One day I might truly beat a severe illness that is, thank the gods, not infectious. Mana deficiency is something I have had to fight since my childhood, and most of my problems could be attributed to it.
But now? With over 10,000 mana instead of the feeble whatever it was before? Yes, I should not dwell on the past, I should forget about it and live in the present.
Ten. Thousand. Mana points.
It has a nice ring to it. As well as the six or so years I spent in mental thought acceleration training with Lissandra. The system said over five years, correct? So maybe... eight? Who knows how long it really was.
Damn it, my good mood is showing again. It has been a few days since I started testing [Jüdrajil], and I even took some time to head out to find some monsters that were willing to participate in the testing.
I can say a few things.
Monsters around level 400 do not handle 10,000 mana stat points that well.
Dealing with losing the entirety of my mana is more difficult than expected, even with the latest healing marks from Lily or some preparations to kickstart all the processes of my body so it does not crumble.
Lastly, the explosion of released mana stat points that a monster cannot handle is a spectacle to watch, no matter how much I get shouted at by the officials from Megacity. It is not my fault they get scared by that kind of explosion even so far away from them.
That brings me to one of my many conclusions. When I touch a living being, I can take all of their or give all of my mana. There is no dial or lever in the skill structure allowing or even hinting at the possibility of controlling the amount. It is all or nothing.
The skill also does not care at all if I am capable of handling it. There are people who would explode if 1,000 stat points worth of mana passed through their body in under one second, and I think it is a part of the design and some restriction put on the skill that ignores defenses so much. Later I might find a way to go around it and for it to not require a touch, but at its current state it seems that even if I get it to level 80 it will still require touch.
One of the options to work around it is to combine it. Just imagine. A domain kind of skill like [Eclipse] combined with [Jüdrajil].
Isn't that scary?
It sure as hell scares me.
As for my testing where I so kindly gave all my mana to the monster, there are a few problems. One of them is that without my mana, all my skills or subminds shut off.
I already made a workaround so they are instead put to sleep, and I can trigger them right away once I recover just a bit of mana. Setting up priorities and some triggers to do it all faster. Yet, it is still a few moments without mana supporting me, and during them there is plenty of damage to my body.
It is impossible to have some mana battery, hidden reservoir, or crown over my head. [Jüdrajil] takes all I have and have access to. It takes mana from the crown, it empties batteries, it pulls on reservoirs.
No matter how inconvenient it is, I find it very fascinating too, and trying to come up with a way to trick the skill is very fun to me.
After I kindly give all my mana to the monster, it usually pops, and thank all the corgi overlords, may they get all pets and food they want, I did early tests while having only 1-5% of my total mana.
Yes, I can absorb mana, and I can take my mana back from the exploding monster. But even that requires some triggered passives, skills, and such. With my body dried up of mana, it is very difficult and takes time.
I am working on some basic calculations to try to find out how far away I need to be to naturally regenerate enough mana to be able to absorb my 10,000 points of mana released by a monster returning it to me. My current strategy is to, right after giving out my mana, use Wraith Dance to escape as far as possible to give my natural regeneration some time.
Even that is more difficult without mana aiding me and causes further damage to my body, but I am doing some training to make it happen.
Could I facetank a 10,000 mana points explosion? Absolutely. It's basically just a spicy breeze. My body is a temple, and that temple is ready to absorb all that mana.
Is it optimal behaviour.
My pathways are wide enough, right? I trust myself to be able to channel it, to redirect the overflow. It’s just mana, at the end of the day. It's just raw, condensed mana overload that could theoretically liquefy my brain if mismanaged. BUT. No, I can manage it. I've handled worse. As of late, I have a really good feeling about my constitution. My cells are cooperative. They want this.
Now I really want to try it, but some lame submind of mine is also happy I did not test it with all mana right away.
It will take a while longer for me to test taking all mana from a monster and then giving it all the mana I have. In that case, let us say a monster has 1,000 stat points of mana. I would be returning 11,000 points to it, possibly even more if it is something like Leviathan. These monsters surely have mana comparable to mine, and doing so would be fun.
It makes me wonder how I stack up against the others with my mana reserves. I have long since known that I have more mana than most Champions, and often the problem with me is that I do not use it so efficiently, nor do I have high-level skills like them, or multiple high-level skills they use in combination.
But when it comes to a raw, pure mana pool, I think there are not that many Champions with comparable ones, and I bet I could beat some Absolutes. But for sure there are some reservoir passives, items, or other ways they store mana.
Anyway, that is [Jüdrajil] when it comes to touching living beings. The other two applications come into play when I touch items and similar stuff.
There it is mostly the same, I can give and take, but there are big differences.
When I touch a mana stone and take mana from it, that mana turns to liquid.
When I touch an item and give it all my mana, it ignites.
I already broke many mana stones, some low arcane items, and visited the Primordial Knights’ armory to get more of them for testing. I also manifested and tightly woven together more weapons, armors, items, and orbs. Unlike application against living beings, the skill is a bit more complicated here.
When I touch an item and “take,” not much happens, but when that item contains mana, even bits of it, it comes out as a liquid that is a combination of pale blue, dark blue, and white.
The liquid doesn't wet you, it is lighter than I would assume it should be, even though I don't know how light it should be. It just feels a bit floaty and almost levitating. But the more mana I take, the heavier that liquid is, and it almost behaves as water would, but still without wetting anything, though it moves and splashes and all that.
It doesn't destabilize, it doesn't explode, not even after the 3 days I observed it for. It also doesn't lose its mana signature or deteriorate in any way I could accurately observe.
For me, it is safe to drink it too, but others refused to take a sip, so I will have to visit the Doc. The catboy won't disappoint me and will chug it down.
