Chương 51: Kitchen Knife +3

Enzo picked up the kitchen knife and held it loosely in his right hand. Infusion and Empowerment both required the cultivator's approach. Mana needed to flow through the body before being released, uncontrolled, into the object. It was strikingly familiar to Burst. Circulate, build, expel. Empowerment was the same principle applied to a held object instead of a fist. In theory. In practice, there were obvious differences. The goal wasn't to create an intense pressure differential resulting in an explosion.

He closed his eyes. Found the heartbeat. Let the mana in his heart reservoir respond to the rhythm, the way it always did now. It was steady, and patient, but always ready to become part of his life. The process started on its own, mana flowing outward through his arms, settling into the muscles of his forearm, pooling in his hand. Then he pushed it further. Past the skin. Into the handle of the knife. Nothing happened. He pushed harder.

The mana pressed against the boundary between his palm and the wood of the handle, bunching at the surface. His body wanted to keep it. The channels ended at his skin, and the mana didn't know where to go after that. Burst worked because the mana expelled outward in a single violent release. This wasn't that. This was slow. Basically a trickle. But Val had accomplished this with barely a second of thought, using a stick in the backyard. So it couldn't be complicated.

Not because she wasn't capable of it, but because she defaulted to being direct. He told the mana his intentions. And then it flowed through the skin directly in contact with the knife handle without further instruction. He could feel it spreading through the wood, slow and directionless, soaking into the material the way water soaked into a sponge. He fed it a little more, and the mana crept from the handle into the tang, then along the blade.

It also slowly dissipated, requiring a steady supply from his reserves to maintain. He opened his eyes. The purple sheen was barely visible in the fading light, but it was there. He ran a thumb across the flat of the blade without touching the edge, feeling the subtle barrier the mana formed between him and the metal. Then he stopped pushing. The mana faded immediately, receding from the tip first, retreating back along the blade toward the handle. Within seconds, it was gone. Temporary. Exactly as described.

A new notification pulsed at the edge of his awareness, joining the others he'd been ignoring. He flicked past the first one, the Analyze spell upgraded. Nothing had changed except the list of mana types.

— Empowerment (Level 1) Learned Updated Guide Entry: Magic Crafting → Secondary Crafting Disciplines Included Tier 0 Eater Eliminated (x12) → Bonus Mana Capacity Provided (+60) Mana Sense (Level 14) → Mana Sense (Level 15) Mana Control (Level 13) → Mana Control (Level 14) Mana Absorption (Level 15) → Mana Absorption (Level 16) Attunement (Level 12) → Attunement (Level 13) Mana Circulation (Level 4) → Mana Circulation (Level 6) Cultivation (Level 2) → Cultivation (Level 3) Lock (Level 9) → Lock (Level 10)* Bolt (Level 13) → Bolt (Level 14) Analyze (Level 5) → Analyze (Level 7) — Technique Codified: Burst (Level 1) Type: Arcane Description: Expels concentrated mana through a contact point in a single concussive release.

Force scales with mana invested. Effect determined by mana types used. — Enzo ignored his status and opened the updated crafting entry. He was immediately disappointed. Where both primary disciplines had been outlined briefly, giving something to work with, the section on secondary disciplines only incorporated Empowerment. Which he'd already figured out. And it offered no insight into how to develop it further. Typical Guide.

But it did come with an expanded section that mentioned the existence of various secondary and tertiary disciplines. It didn't outline what they did, how to practice them, or even which primary discipline they extended. The only thing it offered were names. Formations. Inscriptions. Alchemy. Agrivation. Lifeshaping. Corebinding. Beastbonding. Riftcraft. Spellforging. They were drops of water to a dying man in a desert, but he'd take anything he could get.

He spent the next five minutes copying the updated crafting entry word for word, triple-checking that everything was perfect. Sumi would need it. They all would. There was no way any one person could possibly explore all of these. Let alone figure out what they all did, though most of the names hinted at a direction at least. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Enzo leaned back in his chair and picked the knife back up. This time he would try Infusion.

It was a little odd that Empowerment was obviously the easier thing to do, requiring a cultivator to simply pour mana from their body into an object, while being considered a secondary discipline to Infusion which required more effort. The Guide entry mentioned that it worked better during active material transformation. But it also said performing it on completed objects produced diminished and often temporary results, meaning it was possible.

Perhaps there was more to Empowerment than what they currently understood. It was also possible the hierarchy was bureaucratic. The Guide had come with plenty of asinine limitations.

"Analyze." — Kitchen Knife Type: None Description: A worn carbon steel kitchen knife with a riveted hardwood handle. Minor corrosion detected throughout, consistent with excessive mana exposure seen in Empowerment and Enchanting. — Enzo took a breath and started pouring mana into the knife again. The one hint he had was 'saturation.' Infusion wasn't about passing mana through for temporary benefit, it was about changing the underlying material. He already knew mana bonded with things.

Arcane in its ambient form permeated everything. Life changed under its effects. Technology broke down because it disrupted the mechanisms they relied on. Rifts tore holes in reality when there was too much of it concentrated into one space with nothing but physics to affect. Enzo increased the mana passing into the knife by increasing the density, rather than the rate of flow. Mana Absorption had been a little deceptive from the beginning.

