Chương 65: Five Flows

Enzo sat back down on the log and closed his eyes. His heartbeat was the first thing he noticed. Steady and familiar. Then the mana. He'd had a few days to grow used to the sensation of it flowing throughout his body, but it still surprised him how natural it felt. Not all of it remained stored within the heart, waiting for instruction, the way his mind reservoir held it. This was almost alive. Moving.

Linked to his blood without conscious thought, responding to his breathing, his heartbeat, and the small movements he made. He sat with it for a minute. Just feeling. Small wisps of mana pulled this way or that by the rhythm of his body. Some caught by muscles as he shifted his weight. Others rejoining the main current and cycling back toward his heart. The question was where to run the adaptation's loop. For a wizard, it was a bit easier. The endpoint began and ended at the center of the forehead.

Adding more meant linking the spell forms together, but ultimately the entire collection began and ended at the same place. Already he'd caught even normal people squinting at something they couldn't quite see surrounding his head. His magical halo. Cultivators were different. He hadn't felt it yet, but he knew from Val and Kenzo that the endpoint began and ended with the heart.

But instead of constructing a spell form, thread by careful thread, he needed to convince the mana to flow from the heart, through the body, then back to the heart. All the while carrying the intent behind the technique, and the concepts that would make it work. Hopefully. He thought back to what he remembered of biology. The heart pumped blood to the lungs and back. That seemed like it might be the shortest circulation in the body, and short meant simple. Simple meant less mana, fewer variables, less to go wrong.

Probably the ideal loop for a cultivator building an adaptation around their heart. It might even have the additional benefit of being aided by meditating and breathing exercises. But he wasn't just a cultivator. Magus conversion didn't happen inside one reservoir. It happened during the transfer between the two. Mind to heart or heart to mind. The mana had to travel between them for the conversion to trigger, which meant the loop needed to run from heart to brain and back.

That had to be longer, though it was unlikely to be an issue. He almost started right there. Then stopped. If the flow ran both directions, from heart to brain and brain to heart, it would convert every drop of arcane in both reservoirs. Eventually even his mind would run empty of arcane, which would leave him unable to cast any of his spells. He needed to restrict the flow so it only converted mana carried from the heart, to the mind, and back to the heart. Which meant Kulkarni's four concepts weren't enough.

So either Kulkarni wasn't a Magus after all, or she didn't favor arcane. Or wasn't favored by arcane. Enzo frowned. What would happen to a mage that couldn't wield arcane mana? He shook his head, returning to the problem at hand. He needed a fifth. Something to enforce directionality. Maybe a valve or a gate. Or better yet, an exchange. Take one unit of arcane from the heart and deliver it to the mind. Then take one unit from the mind, and deliver it to the heart, converting it as it went.

That would solve the problem cleanly. Five flows. One circulation. Each stream carrying its own concept, each flowing in the same direction, one chasing the next through the same loop, forming a technique with the intent to convert arcane mana within his heart into every type of mana that his mutated gene would permit. Complex. But necessary. He took a breath and worked through the division. His heart reservoir held the least amount of mana between the two. It would become his typed mana storage.

Crystal, metal, and light, produced by the adaptation. And anything else, if the adaptation revealed affinities he didn't know about. That left his mind reservoir free for arcane, plus whatever typed mana he stored from batteries for hybrid spells. Though, nothing stopped him from storing mana from batteries in his heart reservoir. The adaptation only converted arcane. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Enzo ran through the plan once more. Then he started.

The circulation was already running. He focused on it, following the current through his chest. His instinct was to reach for the endpoint the way he reached for the forehead one. Threading toward it. Probing. He caught himself. Same mistake as when he codified Burst. Same mistake as his first circulation. It was his wizard hands trying to grab and control something that needed to be guided and encouraged. He stopped reaching. Breathed. Let the circulation carry his awareness instead of steering it. Three cycles.

Four. On the fifth, something settled into place. A point in his heart where the flow converged and radiated from. The Guide's endpoint would be within. He couldn't describe what it felt like beyond a sense of rightness. It was there. It was ready. He didn't dig further. First flow. Transmutation. He drew mana from the endpoint and sent it upward, through his chest, along the path toward his brain. He held the concept of change as the mana moved. Arcane becoming something else.

