Chapter 910 – Four applications

One day I might truly beat my severe illness, which is, thank the gods, not infectious. Mana deficiency is something I’ve been fighting since childhood, and most of my problems could be attributed to that.

But now? With over 10,000 mana instead of the feeble whatever it was before? Yes, I shouldn’t dwell on the past, I should forget about it and live in the present.

Ten. Thousand. Mana.

It has a nice ring to it. As well as the six or so years I spent in mental thought acceleration training with Lissandra. The system said over five years, right? So maybe... eight? Who knows how long it really was.

Damn it, my good mood is showing again. It’s been a few days since I started testing [Jüdrajil], and I even took some time to head out and find some monsters that were willing to participate in the testing.

I can say a few things.

Monsters around level 400 do not handle 10,000 mana stat points well.

Dealing with losing the entirety of my mana is more difficult than I’d expected, even with the latest healing marks from Lily and the preparations I’ve made to kickstart all the processes of my body so it doesn’t crumble.

Lastly, the explosion of released mana when a monster fails to handle it is a spectacle to watch, no matter how much I get shouted at by the officials from Megacity. It’s not my fault they’re getting scared by such explosions even though they’re so far away from them.

That brings me to one of my many conclusions. When I touch a living being, I can take all of their mana or give them all of mine. There’s no dial or lever in the skill’s structure allowing or even hinting at the possibility of controlling the amount. It is all or nothing.

The skill also doesn’t care at all if I’m actually capable of handling it. There are people who would explode if 1,000 stat points worth of mana passed through their body in under a second, and I think it’s a part of the design and whatever restrictions need to be placed on any skill that ignores defenses like this.

Later I might find a way to get around it and not need to make physical contact, but going by its current state, it seems that even if I get it to level 80, it will still require touch.

One of the options to work around it is to combine it. Just imagine. A domain kind of skill like [Eclipse] combined with [Jüdrajil].

Doesn’t that sound scary?

It sure as hell scares me.

As for my testing, where I so kindly gave all my mana to the monsters, there are a few problems. One of them is that without my mana, all my skills or subminds shut off.

I already made a workaround so they can be put to sleep instead, and I can trigger them right away once I recover even a bit of mana. Setting up priorities and some triggers to get everything rolling a bit faster. Yet, it is still a few moments without mana to support me, and these moments cause plenty of damage to my body.

It’s impossible to use a mana battery, hidden reservoir, or even crown over my head. [Jüdrajil] takes all I have and have access to. It takes mana from the crown, it empties batteries, it pulls on reservoirs.

No matter how inconvenient it is, I find it very fascinating too, and trying to come up with a way to trick the skill has been a lot of fun for me.

After I kindly give all my mana to the monster, it usually pops, and thank all the corgi overlords, may they get all the pets and food they want. I did early tests with only 1-5% of my total mana.

Yes, I can absorb mana, and I can take my mana back from the exploding monster. But even that requires an array of triggered passives and skills. With my body deprived of mana, it’s very difficult and takes time.

I’m already working on some basic calculations to try and figure out how far away I need to be to naturally regenerate enough mana to successfully absorb the 10,000 points of mana released when a monster returns it to me. My current strategy is to, right after giving up my mana, use Wraith Dance to escape as far as possible to give my natural regeneration some time.

Even that’s more difficult without mana to aid me, and it causes further damage to my body, but I’m already doing some training to make it happen.

Could I facetank a 10,000 mana point explosion?

Absolutely. It's basically just a spicy breeze. My body is a temple, and that temple is ready to absorb all that mana.

It’s optimal behaviour.

My pathways are wide enough, right? I trust myself to be able to channel it, to redirect the overflow. It’s just mana, at the end of the day. It's just raw, condensed mana overload that could theoretically liquefy my brain if I mismanaged everything. BUT. No, I can manage it. I've handled worse. As of late, I have a really good feeling about my constitution. My cells are cooperative. They want this.

Now I really want to try it, but some lame submind of mine is also happy I didn’t test it with all mana right away.

