Chương 164: 161 - Connection

By the light of the moon, we silently float through the air across the swamp on one of B's shields. It's unusually silent aboard the B-mobile, though not because of any nervousness or anything. I mean, Lauren looks a little nervous, and Chad too, by extension, but it's not that bad. The main reason we're quiet is to avoid drawing attention. It's a long way to Zorg's Territory, and getting into unnecessary battles with random monsters along the way will only make it longer. We're not idle, though.

Chad is fiddling with the box, making last minute micro-adjustments with a tiny black knife, and A is trying to teach Lauren and I telepathy while her sister pilots the shield. The lessons have not been very successful. With how easily the twins do it, I kinda expected it to be easy enough to learn. Something like create a magical connection and just think really hard through it. Or maybe even not that hard, since I can talk to Abby without much effort. But apparently, it is not that.

Telepathy is not at all a simple Skill, and in fact, it's not even a basic Skill. I guess I should have expected that, but Lauren and I will have to learn the Skill Connection first, and then evolve it twice to get Telepathy. And even getting Connection isn't easy. The twins actually cheated to get it. Their Synchronicity Trait makes it so they basically constantly have Connection active at all times, so literally all they had to do was tap into that connection to get the Skill.

Lauren and I, on the other hand, need to manually forge that mana bond, and we have to form it in a way that the System accepts it as valid. A long time ago, A and B explained how mana could take on different properties, such as rigidity, flexibility, volatility, or things like that. Most of them are pretty intuitive. Mana responds to your imagination, so you can just imagine it rigid or flexible or whatever and it'll become that way. Kind of.

You have to apply your willpower too, but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The issue for Lauren and I is that Connection and its evolutions rely on the property of intangibility, which isn't something that most mana types deal with. Lauren has a slight advantage with her Shadow Affinity, but even with that, she's struggling, and without even that, I'm struggling more. Intangibility isn't just about not being able to be touched.

If that was it, I could just spray out some unguided mana and it would work. It's a "state of being that literally cannot be interfered with except by that which deliberately seeks to interfere with it," in A's words. Ordinary mana can be interfered with by loads of things, including solid objects, other mana, or even other people's willpower. Intangible mana, on the other hand, cannot. I can't wrap my head around it. Lauren can't either. We both suffer together while A gives us increasingly useless advice.

"Think of it like melting ice or boiling water," she tells us telepathically.

"You're changing it to a different state of being. From solid to liquid. Liquid to gas. Gas to plasma."

"What does that even mean?" I hiss.

"I don't know," she replies with a shrug.

"But I figure if I keep giving comparisons for visualization purposes, one of them might stick. You guys didn't get any of the easier ones like light or sound, so we're on to this."

"Try something related to food," chimes in B, who has been listening in on the whole thing.

"I've been trying to come up with–""Oh!" says Lauren.

"I got it!"

"Shhhh," says everyone.

"Sorry," she whispers.

"Ah, so you're a water boiler person," says A, nodding.

"Huh? What? No, I was just thinking about it like shadows, and then it clicked." She holds her hand out and in it, I can sense… something. Maybe. There's mana there, but it feels faint, like it's on the verge of not existing.

"Darn. Well, congratulations. You've got the hardest part over with. Now you just need to practice with it, and we can do the actual connection part. Start messing with it, and make sure you can consistently make the shift, and in the meantime, help me think of a visualization that will help me get it through Yona's thick skull."

"Hey!"

"Something food-related," adds B.

"Maybe…" says Lauren, rubbing her chin.

"It's like a scent. Regular mana is the food, but intangible mana is just how it smells."

"Oh, that's a good one," says A.

"Yona, try it out!" I glare at both of them, then close my eyes. I know I've got Gluttony, but that doesn't mean I have to be the one who needs food metaphors to understand things. Still, nothing else has worked, so I hold some mana out on my palm and try to imagine it as a smell. Or imagine it becoming a smell. But that doesn't make sense. How does food become a smell? It has a smell. Maybe I can make the main mana like the food, and then some other mana on top of it intangible like a smell?

I fiddle with it for a few minutes, trying to get that visualization to work, but eventually open my eyes with a sigh.

"It's not working."

"Hmmm…" says Lauren.

"Maybe…" They try a few more food-related visualization ideas, each less effective and sensical than the last. Then the food ones end, and they go back to others, with A repeating some ones she used earlier, hoping that they'll jog something. The example with visible light vs invisible or high frequency sound vs audible frequency feel like they maybe should work, but they don't. Especially not after Abby explains the physics of how those things work.

Raising the frequency of the mana just kinda makes it vibrate a bunch. After about an hour of futile failure, Lauren suddenly perks up, putting her fist on her palm.

"I've got it!" she says. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. We all look over at her.

"So you know how after you eat something good, an hour later when you burp, it kinda has the same taste and smell, but not really? Like, you burp and it almost feels like the food is still there, but when you actually try to taste or smell it, it's not there? It's like that. Intangible mana is a post-meal burp."

"Lauren…" says A.

"That's genius!"

"Is it?" I whisper.

"Try it!" say all three of the others at the same time. With a sigh, I close my eyes and try to visualize intangible mana for what feels like the hundredth time this trip. As weird as it sounded, I focus on Lauren's description of the post-meal burp. As much as I hate to admit it, I am very familiar with that sensation, and am able to bring it up to mind easily. In fact, I just had a quiet little maligar fruit-flavored burp a few seconds ago from the sorbet I was munching on.

I bring that mental image into full focus, and try to apply it to the mana. The mana in my hand that came from my body is currently the full meal. I need to turn it into the post-meal burp. It doesn't work at first, but I feel like there's something there, so I try a little harder until a random thought pops into my mind. I think it over for a few seconds, imagining how much Abby will laugh at me, but then decide that I don't care enough, and I pop the mana in my hand into my mouth and swallow.