The mana picked up the intent without resistance, the same way it always had. The flow completed its first loop. Heart to brain, brain to heart. One stream running. Second flow. Cycle continuously. The conversion doesn't stop until the work is done. He sent the second stream chasing the first, carrying its own concept. Two rivers running the same channel, even as they never truly met each other. Third flow. Attunement. Harmony with his natural affinities. Kenzo's word. This one felt warmer than the first two.

More personal. It settled into the circulation alongside the others and the three braided currents ran smoothly. Fourth flow. Biological Limiter. Protection. Only types the gene supports. Only arcane that enters the heart. He layered it as a constraint. Fenced off the things he didn't want. Enzo paused. He'd expected it to be harder. But perhaps his experience with constructing spell forms out of more than a dozen threads with layered concepts carried over. The more he thought about it, the more that seemed likely.

Mana Control. He grinned. The secret wizard weapon that no ordinary cultivator had. Then he moved on to the fifth flow. Exchange. Mana would go from heart to mind, then carry an equal amount back down to the heart, triggering the conversion then and only then. He shaped the intent carefully and sent the fifth stream into the loop. The streams ran together. One chasing the next, heart to brain and back, each carrying its intent. Transmutation. Cycle. Attunement. Limiter and directionality together.

Enzo reached for the endpoint. The sensation of something waiting, patient, ready to receive. He directed the flows inward, curving them toward the connection point on their return loop. He kept them steady. Checked each flow. Everything was cycling. Every concept was interwoven. The adaptation's intent held in his mind. He let go. The flows wobbled. The concepts blurred. For a long second, the whole thing felt like it was unraveling. Then the Guide caught it. The circulation snapped tight. The wobble vanished.

The five flows locked into a clean, self-sustaining cycle that ran from his heart to his brain and back with a precision he hadn't managed on his own. A notification appeared. — Notification Analyzing Skill adaptation... No threats to user detected. Analyzing concepts... Deriving purpose… — Enzo opened his eyes and exhaled. He didn't need to read the rest. There was nothing new. No connection to the library. No mysterious message. But the flow was still running. He could feel it.

A constant, quiet circulation moving through his chest, up through his neck and into his head, then back down again. Converting arcane mana as it went. Gentle. Almost imperceptible. A second rhythm underneath his heartbeat. And the Guide was maintaining it. That stopped him. The adaptation itself required mana, but there was no drain on his reserves. No concentration required. It just ran, powered by the Guide. He thought about his other adaptations. Increased Capacity. Mana Information Translation and Display.

Increased Range. Geometric Replication. Every one of them was running right now. Had been since the moment he'd created them. He'd never noticed because the wizard adaptations were static. They didn't move. Their spell forms just existed, quietly doing their work, hooked into the endpoint within his mind reservoir. This one circulated. And because it moved, the cost was visible for the first time. The Guide had been paying for all of it from the beginning. It had said as much early on.

Something about legal requirements, and the Guide subsidizing the mana costs of skill adaptations until mages reached Tier 3. It didn't change anything about how he felt. The Guide was still hateful in its refusal to explain things. But the fact that it had been silently subsidizing every mage's development from the moment they created their first adaptation was harder to dismiss than he wanted it to be. He focused on his heart reservoir. The conversion was already happening. He could feel it.

Faint traces of crystal mana forming at the edges of his awareness. Metal behind it. Light trailing further still. The order matched what he expected. Crystal was his strongest affinity after arcane, then metal, then light. He waited. Let the circulation run. Searched for anything unfamiliar. A type he didn't recognize. A sensation he couldn't name. Minutes passed, but nothing new appeared. Just crystal, metal, and light, accumulating at a pace that made watching them feel like waiting for paint to dry.

If there was a hidden affinity buried beneath the three he knew about, the conversion rate was too slow to reveal it just yet. Enzo exhaled and let it go. The adaptation was working. Whatever it found, it would find in its own time. He had other things to do. It was time to create new combat spells.