Chương 5: Ancient Body Refinement and Mana Efficiency

A flash of spectral blue light, and the familiar scent of vegetation instantly flooded his nose, washing over him like a baptism. Checking his surroundings, Rowan saw the towering ancient trees; he was still at the exact spot where he had departed. The massive trees had healthy, unblemished bark, their leaves faintly glowing with wild mana luminescence. Rowan sighed inwardly.

In the Seventh Abyssal Hive, a purely natural plant without radiation mutations like this would only be seen in nature reserves or the mansions of the ultra-rich. He took a deep breath. Having adapted during his previous full day here, the "Mana Intoxication" was noticeably less severe this time, leaving only a slight sluggishness in his mana circulation. Wasting no time, he prepared to keep exploring outward, using the giant tree as his anchor point.

This time, he deliberately headed in the opposite direction of the terrifying beast he had spotted last time. Using the underbrush as cover, Rowan crouched silently in the shadow of a towering tree. He was no longer the unarmed underhive rat in a ratty jacket. The Magitech Stab-Proof Liner worn close to his skin provided a tremendous sense of security, and the Tactical Binoculars in his right hand were projecting crisp, clear images directly onto his AR retina display.

About four hundred meters ahead in a clearing, a hunt was underway. The prey was a robust, heavily armored rhinoceros. Its back was covered in coarse, earth-yellow crystalline plating resembling jagged rocks, and it charged with the momentum of a medium-sized truck. Even from this distance, Rowan could sense a terrifying, oppressive aura emanating from its heavy, ragged breathing and the violent earth-element mana swirling around it—far more dreadful than the Tier 1 beast from before.

But what made Rowan's heart truly pound were the three individuals hunting it. This was Rowan's first time laying eyes on humans of this alternate world. Boom! Accompanied by a deafening roar, one of the men—wearing a claw-scarred leather vest—gripped a greatsword two-handed and cleaved straight through a multi-ton boulder hurled by the charging rhino!

The moment the boulder shattered, a visible shockwave of pale-yellow Qi erupted from the man's bulging muscles—a violent discharge of internal mana condensed into kinetic force. Rowan's pupils shrank to pinpricks. There was no hum of magitech machinery, no metallic glint of cybernetics. That was pure, unadulterated physical power! Ancient Body Refinement! Back on Terra, he had only seen such scenes in vintage martial arts movies.

In the modern era, even the lowest-grade body refinement potion cost enough to make the middle class flinch. Only the executives at the very peak of the Consortium pyramid—those who valued their own skin above all else—would burn money to fund such a luxurious, "pure flesh" evolutionary path.

For the impoverished martial artists in the Seventh Hive, compared to the bottomless money pit of ancient body refinement, spending a few thousand credits to have their arms sawed off and replaced with cheap magitech cybernetics was the most cost-effective way out. Rowan couldn't help but picture his buddy Rad, with his half-metal face, and his favorite catchphrase: "Do you even understand the real truth? Flesh is weak; mechanical ascension is supreme!"

If Rad saw this man right now—wearing tattered leather yet possessing a physical body more terrifying than Rad's mechanical arm just through breathing techniques and training—he'd have his worldview shattered on the spot and never preach his "mechanical ascension" gospel again. Before Rowan could fully recover from this surreal, movie-like absurdity, another figure on the battlefield, dressed in cloth and leather, raised a wooden staff inlaid with a brown mana crystal. Love this story?

Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Hummm— Over a dozen thick, jagged earth spikes erupted from the ground, savagely piercing the rhino's flank. The beast roared in agony, its blood staining the grass beneath it red. A mage? Rowan immediately focused the AR system's "Spell-Sniper V3. 2 Assisted Casting Free Trial" on the figure. After a one-second offline pop-up ad flashed across his retina, the analytical data appeared...

However, the moment he saw the analysis, Rowan—former top scorer of the Seventh Hive mid-terms—could barely hold back the urge to roast the guy. [Target Casting Analysis: Mana Conversion Efficiency: 16%. Circuit Redundancy: Extremely High.] Grade-school level at best, Rowan immediately judged. Too crude! It was so crude it was physically painful to watch!

