First, I make sure Lily gets some water and food; she seems really thin. Well, all of us have lost some weight. The interesting thing is that if we went through this back on Earth, most of us would be done by now. It shows that even without the usage of skills and just by having mana and increased stats, our bodies started to change.
At what point do we stop being able to call ourselves humans? I do not know, but to be honest, I don't care that much.
I am me, and I'll stay me. If I decide to change, it will be my decision, and I do not care much about what others will call me.
Another thing is Biscuit. I like him, I really do. The doggo might be silly, but he is surprisingly smart and gentle with all of us. Maybe not everything is lost when animal archmages take over. Biscuit might protect us, remembering the bits of food we gave him back on the first floor.
Still, does he really have to use eight massive mana arms to move, using them instead of his legs that hang in the air? He looks like a massive spider with the body of a pottymouthed telepathic corgi.
It creeps me out, so I use [Disruption] to cancel this abomination. I don't put much effort into it and only send a wave of disruptive mana towards him.
The corgi resists.
"..."
What?
The heck?!
He glances at me with a cheeky look in his eyes. He is laughing at me, is he not? He is totally making fun of me!
I send another wave of disruptive mana towards him, and finally, the eight arms made of mana disappear, and the corgi plops down on his short legs and woofs at me.
I succeeded, but I know it's only the beginning of the end. The corgi has already started to learn how to fight against [Disruption].
What have I done?
After booping Biscuit's snout like five times – I gotta enjoy it while I'm stronger – I join Isabella and Sophie. I just nod at Sophie, but the little girl gives me a small, short hug and then sits down, smiling at me.
"You were totally right! Doggo's snout is amazing to boop!" Her face glows as she says so.
"I told you! Also, you should try to gently pull his whiskers; he then woofs softly. But only do it two times; after that, he becomes super annoyed." I tell her.
Isabella giggles. "I'll do that!"
Out of all of us, little Isabella lost the least weight, and I lost the most, even though I probably finished off the most monsters. Hmm, is there any correlation?
"Who are you?" Sophie asks with a weird look on her face.
So rude, but anyway, I wanted something.
I hand her a small mana stone. "Can you infuse it with your mana using your skill?"
She nods and does just that, and I grab the stone from her and leave afterwards without saying anything else.
"What the hell?" I hear behind me, but I ignore it.
I examine the mana stone that is now leaking her mana quickly, and I do it until it's fully empty. Then I go to Tess and ask her to do the same, and she does just that, and I sit next to her, examining the stone again.
After all the mana leaks, I do it as well. I do it two times, and in both cases, I use as similar an amount of mana as I can.
For the first try, I use only [Mana Manipulation], and for the second one, I use [Mana Infusion].
In both cases, I examine the stone until the mana depletes.
The results are as follows:
[Mana Infusion] fills up the stone faster, much faster, and also fills it up more evenly. Also, mana infused by this skill stays in the item for longer. I already tested it and tried to infuse mana into stuff like a piece of cloth, a normal stone, and iron weapons.
When I use the skill to infuse it into a mana stone, it feels much smoother, fills faster, and holds the mana for longer. On the other side, the materials I tried are much worse.
But it's possible to use [Mana Infusion] to fill items with mana, and that's good to know.
On the other side, if I or other people try it with [Mana Manipulation] or without the skill, or with a similar skill, it fills slower, and the distribution is much worse. For example, there are some places that fill with a much denser amount of mana, and some not as much, and it sometimes even damages the item.
Even as high as my [Mana Manipulation] is, it still can't compare to the other skill when it comes to infusing mana into something.
But that's just it. The skill only allows me to infuse an item with mana, and what happens afterwards is something other skills have to deal with, and I have a few really good ones!
Even strengthening my body is now better, and it alleviates some pressure in comparison to doing it in a different way. But the biggest difference comes up with the use of [Armament]. The two skills work amazingly together.
[Armament] is much faster and allows me to create even denser weapons or armor around my body. Also, the shields I'm able to create became stronger.
It allows me to have a much stronger ranged attack without worrying about mana projectiles disappearing or being too weak, and not having to spend so much time creating them that would make them unusable.
Good. Good!
But I will not stop! The next goal is to evolve the skill into [Infusion]. I want to infuse stuff with thermal energy and kinetic energy. I want to infuse my mana projectiles with [Disruption], and [Oscillation].
Well, I could probably do it even now in some roundabout janky way, and I even tried it, but it just takes way too long to be usable, and the effect disappears too quickly when I'm not touching it.
I stop my thoughts for a second and listen. The wind outside still doesn't blow too hard, and I already decided to leave only when it's the strongest so I'll have some backup source of kinetic energy.
I also know that I'll have to rely on perceiving mana, and it's almost impossible to see out there.
