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Of Aura and Ethernano (Fairy Tail/ Jaune Arc SI): Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2025-06-09 09:08:01 +0000 UTC‘Ok, Jaune. Deep breaths, you got this!’
I squatted in the bushes, waiting for my prey to take the bait as I placed my hand on the sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.
My very first quest in this strange world I have found myself in, and I am not even able to control my emotions properly.
How embarrassing.
Just like I thought, I found a large variety of quests that were rejected by the Guilds for one reason or another in the magic shop.
Normally, someone who is looking to take on such a quest would need to prove themselves as a mage for the sake of the regulations put in place by the magic council.
However, given the desperation of those who had issued these quests, which ended up being rejected by the guilds, the regulations were a little lax.
The end result was that I managed to pass off my Aura as a kind of magic and managed to take an E-Rank quest that took me out of the town and into its nearby fields.
The quest paid a measly 20,000 Jewels, which is roughly 200 dollars, for taking out a couple of Hodras, which are apparently some form of a pig-like creature that grew to the size of a bus.
It was quite clear that the reason why this request was rejected by the Guilds was because of the pay offered by the farmer in question.
From what I read and heard from the folks in the town, the average pay for such a quest is at least 50,000 Jewels at the minimum and can sometimes even double that based on the size of the herd of the beasts in question.
However, the farmer who posted this quest was not willing to pay such a high price to get rid of a couple of strays that had no herd behind them. Hence, the rejection of his request.
Thankfully, the farmer had enough sense not to confront the creatures by himself while armed with a few basic self-defense magic tools.
No matter their status as mere vermin in the eyes of the common mage, they were still abnormal creatures that could swallow a man whole and had the bulk to break down the walls of an average wooden house. Definitely not something that a regular human should confront, magic tools or no.
Suddenly, I heard the rustling from the direction of the farm as two bulky forms lazily trotted into the clearing, sniffing the air for the smell of fresh grain bags that I purposefully placed here where these things supposedly made their home, according to the farmer.
Watching the creatures, I could not help but be reminded of the Borbatusk from Jaune’s memory, except that these things were a few times larger than the Grimm in question.
For some reason, as I watched the beasts and slowly drew the sword, a cold clarity settled in, where nothing else mattered to me aside from myself, the terrain, and my prey.
Perhaps, I had underestimated how much of Jaune had taken over me.
Slowly circulating my Aura, making sure not to create a light show and alert the creatures, I stalked forward, coating myself and my blade with the power of my soul.
The creatures did not even suspect being ambushed, showing that they were either juveniles or did not have much experience in the wilds outside the safe zones around the city, as they gorged themselves on the grain sacks that I left, which were laced with an attracting scent for these things that the Farmer gave me.
In my old life, I never even slaughtered a chicken, much less a creature as big as this, so I should have felt terrified and nervous about such a job, but because the part of me that is Jaune Arc, I felt no such thing, only a decisiveness and an instinct to hunt my prey.
‘Here goes nothing!’
Once I felt like these things had lowered their guard enough, I pounced.
Drawing Crocea Mors as quickly as I could, I slashed through the air while channeling Aura into it as Jaune was taught to do by a certain crow, creating a wave of energy that cut through the neck of one of the Hodras, killing it instantly.
However, I miscalculated my aim a little bit in that attack since the Aura Slash missed the other beast, veering off into the distance and cutting down a few trees along the path.
The beast, seeing its fallen kin, roared and charged me.
And yet, watching such a scene that would make even a hardened man from my world piss himself, the Rusted Knight within me did not even flinch as I simply raised my shield in a stance.
The moment the creature stepped into my range, muscle memory took over as I braced for impact while boosting myself with my Semblance.
Unlike what I remember Jaune’s semblance being in the show, where he could only amplify the aura of his companions and maybe even himself, my semblance is a little different, showing that while I inherited everything from Jaune, including his semblance, it was still but a part of the whole that is the new me.
David Thornton was long dead, there is no doubt about it, and so is Jaune Arc based on his memories. So, who am I?
I am something new altogether, a merger of the two. A man who is both a regular man from Earth and the Rusted Knight of the Ever After. Two parts of the same whole that make up my current soul.
A truth that was reflected in my Semblance.
The moment the beast hit my shield, it was similar to a car barreling down the highway hitting a dense block of Tungsten.
The shockwave of kinetic energy pushed me back a little bit due to its colossal size and weight, while the impact energy itself was mitigated by my Aura.
However, the one who received the most damage from this impact was the creature itself.
Using the analogy from before, it had hit a solid wall of unbreakable metal at its full speed. Combining its mass and its surprisingly fast speed, all that energy had to go somewhere when I barely moved from my position.
The result was that Hodra’s face was crushed on my shield while its body was squished a little due to the impact, killing the beast instantly.
Only when I was sure that the beast was dead did I slowly drop my guard and look at the dead creatures, allowing my Semblance to fade from my body and return my durability to normal levels.
This is my Semblance. Boosting.
Similar to Jaune’s Semblance, it allows me to magnify the effects of my Aura. However, unlike with Jaune, there is no limitation to what I can boost with my Semblance. Another difference is that, unlike Jaune’s Aura Amp, which works like a steady flow, my boosting happens in bursts of exponential increase.
To put it into perspective, If Jaune’s Aura Amp boosted his Aura recovery rate in a steady increase, like raising it from one percent to two percent to three percent and so on, My boosting would raise one percent to two with one burst, two to four in another burst, four to eight with another burst, and so on.
In many ways, I think Boosting is an upgrade to Jaune’s Aura Amp.
However, there is one downside. The Aura requirement.
Boosting drains a lot of Aura, depending on what I am using it for. For things like boosting my body’s physical abilities and my Aura reserves and durability, it does not cost much and does not even register to me since the Boosting also affects my Aura recovery rate, which tops off any Aura drain near instantly.
However, my experimentation in the past few days has shown that if I were to use it for something far flashier, like boosting the power of my Aura Slashes or something similar by more than three burst or so depending on the situation, the drain is extremely massive and could even lead to my Aura breaking under the strain as even boosted, my Aura recovery rate cannot keep up with the expenditure.
But given the power I gain, I think I can live with this kind of limitation.
With the beasts dead, now, it's time to prove that I’ve done my task.
Walking to the corpses, I used my sword to cut off their right ear and one of their teeth, which were much shorter than they should be according to the books, which further supported my juvenile theory.
With the proof firmly in hand, it is now time to hand it to the farmer and collect my money.
If I were a real wizard and was strong enough, I would have been able to carry these two corpses on my own to the town and sell their meat, which happens to be a delicacy, to earn more money. But since I am not that strong, without boosting five times at least, given my current body, I will have to leave them here for now.
A shame really.
I turned around and left the forest, heading to the farm.
With my very first and proper hunt complete, I think I deserve to celebrate a little bit and then find a shop that sells camping gear for Mages.
While I could stay in the city and rent a room in an inn, given my current lack of money and resources, I think camping and foraging for food in the forests is a much better solution for my needs until I save up enough to buy the introductory book for magic which is more important right now.
I hummed a happy tune as I approached the farm in the distance.
All in all, things are starting to look up for me.
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Hodra:
