"How is it? Feeling your stats doubled?" Lyria asked while chugging a bottle of potent stuff.
Livy tilted her head, completely baffled.
"No, it feels strange. There's some increase with the breakthrough to mid-stage, but… the two training stats breakthrough feels almost like..."
"Grown two new 'arms' or 'limbs'?" Eric completed Livy's sentence from behind Lyria. He was helping Lyria collect her unused points.
Livy hesitantly nodded. She truly felt something like that. She looked at Eric, confused.
Eric laughed without saying anything.
He was thrilled internally—he hadn't expected Livy to evolve two abilities simultaneously. The chances of all four stats producing an ability with the second training breakthrough had risen to 80%!
"Liv, try to sense what you can do now that was nearly impossible before. Focus inward—you'll feel it," Eric suggested, anticipation in his tone.
Livy nodded and closed her eyes.
After a while, she opened them and focused on her right palm. Her Water Elemental power gushed out, but instead of falling, it hovered in the air.
Eric and Lyria weren't surprised—they could see Livy using Mana to suspend the water above her palm.
Nearly ten gallons of water emerged, consuming roughly 70% of Livy's Mana as a mid-stage Rank 2 Mystical Knight.
Neither Eric nor Lyria understood what she was attempting.
Livy suddenly clenched her fist, compressing the entire ten gallons into a mere inch-sized droplet.
Eric and Lyria's hearts pounded.
For some reason, they felt dread from watching that tiny droplet. Not to mention, the sheer act of compressing that much water into a drop was terrifying by itself.
Livy stood up and then flicked her hand toward the ocean, some dozen meters away from them.
The droplet shot forth at blinding speed—then exploded.
BOOM!
Lyria, Eric, and even Livy gaped widely while watching the power of the explosion.
A hole nearly 5 to 7 meters wide appeared on the ocean's surface, pushing the surrounding water away with explosive force.
Soon, the surrounding ocean water rushed in and forcefully covered the gap.
Lyria and Eric gawk at Livy, who was equally stunned.
Although that attack wouldn't kill them, they would be injured—or perhaps heavily injured—if they didn't guard against it. The question was: Was that Livy's limit, or could she compress even more water?
Even Lyria found Livy had suddenly become too terrifying.
All of them had only practiced a little of elemental control but no spells yet, so this was pretty much Livy's first 'spell'-type attack, as their elemental control wasn't at a level to injure anyone or anything.
After the initial surprise, Livy started jumping with excitement. She nearly had tears of joy running from her eyes.
She finally had a powerful attack with her element!
Her Water Element wasn't weak at all, just as Eric had mentioned in the past.
She turned and leapt into Eric's arms, hugging him tightly.
Eric smiled, letting her revel in the moment. He understood her elation.
They all knew what spells were in the spell books Lysandra had left behind. Although the Water Element wasn't useless and had some nice, creative attacks, still compared to other elements, it was weak. Thus, Livy had always been insecure about her element—both Lyria and Eric could see that—and now that Livy finally had a powerful attack, she had freed herself from her own self-imposed oppression.
Lyria and Eric were happy for Livy, so they let her celebrate with hugs.
After a while, Lyria started to get annoyed, as even she hadn't hugged Eric for that long.
She quickly asked, with the intention of separating Livy from Eric, "Liv, did you use too much mana for that attack?" Her tone still carried her previous shock due to how powerful the attack was. She doubted any Tier 1 spell cast by a Rank 1 or 2 would be that devastating.
Livy finally pulled away from Eric, blushing.
She turned toward Lyria and shook her head. "No, only the water that I drew out cost me mana. Otherwise, compressing the water, making it travel toward the ocean, and finally releasing it uncontrollably—in short, the 'explosion'—all of that cost me just a bit of stamina..."
Even Livy herself felt this was too unbelievable. To her, it truly didn't feel any different than clenching her fist and punching in a certain direction. It was that simple.
Lyria was stupefied, as this was truly unbelievable.
With her limited understanding, she knew that even inborn talents in the world required Mana to execute. So, how could it be as effortless as Livy described?
Eric didn't bother with an explanation, as he would do so later, and asked something he was curious about: "Liv, do you need to draw water through your Mana, then proceed with what you just did?"
If so, then this attack would take a lot of Mana and time to execute.
Livy shook her head gently. "I feel I can compress any water. Probably special water or water infused with someone else's mana might be a challenge."
After saying this, she sprinted to the ocean's edge, waved her hand, and another droplet formed instantly.
Lyria and Eric shudder. They didn't know why, but it strangely felt far more dangerous than the previous one.
Livy aimed at a different part of the ocean, and the 'drop' shot forth.
BOOM!
Eric and Lyria watched the huge explosion and felt only numbness in their hearts.
They were not certain how much damage it had caused, but the explosion was nearly 20% more powerful than the previous one.
Both of them suddenly realized that fighting Livy near any water source had become suicidal. If she kept throwing those 'bombs' at them nonstop, then they could only run for their lives.
Eric, however, could now teleport beside Livy with his new Blink ability, so he was safe.
Livy returned with an excited expression. She couldn't express how happy and relieved she was.
With this, she at least had a powerful fighting method, and both Eric and Lyria could now completely rely on her.
"What about your other stats breakthrough? What do you think you could do now?" Eric inquired with deep interest.
Livy was stunned. She had nearly forgotten that there was another one.
