Chapter 228: An Anomaly Even Among Deviants

Magna took a pill from the pouch and swallowed it without waiting for permission.

Warmth spread through his stomach as energy poured into his body.

[Energy particles detected...]

Gaia’s voice rang in his ears, feminine yet chaotic, while he checked how much mana he had gained from that single pill.

Mana: 17%

One pill had restored 9% of his mana. Taking around 20 more would be enough to bring his reserves close to 200%.

"How many more can you take?" Melisandre asked, continuing to write.

"Around 20." Magna took several more pills from the pouch and tossed them into his mouth.

Both women’s eyes lit up at his answer as they watched him swallow another 20 pills before stopping.

"That puts your mana capacity on par with a 9th Trial Witch’s..." Melisandre muttered, struggling to believe it.

Witches couldn’t increase their mana capacity through training. No matter how much they practiced, the amount of mana their bodies could hold remained the same.

To increase that capacity, they needed a special potion, one they could only earn by completing difficult Trials.

As far as either woman knew, Magna had never taken such a potion. Yet his body could already hold as much mana as a Witch who had reached her 9th Trial.

They hadn’t even known that was possible.

At least, not for someone like him.

"Only Deviants can increase their mana capacity naturally," Melisandre muttered, almost to herself.

Deviants was the name Witches gave to creatures such as Desolations, Dragons, and the Goblin Mother, monsters capable of storing mana within their bodies and using it to cast spells.

While Witches depended on potions to expand their mana capacity, Deviants could develop theirs naturally. In that sense, they were like the Goddesses’ blessed children, able to grow without outside help.

That single ability put Magna in the same category as those powerful and mighty monsters.

While the women were still trying to make sense of him, Magna was making calculations of his own.

’So every 2 mutations are roughly equivalent to 1 Trial.’

He had undergone 17 mutations so far, but the latest one had doubled his mana capacity from 100% to 200%. In terms of capacity alone, that effectively put him at 18 mutations.

His mana now stood at 197%, enough to undergo another 2 mutations if he wanted. That would bring his mana capacity up to the level of a 10th Trial Witch’s.

’Should I tell them?’ He considered it, then looked at the 2 women staring at him in disbelief and decided to keep it to himself for now.

They had already had enough of a shock. If he told them his mana capacity could keep growing as long as they supplied him with mana-replenishing pills, they would start looking at him like a monster. Well, more than they already were.

Melisandre eventually gathered herself and rose from her seat, paper and pen still in hand. "Let’s go outside."

Phoenix Wings did more than allow its caster to move through the air. The spell also had destructive power, and she had no intention of risking the entire tent catching fire.

Magna was just as eager to try it. He got up and followed her, with Renna close behind.

Outside, the camp was far from quiet.

Witches and Shadows from all 4 units appeared to have gathered near the tent, waiting for something.

The moment the entrance flap opened, their conversations stopped, and every head turned toward the 3 figures stepping outside.

Apparently, the attack unit’s members had spent their time spreading news of what had happened instead of resting.

By now, everyone in camp must have heard about Magna. They were staring at him like some exotic animal.

’Is this finally my debut as a Magus?’ The thought excited him, although there was one problem. Did the word Magus even exist in this universe?

He didn’t want to end up being called a Male Caster or something along those lines.

"Start whenever you’re ready," Melisandre said, watching him closely with her pen poised over the paper.

Magna nodded and closed his eyes, visualizing the spell’s pattern before he began.

Skipping the honorific names entirely, he started to whistle, using the notes to guide mana out of his reserves and into his mana channels.

For a while, his whistle was the only sound. Low notes rose into high ones, drifting through the silence like a breeze.

Then a low hum from his throat joined the melody, turning that simple opening into something fuller.

A high-tier spell required a larger, more complicated mana pattern. Whistling alone wasn’t enough. Magna needed to produce several sounds at once to guide mana through multiple channels at the same time.

His vocal cords gave him a wide range of sounds to work with, but the technique itself came from the amateur beatboxing he had practiced years ago.

He had never been a professional, but producing 2 sounds at once, one with his lips and another with his throat, was well within his ability.

Nor was he making random noises. To keep the rhythm, he followed the first piece of music that came to mind, Requiem for a Dream.

He came from Earth, a world with millions of musical pieces and hundreds of different instruments. That background gave him a strong foundation for a form of spellcasting in which sound was the main means of directing mana.

"What is he doing?" Witches whispered to one another, still unable to make sense of the sounds.

Then 2 flames flickered to life on his back and began extending outward, and they finally understood.

Fire burst from his bare back in 2 pressurized jets, shooting out to either side. The sudden heat drove everyone nearby back.

The flames roared and spread, taking the shape of 2 enormous wings. Within the fire, the outlines of feathers formed, while loose wisps scattered from the wings like burning plumage.

"He cast Phoenix Wings?" The Fire Witches of the attack unit recognized it first.

Most of them hadn’t yet learned to cast that high-tier spell. Those who had still relied on its chanting words to guide their mana correctly.

Magna had formed it perfectly without speaking a single word, using only the sounds of his whistle and the hum in his throat.

Yet even that wasn’t the most shocking part.

Melisandre’s hand trembled, the tip of her pen resting against the paper. "He didn’t chant any honorific names..."

When Renna told her, she hadn’t fully believed it. Now she had watched him do it herself.

Even Deviants had to obey that rule. It was the most fundamental requirement of spellcasting in this universe, one that could never be bypassed.

The honorific names weren’t merely part of a technique a skilled caster could choose to skip. They were mandatory.

Whether it was a Dragon, a Desolation, or any other legendary divine monster, none could form a proper spell without the permission of the 5 Matriarchs.

Yet Magna had done exactly that before her eyes, and as Melisandre stared at the burning wings, her faith in the world’s unbreakable rules and the Goddesses behind them began to falter, just like that of every other Witch watching.