After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 719

Chapter 719: More Training
Similarly, with many water-user soldiers around, Althea had also begun to train her water abilities. Unlike the original plan, she decided to learn the aggressive forms of water first.

As mentioned, if one had just awakened an element, it was recommended to choose a path of techniques to learn.

It was why Turbo could only use the drowning technique and other low-attack moves because he was a healer. Ryo, on the other hand, focused more on his aggressive attacks like water whips, jets, and other techniques.

Spreading out too much wasn’t practical, no matter how talented, because then they would likely be stuck with the most basic techniques for a long time—even for the rest of their lives.

Althea naturally didn’t risk it and decided to choose one path to focus on and master before crossing over.

However, while she felt she’d fit better with auxiliary types of skills at first, they were going to war now, and she hoped to have as many weapons as possible. This was why she spent more time learning from Ryo instead of Turbo or Betty.

Anyway, Althea had her potions with her and was more concerned with the aggressive capabilities of water than healing skills that she might not be able to awaken anyway.

“Water is good for either path, though a lot of people tend to underestimate the strength of water,” Ryo told her, a fluid ball of water dancing around his hand.

“Water might seem like a mild element, but people forget how many people die from floods and tsunamis, or how a few inches of running water could make a person fall down.”

When teaching something, Ryo’s shyness was temporarily alleviated. He didn’t want to have a bad impression on the great sister-in-law! He couldn’t embarrass the captain in front of his wife!

Althea had no idea the complicated mind of the man, and she only nodded in agreement. She was also intrigued by Juni’s water mutated element: Acid, which in its essence was a water element.

When Juni could control he abilities more, Althea thought to study her skills thoroughly to determine the difference. There was no way for her to awaken it, but she might be able to develop skills inspired from it.

For now, Ryo taught her a few moves though she was still analyzing it. The lesson had to be fast-paced because everyone had too much to do, so basically Ryo was just asked to demo and then give some aid, but the rest was on the students themselves.

Along with her in this class were the other water users like one-half twin Leo. There was even Turbo in the group.

While it was unlikely for him to be able to activate the skill for some time, knowing more couldn’t be harmful. Who knew when he’d activate it during a life-or-death situation?

She didn’t hide this third element of hers anymore, but she didn’t announce it either. Anyone who cared would shut up and pretend not to see, which was what had been happening so far.

Even if people find out, what could she do about it? It was better to equip herself with as many weapons as she could rather than hold back.

Anyway, she already had many targets on her head. Having a third element was just an added feature to her at this point.

Anyway, Ryo diligently demoed the Water whip and water slash to them, damaging dummy dolls in front of them.

If one practiced, they would be able to form whips even if they didn’t awaken the skill. However, the damage was limited.

For example, if against a similarly-leveled opponent, Leo’s whip was just as painful as if hitting someone with a belt.

It was good to distract someone, but who didn’t want to be a bit deadlier when they wanted to? This was the difference of an actual Skill—and this was what they hoped to achieve someday. Ideally, someday soon.

Ryan extended his arm and a tendril of water elongated, as if following his movements. “The focus is to maintain the cohesion, as you probably already know. But the challenge here compared to the usual water ball and other techniques, is also to allow for flexibility while doing so.”

This would require great concentration. If one activated the skill, this would become much more intuitive—almost thoughtless. But, for now, they had to go through this if they wanted even a chance of awakening a skill.

The Water Slash had a similar process, though its focus was more on damage than on flexibility.

The next technique was the Tidal Surge. This was a technique that would produce a surge of water.

It wasn’t exactly a tide and could only create a few inches of water over an area of effect, however it was enough to make people fall down. This effect was much higher if there was a water source nearby.

Without a skill, it was just flooding, but with a skill, it could definitely take people down.

In Althea’s case, she could only do a few inches and maybe imbalance someone of a much lower level. She would need to practice to activate the skill would be at least 10 times stronger, but for now she needed to understand the concept first.

Another technique demoed to them was the Aquatic Blade, though most of them wouldn’t awaken it, though it’d be a good thing to know about, in case they encountered enemies with the same skill.

The Aquatic Blade was awakened in relation to Ryo’s other occupation: Spearman. It was to create sharp blades from water, using the blade of the spear as a sort of controller. The point also increased his accuracy and focus.

Aquatic Blades was basically pressurized water, so much of the Skill was in control. It naturally had limited damage so one had to be able to target the weakspots well.

If one could control it in a way to keep its shape, fine, but if one awakened the skill then the brain effort would be much less, the transparent blades would be much more stable and would only require a bit of mana.

Initially, Ryo was able to control a few blades up to two meters away from him. After using it for months and leveling it up, he had managed to extend it to 3 meters with about 10 blades.

Unfortunately, the enemies he always went against were level 20 or so, and his blades could only serve as distractions and make some minor injuries here and there.

In Leo’s case though, it was different. He was a swordsman, so the technique was useful to extend his reach, so he was particularly passionate about it.

After about an hour or so, Althea was able to create little balls around her that stayed for about a minute.

As they were now, they could only damage people by going straight up their noses and giving them a little headache, but it was very impressive for a couple hours of work.

Finally, the non-aggressive Turbo taught her Mist Shroud. It was unlikely she’d learn of this any time soon, but it was also good to know.

At least she would be able to tell when someone was about to do so by determining the change of humidity around her.

Basically, it had to do with changing the state of water from liquid to gas, which was relatively doable if one had intuitive knowledge of the sciences.

[Learned! Mist Cloud (E) Level 1. Limit visibility of an area 3 meters in radius from user. Mana: -5 Mana]

“…”

She looked worried, “Would this affect my learning of aggressive attacks?”

“…”

To see if it really affected her aggressive skills, they asked her to practice the water whip.

She was already able to create balls float around her. The problem was to be able to elongate it, keep its form stable, and wield it with force that could actually damage, not just splash.

With a determined gleam in her eyes, she stood by the water’s edge. She kept the limit of the water into 1 liter. After all, they didn’t always have ready water sources and condensing that much from air took a lot of energy.

The best technique was to hold water with them at all times. While she had a huge space, people didn’t know this, so she decided to practice with limited ready water.

She took a deep breath, feeling the stagnant water. She felt its ebb and flow forming little by little with her abilities.

She imagined the water coalescing to a whip-like form, but when she waved it to the tree it was more like she just splashed it with water.

Could it be it was really affected?

How disappointing.

“Keep trying, my love,” Garan said, “Unlike most of us, you have integral understanding of what makes an element,” he said, “Perhaps the delineation of aggressive and auxiliary for newbies may not apply to you.”

She nodded at this, still hopeful.

It took her about a quarter an hour for her to get to the level of a fast whip going around her.

She lashed it out, sending a narrow torrent to the tree, and it ended up leaving a deep marking on it. It was not enough to completely cut it down, but it marked, and that was enough show of damage.

Soon, she would be practicing on the precision, and the water danced to her will obediently.

One must know, that when the water users were practicing techniques… it took them at least a day to get the control right. For days, all they’d be able to do was make little splash.

“Damn. As expected of sister-in-law…” Ryo mumbled as he watched her eventually cut down a small tree.

“This talent…”

His voice died down, not daring to say his thoughts out loud.

It’s not human.