Chapter 40: Mana Stabilizing Pill

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Mana Stabilizing Pill

After spending the rest of the afternoon tracking down two more solitary Gorgefiends and hauling their massive frames back to the municipal exchange depot, Eric’s account saw another healthy influx of credits.

Sitting by the open window of his attic that evening, listening to the gentle rustle of the garden leaves below, he ran the numbers through his head.

"With this haul, I have more than enough to book the Premium Cultivation Room with double ambient mana density for an entire month," Eric murmured, leaning his chin against his palm as the cool night breeze drifted through the frame. "Though at this rate, I won’t even need thirty days."

Originally, grinding through Level 8 would have consumed at least twenty grueling days of continuous meditation. But with the dynamic quest granting an instant level-up directly to Mortal Stage Level 9, his cultivation timeline had shrunk drastically. Inside a double-density mana suite, ten days of focused closed-door cultivation would be more than enough to push him straight to the peak of Level 10.

However, reaching the peak was only half the battle.

Coal, being a high-potential beast, could naturally attempt the breakthrough to Soldier Rank once his core reached absolute saturation; beasts relied entirely on their biological bloodline instincts, predatory constitution, and internal resilience.

Humans were not as fortunate.

The human biological vessel was fragile by comparison, requiring an external alchemical catalyst to safely bridge the divide into the second realm: a *Mana Stabilizing Pill*.

The pill was an alchemical marvel developed by human researchers over centuries of trial, error, and catastrophic sacrifices. In the Mortal Stage, a human’s internal mana existed purely as a diffuse, gaseous vapor swirling within the mana heart. Attempting the breakthrough from Mortal to Soldier Rank required violently compressing that ethereal gaseous mist until it condensed into its first drops of true liquid mana pooled at the base of the Mana Heart.

Without protection, the sheer internal pressure of that phase transition was lethal. If the gaseous mana resisted condensation, the volatile pressure would rupture outward, shattering the walls of the Mana Heart, crippling the cultivator’s meridians permanently, or outright triggering a fatal bodily explosion.

The Mana Stabilizing Pill acted as a spiritual dampener and buffer. It coated the inner walls of the Mana Heart with a resilient, elastic alchemical membrane, ensuring that even if the compression destabilized, the pressure backlash would be safely cushioned rather than tearing the cultivator apart from the inside.

In the old feudal eras, noble houses and elite merchant clans ruthlessly monopolized the recipe, hoarding the pills to maintain an iron grip over military strength and political dominance.

In modern times, however, with dimensional rifts expanding and catastrophic beast tides threatening human civilization, the Central Government had radically restructured the policy. Restricting power was a direct path to extinction; society desperately needed every awakened combatant it could produce to hold the front lines.

Nowadays, the state directly subsidized and regulated the distribution of Mana Stabilizing Pills through the Beast Taming Association.

Any awakened citizen who reached Level 10 of the Mortal Stage held the legal right to apply for one. The pills were distributed at a flat, subsidized cost of 300,000 credits, a non-profit price tag designed solely to offset the procurement of rare alchemical ingredients and master apothecary labor.

Once a tamer submitted their application along with verified biometric proof of reaching Level 10, the Association’s review board processed the allocation based on the applicant’s registered talent rank.

*With my publicly registered E-Rank aptitude, the bureaucratic review and shipping queue will probably take around fifteen days after I file the paperwork,* Eric calculated calmly.

*That gives me a perfect buffer. I can hit Level 10 in the cultivation room, submit the application, and spend the waiting window hunting in the rifts to gather the 300,000 credits needed to clear the pill fee.*

Everything was falling neatly into place. The path ahead was clear, structured, and entirely within his grasp.

Eric looked down at Coal, who was resting atop the wool blanket on the desk, his head tucked under a sleek black wing as he absorbed the last traces of ambient energy in the room.

"One step at a time," Eric said softly, settling into the lotus posture on his woven mat. "First, let’s lock ourselves in, push our mana to the limit, and hit Level 10.