"Do you still want to go out?" Tess asks. "Lily will be angry."
"It's fine. It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to get permission." And what is she? My mom? I'm not scared of her.
But seriously, I hope she won't refuse to heal me.
"I'll go with you," Tess adds simply, and one look at her tells me enough that she did think it through and knows how dangerous it might be.
Well, who am I to refuse? Tess is her own person, and she should be able to hold her own out there. I already saw it multiple times.
"Sounds good," I answer, and this time, it's her who nods.
Now then, back to experimenting. I still should have around one hour left.
It's dark, and we can barely see anything. The wind continues to pummel against our bodies and to be honest, it's stronger than I expected it to be, to the point that it surprises me that it doesn't destroy some of the buildings.
I already have my [Perception] running as a replacement for my sight, but what about Tess? Is she even able to see with her [Farsight]?
When I turn to her, I notice that she is looking straight at me, and when I wave my hand, she waves it as well, perfectly copying my movement. It's telling enough.
Okay, her skill might be better than I thought, allowing her a bit more than just seeing far. Lightning also keeps crackling around her body every once in a while.
The mana I feel from it is sharp and strong.
Time to go. My heart beats, and with a push against the ground, I propel myself high onto the roof, sending a wave of mana into our surroundings, and then turning to Tess, who also shakes her head.
Nothing so far, so we move in the direction we decided on before, not too far from the hideout so we can get back for some help if needed.
After around five minutes of running, we stop, and I start sending waves of mana into our surroundings as some sort of lighthouse, and we wait.
Once in a while, I absorb some kinetic energy from the wind and throw it against the houses around us. It doesn't take much time for me to destroy a few of them. Doing so, I also realize that this kinetic energy from the wind is a bit harder to use than the energy from my Kinetic Heart.
Interesting. More testing needed!
When Tess finally spots some monster, I stop with that and instead switch to [Armament]. The armor that appears around me is not as translucent as before, and instead, it's a darker shade of blue that is still somewhat see-through, but much stronger.
The armor is a weird combination of medieval-age-like armor and modern armor that special ops or soldiers tend to use. It's also not too bulky and without useless parts.
In the end, a helmet appears around my head, a helmet with a smooth front without any holes for the eyes or nose.
With my new skill, I make them all as strong as possible and even infuse my body with mana before strengthening it with Symbiotic Transference.
Then I sense the monsters I can't see yet, jump onto the roof.
First, I make sure Lily gets some water and food; she seems really thin. Well, all of us have lost some weight. The interesting thing is that if we went through this back on Earth, most of us would be done by now. It shows that even without the usage of skills and just by having mana and increased stats, our bodies started to change.
At what point do we stop being able to call ourselves humans? I do not know, but to be honest, I don't care that much.
I am me, and I'll stay me. If I decide to change, it will be my decision, and I do not care much about what others will call me.
Another thing is Biscuit. I like him, I really do. The doggo might be silly, but he is surprisingly smart and gentle with all of us. Maybe not everything is lost when animal archmages take over. Biscuit might protect us, remembering the bits of food we gave him back on the first floor.
Still, does he really have to use eight massive mana arms to move, using them instead of his legs that hang in the air? He looks like a massive spider with the body of a pottymouthed telepathic corgi.
It creeps me out, so I use [Disruption] to cancel this abomination. I don't put much effort into it and only send a wave of disruptive mana towards him.
The corgi resists.
"..."
What?
The heck?!
He glances at me with a cheeky look in his eyes. He is laughing at me, is he not? He is totally making fun of me!
I send another wave of disruptive mana towards him, and finally, the eight arms made of mana disappear, and the corgi plops down on his short legs and woofs at me.
I succeeded, but I know it's only the beginning of the end. The corgi has already started to learn how to fight against [Disruption].
What have I done?
After booping Biscuit's snout like five times – I gotta enjoy it while I'm stronger – I join Isabella and Sophie. I just nod at Sophie, but the little girl gives me a small, short hug and then sits down, smiling at me.
"You were totally right! Doggo's snout is amazing to boop!" Her face glows as she says so.
"I told you! Also, you should try to gently pull his whiskers; he then woofs softly. But only do it two times; after that, he becomes super annoyed." I tell her.
Isabella giggles. "I'll do that!"
Out of all of us, little Isabella lost the least weight, and I lost the most, even though I probably finished off the most monsters. Hmm, is there any correlation?
"Who are you?" Sophie asks with a weird look on her face.
So rude, but anyway, I wanted something.
I hand her a small mana stone. "Can you infuse it with your mana using your skill?"
She nods and does just that, and I grab the stone from her and leave afterwards without saying anything else.
"What the hell?" I hear behind me, but I ignore it.
