Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 346. Manifesting AURA! (1)

He was forced to rest for the entire next day to recover. Even Theo himself felt like he wasn’t ready to so much as even walk.

After some time, the baron returned and handed him another one of those golden-coloured potions. Theo didn’t even dare think about how costly the potions might be. He had simply asked for a higher-level one instead, but the baron had been adamant about giving him this.

The moment he drank it, Theo felt a lightness spread throughout his body, something he couldn’t quite describe.

Within a few hours, he was able to walk properly again, and soon after, even run inside the hut.

Clara insisted that he should rest more, but Theo was far too brimming with energy to care.

Once he was certain of how healthy he was, Theo finally stepped out of the hut and took a deep breath of fresh air.

"I need to see my sword. Where have you kept it?" Theo demanded, looking around.

Clara’s expression turned grumpy, and Theo was sure that if she refused again, he would have to use his authority.

"...Fine," Clara said at last and went behind the hut. Theo followed, curious as to why she would go behind the hut while he had asked for his sword.

A pile of moss had been stacked near the back, and Clara just brushed it aside and pulled the sword out.

Theo hurried forward, his eyes shining as he looked at his sword.

When Clara handed it to him, he grabbed it eagerly, drew the hilt at once, only to set the sword down on the ground as he stepped toward the centre of the camp.

Elias was nearby, cooking some filleted meat. When he saw Theo approaching him with a sword, his eyes lit up as well.

The baron sat at the side on a large rock, watching the trio in the center from a distance.

No beasts other than the ape were in the camp at the moment, and even the ape was practicing its swordsmanship as usual.

"Are you going to manifest the aura right now, young master?" Elias asked, prompting a nod from Theo.

Clara stood beside him, concern evident on his face. She wasn’t sure if he was healthy enough to attempt doing something like this.

Theo glanced toward his father at the side and smiled. He tightened his grip on the sword’s hilt and took a deep breath.

’Sword Aura,’ Theo thought, and waited.

He waited... but nothing seemed to be happening, which made him frown in confusion.

"Sword Aura," Theo muttered aloud this time.

But the result was the same.

Nothing happened.

"Sword aura!" Theo shouted in restlessness. He wanted to test the hard-earned results of his labor.

"It doesn’t activate when you shout its name, son," a deep, burly voice reached his ears.

Theo turned to the approaching baron. His father then pointed at the sword as he moved closer.

"Close your eyes," he instructed. Theo nodded and did as asked.

"You need to calm yourself down first, son. A hurried heart cannot concentrate," the baron said. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Theo took a few seconds to steady himself and took deep breaths. Soon, he succeeded in calming himself down.

"Now, focus on where your heart is," the baron said again, and Theo did as told.

He focused on his heart, which, for a few seconds, got him nothing, but then his eyebrow twitched.

"You felt it, didn’t you?" the baron asked when he noticed the change in Theo’s expression.

"Yes... there is something warm here, Father," Theo said, frowning. "But I can’t seem to get a hold of it."

"That something ’warm’ you are feeling is your aura, son," the baron explained. "It has enveloped itself around your heart."

"But you don’t yet quite know how to output it." His words made Theo remember something.

"Is it like this?" he muttered, as if asking that to himself rather than anyone else.

Theo focused fully on the warmth in his heart and tried to tug it upward toward his shoulder, just as he had done back when he was in that anaemic state.

His heart beat faster with excitement when he felt the aura move.

But the moment he lost his focus due to the excitement, the aura slipped back inside. Theo tried his hardest to pull it back to the shoulder, but it felt futile.

He opened his eyes again and realized how sweaty his face was, but the moment he opened his eyes, Clara stepped forward and wiped the sweat away with a clean cloth.

"Try again. I can feel what you were trying to do," the baron said.

Theo nodded once toward Clara in appreciation, then closed his eyes again.

This time, he focused completely. The aura stretched to both his shoulders, then flowed down his arms.

It felt like one channel was faster while the other was slower, his left and right hands, respectively.

Theo’s eyebrows twitched as he tried to guide the aura into his palms. The moment he tried to push it into his fingers, and then into his sword...

DING!

A notification resounded in his mind, shattering all his focus. The aura rushed back to his heart way faster than it had taken him to get it to his fingers.

Theo opened his eyes, a vein bulging on his forehead.

[Lesser Sword Aura ability leveled up to 1!]

"The aura is leveled up to 1, Father. But I didn’t even manage to put it into the sword yet."

Theo spoke and scratched his head only to realize that it was drenched with sweat, which made him curious as to why that was even happening.

"I saw how far you pushed the aura, son," the baron replied. "And I know that only a few people could get it this far and level up within their first five minutes of practice."

The baron’s words made Theo shake his head.

"And Big Brother Cedric is one of them, right?"

His son’s question made the baron grin despite not wanting to.

It was really easy to get smaller truths out of Baron.

Everyone in the family knew that when he had his guard down and smiled, it meant the truth.

"...Get back to trying."