She went into deep thought and soon glanced up with a bewildered expression. "I just feel I can dodge everything and anything... Ly, try attacking me."
Lyria didn't hesitate and pulled out a blunt, long mortal-Tier staff from her Ring and stabbed Livy.
She was still jealous of the long hug that Livy had taken advantage of in her happiness. She needed to teach this little girl a lesson.
The moment the staff was about to hit Livy, she suddenly disappeared and appeared just a foot away from her previous location, completely dodging the strike.
It almost looked as if it was Lyria who had intentionally missed and Livy was standing still where she was.
Eric was certain that Lyria hadn't missed, but he also couldn't figure out what had just happened.
Lyria frowned. She moved her staff like a viper and attacked Livy relentlessly.
Livy, however, dodged every strike. She moved in such a way that she barely seemed to, making it appear as if Lyria kept missing.
This time, both Lyria and Eric noticed that Livy was 'nearly' teleporting a foot or so away from where the attack was about to strike.
The reason it seemed confusing was that even after Livy dodged—somehow—the rest of her body didn't seem to have made any movement. She and her clothes remained undisturbed; even her long, gorgeous hair stayed in place and didn't fly off everywhere while she kept dodging mysteriously.
Due to this weird phenomenon, Livy almost looked stationary, yet her position was constantly changing.
After a while, Lyria gave up, exasperated. Both she and Eric marveled at the strange occurrence.
Was Livy really teleporting?
"Liv, care to explain?" Lyria demanded an answer with deep annoyance and jealousy in her tone. This was an ability that suited her the most, so why Livy? Livy was always great at dodging with her snake-like flexibility, and now she had become even creepier.
Livy burst out laughing.
She turned around and showed her open back toward Lyria while also closing her eyes, then yelled, "Ly, try attacking me again."
Lyria was already angered, so she didn't hold back and started jabbing at Livy again.
But the same thing happened—no matter how fast Lyria attacked with her long staff, Livy kept dodging somehow, even though her eyes remained closed.
Looking at Livy's odd ability, Eric felt strange.
He felt he had seen something similar in his past life, with a tiny fish that lived most of its life on the beach rather than in water.
Lyria gave up with a snort.
She was deeply frustrated.
After their improvement, they had dueled countless times in the last few months. Even if it was hard to hit Livy, at least she could see how Livy moved—but now, she completely lost track of her and couldn't even see a shadow of how Livy dodged or where she dodged toward.
To defeat or hit Livy, one needed to guess where or how she would move. Although she always moved in completely inconceivable ways, after dueling each other for so long, all of them had a very good grasp on the other's fighting methods and movement, and could instinctively guess how the other would dodge. But right now, Lyria had absolutely no idea how Livy would dodge or where she would appear next.
The only thing Lyria noticed was that Livy only moved a foot or so away from her initial location, so if she wanted to hit Livy, perhaps she needed to strike with an attack that covered a large area.
How could Lyria not be annoyed? She suddenly felt that she had become far weaker than Livy!
Livy turned around and, while laughing, hopped toward Eric and once again hugged him—which further infuriated Lyria.
Lyria grasped her staff tightly, wondering whether she should pluck the small hill behind them and throw it at Livy as a whole. A hill might be a little too much for her at this moment, but she could throw all the trees toward Livy.
After hugging for a few moments, Livy left and turned toward Lyria to answer her previous question.
"To be honest, I'm also not sure. I felt I moved or leaped toward my sides before any attack could touch me. It was just too fast for me to even register properly. I can consciously take a hit, but otherwise, it was like auto-activation—I don't even need to think. It's almost like my body won't allow me to get hit. Hm..." She nodded and concluded her current findings, "That's the best I can answer for now. I need to observe these two techniques more deeply to understand them better."
Eric showed his understanding with a nod, while Lyria glared at Livy and didn't respond.
Livy turned toward Eric with excitement. "Brother Eric, help me name these... abilities?"
After thinking for a brief moment, Eric spoke, "Let's call the first ability 'Hydro Explosion.'"
Livy nodded with total acceptance. Whatever Eric named them, she would gladly accept. And both she and Lyria sucked at naming.
Eric hesitated a little. After a while, he shrugged and decided to name it as he recalled.
"Let's call the dodging ability... Mudskipper."
Both Lyria and Livy tilted their heads at such a weird name—they had never heard of it.
Eric was not surprised. Whether there were mudskippers in this world or not was a question, and it wasn't like they had all knowledge of animals throughout the world.
Eric truly felt Livy's ability was as such. She wasn't truly teleporting but was 'skipping'—or rather 'leaping'—from her previous location to another.
Just that the speed was so horribly fast that it was almost undetectable by their current vision. Also, when Livy appeared in another location, her clothes, hair, and so on didn't seem to have moved—almost like her entire body had teleported. That was why her ability was so confusing and created the illusion that she was always stationary, and only her attacker seemed to have missed hitting her.
In any case, Livy needed to research her own ability to have a better understanding of it.
"Congratulations, Liv. Now, before the sky turns dark, let's finish with Ly's too."
Lyria immediately felt adrenaline rushing through her veins with anticipation.
She started chugging and chewing everything in front of her like a starving woman who hadn't eaten or drunk for weeks.
Soon, she was done, and all her stats were maxed out.
Eric then embarked on his journey inside his mind space, while Lyria waited anxiously.