I examine the mana stone that is now leaking her mana quickly, and I do it until it's fully empty. Then I go to Tess and ask her to do the same, and she does just that, and I sit next to her, examining the stone again.
After all the mana leaks, I do it as well. I do it two times, and in both cases, I use as similar an amount of mana as I can.
For the first try, I use only [Mana Manipulation], and for the second one, I use [Mana Infusion].
In both cases, I examine the stone until the mana depletes.
The results are as follows:
[Mana Infusion] fills up the stone faster, much faster, and also fills it up more evenly. Also, mana infused by this skill stays in the item for longer. I already tested it and tried to infuse mana into stuff like a piece of cloth, a normal stone, and iron weapons.
When I use the skill to infuse it into a mana stone, it feels much smoother, fills faster, and holds the mana for longer. On the other side, the materials I tried are much worse.
But it's possible to use [Mana Infusion] to fill items with mana, and that's good to know.
On the other side, if I or other people try it with [Mana Manipulation] or without the skill, or with a similar skill, it fills slower, and the distribution is much worse. For example, there are some places that fill with a much denser amount of mana, and some not as much, and it sometimes even damages the item.
Even as high as my [Mana Manipulation] is, it still can't compare to the other skill when it comes to infusing mana into something.
But that's just it. The skill only allows me to infuse an item with mana, and what happens afterwards is something other skills have to deal with, and I have a few really good ones!
Even strengthening my body is now better, and it alleviates some pressure in comparison to doing it in a different way. But the biggest difference comes up with the use of [Armament]. The two skills work amazingly together.
[Armament] is much faster and allows me to create even denser weapons or armor around my body. Also, the shields I'm able to create became stronger.
It allows me to have a much stronger ranged attack without worrying about mana projectiles disappearing or being too weak, and not having to spend so much time creating them that would make them unusable.
Good. Good!
But I will not stop! The next goal is to evolve the skill into [Infusion]. I want to infuse stuff with thermal energy and kinetic energy. I want to infuse my mana projectiles with [Disruption], and [Oscillation].
Well, I could probably do it even now in some roundabout janky way, and I even tried it, but it just takes way too long to be usable, and the effect disappears too quickly when I'm not touching it.
I stop my thoughts for a second and listen. The wind outside still doesn't blow too hard, and I already decided to leave only when it's the strongest so I'll have some backup source of kinetic energy.
I also know that I'll have to rely on perceiving mana, and it's almost impossible to see out there.
"Do you still want to go out?" Tess asks. "Lily will be angry."
"It's fine. It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to get permission." And what is she? My mom? I'm not scared of her.
But seriously, I hope she won't refuse to heal me.
"I'll go with you," Tess adds simply, and one look at her tells me enough that she did think it through and knows how dangerous it might be.
Well, who am I to refuse? Tess is her own person, and she should be able to hold her own out there. I already saw it multiple times.
"Sounds good," I answer, and this time, it's her who nods.
Now then, back to experimenting. I still should have around one hour left.
It's dark, and we can barely see anything. The wind continues to pummel against our bodies and to be honest, it's stronger than I expected it to be, to the point that it surprises me that it doesn't destroy some of the buildings.
I already have my [Perception] running as a replacement for my sight, but what about Tess? Is she even able to see with her [Farsight]?
When I turn to her, I notice that she is looking straight at me, and when I wave my hand, she waves it as well, perfectly copying my movement. It's telling enough.
Okay, her skill might be better than I thought, allowing her a bit more than just seeing far. Lightning also keeps crackling around her body every once in a while.
The mana I feel from it is sharp and strong.
Time to go. My heart beats, and with a push against the ground, I propel myself high onto the roof, sending a wave of mana into our surroundings, and then turning to Tess, who also shakes her head.
Nothing so far, so we move in the direction we decided on before, not too far from the hideout so we can get back for some help if needed.
After around five minutes of running, we stop, and I start sending waves of mana into our surroundings as some sort of lighthouse, and we wait.
Once in a while, I absorb some kinetic energy from the wind and throw it against the houses around us. It doesn't take much time for me to destroy a few of them. Doing so, I also realize that this kinetic energy from the wind is a bit harder to use than the energy from my Kinetic Heart.
Interesting. More testing needed!
When Tess finally spots some monster, I stop with that and instead switch to [Armament]. The armor that appears around me is not as translucent as before, and instead, it's a darker shade of blue that is still somewhat see-through, but much stronger.
The armor is a weird combination of medieval-age-like armor and modern armor that special ops or soldiers tend to use. It's also not too bulky and without useless parts.
In the end, a helmet appears around my head, a helmet with a smooth front without any holes for the eyes or nose.
With my new skill, I make them all as strong as possible and even infuse my body with mana before strengthening it with Symbiotic Transference.
Then I sense the monsters I can't see yet, jump onto the roof.
