Chương 22: 1-21 Mana Vessel

As the skill entered Josef's body, the change began even before any notification appeared. It spread through his own channels, almost like an infection that tried to take over his body. A very successful one, as nothing within him could or would offer resistance. Wherever it flowed, his body began to itch uncomfortably, though not painfully. Everything became hot and cold at the same time, and Josef had to lie down as he grew unsteady. Moments later, he was unable to move at all.

Then, starting at his hand, his mana channels began to dissolve. The feeling was nauseating, as within his own perception, it felt like his body lost definition and started to blur. Panic gripped his heart as his channels continued to unravel all the way up his arm and finally, in his torso. How was he supposed to cast magic if he could no longer direct the mana throughout his body?

Josef could do nothing but endure for the moment, trusting that the system and this new skill weren't actually ruining his own body, but creating something better. As the change continued to spread into his other limbs, there remained only one place completely unaffected by all of this. His heart. Even as all channels connecting to it disappeared, its own walls remained. Though even that one didn't feel as solid as it was before. Finally, as nothing else remained, it even spread up his neck and into his head.

Josef fainted. He wasn't aware of how much time had passed, when he was finally woken up by something biting his ear. It was Nibbles, who had taken to waking him up from his sudden nap. The rat had obviously grown distraught when he passed out and didn't move for an extended period of time. Dusty, meanwhile, was now settled on his chest, his eyes unblinking as always, but otherwise relaxed. Josef felt… good. Better than good even. He felt full of energy, like he was bursting at the seams. He was full of mana.

Even without checking his newest notification, he knew that his mana had increased significantly. Speaking of which, he should probably check it out before doing anything else. Body enhanced: ☆☆ Humanoid (Advanced) + ☆☆☆☆☆ Embodiment of Mana (Pinnacle) => ☆☆☆☆☆ Mana Vessel (Moderate) Your body is a temple made of flesh, mana and blood. Flesh and blood are but a compromise wrought upon you by mortal heritage. Mana is the source of magic, and magic is the expression of life.

You have taken a step away from your confined vessel. Rejoice. No longer a humanoid, no big deal, right? He picked that skill knowing that he would come out the other side changed forever, but that change in his status still hurt to see. But he wouldn't dwell on it, there were more important things to do, like checking out if his spell-casting was still functional. As he concentrated on the mana inside of him, the feeling was almost overwhelming.

If before he was watching bright channels like branches spread throughout, now his entire body was one single glowing mass. And in the center of it, or at least almost centered, was his heart, shining with even more intensity. Giving it a little squeeze, he willed his mana into action, ordering it to an outstretched hand. His mana moved. It wasn't simply flowing like a river as before, but instead the entire mass inside his body shifted as a whole.

Like a gradient of density, it moved around to fulfill his request, leaving other parts of his body slightly darker. Not that it stayed that way for long, as his heart pumped more mana into his body, where it spread like a tidal wave on dry land, touching up all the darker spots with a renewed bright shine. The speed at which this happened was ridiculous. From gathering the mana to replenishing his body, barely a whole second has passed. The whole thing felt responsive and alive.

But what would happen if he let go of the mana he had gathered, even though his body had replenished the loss already? The answer was a stinging sensation, as his body was now definitely more than just filled to the brim. It was bursting, literally. Mana that tried to seep back was still mostly stored away across his physical mass, but here and there it was trickling out of his body and disappearing into the air. Josef concluded that the answer was pain and wastage, and neither was desirable.

It was better to avoid that in the future. Next up, he checked how his body would react to a more continuous drain. Without giving his mana a specific intention, he just started pushing it out through his hand. And boy, could he push a lot of mana now. It ejected quickly and freely out of his body, with more spreading out from his heart quickly. With a bit of extra effort, he could even drain mana out of his other limbs, towards his torso, and into his arm.

That one turned out to be a bad idea, as the limbs in question quickly started to hurt like they were on fire. Furthermore, as he looked down at his other hand, he was shocked to see that his fingers had started to blacken, as if they were badly frostbitten. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Josef wasn't entirely surprised by the phenomenon, as the slime had reacted in a similarly catastrophic fashion to the lack of mana.

Still, he hadn't expected it to set in quite so quickly, as the limb wasn't even fully drained. As Nibbles started fussing over him with some scolding squeaks, he also added a Regeneration spell of his own. The effect wasn't as notable as usual, he suspected that damage suffered from the lack of mana was probably harder to fix than other injuries, but it still happened fairly quickly. Then again, almost fully draining the blood out of a limb was also a horrendous move, so he accepted that rather quickly.

Stranger than that was the idea that running out of mana could actually kill him if he wasn't careful. Though with the rate it recovered, the chance of that happening appeared stupidly low. He just had to stop casting for a bit if the side effects kicked in. Thinking about his mana regeneration, he realized that he still hadn't sat down and counted how quickly he could refill his magical fuel. Something which might be prudent now that it was critical to his health.

