive into Rafe's weak wooden staff. While the injury of the dive bomb made sense if the mana was used upon impact, the condensed ball of water did not.

"This is as good of a time as any..."

Elijah set the ball in motion with a quick change in position. While silently looking around the other side of the tree, he saw the regrouped goblins cautiously walking through the ground cover – batting away the bright green leaves that would brush against their face.

Secretly, Elijah's hand began to form a slight ethereal glow – a glow filled with more mana than he had ever managed before with his transformed body.

The moist ground underneath his right foot was slightly indented, and with the swing of his hips, the most ear-shattering sound of a thick towering tree being shattered to bits echoed through the forest.

A lone hammer that was beaten against a sword within the depths of a deep cavern...

BOOOM!

After the impact of Elijah's fist turning a section of the tree into nothing but mere splinters, the leftovers of the tree fell onto the group of goblins with only a select few of them escaping.

BOOM!

Elijah was disoriented by the gusts of wind and dirt being thrown up into the air. However, his idea had worked out perfectly with an undamaged hand that emanated the same ethereal glow!

The idea behind this process was how the mana reacted with his body, strengthening it in the process – essentially allowing Elijah to transcend the limits of a normal human body with mana as fuel. Unfortunately, he believed this did not make him invulnerable to attacks, which was confirmed a few seconds after Elijah had compiled his thoughts.

Bam!

With a palm made of steel, the goblin lord appeared from within the chaos, and struck Elijah's stomach, sending him tumbling in between a multitude of towering trees. If Elijah would have made contact with a tree, he had no idea how his body would have survived. Quickly, Elijah stabilized himself in mid-air.

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Coalescing within his hands was a spear of water, pulsating with every second that passed. The small ethereal glow returned to Elijah's body before sending forth a spear at breakneck speed.

Instead of watching the spear try to be grabbed from the chest of the goblin lord, Elijah followed his spear for an assault!

One by one, Elijah moved around the trees dealing bone-breaking blows that slowly but surely removed the goblins' ability to move. The hit he had just taken smashed his innards together. One more would be fatal.

Just as Elijah was about to deal the finishing blow, a thick and condensed beam of fire shot through a towering tree — directly into the goblin lord's face.

The crooked teeth and large nose were no more as it finally slumped to the ground.

"That was a painful experience..." Niko said while coming from the other side of thick leaves and bushes.

"You felt pain when reaching the orange core stage?" Elijah was confused he did not experience pain when advancing.

Niko was about to answer, but stabbed his large runic knife into a goblin just about to pierce his back.

"... Thank you." Elijah could only reply in a monotone voice — embarrassed by his obliviousness.

Something bugged both Elijah and Niko about this mission, or truthfully...

It wasn't the mission, but the tell the goblins gave off.

Family, destination, and sadness.

The chivalry of grabbing their dead kin, and the goblin lords act of not sending them to death but trying to escape the area instead.

It's almost as if the goblins had no desire to fight the humans. At least these one's didn't...

Elijah and Niko finished up the beasts while grabbing the cores along the way. In total 26 beast cores were stuffed into two spatial storages with all of them being orange cores besides the singular yellow core from the goblin king.

Instead of simply flying to the wall, Elijah decided to walk cautiously as he had used up 70 percent of his mana capacity. The walk was filled with peeking around trees, listening to the sounds of the jungle, and also talking about the complicated spells Niko would put to use. This made Elijah realize he had been neglecting his water magic. Right now, his weakness is anything that came from a distance, alongside his defensive capabilities.

The principles of water are ever changing, flowing, absorbing, and most likely more he couldn't think of at the moment. Without knowing if absorbing the blows of a powerful beast or an enemy was possible at the orange core stage, he decided to begin taking time out of his day to test his magical abilities. At this point, anything would be of use.

Niko on the other hand, desperately wanted to throw more powerful and condensed exploding fireballs despite the fact that he could give away his position easily and catch fire to the forest. Just like with everything, circumstance matters. Another idea was creating a spear just like Elijah had created, but keeping it on his person – wielding it like a spear master. The whole idea of Niko's upgrade to the orange core was that it gives him the ability to create complicated shapes formed by the magic itself.

At least, this is what Elijah had theorized from his own experience.