Of course…
All he had to do was boost the density near his skin, and the equilibrium forces would take care of the rest. Pulling on his prana, he concentrated it next to the edge of his skin, and sure enough, once he’d attained a higher density than the surroundings, it escaped into the atmosphere.
Which meant he’d need a thin layer of supersaturated blood near his skin, all around his body. It’d stretch his blood’s capacity to the max, but he felt he could swing it.
Vir spent the next two hours applying the technique to more and more of his body. Like Light Touch, it initially required active concentration, but unlike Reverse Channeling, it didn’t occupy every ounce of it. He was confident he could turn it into a subconscious process that persisted even while he slept.
The moment he reduced the saturation level of his blood within his body, all traces of lingering pain disappeared.
And that meant he could experiment with Leap.
He’d initially feared that lowering his body’s prana would weaken both his vitality and the ability. His fears were unwarranted. True, he had less prana now than before, but it was still several times more than what it had been in the Human Realm. He brimmed with energy.
Leap actually benefited. The ‘prana suction’ effect was now active the entire time. He didn’t even need to move blood from his feet up his legs anymore. Merely relaxing his control of the supersaturated prana near his skin caused ambient prana to rush in.
By keeping his body at a relatively lower prana level than his surroundings and only saturating the thin layer of prana near his skin to keep the ambient prana at bay, he’d essentially turned his whole body into a prana suction. And, because Ash prana dominated the air, he no longer needed to channel it from the ground up through his legs. It was there wherever he wanted it—his arms, his legs, even his head!
Vir laughed. He wondered if his past incarnations understood as much about prana as he did. If they came to the same solutions to overcome prana poisoning as he had. Or perhaps they had even better techniques for dealing with it?
“What’s so funny?” Cirayus asked, hopping up onto the ledge at that very moment.
“I’d always thought limitations were a bad thing,” Vir replied. “Guess sometimes, the workarounds end up being even stronger.”
“Oho?” Cirayus said, a hint of pride in his expression. “Show me what you’ve learned.”
4UNLIMITED POTENTIAL
“I’m good, trust me! No pain at all,” Vir said, throwing a few punches to prove it.
“Very well. Then don your armor.”
Vir did as he was told. “So, now what?”
“Since you are so eager to get going, you can join me for a bit.”
The demon moved so fast, Vir didn’t realize he was falling until his stomach dropped from under him. Falling… all the way to the bottom of the mountain.
Vir screamed until he noticed they were falling much too slowly.
Not falling. Floating, he realized as he hung by his cuirass’ collar. Balancer of Scales.
“Oh, come on. What are ya, a little lass? When you return to the Human Realm, you can tell your girlfriend how you peed your pants from a little fall.”
Vir’s face went red. “You call this a little fall? And she’s not my girlfriend,” he added quietly.
“Of course not,” the giant said with a smirk.
He lowered them at a steady pace, slowing just before they touched the ground, and Vir felt like he’d just ridden the lift to the Pagan Order’s Undercity. Except, instead of a team of demons working a rope, mysterious, powerful magic did the heavy lifting. He was glad to be down.
“Well? You’ve been wanting to stretch your legs, haven’t you? Have at it!”
Vir looked around, noting the empty desert around them, littered by a field of corpses. The ubiquitous ash only came up to his ankles.
A glance at the giant confirmed his suspicion.
“What can I say?” Cirayus grinned, “they were in the way.”
Vir rolled his eyes. The man had just killed a hundred Ash Beasts that were ‘in the way.’ Never mind that they were ‘only’ scorpions; all Ash Beasts were lethal.
Vir braced himself for a Micro Leap. He’d misjudged its power twice already. He wasn’t planning on repeating that mistake. Using only the barest trickle of ground prana, he sent it to his legs.
In an explosion of speed, he sprung forward, covering over ten paces, leaving a puff of ash in his wake.
Ten paces may not have sounded like much; it was only half the range of his normal Leap, after all. Except, he’d used even less power than a Micro Leap normally consumed. And that was only supposed to send him a pace or two.
There was no point delaying any longer. Vir crouched low, then sucked as much prana into his legs as he could fit without straining his body.
The Abyssal Flats blurred as he shot forth. Despite anticipating the result, despite his best efforts to recover, he went tumbling end over end, unable to control his body.
Vir came to a stop in a heap, face blackened with ash. Coughing, he righted himself.
“No, I take it back. You can tell Maiya how you not only screamed, you managed to also faceplant comically into the ash.”
Vir scowled at the giant, who stood grinning, before glancing back to see how far he’d come.
“Seventy paces…” Vir whispered. It couldn’t be. It sounded too good to be true. This, with a body that was still acclimating?
Parai’s channeling technique, which he’d started calling Prana Channeling, almost seemed useless now. With this much prana around, what need was there to be efficient? And that was just airborne prana. As dense as it was, it didn’t even hold a candle to the titanic amount within the ground.
Vir Leaped again, this time with a better understanding of what to expect. The spectacle was no less thrilling. The feeling of moving so fast, blindingly fast! There was something intoxicating about it.
When the ability ended, Vir’s legs were ready. Instead of stopping, he ran, slowly bleeding off his speed, allowing the ash to suck up his momentum bit by bit.
Then he did it again. Vir Leaped over and over, covering absurd distances in mere moments.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Cirayus said, catching up.
At some point, Vir had started laughing. It was a pure, almost childlike exhilaration. Something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Not since his adventures into the Godshollow with Maiya as a kid.
The exhilaration multiplied severalfold when he High Jumped for the first time. Because while Leaping seventy paces was one thing, jumping seventy into the air was another entirely.
It was fun until he began to fall headfirst back to the ground.
Panic took him. Could he even use Light Step to break his fall if his head hit the ground first? He’d never tried it.
Just when he was about to scream for help, Cirayus jumped into the air, grabbing Vir as he fell. “A bit reckless, lad. I know it’s good fun, but do think through your actions a little next time.”
Despite his words, Cirayus’ tone was more amused than critical. The smile on his face only added to that image.
Even still, Vir’s face flushed with embarrassment, and it wasn’t only on account of being upside down.
Once back down, Vir took a few moments to shake it off before activating High Jump, this time with only a fraction of the prana. He went only thirty paces, allowing him to Light Step to break his fall.