Bro, I'm not an Undead!

With the renewed resolve, Skullius breathed in, further studying the mana core for a few more minutes before he came to a realisation.

“This is lasting a lot longer than I thought. Should I try to push my core to blue again?” he thought.

Given how his trial of the activity had gone last time, Skullius had doubted that turning his core from white to blue would be something he could do with two or even three tries of [Depths of the Core].

Up until now, he had been so enthralled by the information about his core which he had been gathering at the moment that this thought didnt even cross his mind until now.

The fact that there were no interlocking pathways within this core that he had to connect like last time had also driven his mind further away from the thought.

However, as soon as Skullius’ mind whirled to this, a familiar field of criss-crossing blue lines, some that met at one point and some that didn’t, their number in the thousands, appeared over the layout of the mana core he had been seeing this whole time.

“There it is…” Skullius said, his words dragging on as he lost himself in the beautiful and chaotic arrangement.

While gazing at it, he could even tell that there was a continuity from when he last tried as some of the lines he had joined were depicted here in the order he recognised from last time.

Seeing this as an open invitation to give going for a blue core another try, Skullius dug in, his consciousness drawing onto the lines and exerting a non-physical force over them that tried to pull them together.

As Skullius expected, this wasn’t an easy process even with the effect of [Epiphany] but the difficulty had been toned down from nightmare to hard.

As such, the motivated Null Lifeform worked, putting his proverbial and hypothetical back into it.

At the back of Skullius’ mind, he kept expecting there to suddenly be a convenient timer that ran out when he was starting to get into the mood for this but surprisingly, that turned out to not be case!

He strenuously pulled on the rigid lines overlapping the structure of his core with all his might, making sure to go in a systematic manner this time so that wherever he left off, he could pick up from there.

The blue lines were connected one after the other, creating thrums of power with each link!

The progress was exhilarating!

Skullius had gone over a little more two hundred of these when…

Nothing.

No timer, no push, no hurry.

“Can I just keep doing this forever then?” Skullius thought as he kept joining the lines over and over again.

With time, he started to note a change while also gaining an understanding over the effects of some of his skills through this experience.

This line work wasn’t an inherent part of the mana core. Instead, it was a mechanism conjured by the skill [Depths of the Core] in order to make the process of obtaining a blue core easier!

The same was true for other skills like [Spirit Walk].

Sure it was tough but it definitely beat having to condense mana repeatedly mana for a decade or more.

Skullius linked a hundred more, his pace getting faster as under the line work he was working on, his mana core started to glow with a brighter shade!

“Am I getting close?” Skullius asked himself, but the evidence of hundreds more lines left clearly told him that this wasn’t exactly the case.

Unfortunately for Skullius, his vision suddenly drew away rapidly, the image of the ground he sat on being what was laid before his sockets.

Finally, [Depths of the Core] had finally timed out.

“This skill lasts a few minutes instead of one now?” Skullius said as he balled his bony fist which crackled with sparks of Silentburn Levin in excitement.

With the progress he had made so far, he was sure that he could obtain a blue core the next time he used the skill, which was after he used [Bringer of All] with Ferex again to remove its cooldown.

“Well, I don’t know what to do to change an already existing core but for a new one, there’s room to experiment. At least I now know how the mana core works. Wait… It’s actually similar to THAT, now that i think about it! Could it be that the same thing applies?!” Skullius wondered before rising up and looking to his right where an expansive forest was laid bare.

…

Three hours… and a few minutes later…

The image of a Discount Human stood in the thick of literal wetlands, his feet almost completely submerged in a sludgy mud that oozed of fine porridgely dirt.

A very cold breeze sifted through massive trees that rose for dozens of meters, their girth being hundreds of times that of Skullius and more.

They had bulky barks and firm exteriors that gave the impression that they never missed trunk day, the leaves and variety of fruit they produced being so much larger than the norm that it was freaky.

Skullius took in a deep breath.

FUUU!

<Cough>!

<Cough>!

…!

This single breath caused Skullius to emit a chilling cough and his body to kneel in the muddy ground, his body quivering violently.

‘Yeah… I was right. It’s almost the same thing,’ Skullius thought as he staggered to a stand.

Even though he couldn’t see, his hyper sensitive body felt the absurd amount of mana casually worming around this place like rivers.

Vast rivers with a thickly white mass.

This was the very centre of the forest within the world atop his Staff. Vibrant and heavy waves of mana ran through everything, giving all things living or not a rather, fresh vibe.

The cool mud at Skullius’ feet was the same, the chill it invited into his body being an indication that there was an abundance of pure mana here!

‘All three places within this world possess their own rules, I guess. In the water, mana gets denser with depth. In the mountains, mana experiences the same but with height instead. And then here…’

Here.

The concentration of mana grew as one approached the centre!

Asides from the coolness that was propounded with this phenomenon, Skullius felt something else other than mana. Something that encouraged LIFE.

What was the mystery behind this?

‘Well… if this really is pure mana, then I guess I can try to make the Centre to my new mana core. I wonder if it will be as hard as I imagine,’ Skullius thought as he felt for the void in his body in need for a mana core.

With this body of his, he could sense mana at a more advanced level without [Elevated Mana Manipulation] unlike before.

However, that skill was still needed.

“I’ve never had to use skills without my own mana. How do I use the Staff’s mana when its out there?”

As Skullius mentioned this, it seemed as if the staff heard his conflict and it responded to his will, giving him what he needed, the mana pathways in his body that reached over to the void where his core was supposed to be flickering as mana eventually lit them up!

“Oh…that’s convenient,” Skullius said as he felt this strange sensation for the first time.

Mana that did not originate from his core!

With him being able to activate his skills now, a passing thought coursed through Skullius’ mind.

Where did the skills he learned inhabit then? Was it the soul?

Was there another construt that made up a body?

He didn’t know.

It was merely a thought as with what he needed accounted for, Skullius got to work.

“Hopefully this works… [Elevated Mana Manipulation]!”