Chapter 148: Mana. Lots of it.

My eyes move over the options, then cross them out one by one. I’m keeping my healing hidden, so not biochanter. Threads are something I can steal from Amelie and Sylves. Moonlight is overrated, reinforcement something I’m already learning, grand array is too slow, and instiller too simple.

Runic Amplifier is strong. It’s very tempting, even. The promise of directly enhancing all my enchantments is very enticing. Accelerating their use cases against higher level opponents would be nice…

But what if I fed them more mana, though? 

I select core controller and don’t look back. 

[Job gained: <Core Controller>]

[Stat bonuses: +3 > +6 Vessel per level]

[Experience modules: Enchanting, Imbuing, Corecrafting]

My eyes read over the stat boost again. Six points of vessel each level. It added three stat points… which must make it a tier three job. That also means it probably goes to level 50 before I can change job again. 

Doing the math, that would actually mean picking up stat growth slower than if I kept getting tier one jobs. But… that’s just going by level. I have a suspicion that higher tier classes, while requiring more experience, also level faster. And bring higher bonuses. After all, with each threshold I meet, the essence packet I get is bigger.

So, level 50 in core crafter will probably net me a lot of essence. Speaking of essence, though…

[Essence Bestowed: Cores.]

A veritable flood of knowledge stings into my brain, enough to temporarily overload my [Memorization]. Enough to disorient me, sending me sliding to the ground roughly. I gasp in pain, feeling arcs of lightning going from my brain through my shoulderblades. For a second, my attunement loop breaks - all my mana focused on weaving more threads around my brain…

Then my mantle activates. It’s enhanced by my authority, and that strange construct of geometric lines lays itself around my shoulders. It drinks up the massive influx of essence, devouring it, archiving it, processing it so I can properly take it in. In fact, it even enhances what I gain from the essence.

I get absorbed in the new knowledge for another breath, my eyes glazing over as I just think of the applications, when I feel the consequences of letting my mana free.

Spilling from my vessel is pure power. Mana slips through the cracks, no longer content to be contained by such a flimsy thing. The attunement loop itself is something the mana grows used to, after all. Growing wilder.

Now, for the first time, I properly feel the consequences. Keeping my mana suppressed, caged, has made it denser. Heavier, stronger. It exits through my vessel, uncontrolled, and flays open my skin. Cracks break through the top layer of my flesh, as my bones rattle and vibrate from the energy, choking me.

Skin peels away like a blossoming flower,the mana carving its way out as cracks expand into lacerations and my chest opens, muscle and fat revealed.

Instantly, as soon as I notice, I reapply the attunement loop. It was only a second, so the area is small. Half a handspan of loose skin and bleeding. Kuro is already drinking the crimson fluid as I hold my mana under control again. For another second, my vessel vibrates… then my attunement loop fully wraps around it again.

[Suppression] is a cage that holds my mana steady. If I’m not using it, it has to get out. In doing so, it’ll crack my vessel, it’ll shear through my muscles, and it’ll crack my skin. Slowly, I breathe, channelling the mana into [Biological Restoration] in a black box. My skin mends, my muscles sneak back into place.

I breathe, slowly. 

Then I smile.

If my mana can do that to me… then what’ll it do to someone I’m pointing it at? 

- - -

A few more seconds pass until I’ve gathered myself. My wounds are mended, and the adrenaline from having my vessel almost explode on me fades. I breathe in, then out, then in again, and focus.

[Vessel Construction] triggers. 

[Vessel Construction 5 > 6]

The level comes almost effortlessly. With what I’ve learned about cores, that much makes sense - after all, they’re really just artificial vessels. Pathetic imitations that are terribly hard to modify once finished, but that nevertheless draw from principles that come from regular vessels.

Knowing more about them saves me weeks… no, months of experimentation. I instantly apply some of the principles to my own forging, filling the cracks with stronger material, properly welding it shut, then weaving a support-lattice around the outside of my core to keep up counterpressure, and then additionally adding diffusal zones to that lattice - isometric planes that can vibrate to safely disperse some amount of leaking mana.

That little stunt nets me the skill level, and I smile. As usual, the essence doesn’t tell me everything. I know more about cores now, but I decided which principles to use, how to weave the lattice, and to combine it with the dispersal planes. But what it does provide is perspective. Options.

Where before I was fumbling in the dark, I now have a flashlight. It lets me see the path more clearly… but I can also see where I’ve already diverged from what people consider “proper”. Namely, my vessel is incredibly overloaded! Who would’ve guessed? Not me. I didn’t expect this. Surely I could have never seen this coming. Probably. Surely.

Regardless of how wise or sane or generally futureproof my stat allocation decisions may or may not be… I still smile. The essence is useful. I can already think of half a dozen ways to change cores, create mana generation feedback loops, properly preserve them, use them in enchanting arrays…

Drawing my cloak tight around myself, I smile. “Let’s head home, Kuro. We have work to do.”

And I step back out into the ice-slick roads, while sleet pours from the air. Wind pulls at me, making the darkness billow behind me, revealing the stump of my shoulder hanging loose inside a sleeve - just a little longer than before. Slowly but surely, I’m modifying my healing skill.

Slowly but surely, we’re ingratiating ourselves into the web of favours that defines the fifth floor of the tower. Hiding from the guards, hiding from the Respitia and the way she’d hunt me down if she knew about the healing spell. I smile to myself. 

There’s no reason to lie about it. I know Respitia knows where I am. But I also know she can’t directly tell anyone. Because that would be far too much interference. No, if she wants to tell anyone properly, she needs me to slip up. To heal something out in the open, for someone else to notice and tell one of her loyalists. 

So I do what I do best. I hide it all. The thoughts inside my head, the emotions in my heart, the skills I’ve earned by fighting hard for them. And now, I even wear [Obfuscation], too, hiding myself further.

Some might say I’m dishonorable. A coward for hiding, that it’s weak or pathetic. And they might be right. But there’s one other thing it is - efficient. 

For now, I walk the streets as Yuki. I head back to the inn. I rest my head on the pillow, thoughts swimming about enchantments, and I close my eyes. 

Until an explosion rocks the ground floor. Just in time for breakfast.