Rafe decided there were many approaches to this when he began his experiments. First of all, aura was a representation of the spirit. It was a way to tell people your story without opening your mouth.

  And some people’s stories were scary. They were full of violence. Full of echoes of their techniques, of their mental strain and emotions. They were packed with echoes of their skills. Echoes of their statistics.

  Therefore Rafe could tell how strong a person was by reading their aura. He'd already been doing that somehow, but he hadn't applied it to its natural conclusion.

  What he was practicing now was very different from that though. He zeroed in on an attacking monster, his ears strained to pick it out amid the many approaching beasts. He had let his aura off its leash.

  He needed to in order to test his new theory out. He bunched a piece of his aura up. He visualised it like making a snowball and throwing. It hit the beast and the beast froze for a few moments. It was more a mental attack, but an attack nonetheless. That was the first time one had landed. He had worked so hard to incorporate all his senses into it.

  He didn't stop to celebrate, already throwing out more and more attacks before the rats were on him. His spirit, even with his aura skill as high level as it was, was still very weak, being from an Essence Desert and all. He couldn't throw more than thirty snow balls of aura every single session.

  Once he felt the soul deep exhaustion he credited these sessions with, he pulled his aura back around him with even more speed than he could the previous session. It was only a few microseconds faster - or maybe not, but Rafe would rather it was - but any progress was progress in his book. He didn't know how long he had already been stuck in the room, but it didn't seem like he'd be leaving soon.

  He hadn't gone too far into his celebratory mood when a loud, distant sound went off in his head. He had never heard such a thing before. He found it immediately suspicious.

  “I wonder what the system wants this time?” he tried to say, but he couldn't hear himself.

  Panic seized him.

  “No, no, no, No! It took my voice!”

  It hadn't taken his voice.

  He had finally gotten good at using his hearing to locate enemies blind. Finally adapted to his forced blindness a little. And now he could not hear. He could not hear himself think out loud.

  And it wasn't the system's fault. It was the damn trial’s fault.

  “I'm going to run mad this time!” He did not hear a single thing.

  It was like the darkness ate the sound straight from his vibrating vocal cords. He lay down there in the darkness and screamed himself to sleep, blasting his aura out to scream his anguish. He felt the pain when the beasts came, but it was the only thing he could feel anymore.

  The warning had been clear. At some point he'd be unable to move, to feel his stamina and mana attribute pools.

  ****

  It took him a long time to get over his loss of his sense of sound. When he lost his sense of smell, it was hardly a discomfort.

  He lost his sense of touch at some point. He was starting to take solace in the pain the beasts brought when they clawed and bit him to death. It had been months, or maybe even years. He had lost years wandering around in the abyss, supposedly working on one skill.

  He had made vast improvements though. He could send out an untraceable pulse of aura to track any hidden beasts around him. He could keep his aura very contained, he could even pass for a civilian at times.

  He could filter what aspects of it others sensed when he let it free. Sometimes only letting his stats show.

  He had taken the time to look into another complex skill he had. Sam's gift. The veil. They had guided him through the basics of how to use it, but realistically Sam couldn't get him to become competent in a few days.

  Still, now that he could see the skill's structure, Rafe had been able to figure something out. Instead of hiding his level completely, he could get the veil to show an incorrect level if someone tried to use an Appraisal skill on him.

  Appraisal didn't work on humans though, so there must have been other skills. According to what Rafe could tell, he'd know if any of these kinds of skills was trying to penetrate his veil. And he'd be able to tweak the information he showed them if he had one such skill himself.

  He was doing well for how crazy he felt himself getting every single day.

  And of course he'd tried to grind his youngest skills. He'd brought up Unarmed combat and Skyholm's Fighting Proficiency a lot. He'd also used Dash just to run around when he was too bored. It hadn't leveled too much, but oh well.

  Acrobat was even more frustrating. He had focused on it a lot, only to get a few levels out of it. Having two very similar skills was proving a problem, and Rafe was already getting annoyed with the choice he'd made.

  He was getting annoyed with lots of choices these days.

  His choice to enter the red door early. His choice to enter this obvious trap door. Still, he had strengthened his soul a lot. He didn't even need any treasures or whatever like Liam had had to use back in the day. All he needed was to pull every ounce of power from it, to wring it dry and try again. He just had to abuse it on a daily basis.

  Now he could throw double the snow balled aura. He had gotten good enough with using his aura senses by now that he could make out the shapes of the vaguely rat-like furry beasts. He could track them now. Almost effortlessly.

  But something needed to change.

  “Well, I've learnt how to throw my aura around like a kid playing on Christmas,” he said although he couldn't hear himself. “Now to add some finesse to it. I am a swordsman, after all.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ****

  When he noticed the monsters hidden just ahead of him, Rafe grinned. They still thought their ambushes would work. How cute? He had long since transcended mortal bounds. He could send out very thin threads of aura that were very easy to ignore. He mostly sent them along the ground too. The creatures that were looking for someone taller than them just didn't look to the ground on which they crouched.

  They only looked upwards. Rafe found that hilarious, for some reason. He was going to enjoy tearing these beasts limb from limb.

  After he threw a few mental knives at them of course.

  He started to laugh and shout as he ran towards them. He felt the beast's tense as his compressed aura rushed out like a flood, freezing them for a few instants. That was just the beginning though.

  Compressed, shaped and held in both hands, Rafe threw two well imagined aura daggers every second. He was panting by the time he reached the line of about a hundred or so beasts.

  Killing them was fun, but the flood came whenever he unleashed his aura like this.

  ‘Ding’ Your skill battle intent has reached level 299.

