Talent for floromancy and mana refinement came down to durability of mana circuits and the amount of care one showed them. Bloom-folk and wildlings could refine their mana naturally, and they risked damage only after reaching the fourth level and refining their mana until it grew green.
Blighted and florists could safely reach third level’s yellow mana, while regular humans varied wildly. Some might never reach carmine without adding bloom-folk sap to their blood, while others could reach yellow or green mana even without becoming florists.
Increased mana quality and capacity had little impact on the body. It made it healthier and improved regenerative ability, while granting slightly higher resistance towards toxins, diseases, and the degeneration caused by aging. However, it did not increase a person’s strength directly. It allowed them to exercise more, to strain themselves further when developing muscles, but mana could not replace hard work and was but a safety net.
A net easily broken by overconfidence. The first sign of mana circuit failure was a faint itch, followed by a burning sensation, pain, and finally mind-numbing agony. Instructors warned their students to abandon the advancement should the burn start before they reached twice their full capacity.
Spring felt a slight burning after hitting thrice her limit. The process was natural, and yet she recalled how in her past life she had panicked when she first underwent the process, ultimately leading to a failure to advance.
I was so naive back then, she smiled and kept drawing mana until it reached four times her maximum capacity. Under the growing pressure, her mid stage vermillion mana grew lighter, becoming scarlet of the late stage. Finally, when the pressure grew to five times her normal, Spring’s mana turned completely scarlet, and would never degrade back to vermilion.
Before savoring the blessed release, she opened her eyes and injected her mana into an empty crystal coin. Inexperienced mana refiners believe their capacity is full after a successful advance, when in fact it’s overflowing by a quarter. If you let the mana sit and dissipate, you waste most, if not all of it.
Spring spent twenty minutes to half fill a coin she planned to save and use for her next advancement. An eighth of what she needed to reach ginger mana was within her grasp.
If I don’t squander my mana, I can advance again in thirty-five days, that’s a week over one month. Spring returned the dull mana crystals to their dormant heaters, and siphoned the tad of mana left in her crystal coins, barely wringing a drop of mana out of them.
I need over three hundred of these for my next advancement. Unfortunately, they are trash, and I’ll need higher quality mana. Spring dressed and her gaze drifted towards the voice-linker.
They can spare orange grade mana to fuel applants. Mother dear, how about you call me and shower me with money? Spring glared at the trumpet-shaped flower for several long seconds, her eyes sparkling with hope, but nothing happened.
If I can’t refine mana, I can reinforce my body. I need food rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and iron, all soaked in fiber for better composting and infused with mana. My body is still a soft shoot, so I should lay a solid foundation with maroon mana tempering and work my way up. Skin enhanced with vermilion mana is as tough as barkskin, and once it reaches the orange stages, it will become rock hard.
Spring ate her cold dinner with a sour face. Human food is too poor in minerals, focusing on carbs, fat, and protein. I’ll need to get some ores and store them within my pitcher. I need to create another compartment, but my torso is already getting crowded with all the things I’m keeping inside. Life is so difficult before transcendence.
A clatter of reeds in the wind sounded.
“Mother?” Spring said aloud and approached the voice-linker.
“Jass, baby, I got word from…” Harnna hesitated for a split second before finding a suitable term, “—your instructor that you have advanced to the mid stage while you were away. It’s good that you have such a strong drive for mana refinement, just don’t rush it. Frequent refinements can damage your mana circuits. Take things slow, heal after your advancements, otherwise you may injure yourself and cripple your future. Going fast and getting far are different concepts.”
Why didn’t you mention that the last time we spoke? I could have delayed my advancement a bit…
“But Mother, I can only get mana from the school, and I must advance to get better resources,” Spring tried to extort crystal coins from Harnna, but the woman ignored her or remained oblivious of her intention.
“Baby, that’s commoner pocket money. They are for those who seek immediate gain at the cost of long-term benefits.”
Wait! You’re weeding out the weak and nipping the talented buds at the same time? Humans are truly the evilest life-form. They trick their own kind into willingly damaging their futures, just to safeguard their families’ positions? Could they have conquered the weald had they worked united? Is that the real secret behind Salazar’s greatness? That he unified humanity by conquering them all?
Spring would not have noticed the oddity had Harnna not stressed the word commoner with such disdain.
“And where is my pocket money, Mother?” she asked, and silence answered.
“Jass, your circumstances are special at the moment,” Harnna said, pressed by the silence. “Don’t ask any questions. I will do everything I can to help you get through this period. I’m violating your father’s orders just by calling you. Remember, we have not forgotten you, and nothing is certain. You just work hard. Pretend nothing had happened.”
“Mother, what happened?” Spring burned with the desire to throttle the wordy woman for failing to share a single shred of useful information while refusing to talk about the resources she needed.
“Don’t ask. I hope I’ll see you again.” Harnna ended the conversation and the voice-linker went silent.
