Do you wish to merge skills: Passive lightning reflexes (rare), Mana manipulation (common), and Thunderspear dance (rare)?
Duration: 160 minutes.
Merge: Y / N
Kai mulled through the choice for a fourth time. He could always learn mana manipulation again relatively easily, so using that wasn't much of a loss. And Kai would be merging the two other skills together anyway, since both had something to do with lightning. The combination would hopefully merge into a lightning manipulation skill, that would still hopefully give a reflex boost.
Selecting yes, Kai once again explored the library, while activating shadow stride for brief moments to increase his mana recovery, while not morphing his shadow stride into a passive skill. He did have nearly three hours to kill.
This time, Kai spent his time going through the various crafting areas in the library, instead of going through the hundreds of shelves. Kai asked a few questions form the various people in the workstations, who didn't seem to mind his presence.
The workstations were spread throughout three floors in the library, most of them being in closed, safe spaces. Some stations were simple enough, for relatively common skills such as sewing, cobbling, woodworking, while other stations had pots where people could mix their own potions ingredients, or tables that increased the effects of enchanting.
Moving around the library had quickly made it's purpose clear. The entire building was a learning center, one meant for the wide public, so that anyone could teach themselves a wide variety of skills, no matter what background they had, or how wealthy they were. "Gilded knowledge births only a land of fools," one woman told Kai when he'd asked why so much information and money was given to the libraries of the city.
Skills merged: Stormbound mana (Epic), novice 2. Your mana has become lightning coarsing through your nerves, enhancing speed in nerves, muscles, and organs. +0.1n% speed per mana in the affected area. Passive effects: Lightning-based tasks are 5n% more efficient, while non-lightning tasks are 5n% less efficient.
For a brief moment when the notification appeared, Kai could feel his entire body tingle, as the mana coursing through it in storage unleashed its new effects on Kai's body. Now that was a useful skill, Kai thought. Not only did it give Kai a small passive bonus on pretty much everything, depending on how much mana Kai had available, but if Kai learned to manipulate his mana, direct it according to his will, then he could move mana to wherever he needed it, and get an incredible speed bonus for the area. If Kai understood correctly, it wouldn't even drain his mana. He just needed to figure out how, but the library surely had instructions on using mana, and Kai still had a while before it closed for the night.
Kai quickly found a few books on mana, detailing the basics of getting started with mana manipulation. While Kai had already learned the skill once, he didn't actually know how to move his mana around. Kai had had the skill, but not the ability. The first step in learning the ability was meditation, getting used to feeling where the mana was located and how much of it there was. Unless one had a skill that used mana, that was the point when a person unlocked their mana pools.
After that, the next step was learning to move it around, which was compared to learning to wiggle one's ears. That was all there was to it really, simple enough. Once one could move it around, they could learn to do other things, such as shaping the mana to match matter, condensing it or various other things. With enough ability, mana manipulation could be used for lighting fires, telekinesis or even copying the effects of skills. The only reason why the mana manupilation skill wasn't legendary, was because it didn't enable people to do these things, instead making the skill's user do what they already could do, but better.
Kai had already felt something tingle in his body when he received his new merged skill, and when closed his eyes, and focused on nothing but what the sensation had felt like, Kai slowly begun feeling the slightest tingle coarsing through him. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but concentrating further on the feeling, Kai proceeded to the second step. Kai tried everything, from imagining a hand grabbing the sensation, to imagining low pressures pulling on it and thinking the word move.
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An hour had passed, then two and three, as Kai lost the sensation multiple times, and had to try and regain it again and again. Kai had read through the instructions in his book multiple times by then, but it was always the same annoyingly vague words 'will it to move like a hand'. Kai turned the page, hoping to find better instructions, only to freeze as he did it. How did he make his hand move? Kai didn't think about moving his body to move it, he didn't imagine anything grabbing or pulling his hand. He simply moved, and his mana should be the same. Simply will it to move.
With newfound insight, Kai delved his mind back in the small sensation, and after a dozen attempts, Kai moved the sensation from one place of his body, to another. Only by an inch, but it had worked.
Skill learned: mana manipulation (common), novice 2.
Note: This is the second time you have learned this skill. Each skill can be learnt on two seperate occasions. If you discard or merge this skill into another, you won't be able to relearn this skill.
Kai's head blanked for a moment, nothing he'd read had mentioned there being a limit on how many times someone could learn a skill. Then again, It was fair enough, or else someone could just randomly learn, merge and discard skills until they found some random path to a beyond mythic skill.
But that meant Kai couldn't try to merge mana manipulation with another skill for a second time, unless he was absolutely certain it was worth the risk. No merging of mana manipulation and healing toss, which was a merge Kai would have liked to try. But with Kai's new ability to move his mana around, It was time to experiment.
By the time the library closed, Kai had increased his mana manipulation skill to novice 4, while improving his abilities to the point of directing mana inside his body by multiple inches, and even a few inches outside of his body, though whenever he tried that, Kai quickly lost control of the mana.
It had been mesmerizing to draw his mana out. It was a nearly entirely translucent, apart from the soft white glow it gave, and the few arcs of blue electricity sparking in the mana. Kai would have stared at the swirling mass of magic for hours, if it hadn't quickly dissolved into the air, losing Kai a few points off his mana pool.
He hadn't planned on it, Kai had first logged in ECLIPSE for a new body. It was great, but now, with absolute certainty, Kai could say losing the magic of the world around him would be as bad as losing his legs. Kai was an actual wizard, a mage capable of playing with lightning.
Even ad Kai stepped foot outside of the library, losing his access to the vast collection of information until morning, Kai kept experimenting with his mana. He spun it around in his body, tried keeping it under his control outside his body for as long as possible, weaved it into more and more complex shapes in his body.
Throughout the night, Kai felt how shadow stride would drain his mana, twisting it to shapes too small to feel just outside of his skin, before spreading it throughout his body. Kai could feel each level up in stormbound mana, as the energetic sensation spread through his body increased, and the mana would spark with electric light more often when he drew mana above his palm. Kai could feel mana from the air enter his body with each breath until his mana was full.
The sensations were slight, and after the first few hours, they didn't grow to be any more noticable. But even then, it was enough to draw Kai's curiosity and wonder with each movement of mana.
When the sun had long since risen, and the time to enter the gladiator arena again was nearing, Kai had improved his skills, mana, mana recovery, and ability to use mana by leaps. It was at the point where two of his skill, mana manipulation, and stormbound mana were as near the beginner stage as they could be, at novice 12. His mana had reached above 30, and mana recovery to 0.2 mana per second. Even his shadow stride had leveled up once, to novice 7.
It had been continuous training and experimenting for a day straight, with a skill doubling his experience gain for his skills, and even then, Kai was still a literal novice. He could only imagine what would be possible once he reached further stages, or how many decades, maybe even centuries, it could take. And in that moment, as Kai glanced through his character sheet before heading to the arena, Kai knew for certain that permanently becoming a part of this world was the best choice he could ever have made. One match, one dull night, and then it would become true.