Chapter 1138
It was a shame that Ratna had only stayed for a short time, but Timothy understood that they weren’t really allies. Either way, she likely had many responsibilities to get back to as she might not be able to rely on anyone else at the top. Fortunately for the Scarlet Alliance, they had come together in a manner that let various groups stand together on common ground without fear.
There had been something she hinted at that Timothy didn’t quite get, even with years of follow-up practice. He was certain of that, because while he was certainly growing more comfortable with his new abilities there was still something missing.
The first person he asked was as always Catarina. They would frequently go to each other first, even if they didn’t expect the other to be able to provide an actual answer. “What do you think it could be? She didn’t show much interest in sparring with you for example.”
“Maybe I already understood it?” Catarina tilted her head. “Or maybe I’m the wrong type. Truthfully, I’m having difficulty figuring out how to work with my new power. I’ve been working on new formations, but I keep having to put in limiters instead of expanding into anything new and exciting, and I’m running out of space. That’s for using my own energy without active input, I mean.”
“It sounds like you need more robust materials and runes to handle Domination energy to begin with. For the current moment, have you removed the energy gathering portions? If you already have too much…” Timothy shrugged.
“I did limit them, but I suppose I could scrap them entirely. It’s a difficult shift in functionality. Some energy intensive things are so easy, but outside of the anchor we transformed everything else is too fragile. I have been working to replicate that, but that doesn’t seem to be a common practice. I don’t want to dilute my energy somehow.” She frowned. “It might be worth taking risks for the Alliance though. We could discover so much as long as the results aren’t crippling.”
Timothy supposed they had been rather timid. He wondered what the limits of what they could do might be, and it was difficult to know without testing. At a moderate level of output, he expected he would never run out of energy. Maybe even much higher, because he couldn’t actually tell if there was a proper limit. Zaur’s example hadn’t exactly been clear.
They had worn him down through consecutive wounds more than actually depleting his energy, as could be seen in the explosions upon his death. Certainly, it hadn’t been unlimited but Zaur had never felt particularly empty.
Day after day, Timothy had been sparring with Augmentation cultivators but it hadn’t been enough. He could handle small groups, but he wasn’t quite living up to Zaur’s level of expertise. The potential was certainly there, but whether he needed centuries of growth or there was something else Timothy wasn’t sure.