“That’s impressive.” She had the appearance of a cute little girl with squishy cheeks, but Rio had witnessed her exchanging blows with a golem. Would it even be possible for him to hurt her if he enhanced his body and threw a punch? Perhaps he’d just end up hurting his own fist instead.
“Not as much as the Dragon King!” Sora replied, grinning happily.
“We’ve gone off topic. I’ll try different things and see if there’s a good solution. I don’t know how much I can withstand while assimilated with Aishia yet either.”
“S-Sora will help think! Um...”
Sora tilted her head in a cute gesture, still motivated by her one-sided rivalry. Rio watched her with a smile as he resumed controlling the aura wrapped around his left hand.
After a small pause, Sora let out a sound of realization.
“Ah! Come to think of it, there was another caster that could use auras during the Divine War.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They could fight pretty well for a human. Sora remembers being a little surprised to see a human using auras. And when the Dragon King saw him...”
Sora tilted her head again in an attempt to retrieve her memories of that time. She grumbled wordlessly for a few more seconds.
“He said something about how it was like casting a barrier—doing so would lower one’s offensive power, but in return, it would allow a human to safely use an aura...” she mumbled hesitantly.
“Like casting a barrier, lowering one’s offensive power...”
Rio looked as though a light bulb had gone off in his head.
“S-Sorry, that wasn’t very helpful. Um, the Dragon King said one normally wouldn’t cast such a barrier... Since it didn’t look any different to a normal aura, Sora lost interest immediately...”
Sora added to her vague explanation with a regretful look.
“No, that was a great hint. I think I’ve got an idea... Let me try it. Normal essence barriers are cast like this, but...”
Rio held his right arm forward and activated his spirit arts, creating a barrier of energy. The barrier could be physically touched just like the aura, but there was a difference between them too. And that difference was...
The aura has heat, making it more dangerous to touch the more powerful it gets. But the barrier is simply solid. No matter how solid it is, it can be touched safely.
Besides, the same energy could have different appearances. Barriers involved spreading the energy like a solid block or wall, while auras were the release of energy that flowed like liquid light. Rio clenched his hand lightly and knocked on the wall-like barrier before him.
“I was caught up in the preconception of deploying a barrier like a wall. All I had to do was release a barrier in the same way I release an aura. Like this.”
Rio erased the barrier in front of him. He replaced it with light energy wrapped around his right hand. It looked no different than the aura.
“Ooh!” Sora cheered happily.
“It looks the same. I think it’s a success.”
Rio attempted to wrap the normal aura around his left hand and compared them. They looked the same at first glance, but he could see a difference if he brought them closer to his face.
The light of the aura around his left hand was blazing hot enough to leave burns, while the swaying light around his right hand had no heat to it.
“Since I don’t have to use my essence on the heat, it’s more efficient than normal aura. But like the Dragon King said, my offensive power will probably go down a bit,” Rio surmised.
It was pretty simple once he gave it some thought. His preconceptions of controlling energy like photon bullet magic or light orb spirit arts had prevented him from thinking of barrier spirit arts.
“Wonderful!”
“Considering it has to be used at the same time as physical enhancements and other spirit arts, auras really are difficult to use. But the benefit of protecting one’s body is significant.”
A caster would require a lot of skill to reliably maintain an aura. But as long as the barrier wasn’t attacked with something stronger than the barrier, the caster would practically be invincible to external attacks.
It might be good to wrap it around myself when using flying spirit arts.
He normally created a protective coat of wind while flying, but it wasn’t very dependable as a defense when flying at high speeds. If he could protect himself with a sturdy barrier armor, he might be able to completely erase the risk of any flight accidents.
No, hold on.
Rio frowned as though he had suddenly remembered something. He kept the barrier wrapped around his right hand and made the energy aura disappear. In its place, he cast a raging wind and compressed it around his left hand.
I was using wind spirit arts to make something similar to auras already.
The destructive power of the swirling storm was only directed outward, so there was no damage done to Rio’s left hand. There was still a risk of him hurting himself if he mismanaged his arts, but it was safer than using the energy aura.
Water can also be wrapped around the body rather safely. Covering the face would result in suffocation, so that would require some care. Earth spirit arts could use sand and pebbles to make a good barrier. But that may obstruct vision...
He considered the various ways one could use defensive auras for each element.
On the other hand, fire, lightning, and ice are out of the question. Just like the normal energy aura, simply wrapping them around oneself would cause damage. But they’d be great attacks.
There were some elements that weren’t suited to defense.
Maybe it would work if I used the regular aura as a protective coating, then cast an elemental one on top? But in that case, using regular fire and lightning spirit arts seems enough...
If it required wrapping his body in an energy aura, his casting efficiency would be lowered. Rio stared at the two arts wrapped around his hands as he considered his line of thinking.
“Dragon King?” Sora called, peering up at his face curiously.
“I was thinking about how elemental spirit arts could be wrapped around the body like an aura. But the regular energy aura seems the simplest to handle.” Rio dispelled the arts around his hands.
“Yup! It’s easiest to just throw an aura over your punch. Pow pow!” Sora struck a cute fighting pose and swung her fists like she was shadowboxing.