Chương 110: 109 - No More Mana

Sewing didn't help Alexandra cure her sicknesses. She was sitting with Kam in the lifeforce alcove, going over her final attempt before taking the potion. As soon as her Mana Concentration Skill quest had completed, she'd used all her skills to locate her sicknesses. But try as she might, both sickness of empathy and sickness of paranoia eluded her completely. While Sewing did improve her control over her mana threads, it didn't help her to locate curses. Those were two different disciplines.

"So you think I should take the potion?" she asked Kam, who was sitting in his usual spot, reading another book about lifeforce. He didn't raise his head.

"Yes." She waited.

"That's it?"

"We talked about it already." It was true. Alexandra had asked the same question, and Kam always had the same answer. Alfred Dumries was highly respected. He wanted to work with her. Willow vouched for him too. Alexandra knew that paranoia was influencing her, making her hesitate more than she would normally. But while it was easy to spot the curse's influence, discarding it was a whole different ordeal. She flipped the pages of her journal as a way to delay her decision.

Daily quests summary: Nine Quests Completed -> +90 exp, +3 STR, +2 CON, +1 INT, +3 PER Daily Quest Streak: 60 -> 69 Recently, her daily quests had gotten easier. Where they took up most of her days at the beginning, it was now a matter of a few hours at most. She was getting stronger, and tasks that would have stumped her before were now much more accessible. Alexandra was happy to notice her improvement. Daily quests were never meant to take long, in theory. That was why she'd fallen into the grind back then.

She'd never have had the drive to make her streak happen otherwise. Another thing she had to take note of was that skill quests were getting rarer. But as her quests were starting to repeat, she understood that it was always meant to happen. She already had a lot of skills and couldn't get the same skill twice. The skills she had, on the other hand, were progressing at a breakneck pace thanks to her newest class perk.

Manyfold Style 1 -> 2 Running 9 -> 10 Reading 9 -> 10 A Face Among Many 7 -> 8 Sewing 1 -> 10 And that was after ten days without using her mana. Mana Concentration: Restrain your mana for ten days without letting go (10/10) Now that she was done with Mana Concentration, she could get to work on the rest. She toyed with the potion in her hand. Unless she drank that potion. It would delay her leveling. Why would Alfred want to delay her? They might miss an opportunity to escape.

"What if Alfred's goal is specifically to drain my mana so I can't cast during the next week?"

"Convoluted." She looked at him. He wasn't wrong. If Alfred wanted to hurt her, he had much simpler ways to do it. In the end, either she drank the potion and was free of her curses now, or she didn't, and would suffer until she found a cure herself. It would take a few weeks for her to recover. She scratched her chin. Maybe she was overthinking it. She wanted to leave, but Raymond was still hoping she would work with him. Logically, he shouldn't act against her. Not any more than he already had.

At least, she should be safe. So did it really matter if she was delayed for a few weeks? Also, making important decisions with sickness paranoia active was perhaps not the best idea. She uncorked the flask and downed it. The liquid tasted like cold ash and well-water, thick enough to cling to the back of her throat. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Alexandra swallowed, setting the empty glass flask down on the wooden desk with a sharp click. For a second, nothing happened. The alcove remained exactly as it was, quiet save for the soft rustle of Kam turning another page of his book. Then her mana dropped. It wasn't a painful sensation, but it was violent in its finality. It felt as though a trapdoor had suddenly opened beneath her core, plunging everything into a bottomless void.

The stubborn threads she had kept tightly bound for ten days during her quest evaporated. Her core was completely empty. Not a drop of mana. It didn't seem like it was regenerating either. Alexandra leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and burying her face in her hands. She took a slow, deep breath, waiting for the panic to hit.

She waited for the sudden, suffocating certainty that Alfred had betrayed her, that the potion was a poison, that Raymond's Keepers were already moving down the corridors to lock her away forever. The panic never came. It was like a thick fog had suddenly been swept clean from her mind. She lowered her hands and looked around the room. The sickness of paranoia was gone. It no longer dragged at the edges of her thoughts.

"Alexandra?" She turned her head. Kam had finally raised his head from his book. He was watching her closely, his eyes tracking the tension in her shoulders.