Once I drank it, it stayed inside of my body, which didn't seem to absorb it, so I pulled it back out through my mouth.
Mana Potions elude me even now, it seems. I'm either lacking something, or it is impossible to get mana from the liquid. Currently, I'm of the opinion that I'm lacking something. There is no way it is impossible. Sure, I can't draw inscriptions with it or put it into a vial and use it as a source of mana, but that is for now.
[Jüdrajil] doesn't offer any help, and I don't think it will in the future. It is up to me to come up with a way to do something about it. There are a few mentions about some sort of mana liquid in the Primordial Knights’ library, and I already got some people on the job. So far, though there are similar substances, there are no mentions of any liquid exactly like this one. It is filled with mana, though not as hypercondensed as my Empyrean Ichor. The only thing I can do with it is manipulate it and move it around me.
At least this application is something akin to defense. I can just activate [Jüdrajil], and when some mana attack crashes against me, it turns to this weird liquid that splashes around.
Once again, more testing is required.
And the last effect is what I like to call ignition. It can be used on many unliving things, though testing here is much slower as I always have to give all of my mana.
The past few days, I have been walking around and testing with the mana reserves of… of… the horror. I am getting a panic attack thinking of it.
When used on an item, ignition is very interesting. It moves all my mana and dramatically strengthens any mana constructs, inscriptions, materials, and such.
Low arcane weapons break in a few seconds after using just a few thousand worth of mana stat points.
I took a low pristine item from the guild´s vault and tested it too. It handled Ignition much better, and 5 thousand worth of stat points of mana overclocked it to the point where it felt close to mid pristine for a few seconds. Though after testing, I found a few very small cracks before carefully caressing it and personally returning it into the vault, even as the demon in charge of the vault wanted to check on it first.
In my estimation, that low pristine weapon could survive 5 or so similar ignitions, though I'm not sure how it would scale if I had and used 6 or maybe 10 thousand worth of stat points.
That is with the items, mostly what seems like forceful improvement of inscriptions, mana-related material, and such. Something I made sure to very carefully observe, though testing is a pain in the ass with the manaless state each test leaves me in.
I have noticed some weird effects too when I used a bit more mana in ignition, and these effects are weirder when I ignite the weapons I create through [Weave] and [Manifestation].
Probably reacting to some small differences I will need to pick up on fully, the effects on the weapon change. It almost feels like the skill senses the intention I made the weapon with.
When made to be durable, it becomes more durable after ignition, and if I intended for it to be sharp, it becomes sharper.
It is all accompanied by an effect that feels like the manifested weapon is… well… ignited? The colors remain as they were previously, maybe more vibrant, but in places, flames appear that move like normal ones would, though in a way that feels a bit slower and more strongly reacting to the changes in movement or wind.
These flames release no heat at all. They don't cut either. I also noticed that when I use that, it becomes quieter in the area, with the flames creating a quiet sound akin to fabric moving around in a powerful wind.
And that's what I found out so far. [Jüdrajil] allows me to take or give mana, and the effects differ if it's from organic or inorganic things, along with plenty of weird small rules.
I will abuse that, of course. I already have plenty of ideas of where to use the skill, though the most noticeable so far is simply taking mana by a touch from people, monsters, and animals. Personally, I think I would be able to defend against it if I reacted quickly enough and wasn't surprised.
Well, I'm not unhappy with it, as much as I really liked [Usurpation]. I think I can learn much more from this, and the ceiling is higher.
But for now, I will return to the 12th tutorial floor. Before that, I will leave some vials of liquid mana for the Doc and a few more people. I will check if the rest of the low pristine items I got from assassins were sold, and I will probably put up one of the keys for auction.
I gave myself some time, but I should soon decide which of the 4 options to select from my primary class. I'm getting a pop-up every time I open my status, and it's getting annoying. Even the system isn't free from popups; may the person who invented them never be able to scratch their nose and have it forever itchy. At least I know from Ruby that I shouldn't have a limited time and the popup won't stop appearing, robbing me of my reward.
It is a few days later when I find myself back on the train pulled by the reanimated corpse of a horse whose heart powers the sacred machine. I think it is still a bit brutal for the race that calls themselves kindred, but who am I to judge? Use the horse, turn it into a mana battery, just don't send your scary children after me. Don't notice my mana reserves and much more portable size in comparison to the horse.
I think Izzy got bored and decided to call the horse Juan. I don't want to ask why.
So now we are not that far from the meeting spot where the airships will come to trade and all that stuff. It is one of the zones far away from other kaiju, well, other than one.
There is a small city nestled against the volcano that, though active, almost doesn't seem like it. The area is lush green, beautiful, full of animals, life, and many kindred and other races present on the planet found their refuge here. The area can be split into two parts. The nice one, filled with huge stone or wooden houses and full of life, colorfully painted and on a flatland, with docks for airships and train tracks.
The other side of the mountain is honestly a bit fucked up.
It is the kindred that did the calculations, knowing how much population can stay here to avoid the attention of kaiju, and yet they still move people around. Half of the population often leaves for months, and the population itself is strictly controlled.
So the kaiju don't come this way that often, and one of the reasons as to why is simple.
One of them is already here.
That is what we see on the other side of the mountain as the train makes its way around. A huge skeleton of what seems like some sort of flying dinosaur.
It is the only one out of the 12 kaiju that the kindred were able to take down, and I say take down, because that is all they were able to do. The kaiju is still alive.
And I see these indestructible bones I heard about, and watch dozens of kindred and people move around the skeleton the size of a fallen mountain.
Even now, the kaiju continues to try to regenerate, and this has been going on for hundreds of years already. All while everyone here continues to use the powers of the volcano and the weapons they invented to burn that flesh before the monster revives.