On Terra, mages were obsessed with squeezing every drop of expensive coolant and every grain of mana crystal—they refined spell efficiency down to two decimal places. But this native mage's spell model was like a broken sieve full of holes; more than half of his mana simply evaporated into the air! Yet, he compensated for this pitiful efficiency in the most brain-dead way possible—obscene amounts of mana to brute-force the spell.

Drawing upon a colossal mana reserve that made Rowan green with envy, he simply muscled the spell into existence through raw volume." This was like using Silver-Tier marrow-cleansing potions for foot-soaking water! Just then, the situation abruptly changed. The heavily armored rhino let out a thunderous, berserk roar. A deadly, earth-yellow beam blasted from its single horn, shooting straight toward the martial artist at the front.

In the nick of time, the third member of the squad—a mage standing in the far back wearing an immaculate white robe—calmly raised a hand. A shield radiating a warm, faint white glow instantly enveloped the martial artist, silently dissolving the lethal beam into nothingness. Rowan stared fixedly at the white light. The data flashing on his AR system made him hold his breath instantly, his brain feeling as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer. [Mana Conversion Efficiency: 100%. Circuit Redundancy: 0.] That's impossible! Rowan's scientific Terra mindset utterly collapsed in that instant. The First Law of Spells on Terra explicitly stated: "No spell conversion can ever reach 100%; loss is inevitable. Rowan even suspected his AR system had glitched. If it was functioning correctly, it meant the shield the white-robed figure just cast hadn't leaked a single drop of mana! Every single source rune seemed forcefully bound together by some higher-dimensional will, violating every known law of physics and magic.

That wasn't casting a spell—that was issuing a Command to the world itself. Rowan felt cold sweat pooling in his palms. The waters of this world were far deeper and more terrifying than he had imagined. His newly formed sense of superiority vanished without a trace. Hiss— Completely engrossed in his observation, Rowan suddenly caught the faintest rustle from directly above him. A dark green, perfectly camouflaged venomous snake had silently slithered down the tree trunk right above his head.

Its fangs were less than half a meter from his jugular! Rowan's eyes turned icy, his body reacting faster than his brain. His left hand shot out, clamping down precisely behind the snake's head, while his right hand smoothly unsheathed the Terra-made high-frequency vibro-dagger. Without using a drop of mana, and without making a sound, the built-in mana battery drove the blade to oscillate at a terrifying frequency. It silently sliced right through the snake's head. Perfect, clean, lethal.

The headless snake's tail thrashed wildly in its death throes. But when the tail slammed into an inconspicuous spot on the tree trunk, disaster struck! Beneath the moss-covered bark, a faint mana circuit suddenly flared to life. Like a lit fuse, the circuit instantly raced underground, spreading in all directions. Woom—!! A piercing, turbulent magical hum abruptly exploded! A semi-transparent blue dome erupted from the ground exactly where Rowan was hiding, encasing a three-hundred-meter radius of the forest.

Rowan's heart sank. A containment array! A hundred meters away, the three mercenaries fighting the rhino froze momentarily. All three pairs of eyes snapped toward him simultaneously, a chilling, razor-sharp killing intent locking directly onto the thicket where Rowan hid.

"Who...! There...!... out—!" The martial artist gripping the greatsword roared, his voice rolling over like muffled thunder. Rowan, still gripping his dagger, froze stiff. That pronunciation... Although the grammar was completely alien and the accent thick, he could actually piece together the gist of it! Cold sweat instantly soaked the inside of his stab-proof liner. But instead of bolting, Rowan forced himself to think. He took a deep breath, finger blindly tapping a button on his terminal.

[Audio Recording Module Activated] Record it first. This is absolutely critical intelligence for understanding this world! Seeing the martial artist lure the dying rhino away while the two mages began to advance toward his position, Rowan's mind spun rapidly. He wasn't a formal mage yet. He was absolutely no match for them. Acting suspiciously or trying to hide would only invite a fatal misunderstanding. It would be better to step out and claim he was just passing through.

Even if he was captured and locked up, once the Möbius ring's cooldown was complete, he could vanish at his leisure. But the ring's cooldown has only just started. I have to survive the next 24 hours in the hands of these people. If they decide to just kill me and loot my corpse on the spot, I won't even have the chance to transit back.