Chương 31

As soon as I used Subtle Influence, the small amount of mana I had been concentrating on stopped in place. Excitedly, I then suggested it to move to my hand, and it obliged! It moved slowly to the center of the palm and hovered there. I nudged it to then exit my palm, and it exited through small pores I had no idea existed till now. However, I could feel a small headache starting, so I let go of the hold I had over the miniscule amount of mana, and watched it drift away into the surroundings.

One thing was clear though – I had definitely just moved mana! I was elated and wanted to continue experimenting, but I knew it was important to pace myself. Therefore, I stopped Mana Sense, and focused on recuperating. It was becoming abundantly clear that I would need to invest a serious amount of stat points into my mental stats if I wanted to keep experimenting with mana, something I was definitely going to continue.

More than that, my ability also relied on mental strength, and increasing the ways in which I could use the ability was critical in my mind moving forward. I now had a lot on my plate to keep track of. I had received Tactical Insight, Subtle Influence, and now Mana Sense in very short order, and I still wasn't sure about the extents of any of them. I wanted to slow down and experiment with them all; learning about them and building a strong base with which to move forward.

However, the allure of having mana as a weapon was too great to ignore. Would having one more thing to experiment with cause me to be too weak by the time we inevitably clashed with the goblins…? Thinking about it for a bit, the answer was obvious. No. The most important factor to consider for me was that my recent gains had a certain synergy with each other. Adding mana would not only be another piece of the puzzle, but will finally allow me to have another form of attack.

I still need to learn how to fight though. Sighing at the mountain of work I still had to do, I resolved to focus on one thing at a time. Right now, I was in the zone for mana experimentation, so putting aside all thoughts of skills and ability synergies, I opened up my status screen. Having confirmed that my mana was now at a healthy enough level, I closed the screen and mentally started mana sense again. For this attempt, I focused on the mana I had seen in my surroundings rather than the mana within me.

I needed to understand which mana was easier to nudge. Understanding my intent, the skill masterfully emphasized the mana in the room, while the mana veins and mana core faded away. I was momentarily taken aback by the beauty of the vibrant colours, and spaced out in their ethereal presence for about a minute before I shook my head and refocused. I mentally isolated the smallest swirl of mana I could see; this one a vibrant green in colour and about the size of a grain of rice.

I then nudged it with my ability and asked it to stay in place. It worked! It hovered in place in front of my eyes; however, I could see that the edges of it were drifting away instead of staying in place. Slowly, over the next few seconds, it completely dissipated and I felt my ability automatically turn off. I took a mental step back and assessed what had happened. It felt as if the mana had listened to my ability, but with reluctance. It then fought with my ability's hold on it and escaped into the environment.

It felt… alive. In contrast, the mana I had held in my palm had been much more obedient. Which made sense, since it was coming from within my own core. It was thus clear that I should focus on the mana within me instead of the one surrounding me, and that's exactly what I did. Shifting my perspective once again with mana sense, I now had a clear view of the mana veins and the core within me. And once again, I nudged a sliver of mana to move towards my palm.

Once it was hovering near the pores leading outside, I put all my focus on my ability. I flexed it as hard as I could and asked the mana within my control to turn bright green, and then exit the palm. It worked… to an extent. The mana had clearly started to turn green, but ended up between a shade of blue and green before it rose and dissipated. Still, it was a success and I was highly encouraged! It took a few tries before I was able to change the sliver of mana completely to green.

Now, for the tougher bit – making it hover on top of my palm instead of immediately dissipating as soon as it left my body. I took some time to rest first. Repeatedly using my ability drained me in a way I couldn't quite explain, even though all my resources were full or near to full on my status screen. My stomach also chose the moment to protest, and I figured having lunch would help me out. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Yet another fish stew later, this time with a few more experimental herbs added to it, I was back in the room. Feeling refreshed, and with a new outlook on how to go about things, I settled down and put my new idea to the test. Instead of making the mana under my control leave my palm and then trying to control the mana outside my body, I was going to try and focus on the mana within first. I had barely been able to do something with a tiny smidgen of mana, and that too using my ability.

