Ch.19: Is The Attirbuteless Aura Special?
--<3rd PoV>--
Night, 10:30 PM – Ray's Mansion
Cool air fills the room. Ray slouches in his chair, a lean, athletic figure with a sharp edge.
His platinum blonde hair is messy, framing a chiseled face with high cheekbones and piercing jade-green eyes that gleam with confidence.
In a white t-shirt and dark pants, he exudes a casual, commanding vibe. His eyes glint, mind buzzing from the day's fight.
The fight which made him take the first step forward, the fight which made him awaken his aura today.
His martial soul lord of ring hovering just at his right a dark yellow ring formed around it.
He opened his palm as a layer of light blue energy covered it, it was his aura.
It was pure white-blue in color—calm, pale, and almost indistinguishable from regular mana at a glance. But if one looked closely, they'd notice the difference. It was thicker, more condensed solid like a mana crystal.
A deeper shade of blue flowed at its core, almost like the surface of a frozen lake hiding immense pressure beneath.
It had no attribute. None at all.
Most auras do. Fire. Earth. Lightning. Wind. Water. These are the basic five.
Some people go even further and awaken advanced elemental affinities—lava, metal, sound, storm, ice.
And above them, there are superior elemental attributes like gravity, light, darkness, space... and sometimes, something entirely new, something unique which never appeared before one which doesn't even fit in any known category.
So what exactly do these attributes do?
Are they only for flashiness? Or do they actually do anything.
Is there a purpose for having an attribute.
Yes do have purpose.
They make the aura stronger.
Each element brings a unique property to the aura—and to the swordsman who wields it.
Take earth attribute, for example. It naturally boosts one's strength and defense, even when aura isn't actively being used. That alone makes an earth-type aura user hard to fight in head-on clashes.
Other elements bring their own enhancements. Some offer speed. Some offer fluidity or control. Some let you burn everything down in your path.
And on top of passive benefits, certain auras synchronize better with specific martial techniques.
A swordsman with water attribute aura will progress far faster with styles that focus on parrying, redirection, and smooth counters. Defensive sword styles practically beg for that attribute.
So what about advanced and superior elements? What makes them different?
The difference is in scope.
They don't just amplify one trait—they bring overwhelming, multi-faceted growth. Superior elements have more raw power, more versatility, and more room for creativity. They elevate a martial artist to another tier entirely.
They deliver massive boosts. A lava aura might melt steel, imagine fighting head on against a swordsman who not only has enhanced strength but also explosive firepower. Similarly, a space aura could warp distance cutting down their opponent even before they get close.
So... where does that leave him?
Is attributeless aura the weakest of all?
That's what he thought at first.
But when he weighed the benefits carefully—what it brought him, how it worked—he realized something.
'I'm not weaker.'
'I'm stronger. Much stronger. Not in a narrow, elemental path—but in every direction.'
Ray's attributeless aura is special one enhanced by the Mysterious Heaven Skill, now optimized, upgraded and fully tailored to him.
And this technique—especially in its optimized state—is anything but ordinary.
Back when it only operated using mana, he could barely feel a little bit of its real power.
After awakening the aura did the technique show why it became a high end transcendent grade technique after optimization.
Originally, the Mysterious Heaven Skill was a foundational internal cultivation method. It worked by circulating energy through the body's meridian system—twelve standard meridians and eight extraordinary ones.
This specific pattern of movement which resulted in the creation of a gentle, nourishing, and balanced energy flow.
Even without attributes, it refined the body and improved cultivation.
It sped up energy absorption, boosted cultivation speed, increased physical recovery, and improved resistance to toxins and external pressure, further improving energy affinity and energy control. It made the user's body more alive. More aware.
Of course, the technique's effect varies depending on how many meridians a person has unlocked.
And there's no method to force them open. You're either born with them unlocked, or you're not.
(A/N: Lore of soul land 2, they lost it after 10,000 years. The reason for tang sect declining.)
Fortunately for me, when my meridians were formed, all of them opened naturally.
So for me, that limitation doesn't exist.
And after the optimization, not only did all the previous effects of the Mysterious Heaven Skill increase by over 200%, but several new ones were added as well.
The most noticeable change… was the emergence of a dual-property in my once attributeless aura.
Previously, the energy was purely gentle and nourishing. It enhanced the body's survival ability and increased physical strength. Just enough to keep it useful in mild healing while also not being entirely useless in combat.
But let's be honest, the idea of attacking an enemy with a burst of energy, only for them to heal instead of taking damage… was downright ridiculous.
So was the reason for the energy produced being mostly neutral.
But this also means that it excelled in none.
Fortunately, the Optimization Card fixed that problem.
Now, this neutral aura has evolved into something entirely new—an aura with two polar properties. Both coexisting at once. Both completely opposite in function depending on how one use them.
This duality manifests as two extremes of the elementless attribute.
The first is still the gentle, nurturing form. But now, it's on a whole different level. Imagine taking the most dangerous short-term physical enhancers known to man—steroids, cognitive boosters, erythropoietin—without any side effects. That's the closest comparison.
It's almost like a healing spell. But it does more than just help user recover. It steadily pushes the boundaries of their body's potential. The longer one cultivate the Mysterious Heaven Skill, the faster their body gets stronger the only limit is body's adaptability, potential and ability to evolve and not get stuck at a bottleneck.
Then comes the second side of the aura—its destructive half.
This one is sharp, heavy, hard, dense, deep, explosive, and fast—all at once. It's the embodiment of violent energy. An outward force meant to overwhelm anything in its path.
While the aura circulates inside Ray's body, it stays in the gentle state. But the moment he release it… it flips. It becomes the destructive variant.