Soon, you forgot to say ‘soon’. Spring felt like growling, but without the exertion of her conscious thought, her face and eyes remained neutral. Something is off. I might be forced to flee, but I need to reach at least the middle of third level to travel the weald alone and escape, should my situation prove perilous.
Spring stepped away from the applant and summoned the maids to clean up. She paced around her room, ignoring the working women. By the time I reach that level, I’m a mere stage away from joining Searing Flame’s council of elders, and two stages away from cowing them with martial might. Besides, refining mana is the easy part. I have to procure suitable grafts.
The school will give me a flame orchid based graft. I can evolve and graft it further on my own as I see fit. Jasmine Sun would never implant something like barkskin, she relied on beauty and cunning, as for defense, she had bodyguards to stave off enemy attacks. I can emulate that. Even without others’ protection, once I temper my body, I won’t need low-level defensive grafts.
I lack healing, movement, and augmented strength for safe wilderness travel. The chime with Harnna had the opposite effect of what the middle-aged woman had intended. Spring guessed Jasmine’s mother wished to reassure her child, and stop her from making brash moves, yet her lack of support only fanned Spring’s survival instincts.
She went to bed, but as hard as she racked her brain, she could not come up with a good plan. I can’t do anything until we go out into the weald. Tomorrow, I’ll take a stroll around the Searing family’s gardens in search for minerals I need for my tempering, but I doubt they keep them piled for bloom-folk, like me, to take. Ironically, what I need is their trash, discarded hair, fur and feathers are decent sources of nitrogen. Gypsum has sulfur, so ingesting some small figurines…
Spring spent a restless night, hatching plans.
“Young Miss.” A maid timidly knocked on Spring’s door minutes after sunrise.
“Enter! Open the curtains, fetch my breakfast,” Spring got up from bed and glanced at the pathetic thing hobbling into her room.
She recognized the girl. Her face twitched in pain with every step, much paler than the night when she guided Spring to her room. Spring felt a slight tinge of guilt, bloom-folk were kind creatures, and what the blighted did went against their nature. She had mostly drowned the benevolent facet of herself, yet seeing the wretch, who suffered for no rhyme or reason…
“Serve me well, and I will reward you. Slight me, and I will make you regret you were born. Now, I’m off to take a shower, I expect everything to be ready when I come back in twenty minutes.”
Spring heard a ’Yes, Young Miss,’ while closing the bathroom door. She cleaned her skin of the smelly microscopic pests assailing it and drank her fill, enough for the sweat she planned to shed that day.
Talent for floromancy and mana refinement came down to durability of mana circuits and the amount of care one showed them. Bloom-folk and wildlings could refine their mana naturally, and they risked damage only after reaching the fourth level and refining their mana until it grew green.
Blighted and florists could safely reach third level’s yellow mana, while regular humans varied wildly. Some might never reach carmine without adding bloom-folk sap to their blood, while others could reach yellow or green mana even without becoming florists.
Increased mana quality and capacity had little impact on the body. It made it healthier and improved regenerative ability, while granting slightly higher resistance towards toxins, diseases, and the degeneration caused by aging. However, it did not increase a person’s strength directly. It allowed them to exercise more, to strain themselves further when developing muscles, but mana could not replace hard work and was but a safety net.
A net easily broken by overconfidence. The first sign of mana circuit failure was a faint itch, followed by a burning sensation, pain, and finally mind-numbing agony. Instructors warned their students to abandon the advancement should the burn start before they reached twice their full capacity.
Spring felt a slight burning after hitting thrice her limit. The process was natural, and yet she recalled how in her past life she had panicked when she first underwent the process, ultimately leading to a failure to advance.
I was so naive back then, she smiled and kept drawing mana until it reached four times her maximum capacity. Under the growing pressure, her mid stage vermillion mana grew lighter, becoming scarlet of the late stage. Finally, when the pressure grew to five times her normal, Spring’s mana turned completely scarlet, and would never degrade back to vermilion.
Before savoring the blessed release, she opened her eyes and injected her mana into an empty crystal coin. Inexperienced mana refiners believe their capacity is full after a successful advance, when in fact it’s overflowing by a quarter. If you let the mana sit and dissipate, you waste most, if not all of it.
Spring spent twenty minutes to half fill a coin she planned to save and use for her next advancement. An eighth of what she needed to reach ginger mana was within her grasp.
If I don’t squander my mana, I can advance again in thirty-five days, that’s a week over one month. Spring returned the dull mana crystals to their dormant heaters, and siphoned the tad of mana left in her crystal coins, barely wringing a drop of mana out of them.
I need over three hundred of these for my next advancement. Unfortunately, they are trash, and I’ll need higher quality mana. Spring dressed and her gaze drifted towards the voice-linker.
They can spare orange grade mana to fuel applants. Mother dear, how about you call me and shower me with money? Spring glared at the trumpet-shaped flower for several long seconds, her eyes sparkling with hope, but nothing happened.