Instead of trying to immediately move forward and go for the external mana, I was going to try two things – first, get some mana to do something without my ability, and second, try and control a larger amount of mana. I figured I was trying to run before I had learned to walk with trying to go with external mana. Surprising how much having a full stomach contributes to having a fresh perspective. I started Mana Sense and filtered out the environmental mana, the process feeling familiar and much easier to me now.

Once the veins and core had come to focus, I tried to focus on a tiny swirl of mana and tried my best to make it stop. It didn't work. I then tried to make it slow down a bit, but that didn't work either. I was prepared to fail, and my enthusiasm was still too high at the moment to be disappointed by a few small failures. Thus, I kept at it, unbothered by the repeated failures. Some time passed while I continued trying, failing, waiting for mana, and then trying and failing again.

One thing that kept me encouraged was that with every attempt, I could definitely feel as if I was becoming closer to my goal. I was waiting for my mana to regenerate again when an interesting thought came to mind – I could use my ability to learn. Once my mana was full again, I immediately put the thought to action. I flexed my ability and asked some mana to slow down. It immediately obliged, with me keeping my entire focus on how it had slowed down.

It was a surprisingly simple process – the ability had just politely asked it to slow down and it had listened. In contrast, what I had been doing was something akin to standing in the way of the mana and demanding it to slow down, hence its resistance. I deactivated both my ability and mana sense and took a few minutes to renew the process through which I was going to go for my next attempt.

This time, instead of applying mental force on the mana to make it slow down, I instead very gently spoke to it, conveying my intentions. It immediately worked! The mana I had been focusing on slowed down without preamble, and I was reminded once again of something that had been pushed to the back of my mind due to repeated exciting events – intent was king in this system. Understandably jubilant over the success, I continued by politely conveying my intentions, and the mana kept listening.

Soon, I was able to both, slow down and speed up, a much larger amount of mana than before. Next, I moved on to trying something different. I gathered my intent and conveyed my desire to gather at my palm to my mana, and it obliged. Once a sufficient amount had gathered, I made my desire for it to turn green known. The mana didn't respond. It stayed in place, swirling about, but I felt a vague sense of confusion from it. Wait… mana can transmit its intentions too…?

I knew that I had felt mana to be alive somehow, but this was groundbreaking! I asked it to continue on its cycle while I deactivated Mana Sense and, yet again, took a mental step back. The mana had been confused by the colour green, and I somehow felt that it wasn't the colour that was confusing it, but what the colour meant. I switched Mana Sense back on, and this time I focused on the mana in the environment surrounding me.

Swirls of bright green were the most common, which is why I had been trying to change my own mana to that same colour. But now, I tried to understand what these colours represented. Perhaps due to my knowledge of games and novels, or perhaps because it was the most obvious, I quickly concluded that the answer was simple – mana type. Different mana types had commonly been represented by different colours in games and novels; red for fire, blue for water, brown for earth, and green for air.

However, green could also be nature, and both air and nature were abundant here. I tried but couldn't really get an answer at understanding the type from the mana swirling about. Probably because my perception was low, or perhaps it was just due to a lack of experience. Still, I now had a direction in which to move forward. I decided to go with air mana, as that made more sense. Outside, there was plenty of nature, but here within this room, I couldn't quite see much 'nature'.

The shadows lengthened in the room as I kept experimenting, trying to emulate my understanding of the nature of air to my own mana and asking it to change accordingly. Repeated attempts brought me closer, and soon I had a small amount of bright green mana hovering inside my palm. Extremely pleased at the outcome, I stretched out my palm facing it at the wall, and then asked the mana to shoot outwards at high speed.

I felt a small amount of air move out at rapid pace and hit the wall with a small impact, and the system immediately rewarded me. Ding! Congratulations! You have acquired a new Skill: Internal Mana Manipulation Yes! I was absolutely chuffed at the skill notification and the instant gratification of having my hard work pay off. However, my excitement was short-lived, as shouts and sounds of panic reached me.

Alarmed, I dismissed the notification and stood up, going under concealed presence as a precaution and taking out my dagger. I opened the room's door, the sounds increasing in intensity. I rushed out to a horrifying sight. A number of bloodied and clearly injured people were slowly making their way from the forest and into the square, and behind them, about a dozen more were struggling while carrying something. I looked closer and saw what they were carrying – dead bodies. What's going on…?