They initially considered it to be a skill focused on pulling ambient mana into their reservoirs, but over time that understanding had shifted. The rate of absorption had improved, marginally, but not enough to explain the levels they'd gained. Instead, Mana Absorption was about compression. The increased levels came from learning to store more mana within the same physical space. Their heart or mind. Or both, in his case.

He compressed the mana as it gathered in his hand, holding it long enough to pack more into the same outgoing flow, layering his intention that the mana be absorbed into the material, becoming part of a whole, rather than breaking down into its ambient form. A minute passed, and nothing changed. But he was no stranger to the work requiring patience. Mana continued to circulate through his body, building in his hand, compressing, then flowing into the blade. He activated Mana Sense. It revealed what he already felt.

The mana leaking from the knife was less than the mana flowing into it. A new notification pulsed at the edge of his awareness. He cut the mana flow and pulled it up. — Infusion (Level 1) Learned — That was all, but it confirmed what he needed to know.

"Analyze." — Kitchen Knife +1 Type: Arcane Hardness +1 Description: A worn carbon steel kitchen knife with a riveted hardwood handle. Mild corrosion detected throughout, consistent with excessive mana exposure seen in Infusion and Enchanting. — Enzo blinked at the game-like terminology. That was definitely not something he'd packed into his spell form, which meant the Guide had interpreted it that way itself.

Increased hardness aligned with what he understood of arcane mana, even if there was no way to properly test and measure the change. That the material corrosion had increased was the more interesting thing, as was the description changing Empowerment to Infusion as the source. The silver in Val's ring had also shown similar degradation, though nowhere near as fast. Perhaps it was related to the quantity of mana passing through the material.

Empowerment and Infusion required more mana than the basic barrier enchantment did, but regular activation would likely accelerate the corrosion. Ambient mana didn't seem to be breaking anything down over time. It was only occurring when the mana was structured, carrying intent. Was it a hidden price? Or perhaps it was connected to the idea of mana permanence they were pursuing.

If magic always required some measure of physical exchange, it might also explain why they gradually grew more fatigued as they spent their mana reserves, even after refilling them. Did that mean they were breaking themselves down by working magic? He frowned. That didn't add up. Every single mage he'd spoken to reported feeling better. Even Mary and Robert had experienced a reduction in old aches and pains, though where Mary's had been minimal, Robert had expressed feeling 'almost young again.'

If they were consuming their bodies, someone would have noticed something. Diminished eyesight. Aches. Pains. Reduced bodily functions. Sudden and irrevocable death. None of that had happened. But they had all felt the hollowness that came with emptying their reserves. It felt like sudden starvation. Enzo turned the knife over in his hand. Figuring out whether mana was eating them from the inside out was also Sumi's job now. His was figuring out how far he could push Infusion on his mother's poor knife.

He started the process over, this time using metal mana instead of arcane. Immediately he noticed a difference. The mana already bonded to the knife resisted the new. It wasn't a lot, and simply increasing the flow overcame it, but the eventual outcome was obvious. Corrosion and existing mana density were both limitations for how far Infusion could improve an object. Enzo felt the metal mana pulsing gently into the blade, and decided to try something that a cultivator couldn't.

He grabbed the mana in the blade with his mind, and aided its transfer through the material, hammering it where he wanted the sharpness to go. To the edge of the knife, rather than spread throughout. The mana complied. It flowed faster, reaching the edge and settling. More and more sharp metal mana pulsed across the blade, concentrating where it was needed. A notification pulsed in his mind, and he released the mana.

The blade felt like it could take more, but unlike Enchanting, which was obviously working or not, Infusion had no clear evidence that it had taken hold. That would make the process more challenging, but he had no doubt experience would teach him. — Mana Control (Level 14) → Mana Control (Level 15) Mana Circulation (Level 6) → Mana Circulation (Level 7) Infusion (Level 1) → Infusion (Level 2) —"Analyze."

— Kitchen Knife +3 Type: Arcane, Metal Hardness +1 Sharpness +2 Description: A worn carbon steel kitchen knife with a riveted hardwood handle. Major corrosion detected throughout, consistent with excessive mana exposure seen in Infusion and Enchanting. — Enzo nodded to himself. The experiment was a success. Material corrosion occurred as more and more mana was pushed through it, but to the naked eye it didn't appear changed.

The damage was probably hidden in the metal's atomic lattice, but as long as the mana held it together, it would still work as intended. It also showed that mana carrying the appropriate concepts, and directed rather than fully permeating the object, produced greater results. The real problem was that he wasn't a metalsmith. Or a leatherworker. Or any number of skilled trades that might end up involved in crafting magical items. That would limit Infusion. Not that it wasn't still worth doing.

He could improve the weapons and armor used by the Watch in the meantime. In the long term, maybe one of the other cultivators would take up leathercrafting once they saw the value of it. Maybe even blacksmithing, if they could find someone with the expertise to teach it. They'd have to build a forge, but the long term benefits would be worth it. Any edge was worth investigating. Between warlords like Gus, Beasts like the one-eyed snake, and Eaters probably already heading for Tier 2, they needed every advantage.

Enzo put the knife down and reached for the box of odd materials. The experiment was far from over. Now it was time to see what he could Infuse using the other mana types.