Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Using his magic, from the third onward, Rain decided to play with water. He knew that he had more talent with it.

Still, he focused on earth magic because it would work better with his fighting style… either way, after he dug a hole, he closed his eyes and focused his mind on a single image… in the next moment, he fired a super concentrated blast of water from the point of his fingers to the wall in front of him.

The soldiers around furrowed their eyebrows when they felt the ground trembling slightly, and then they opened their eyes widely when they saw a huge chunk of earth being blasted away from the ground. It wasn't the most skilled way to do that kind of job, but it was decent... Rain didn't like it very much, though.

"It used more magic than I expected… I guess it still can be improved," Rain tonight.

While it consumed mana, the blast of pressured water not only softened the ground but also could destroy some underground rocks with ease. The only downside is the fact that their range is limited, and they lose power the longer they travel.

"If I knew that I would have to do this kind of job, I would have more tools," Rain thought. "Anyway, all of the groups are digging three hundred meters each per day, so this will do… now, I just have to be sure that nothing will get in our way."

The weird feeling was still persisting when Rain walked at night, and he didn't think that keeping ignoring it was the best of the ideas… It was time to do something about that.

After having dinner in the village, Rain went to his camp and then entered his tent. While the village chief invited him to sleep and even have his meals at his house, Rain refused to avoid future problems. Besides, that was part of the code of how he should act while working for the organization. He couldn't be too cold or too friendly.

In any case, Rain sat down while looking like he was meditating to recover his mana. Still, instead of that, he was trying something else. By focusing all of his senses on the ground, Rain tried to feel all the vibrations in the area. He could feel a few footsteps in a three-hundred-meter radius using his senses alone.

He actually could hear them instead of feeling them… so he wasn't doing what he had planned.

"This must be the power of my dexterity in action… this is good, but the range is also limited. I need something else," Rain thought.

An Unknown skill leveled up.

The Brawler Path received 100 experience points.

While it wasn't half bad, Rain wanted to find the exact location of the enemies before doing anything. Although he shouldn't use his mana now, that was the only solution to the problem… Rain touched the ground and then slowly made a small amount of mana spread around the area; he didn't control the ground in any shape or form, so the mana used had been smaller than usual.

Still, it eventually covered the whole village.

In the next moment, Rain began to actually feel the footsteps of the people in the village and inside their houses. Rain felt like he had a spiritual radar since he could tell the exact location of the footsteps… However, the range began to decrease every time he gathered the location of the people of the village.

An Unknown skill leveled up.

The Brawler Path received 500 experience points.

"I suppose tracking skills are difficult ones. That explains the high amount of experience," Rain thought. "To cover the entire village, I had to use fifty points of mana; I suspect that the cost will increase alongside the size of the area…"

That was still manageable; Rain just had to use the spell on the right spot and with the right amount of mana before finding the targets. He could do that the next day, so he went to sleep, hoping that the enemies would leave him alone for another night.

The next day, Rain and the others went to work like usual, but Rain didn't use his magic as much; he focused on using his body, and while saving his stamina would be useful for what he had in mind, it wasn't completely necessary. Besides, he can recover stamina way faster than mana.

When the sun began to set, the guards began to prepare to head home; they had to walk for half an hour now, thanks to the distance of the lake to their homes, and Rain followed them behind, but then he stopped and touched the ground with his hands. In the next moment, he made his mana spread around the area in a range of three kilometers. That cost ten times more mana than before.

Still, at least he hit the jackpot… while Rain couldn't feel footsteps, he found some areas on the ground where the temperature was different from the others.

Rain looked in that direction, hoping to see some shades of trees, but he didn't find that… without hesitating, Rain used Impulse in the same direction. The enemies immediately realized that they had been discovered, and they soon materialized in the location that Rain looked toward… a screen of water fell on the ground and revealed five figures that pointed their hands toward Rain.

"Did they use water to become transparent?" Rain thought.

Water can affect light in a way that makes objects submerged in it appear transparent due to the phenomenon of refraction. Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another with a different optical density. When light travels through water, it encounters a change in density, which causes the light rays to bend as they enter and exit the water.

This bending of light is what gives rise to various optical effects, including the illusion of transparency.