It will take a while longer for me to test taking all mana from a monster and then giving it all the mana I have. In that case, let us say a monster has 1,000 stat points of mana. I would be returning 11,000 points to it, possibly even more if it were something like a Leviathan. Those monsters surely do have mana comparable to mine, and doing so would be fun.

It makes me wonder how I stack up against others with my mana reserves. I have long since known that I have more mana than most Champions, and often the problem with me is that I don’t really use it efficiently, nor do I have the same sorts of high-level skills as them, or the multiple high-level skills they use in combination.

But when it comes to raw, pure mana, I don’t think there are many Champions who can compare, and I bet I even could beat some Absolutes. But for sure there are some reservoir passives, items, or other ways they use to store mana.

Anyway, that’s [Jüdrajil] when it comes to touching living beings. The other two applications come into play when I touch items and things like that.

There it mostly works the same, I can give and take, but there are big differences.

When I touch a mana stone and take mana from it, that mana becomes a liquid.

When I touch an item and give it all my mana, it ignites.

I already broke many mana stones, some low arcane items, and visited the Primordial Knights’ armory to get more of them for testing. I also manifested and tightly wove together more weapons, armors, items, and orbs. Unlike the applications it has against living beings, the skill is a bit more complicated here.

When I touch an item and “take,” not much happens, but when that item contains mana, even bits of it, it comes out as a liquid that is a combination of pale blue, dark blue, and white.

The liquid doesn't wet the skin, it’s lighter than I would assume it should be, even though I don't quite know how heavy it should be. It just feels a bit floaty and almost wants to levitate. But the more mana I take, the heavier the liquid is, and it almost behaves as water would, just without wetting anything, though it moves and splashes and all that.

It doesn't destabilize, it doesn't explode, not even after 3 days of observation. It also doesn't lose its mana signature or deteriorate in any way I could accurately observe.

It’s even safe to drink, for me at least, the others refused to take so much as a sip, so I’ll just have to visit the Doc. The catboy won't disappoint me, he’ll certainly chug it down.

Once I drank it, it stayed inside my body, which didn't seem to absorb it, so I pulled it back out through my mouth.

Mana Potions elude me even now, it seems. I'm either lacking something, or it’s just impossible to get any mana from the liquid. Currently, I'm of the opinion that I'm lacking something. There’s no way it could be impossible. Sure, I can't draw inscriptions with it or put it into a vial and use it as a source of mana, but that’s just for now.

[Jüdrajil] doesn't offer any help, and I don't think it will in the future either. It’s up to me to come up with a way to do something about it. There are a few mentions regarding some sort of mana liquid in the Primordial Knights’ library, and I’ve already got some people on the job. So far, though, while there are similar substances, there are no mentions of any liquids that exactly match this one. It’s filled with mana, though it’s not as hypercondensed as my Empyrean Ichor. The only thing I can do with it so far is manipulate it and move it around me.

At least this application functions as something akin to defense. I can just activate [Jüdrajil], and when any sort of mana based attack crashes into me, it just turns into this weird liquid and splashes around.

Once again, more testing is required.

And the last effect is what I like to call ignition. It can be used on many unliving things, though testing here is much slower as I always have to give up all of my mana.

The past few days, I have been walking around and testing with the mana reserves of… of… the horror. I’m about to have a panic attack just thinking about it.

When used on an item, ignition is very interesting. It moves all my mana and dramatically strengthens any mana constructs, inscriptions, and materials therein.

Low arcane weapons break in a few seconds after using just a few thousand points worth of mana.

I took a low pristine item from the guild´s vault and tested it too. It handled Ignition much better, and 5 thousand points worth of mana overclocked it to the point where it felt close to mid pristine for a few seconds. Though after testing, I found a few very small cracks before carefully caressing it and personally returning it to the vault, even though the demon in charge of the vault insisted on checking it first.

In my estimation, that low pristine weapon could survive 5 or so similar ignitions, though I'm not sure how it would scale if I had and used 6 or maybe 10 thousand points worth.

That’s how it is with items, it mostly seems to function as a forceful improvement of inscriptions, mana-related material, and such. Something I made sure to very carefully observe, though testing has been a pain in the ass with the manaless state each test leaves me in.

