Two weeks later, Mercury had finally managed to raise his mana skin to an acceptable level.
Mercury was floating 40 metres in the air, below him was a group of earth monkeys throwing stones at him.
The stones whistled through the air and bounced off his mana skin barely causing any ripples.
Mercury nodded, " I suspect my mana skin has reached the level of a standard E rank defensive spell.
And if I add earth mana into it, its defence should increase even more, plus that would increase my physical strength as well."
He looked down at the nearly 30 monkeys, each the height of a fully grown human, behind them was a larger monkey.
It stood nearly 2.5 metres tall with thick muscles, the monkey opened its palm and head sized rock appeared.
" Ooo oooo ooo." It stomped the ground and hurled the stone at him, the wind howled, Mercury didn’t move.
A stone shield 2 metres in diameter appeared in front of him blocking the stone, the shield shattered but it stopped the stone.
" I’m getting a hang of this, I can now create bolt already in the shape I desire, although they’re not at E rank yet, they’re pretty close."
Maintaining E rank bolts required a tremendous amount of mana and his mind was not strong enough to handle many of them yet.
It’s not that he couldn’t form one, he already had, his mana skin was another application of his bolt technique.
The thin layer of mana required his constant attention to maintain but that was becoming less and less of an issue.
He was starting to do it subconsciously, he was not there yet but he was close. " My training is progressing steadily, I should be ready by the time the tournament comes around."
Mercury looked down and snapped his fingers, more than 20 lightning bolts appeared around him.
Each the size of a human head, they flickered with dangerous licks of lightning, he pointed his finger down.
Instead of firing the bolts themselves, each of the 20 fired bolts of lightning to the ground like spears.
The monkey screamed and dodged running around dodging the spears of lightning but they chased after them as if they had a mind of their own.
Mercury floated in the air barely paying attention to the rest of the monkeys, his attention was on the biggest.
It was an E rank monster, the monkey created two stones on each of its palms and threw them at him.
Mercury conjured four arch shields in front of him blocking the stones but two more stones came immediately after.
" Shit." He dodged to the side but one stone managed to graze his mana skin causing it to ripple.
Fortunately the mana skin held, Mercury infused earth mana into it, normally he would use the colour change spell to make the mana skin invisible.
But when he added elemental mana, it would take the colour of that mana, a brown glow surrounded his body.
" Earth mana is heavy." Mercury felt a strain on his mind, to fly he had to mentally control his mana skin and use it as a suit.
However once he added earth mana, it was like adding more weight but he held on, going down would be dangerous.
He couldn’t fight the E rank monkey, especially with other monkeys around to help it.
" I wonder if there’s a quick way to increase one’s mental energy, surely there is." That was the only think holding him back.
Others also needed to have strong mental energy to use spells and skills, surely they’ve found a way to increase it at this point.
" I’ll have to ask when I get back." Mercury redirected the 20 bolts of lightning and fired at the E rank monkey.
The monkey crossed its arms and blocked by the lightning burnt its fur and sent it crashing on the ground.
Seeing their effects was not that great Mercury cancelled them, he flew even higher until he reached a hundred metres in the air.
He opened his palm and a drop of water appeared on it, " Let see if this will work." He pointed his palm at the ground.
" Create water." Create water was a low F rank spell, it did just that, created water but one couldn’t control that water.
And how much water one could create depended on how much mana one had but there was an issue.
Because the water created was as real as any natural water and would not disappear even if the spell is cancelled.
The amount of mana needed was beyond insane, after all, this spell was the closest thing to creation magic.
Even members of the royal family could make about 400 litres of they used all their mana.
While that sounded like a lot it was useless in battle, since the water created with the others spells was also drinkable within a certain time limit.
This practically made this spell useless, " But to me." Mercury took off his rings, and released his mana.
The air around him bent and howled, a swirls of blue energy danced around him, the monsters below froze.
To them, it was as if a powerful monster had suddenly appeared. They scurried to run and hide.
The drop of water grew and expanded, water fell from a hundred metres in the sky like a waterfall.
It appeared endless, it crashed on the ground with a stone shattering force and crashed through the forest like an enraged beast.
The water formed a flood more than 3 metres tall, trees crumbled and monkeys drowned.
The E rank monkey held on for a while before it was also washed away, Mercury kept this up for 8 minutes.
It dropped his mana pool to less than 30 percent of his full mana but the forest below had turned into swamp.
Just by looking he could tell the swamp was at least 3 metres deep and covered over 500 metres.
" Mmmm, the spell takes too long to create enough water, by then, any fast or intelligent enemy would just escape."
Mercury looked at the edge of the new swamp and the E rank monkey rose from the ground and glared at him with hatred.
Its brethren had drowned, its hatred was understandable but honestly they were dumb.
They had enough time to escape before he could make enough water but the stood there throwing stones and climbing on trees.
Mercury raised his hand and formed an ice spear, he hurled it at the monkey piercing through its chest in a blink on an eye.
Unfortunately it was an E rank monster with earth elemental mana, it was more durable than most.
The spear barely pierced a few centimetres in, he fired a bolt of lightning immediately after.
The lightning travelled through the spear bypassing the monkeys hide and electrocuted its blood.
Smoke came out of its ears and it fell on its face. Mercury descended, then he suddenly felt a pair of eyes on him.
His head snapped to the side but he saw nothing, he put his ring back on suppressing his mana to 20 times lower than his full mana.
Deep in the jungle, wrapped around a massive red tree was a giant serpent, its head was raised and its eyes were locked on a distant target.
The aura it had felt suddenly disappeared, the serpent lowered its head and closed its eyes.