If I can’t refine mana, I can reinforce my body. I need food rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and iron, all soaked in fiber for better composting and infused with mana. My body is still a soft shoot, so I should lay a solid foundation with maroon mana tempering and work my way up. Skin enhanced with vermilion mana is as tough as barkskin, and once it reaches the orange stages, it will become rock hard.
Spring ate her cold dinner with a sour face. Human food is too poor in minerals, focusing on carbs, fat, and protein. I’ll need to get some ores and store them within my pitcher. I need to create another compartment, but my torso is already getting crowded with all the things I’m keeping inside. Life is so difficult before transcendence.
A clatter of reeds in the wind sounded.
“Mother?” Spring said aloud and approached the voice-linker.
“Jass, baby, I got word from…” Harnna hesitated for a split second before finding a suitable term, “—your instructor that you have advanced to the mid stage while you were away. It’s good that you have such a strong drive for mana refinement, just don’t rush it. Frequent refinements can damage your mana circuits. Take things slow, heal after your advancements, otherwise you may injure yourself and cripple your future. Going fast and getting far are different concepts.”
Why didn’t you mention that the last time we spoke? I could have delayed my advancement a bit…
“But Mother, I can only get mana from the school, and I must advance to get better resources,” Spring tried to extort crystal coins from Harnna, but the woman ignored her or remained oblivious of her intention.
“Baby, that’s commoner pocket money. They are for those who seek immediate gain at the cost of long-term benefits.”
Wait! You’re weeding out the weak and nipping the talented buds at the same time? Humans are truly the evilest life-form. They trick their own kind into willingly damaging their futures, just to safeguard their families’ positions? Could they have conquered the weald had they worked united? Is that the real secret behind Salazar’s greatness? That he unified humanity by conquering them all?
Spring would not have noticed the oddity had Harnna not stressed the word commoner with such disdain.
“And where is my pocket money, Mother?” she asked, and silence answered.
“Jass, your circumstances are special at the moment,” Harnna said, pressed by the silence. “Don’t ask any questions. I will do everything I can to help you get through this period. I’m violating your father’s orders just by calling you. Remember, we have not forgotten you, and nothing is certain. You just work hard. Pretend nothing had happened.”
“Mother, what happened?” Spring burned with the desire to throttle the wordy woman for failing to share a single shred of useful information while refusing to talk about the resources she needed.
“Don’t ask. I hope I’ll see you again.” Harnna ended the conversation and the voice-linker went silent.
Soon, you forgot to say ‘soon’. Spring felt like growling, but without the exertion of her conscious thought, her face and eyes remained neutral. Something is off. I might be forced to flee, but I need to reach at least the middle of third level to travel the weald alone and escape, should my situation prove perilous.
Spring stepped away from the applant and summoned the maids to clean up. She paced around her room, ignoring the working women. By the time I reach that level, I’m a mere stage away from joining Searing Flame’s council of elders, and two stages away from cowing them with martial might. Besides, refining mana is the easy part. I have to procure suitable grafts.
The school will give me a flame orchid based graft. I can evolve and graft it further on my own as I see fit. Jasmine Sun would never implant something like barkskin, she relied on beauty and cunning, as for defense, she had bodyguards to stave off enemy attacks. I can emulate that. Even without others’ protection, once I temper my body, I won’t need low-level defensive grafts.
I lack healing, movement, and augmented strength for safe wilderness travel. The chime with Harnna had the opposite effect of what the middle-aged woman had intended. Spring guessed Jasmine’s mother wished to reassure her child, and stop her from making brash moves, yet her lack of support only fanned Spring’s survival instincts.
She went to bed, but as hard as she racked her brain, she could not come up with a good plan. I can’t do anything until we go out into the weald. Tomorrow, I’ll take a stroll around the Searing family’s gardens in search for minerals I need for my tempering, but I doubt they keep them piled for bloom-folk, like me, to take. Ironically, what I need is their trash, discarded hair, fur and feathers are decent sources of nitrogen. Gypsum has sulfur, so ingesting some small figurines…
Spring spent a restless night, hatching plans.
“Young Miss.” A maid timidly knocked on Spring’s door minutes after sunrise.
“Enter! Open the curtains, fetch my breakfast,” Spring got up from bed and glanced at the pathetic thing hobbling into her room.
She recognized the girl. Her face twitched in pain with every step, much paler than the night when she guided Spring to her room. Spring felt a slight tinge of guilt, bloom-folk were kind creatures, and what the blighted did went against their nature. She had mostly drowned the benevolent facet of herself, yet seeing the wretch, who suffered for no rhyme or reason…
“Serve me well, and I will reward you. Slight me, and I will make you regret you were born. Now, I’m off to take a shower, I expect everything to be ready when I come back in twenty minutes.”
Spring heard a ’Yes, Young Miss,’ while closing the bathroom door. She cleaned her skin of the smelly microscopic pests assailing it and drank her fill, enough for the sweat she planned to shed that day.