I have noticed some weird effects too when I used a bit more mana for ignition, and these effects only get weirder when I ignite the weapons I create through [Weave] and [Manifestation].

Probably reacting to some small differences I have yet to fully pick up on, the effects on the weapon change. It almost feels like the skill senses the intent I made the weapon with.

When it’s been made to be durable, it becomes more durable with ignition, and if I intended for it to be sharp, it becomes sharper.

All accompanied by an effect that feels like the manifested weapon has been… well… ignited? The colors remain as they were previously, maybe a bit more vibrant, but in places, flames appear that move like one might expect, though somehow the way they do feel a bit slower and react more strongly reacting to the changes in movement or wind.

These flames release no heat at all. They don't cut either. I also noticed that when I use this effect, the space around me becomes quieter, as the flames emit a quiet sound akin to fabric caught in a powerful wind.

And that's just what I’ve found out so far. [Jüdrajil] allows me to take or give mana, and the effects differ based on whether it's from organic or inorganic matter, though there are plenty of weird, if small, caveats.

I will abuse that, of course. I already have plenty of ideas about how I’ll use the skill, though the most noticeable so far is simply taking mana from people with a touch, not to mention monsters and animals. Personally, I think I would be able to defend against it if I could react quickly enough and wasn't surprised.

Well, I'm not unhappy with it, as much as I really liked [Usurpation]. I think I can learn much more from this, and the ceiling of growth does seem like it’ll be higher in the end.

But for now, I’ll just return to the 12th floor of the tutorial. Before that, I’ll leave some vials of liquid mana for the Doc and a few other people. I’ll check in on the sales of the rest of the low pristine items I got from assassins, and I’ll probably put one of the keys up for auction.

I gave myself some time, but I should be making a decision soon about which of the 4 options I’m going to select from the bonuses offered by my primary class. I'm getting a pop-up every time I open my status, and it's getting annoying. Even the system isn't safe from pop-ups, it would seem; may the person who invented them never be able to scratch their relentlessly itchy nose. At least from what Ruby’s told me, there shouldn't be a time limit, and the pop-up won't stop appearing and rob me of my reward.

A few days later I find myself back on the train, being pulled by the reanimated corpse of the horse whose heart powers the sacred machine. I still think it’s a bit brutal for the race that calls themselves kindred, but who am I to judge? Use the horse, turn it into a mana battery, just don't send your scary children after me. Don't notice my mana reserves and much more portable size in comparison to the horse.

I think Izzy got bored and named the horse Juan. I don't want to ask why.

By now we shouldn’t be far from the meeting spot where the airships are supposed to arrive to trade and all that stuff. It’s one of the few zones far away from any sort of kaiju, well, aside from one.

There’s a small city nestled against a volcano that, while technically active, almost doesn't seem to be. The area is lush green, beautiful, full of animals, life, and a great many kindred and other races currently present on the planet who’ve found refuge here. The city can be split into two parts. The nice one, filled with huge stone and wooden houses that are full of life, colorfully painted and constructed on a flat plot of land, with docks for airships and train tracks.

The other side of the mountain, though, is honestly a bit fucked up.

It’s the kindred that did the calculations, learning what sort of population they can maintain here and still avoid the attention of the kaiju, and yet they still move people around. Half of the population often leaves for months at a time, and the population itself is strictly controlled.

So the kaiju don't come this way very often, and the main reason for that is simple.

One of them is already here.

That’s what we see on the other side of the mountain as the train makes its way around. A huge skeleton of what almost seems to be some sort of flying dinosaur.

It is the only one out of the 12 kaiju that the kindred managed to take down, and I say take down, because that is all they were able to do. The kaiju’s still alive.

And I see these indestructible bones I heard about, and I watch as dozens of kindred and other people move around the skeleton the size of a fallen mountain.

Even now, the kaiju continues its attempts at regeneration, and this has been going on for hundreds of years already. All while everyone here continues to use the powers of the volcano and the weapons they invented to burn away its flesh before the monster can revive.