Chapter 182 - 16th Mutation

The cave was dark, making it difficult for even Magna’s enchanted eyes to make out the shapes inside. However, deeper within the cave, he could clearly see a glowing point.

It wasn’t ordinary light. The glow was golden, meaning there was something there containing mana.

The golden light was also quite bright, not as bright as the boiling water he had passed through at the entrance, but much brighter than the Golden Sunberries.

’I wonder if it’s something edible.’ Knowing that he could absorb mana by eating or drinking, that was the first thing that came to his mind.

But anyway, even if the thing emitting that mana was a stone, he was still willing to eat it.

As long as it was something he could swallow, the rest was his stomach’s problem. Whether it could digest it or not was its own battle.

He wanted to go inside and check exactly what the source was, but he soon started slowly and stealthily retreating to a safe distance. He didn’t want to try his luck with the Stonemen.

There were too many of them working and going in and out of the cave, so there was no way he could enter without being discovered.

Because of that, he decided to continue watching from a distance.

Maybe they would take a break or go to sleep, giving him a window of opportunity to enter the cave.

The sky was still as crimson as it had been when he first arrived. There was no moon or sun anywhere, so he wasn’t sure whether there was even a day and night cycle here.

He could only hope that there was. The Stonemen also seemed to be a sentient race that still needed to rest their bodies and minds, after all.

Magna himself was also feeling quite tired. He found a large rock a good distance away from the Stoneman settlement, went behind it, lay down on his back, and rested.

While resting his body, his mind kept working as he looked at the blue writing in front of his eyes.

[Option 1: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase stamina by 2x.]

[Option 2: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase strength by 3x.]

[Option 3: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase maximum mana capacity by 2x.]

He had been ignoring the options for quite some time, resulting in his natural mana recovery going to waste with every passing second.

He didn’t want to deplete all his mana for his mutation, since he would need it to cast spells in an emergency. But now that he was quite safe, or at least felt safe, he decided to take advantage of this opportunity.

The options were once again very good, especially the ones that would instantly double his stamina stat and triple his strength stat.

He looked at his stats, trying to imagine what they would look like after choosing either of the options.

Strength: 225

Agility: 207

Reaction: 198

Stamina: 1098

Mana: 100.1%

If he chose to increase his strength by 3x, it would go over 600, giving him exactly +450 stat points. But if he chose to double his stamina, he would gain +1098 stat points, which was more than twice the increase he would get from the strength option.

If he thought about it purely in terms of stat point gain, +1098 was obviously much more advantageous.

’But increasing my strength is also very important.’

He thought that if he ever found himself in a situation that required pure physical strength, no matter how high his stamina was, lacking muscle strength could cause him serious trouble.

Especially if such a situation arose and he had to fight the Stonemen.

They had incredibly strong, durable bodies made of stone, almost like metal, so Magna needed enough physical strength to be able to damage them.

Gaia had really given him a difficult choice here.

Option 3 was no less important than the other two, especially considering Magna had been suffering from a flaw in his mana capacity for some time.

Every time he underwent a mutation, he had to spend 100% of his mana reserve. So he thought that if he doubled his mana capacity, maybe future mutations could be completed by spending only 50% of his mana.

If things worked the way he imagined, whenever he encountered situations like the one with the boiling water, he could spend only 50% of his mana to choose his mutations without running into the problem of depleting his entire mana reserve, keeping the other 50% in reserve for emergencies.

Of course, this was only a guess.

Even after doubling his mana capacity, Gaia might continue demanding 100% of his mana.

It might even require him to gather twice as much mana as before to reach 100%, making it twice as difficult to trigger the options.

It would definitely be more of a loss than a gain. It could become the worst mutation he had received so far.

It was completely like gambling. On one side was a huge advantage, while on the other was a huge disadvantage, possibly even a debuff.

Thinking that he didn’t want to take that risk, at least in this unknown realm, he eliminated the 3rd option without hesitation and turned his attention to the other 2.

Then he made his decision.

[Option 2 selected. Utilizing gathered energy to increase strength by 3x. Prepare for sudden physical pain...]

Not choosing the stamina option, even though it would give him the largest increase in base stats, was because he had realized that increasing his stamina was much easier than increasing his other stats through natural ways.

Every time he endured pain and pushed his body, his stamina stat increased anyway. In comparison, his strength stat was much harder to increase, as he needed more specific training to develop his muscles.

The other reason was obvious. He needed more damage output to fight the Stonemen if he had to face them while trying to enter the cave.

With no regrets about his choice, he kept waiting for the pain to hit his body.

3...

2...

1.

Instantly, his muscles began to contract and tense up, causing his body, which was lying on its back, to curl into itself.

It felt as though all the muscles in his body had become strings, and someone was pulling them tight, squeezing his body like the mouth of a bag being twisted shut.

Thick veins bulged violently along his neck and forearms, throbbing as his muscle fibers tore and knitted back together.

It was definitely a disgusting and uncomfortable sensation to go through, but in terms of pain, it wasn’t unbearable.

Either he had simply become too accustomed to pain, or his high stamina was making him feel less pain now. Either way, he went through the body modification without making a sound.

Meanwhile, he opened his stat panel and continued watching his stats as they increased.

While his strength stat began rising rapidly, each wave of pain and every movement of his muscles also caused his stamina to increase, thanks to the torture his body was enduring.

It wasn’t much, but at least it was something, making it very satisfying to watch.