Even if there would be differences based on the surroundings, as he had noticed inside the dungeon, he could still at least establish a baseline. Asking his familiars to help him keep count, Josef pushed out a big wave of mana, almost as much as he had before, and realized just how ridiculous his latest increase was. His mana pool had more than doubled, even though his health was almost unchanged.

It was a bit of an imbalance, but at least he always had the option of quickly converting mana to health by using healing spells. Health 198/198 Mana 320/504 … 35.. 36. Josef stopped as his mana started to behave strangely. Even though it had almost fully refilled at this point, his regeneration had gone down by a lot around the 30 seconds mark. Did something change from before? Just now he was filling back up almost as quickly as in the dungeon, only to drop to a much slower level.

If it wasn't him, then his surroundings must have changed. He even had an idea of what had happened. Expelling the mana out of his body once more, he immediately used his Mana Drain spell. The reaction was immediate, as a small amount of it trickled back into him through little energy channels he pushed outside of his body. Of course, the mana he had expelled was still saturating the surrounding air. And his heart must somehow pull on mana in his surroundings to refill his own resource pool.

That's where his natural regeneration came from. Naturally, if he topped off more quickly inside a dungeon, that would mean the place was saturated in mana as well. Even though Josef had no proof for his theory, he at least felt somewhat confident in that conclusion. It also meant that he could hardly test his regeneration if he first released pure mana into his surroundings. He would have to wait until he had a proper target, or turn it into something else. For that purpose, he decided to test Blink.

That spell had a notable difference in how mana had to be distributed, mainly because he needed to spread the intent throughout his body before extending it in a direction. The smoothness with which his intent spread throughout, or rather colored, his mana was astonishing and gave him another insight into his new biology. There was still something akin to a channel system in his body, he noted as he watched how it was distributed. It was just that much more vast and integrated.

It was like riverbeds that stretched for miles, running through a flooded wetland. The water was already everywhere, but there were grooves in the ground that formed a current. With a popping noise, he moved to the other side of the room. Just like the first time around, he felt clammy and nauseous from the teleportation, but was otherwise fine. The small distance he covered didn't even fully drain the color out of his mana, much less make a big impact on his mana pool.

Using a little more than twenty mana in one go just wasn't all that noticeable with his current amount. Preparing his stomach and gritting his teeth, Josef continued to add several more short hops through his room until he had almost half of it drained. Then, getting an idea, he asked Dusty to jump on and join him, which the rabbit was happy to do. He wanted to try to take the rabbit with him as he blinked across the room.

All he accomplished was dropping the bunny to the ground, as the human he sat on disappeared on his own. Apparently, moving someone else along with him wasn't that simple. Or maybe it was the lack of space affinity of his familiar. Maybe he would consider summoning one with that affinity when he next got the chance. Finally, in an attempt to handle the almost vomit inducing nausea that was gripping him, he decided to flood the mana in his body with the intent to heal.

And as he did, he felt immediately refreshed, as if all stress had been washed out of his body. It felt like a much more rounded, further encompassing version of Regeneration, albeit with a notably lower potency. Adding that spell on top of it, he felt whole. Was that how Nibbles was healing? As a familiar summoned from his affinity for healing, he would likely be filled with the appropriate mana, right? He filed that thought away as an interesting curiosity, as there was nothing he could do with that right now.

Using intent to change his own body's mana into a certain affinity and holding it like that, however, was something he would have to experiment with a lot more. Mana 82/504 Finally, after properly exhausting his mana down into the double digits, he sat down and relaxed as he watched the number tick back up. Even if there was likely still some inconsistency, he could at least get an average number. … 55.. 56.. 57. A kick from Dusty snapped him out of his count. Was that supposed to be his alarm?

Was his own count that far off? Whatever. Mana 191/504 He had recovered just shy of 110 mana within a minute, which meant it wouldn't even take five minutes for full recovery. That was an insane rate, and definitely faster than what he had felt before. Clearly, his regeneration had also been improved by his latest upgrade. As he noted that, the system recognized his effort with a notification. The Mana Regeneration parameter has been added to your status screen.

You have earned a new feat: System Whelp Mana Regeneration 109, 25 / minute There was hidden data? What kind of sadist created that system? Then again, if finding them could get him feats, then he couldn't really complain. However, before he could check his newest reward, a knock on the door called for his attention. Apparently, he was late for breakfast. Right, he had no idea how long he had passed out for, but apparently it had been a while.

As he got ready for the day, Josef found himself looking forward to his next meeting with Zippa. That guy would be ecstatic about all that extra mana going towards regrowing his arm. They might even finish that today. But first, it was time to see Cana off to her dungeon delve.