A simple comparison? Think of the gentle version as healing chakra. The destructive one? That's a Biju Dama. (A/N: Tailed Beast Ball—Naruto reference.)
What makes it even more insane is how both forms exist simultaneously.
The nurturing side only affects him. It strengthens, heals, and protects. The destructive side only affects others. It harms, breaks, and devastates.
In essence, it's like having a buff for himself and a debuff for everyone else.
But to push both properties to their absolute extremes—where one can almost mimic resurrection and the other can kill in a single strike—one need to use both sides constantly. Without stopping. Not even for a second.
Doing so will force the body to adapt. To change. It will evolve into a special kind of physique, one born from pure aura duality.
And honestly, that shouldn't be surprising.
Soul Land is the kind of place where protagonists develop dozens of elemental physiques and stack them all together to become untouchable by the end.
So for someone like Ray—someone who inherited one of the greatest cheats ever given to a double-time protagonist— that to an upgraded version, having something like this is only natural.
Thanks to Super Intuition, he even figured out the formation time and the exact conditions needed for this physique to take shape.
But here's the catch.
Nothing comes easily, if it is easy it is similarly useless or it has side effects which make it unusable.
The more breaks one has while cultivating aura from the moment of its awakening, the longer it'll take to form this physique. And not just that—the dual properties themselves will weaken over time.
Like image today Ray cultivated but if he stopped even for just one minute, the effectiveness of both properties will be weakened by a certain amount, and the time required to form the special physique will be doubled.
That's the balance. A technique is strong but it isn't omnipotent.
It has its own set of impossible-sounding conditions.
Hearing its effects anyone will say this is a scam, but that's not it, as long as you meet every condition nothing is impossible.
So if one want the full benefits, the only correct path is this:
Start cultivating aura the moment it awakens—and never stop until you reach the goal, no matter what happen how many days months years pass don't stop until you become the strongest.
But let's be real.
That's impossible for a normal human being.
Even geniuses can't multitask to such an extreme. They can't cultivate a technique while moving around or doing something else.
Not to mention as a techniques grade increases benefits it provides is not the only things which get greater, the difficulty of cultivation, the risk and danger also become larger.
Yes, some techniques allow growth through combat. But even those require you to be in combat.
You can't cultivate in the middle of eating, sleeping, walking...
People aren't machines. They need rest. They need food. They need sleep.
So for everyone else, this would be out of the question.
"…But not for me."
Ray said it with a smirk of arrogance, eyes glowing faintly with pride.
With the seventh core situated at the end of his spine spinning. The Mysterious Heaven Skill was running all by itself. It autonomously drew ambient mana from the surroundings, absorbing it and converting it without stopping for even a breath.
Even now, the suction force is growing stronger. Constant. Relentless.
It's like an endless race—like a bottomless pit trying to fill itself, but never quite reaching the top.
But to Ray?
That's nothing to worry about.
"My next bottleneck will come at the peak of the Aura Expert stage. Whether I reach it in ten years or ten months… doesn't matter."
"As long as I keep moving forward, I will reach it."
his voice carried a quiet arrogance, filled with cold certainty.
"Yeah, yeah but you are still at the beginner aura expert, so stop talking like you have won the world." A voice sounded amused at Ray's antics.
The voice was of Seraphina, who was siting on the bed in the meditative pose following her schedule of cultivating aura at the night.
She was wearing silk pajamas, soft and loose, tracing her curves. he hoodie attached to the top had cat ears on it, tilted cutely with her messy, damp crimson hair poking out. A few strands clung to her freshly bathed cheeks.
Her usual sharp elegance was replaced by something far softer—adorable, even. And the top three buttons of her pajama shirt were open, revealing a glimpse of her deep cleavage, framed by the subtle swell of two firm peaks rising beneath the silky fabric.
Her shorts ended mid-thigh, revealing her long, toned legs—legs trained through swordsmanship yet smooth and glowing, like they had been sculpted rather than built.
Ray, in contrast to his usual dismissiveness, found himself pausing, watching her, almost mesmerized.
This wasn't the battle-hardened Seraphina who crushed stone with her bare hands. This was her human side—raw, flushed, and freshly out of a bath.
Cute even.
"Look even your dear assistant sitting beside you is getting distracted by your stage behavior," with a mischievous glint in her eyes, looking at the figure sitting at the table adjacent to Ray's.
Half a head shorter than Seraphina, she wore the same style of pajamas, only in pastel blue. A dog-eared hoodie gently rested on her soft silver hair which gleam like moonlight, swaying as she titled her head.
Her snowy white skin shimmered under the soft lighting, delicate and blemish-free. Her thigh-length shorts hugged her smooth legs, just tight enough to accentuate their softness.
Even with the loose fit of the silk, it was impossible to ignore the fullness of her chest which strained her rather loose clothes, and the gentle curves of her waist highlighting her voluptuous figure.
Her eyes shining with curiosity at her name being called distracting her focus out from practicing the magic circuits she was studying for 3rd rank spells.
Lilia
The girl resembled a life-sized doll—beautiful, innocent, cheerful, at times an airhead or shy and glowing with an innate seductive charm.
If Rat had to compare, Seraphina was like a sharper more tomboyish version of an Ojou-sama type childhood friend.
Then Lilia was the innocent but cheerful and airhead girl which will spoil you like gentle big sister till you can't have it anymore.
But ray wasn't the only one who noticed such things.
All the details which when coming together especially the part where chest size was often compared was making Seraphina's eyes twitch in annoyance.
Looking at Lilia's curious and Seraphina's glaring eyes Ray just backed of for a moment not daring to imagine more.
'Jealous girls are more susceptible to internal comparison.' He though once again doing what he should not.
_____________________________
To Be Continued:
[Word Count: 2240]