  He frowned at the notification even as he threw pulses of aura in different directions to throw off his pursuers. Even though he had been improving his control and application of the skill the whole time he was on the floor, he also actively tried to prevent it from leveling.

  He didn't know that was something he could do until he'd tried it. Being able to see and interact with one's soul this early on was a cheat, just like Sam had told him.

  It might not even matter that much that he was from an Essence Desert. Now he had ways to actively cultivate his soul and increase its strength. Still, even though he tried to reduce the amount of Essence going to this one skill, it was no easy feat at all.

  It had helped him that for some reason the room had very little essence. And in addition to actively trying to hold back the trickle of essence to the skill, he had other skills and his classes to compete with it to limit how much it could level.

  Still, he'd almost reached a threshold he was afraid of for some reason. He'd have to upgrade the skill, wouldn't he? It might pick up a new ability based on how he had used it. He still needed more time.

  Luckily, with the success of his knife throwing technique, he had hundreds more ideas. The first being a sword aura.

  It was considered a concept ability by most, but Rafe was different. His skills were cracked. They had already broken the system's limitations. What was preventing him from forming pseudo concept techniques with his aura? Heck, why couldn't he use his aura to fly?

  ****

  He found out why he couldn't fly pretty soon after that. It must have been mere weeks when he lost control of his body. For some reason, the amount of Essence to the floor was now a bare trickle. It added weight to his theory that the gods were watching him.

  He didn't want to be angry at some of them, but couldn't they see this training was going a little too far.

  ****

  “Hey En, isn't this going a little too far?” Sam asked the enchantress.

  “I agree,” Noid said, frowning slightly at the woman.

  She sighed. “This is nothing.”

  “It is obviously not nothing,” Liam commented.

  “Weren't you the one who said he should learn a few things before he ventures out?” Enith asked. “Well, this is a lesson he should learn, I think. Besides, we can't get him out of the room except through breaking the tower and ending his ascension early. Is that something you want?”

  “But this could break him,” Sam complained.

  Enith snorted, “ I wish.”

  Noid's eyes sharpened on her. “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “He is going to break one way or another, of that there is no doubt,” Enith said. “He reminds me a little of myself. He hides his pain, buries it deep. When that dam breaks, well… I would like it to happen here in the trial, where he has us. Deeper in the multiverse though…”

  She said nothing more, and the others watched on.

  ****

  Without being able to feel anything in any form of sense, Rafe was lost. He withdrew into his spirit, only seeing the two sides of the curtain and refusing to do anything for a long time.

  After what he assumed was a long time had passed and no one came for him, he figured they were not coming. He needed to somehow move. He saw the pillars of light that were his mana and stamina, both now covered with a cloud of swirling dust.

  He needed to move somehow. He couldn't feel, hear or see. He still had his aura though. Tightly bound around his body that was lost in an endless abyss somewhere.

  He started to send out feelers for beasts but they were just there. Hundreds. Millions of them. They had surrounded him. Made a camp around their never ending feast.

  He saw a monster take a piece of his body casually. His body grew back. He didn't feel a thing, but he remembered the one difference between the tower and the trial. All that pain would be there after this. He'd pay for it.

  He wondered how many times he'd died already. Still, now was the best time to practice, it seemed. The essence was so low it'd take him long to gain that last level. He would suffer but he would get the best of this damn floor if it killed him. Well, it had killed him thousands of times already. More times than he had died in his trial before.

  With a deep mental sigh, Rafe settled down to train. To learn from these beasts. To use his aura to do everything, to reach its full potential.

  Liam had once warned him his situation was not simple, but even he had not known what they were dealing with. When Rafe's aura skill reached level three hundred, the messages started to come in.

  ‘Ding’ Your skill battle intent has reached level 300.

  You have reached an upgrade threshold.

  Then, instead of bringing an option for him…

  You have chosen to upgrade your skill.

  Processing information … processing insights… processing skill level…processing…

  Warning! The skill level is higher than known parameters. Excess energy will be required for the skill upgrade. If no excess energy is provided, the user's life force will be used. Note that damage to the life force is semi-permanent compared to damage to the health pool.

  Evolution process started…

  “Wait! I didn't choose to evolve the damn skill! Give me options, damn it!”

  Then he felt it. He felt a bit of heat growing every second. Only it was internal. He closed his eyes and focused inward. He saw the skill structure shift first. It looked almost like an Asian character or a glyph. Now some of the components were being destroyed, new ones added in even as he watched.

  The essence was not enough. He felt it when the green pillar that was his life force was touched upon. With rising panic, he went to the other side of the curtain to see the sparks of his life being stolen before his very eyes.

  “...I didn't choose this,” he said again, this time going for a despairing kind of voice.

  He still couldn't hear himself.

  At some point he started screaming. Every green spark that was siphoned off sent unfathomable pain lancing through his very being.

  Then the pain stopped and Rafe could only lie in the dark and breathe heavily. The skill upgrade wasn't even a quarter way through. There was a new source of Essence now. Rafe frowned. The gods had been watching. Why hadn't they done anything earlier?

  Why had they agreed to whatever the enchantress had inflicted upon him? Why had Noid? Why had Liam?

  He stopped short, looking at his soul again. If he hadn't known the risk of upgrading his skills, if he had done it from somewhere else, then he'd have lost more than a few months worth of life force.

  Maybe the gods had been watching out for him in their own way. Now he knew he needed to be more careful about leveling his skills. He had an advantage, he thought, but things were never that easy.

  ‘Ding’ Congratulations, your skill battle intent has upgraded to The sword's intent(rare) (lvl.75)