A few seconds later, I open my mouth slightly, bringing a bit of the mana out from my gut, focusing on that intangible feeling… And it works. And now Lauren and the twins are both laughing.

"Shut up," I say, holding the now-intangible mana in my hand.

"It worked, didn't it?" That only makes them laugh harder, wheezing silently to avoid making too much noise. Abby joins in as well. My minions have no respect for me. As retaliation, I switch to cat form and go get in Lauren's lap. Unable to resist, she starts scratching behind my ears, as a minion should. After that, we spend the rest of the night and beginning of the morning either napping or practicing. Now that Lauren and I can make the intangible mana, getting Connection is relatively easy.

We just need to use that mana to form a bond between us and another target. A and B say it's possible with inanimate objectcs, and that they actually do that a lot during their artificing, but it's easiest to do it with a willing partner, so Lauren and I work together until we both get the Skill. [Connection: Form a connection. Proficiency: Early] Abby, have I ever mentioned how bad some of these System descriptions are?

"Maybe once or twice." Well, file another ticket.

"Yes, even I have to admit that this one isn't great… Such a circular definition should never have made it into production." I know, right?

"Ticket sent. I'm sure they'll get to it once they get through the other 200 you've sent." It can't be that many.

"Actually, you've sent in a total of 278 so far. So closer to 300." Wow. The System Developers must really suck to make me file so many support tickets.

"Right…" What Connection actually does is it gives me an awareness of whatever I'm connected to. So while I'm connected to Lauren, I am vaguely aware of where she is, what direction she's moving, and if I really focus, and she's willing to help strengthen the connection, we can sense each other's emotions too. It's basically just the Skill version of the twins' Trait. The twins recommend that we just leave the connection going indefinitely. It'll level the Skill, and who knows? Maybe it'll be useful in the heist.

A Connection-fueled emotional message will travel faster than any words. Close to noon, we finally draw near to our destination. How Lauren can tell, I'm not sure, because this swamp looks the same everywhere, but she has B slow down, and makes sure that we all stay quiet. Chad steps away from the box, letting me grab it in a pair of giant mana hands, and the twins both stand up and ready their staffs for battle.

Lauren gives a few last minute warnings, then jumps off our shield barge, sinking into a shadow and disappearing. Soon, the tree wall that Lauren described comes into view. It's at least thirty meters high, and looks like an impenetrable tangle of tree trunks and roots. When we get closer, I can sense that the tree wall is actually double-layered, with a second layer ten meters further in. Both are a meter thick at their thinnest points, and nearly three in the thicker parts.

The space between the two walls has a few random monsters inside. None feel that powerful, but they'd probably be a decent deterrent against a weaker group, or a group that couldn't fly. And then, a bit further in, I sense them. The frogs. Or at least, their extradimensional burrows. Even in the small area that Food Sense can reach, I can already feel a half dozen of them, and based on how big the enclosure looks, there have to be hundreds more inside. I lick my lips and prepare to fly over the wall with the box.

Unfortunately, since the box was designed to resist spatial mana, Blinking while holding it is not possible, but that's fine. I can still shove it into my Dungeon once it's full, and then we can make our great escape. Of course, that's assuming that the frogs' defenders don't interfere too much. As we draw close, two figures also appear, one flying, and one swimming, only the top of its head visible from above the water.

"This is prrrrrivate property!" says an annoyingly shrill voice.

"You can't be here, nope, nope! Turn back, turn back, or else Herman's gonna getcha!" The source of the voice is the harpy that Lauren described, Sasha the Sensitive, and surprisingly, I can actually see her level. It's 17, so she's a little higher level than me, but she doesn't have a Sin or Virtue Trait, meaning she's actually way weaker.

She's more bird-like than I expected, with her lower half complete with a full, long set of tailfeathers that are longer than the rest of her body is tall, and dangle below her as she perches on a branch. The only part of her that's human is the upper torso and head, not including her arms, which are just two big pairs of wings. Her feathers are an offensively bright shade of yellow, and her hair is the same, and for some reason looks like she has an 80s-style perm.

She's also not wearing a shirt, which makes Chad blush and look away. The one in the water says nothing, but its silence and the mana I can sense in its body is much more threatening than the annoying harpy. I can only see its head, but Food Sense tells me that its full body is more than four meters tall, and mostly humanoid. It is shaped like a fat human, but most of that flesh is not fat. It is almost pure muscle, and there's a lot of it.

His Namecard only has a single question mark, indicating that he's Tier 4, the same as my Party members, but given that he's a Named monster, his stats will be about double theirs, assuming he's similar in level. Still very much a doable fight, but not necessarily an easy one. [Herman, the Swamp Defender]"There is no need to fight," calls A.

"Surrender and we will spare your lives," says B.

"Surrrrrrender?!" exclaims Sasha.

"Herman, did you hear that? They want us to surrender!"

"Hmmmmm," Herman hums in a tone so low it makes the water vibrate around him.

"Nope, nope, we will not be doing that!" says Sasha.

"Boss's orders!" Her voice suddenly shifts to a scarily accurate impression of Zorg.

"'That cat babe's suspicious. Keep an eye on the frogs.' That's what he said, yep yep!"

"Zorg won't be in control of this region much longer," says A.

"There's a raid group coming, and he won't survive," says B.

"The rrrrraid group, yep yep!" said Sasha.

"He knows, he knows! But he said to defend the frogs, so that's what we do. Isn't that right, Herman? Yep, yep!"

"Hmmmmm…"

"Then it looks like we've got no choice," says A, shrugging.

"We warned you," says B.

"Yona."

"Do your thing."