[Water Dragon Art, First Form: Understanding Water]
[PS: To summon a water dragon, you must first learn to understand water, control water, and become familiar with water.]
The instant Ethan learned Water Dragon Art, he suddenly felt as if all five of his senses had become much sharper.
His eyes seemed able to see the water vapor in the air.
Although it wasn't especially clear, the shapes of rising vapor, along with the droplets shattered as the floodwaters crashed against the rocks, were all plainly visible to him.
And... it wasn't just that his eyes could see the water element.
Even the skin on his body and the pores on his hands could feel the moisture and dampness in the air.
The feeling was like sitting in a sauna.
The only difference was the lack of high temperature. He could clearly sense the moisture in the air, even judge how humid it was.
Around eighty to ninety percent.
His ears could hear the sound of water. Even the tiny currents beneath the water near him, as well as the sound of hard objects on the riverbed striking the rocks, were crystal clear to him.
At the same time, he could even sense the taste of water.
Whether it was clean water, dirty water, or water with some unusual quality, his nose could distinguish it all.
"So this is Understanding Water?"
Ethan held out his palm and watched the water vapor gather and disperse above it.
This feeling was completely different from learning any of his other skills.
For example, Great Fireball simply taught you how to use fire.
In other words, gather fire elements into a fireball or some other form and launch it.
Water Dragon Art, on the other hand, let you perceive the existence of water from every angle.
Unlike Great Fireball, it didn't let you experience the fire element through your five senses, nor could you understand how it functioned internally. You simply used it.
It was like buying a gun and learning how to shoot.
But you wouldn't know how the gun worked, how each part functioned, how it was constructed, what temperature it reached, the temperature of the bullet when it was fired, or the geometry of its trajectory.
You'd simply learned how to use a gun.
Splash! Splash! Splash!
Just then, Ethan's ears twitched.
He heard the sound of water being disturbed beneath the surface.
The sound carried some resistance because it was underwater, yet it also felt remarkably smooth.
It was as if a large fish were swimming beneath the water, its muscles and skin perfectly adapted to life in water.
Every flick of its tail and every movement followed the physics of swimming so naturally that it gave off an oddly satisfying feeling.
But Ethan knew, the enemy had arrived.
The hammerhead shark that had survived his white cannon earlier was here.
'Heh!'
Ethan drew the Godslayer Sword.
Then...
"Strange Sword Style!"
He thrust it straight into the water below.
Although the sword was aimed at the ground beneath his feet, its tip never touched the earth.
Instead, it passed straight through the mountainside in an incredibly bizarre way and reached the bottom of the water.
The next moment, Ethan felt as though he had stabbed into a very resilient basketball.
The resistance coming through the sword tip irritated him.
So... Ethan slapped the pommel with his other hand.
Pfft!
A faint sound, like puncturing an inflated ball, rang out.
Then a streak of bright red blood floated to the surface.
The thing underwater immediately began struggling violently.
Then... it dove deeper into the water, breaking free of Ethan's sword.
"Oh? Your hide's pretty tough."
Ethan glanced down at the charred ghost hands scattered all over the ground.
Those ghost hands were useful enough, but their defense was terrible.
They couldn't withstand lightning at all.
If he could skin that thing and wrap a layer of its hide around the ghost hands...
'Heh! Heh! Heh!'
'Then getting the chessboard inside the thundercloud would be easy!'
"Water Dragon Art!"
Ethan immediately activated Understanding Water.
Because he had discovered that Understanding Water didn't gain experience through repeated casts or killing monsters.
Instead, it gained experience based on how long the skill remained active.
That's right.
The moment Ethan activated Understanding Water, it gained one experience point every second.
[Understanding Water: EXP 2/1000]
[Understanding Water: EXP 3/1000]
[Understanding Water...]
It seemed... as long as Ethan had enough mental power, he could leave it running until Understanding Water reached max level.
[Mental Power (Current): 6820/8000]
[Mental Power (Current): 6810/8000]
[Mental Power...]
Every second Understanding Water remained active, Ethan lost 10 mental power.
To max out Understanding Water, he would need at least 10,000 mental power.
Sigh!
It was all because increasing his mental power cap was so difficult.
If it worked like Alchemy's static mental power instead, it would be easy. He could simply practice with alchemy arrays for a while and max it out.
The biggest difference between so-called static and current mental power was... Static mental power was like the size of a reservoir.
You could dig a one-meter pit, a swimming pool, or even a lake.
Simply put, it determined how much mental power your container could hold.
Current mental power... was the amount of water actually stored in that reservoir.
Digging the hole was easy.
Filling it with water was the hard part.
Ethan had been constantly using magic that trained mental power, yet he had only managed to raise his current mental power to 8,000.
With that amount of mental power, he could only use the Level 4 Space Gate, Spread Across the Sky Like the Stars, four times.