"It's gone," she said. Her voice sounded different to her own ears, devoid of that frantic, defensive edge.

"The curses. They're completely gone." Kam nodded.

"Good." Alexandra looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers. Her mind felt remarkably sharp. Without the constant, exhausting pull of the curse clouding her judgment, her entire situation began to reorder itself in her mind like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. She had been desperate to run. Her anger over Louis's death and Raymond's suffocating surveillance had pushed her to the brink of a reckless escape.

But looking at it now, through a lens unclouded by fear, she realized how close she had come to making a fatal mistake. Raymond still wanted something from her. He wanted her to work with him, to use her divine class under his terms. As long as he believed she was still within his grasp and considering his offer, he wouldn't use force. He would watch her, but he wouldn't destroy her. That gave her safety. A temporary, fragile safety, but safety nonetheless.

If she rushed out of the Iron Library now, she would be exposed. If she failed her escape, she wouldn't get a second chance. I still want to leave, she thought, her fingers tracing the leather binding of her journal. But I cannot just run. She had to pull off an escape so meticulous that when she vanished from the Iron Library, she would leave absolutely no trail behind. She needed to ensure that wherever she, Kam, and Willow went next, nobody would find her. The Hands of the Well were a concern.

They were not hostile, but they were not friendly either, and their healers were everywhere. But they were not her only concern. Sera had found her in Esmera, which meant that Raymond had a way to locate her. As for her five other old friends, she wasn't sure. She took the time to generate the training quest for Mana Concentration. It wouldn't be possible for the time being, as she'd need mana to do it. Mana Concentration Training Quest: Cast a new spell inside your core (0/1) She frowned.

Even with mana, it wouldn't be trivial. Speaking of which, she shifted her attention to check on her Solar Core. Unlike her mana core, the Bronze effect of her bloodline was still operational. Located within her mana core, the Solar Core was half-full with solar energy. Some of it streamed into her body, feeding her. Alexandra pinched her lips between her index finger and her thumb, thinking that it was a bit of a waste that this energy couldn't be used in any other way. Could it?

She slapped her hand on the table, startling Kam in the process.

"What?" the boy asked.

"Sorry. I have an idea." She stood up.

"I need to read some stuff. See you later." Kam watched her leave the alcove, his expression unchanged. She walked down the narrow aisles, her boots tapping lightly against the stone floor. She soon located a kiosk and realized she needed mana to use it.

"Fuck," she whispered. Alexandra returned to the alcove and dragged Kam out to have him search in her stead. Unfortunately, while the first floor had some books on the topic, they were all closer to scientific theories about photovoltaics than any magical application. She did find a few books on photosynthesis, but only the biological process, not her bloodline. Alexandra moved toward the central staircase, her hand sliding smoothly along the cold iron railing as she ascended to the second floor.

The second level of the Iron Library was quieter. Shadows stretched between the bookshelves. She ran her fingers across the spines of the leather-bound books until she found a section dedicated to the external manifestations of the celestial bodies. She pulled a thick, iron-clasped volume from the shelf and carried it over to a small reading desk by the window. She flipped it open. The text was written in an archaic, flowery script that required her full concentration to parse.

But as she skimmed through the pages, her brow furrowed in disappointment. The book didn't detail the manipulation of solar energy. Instead, it was an extensive, dense compilation of sun-worshiping rituals, hymns dedicated to ancient cults, and abstract theological debates about Fanon's supposed link with the sun. She leaned back in her chair, staring out the high window at the gray, overcast sky hanging over the academy courtyards. Mana and lifeforce could be used to cast spells.

She could even substitute lifeforce for a curse. Why wouldn't there be a way to convert solar energy to mana? Admittedly, she only had access to the first two floors of the library. Perhaps what she was looking for existed above. She thought of reaching out to Alfred, but decided otherwise. Even without the paranoia, she didn't completely trust him. Limiting her contact with him was also better to avoid suspicions. It would be a challenge, but maybe she could find the solution herself.

She had skills and spells she could try, and an unending reserve of solar energy, even with the cloudy sky. Alexandra opened her journal, a dangerous, calculated idea beginning to form in her mind.