32 - Chapter 31 - Day 1814

So there were multiple Tier 10s wandering around in the open. They had enough power and resources to train up and send out multiple tier 5s on a multi year mission. The kind of resources they were throwing around would probably be more than the entire kingdom was worth. This would require a great deal of thought and care. Even that scroll was a risk Adya could not just jump into.

Though that did give her an idea for questions about mana stones. Before that, she would need to let her mother into a part of the secret. Thankfully Dexter was bound just to her.

“Dexter, Jarel.” said Adya. “I am going to invite my mother to join us. We are going to tell her that you are here looking for demonic sects, and took an interest in me. That you have taken me on as an apprentice, not a formal disciple, just someone you will give pointers to from time to time. Mother does not currently have my soul mark, so she will not be able to check, so don’t mention anything about soul marking you. Is that clear?”

When they had both understood and agreed, Adya sent Dexter to fetch her mother. In the meantime she wondered if she could hide the soul mark from her other soul marked. There must be a way. She focused on the identity and the text popped up above Jarel’s head. She focused on her wish to hide that notification. It drained a substantial amount of willpower, but she was rewarded with a system prompt.

Soul Mark evolved

Please select one of the following options.

1, Display to everyone

2, Display to others soul marked by Adya Gurg

3, Display only to Adya Gurg

She was surprised by both the use of willpower and the options presented. The implications were huge. More interestingly, she received information on the formation changes to implement this option in all future formations. Out of curiosity she picked option 1. She received another prompt.

Please enter the text that you wish the display to show

This was followed by an empty text field with an accept option, where she could enter anything. She put the number 1 in the text and accepted the selection.

A 1 showed up above Jarel’s head without her even trying to use identify. She focused on changing the setting again, and the same prompt appeared. She quickly set it to option 3 for now. She would have time to look at it later. The biggest surprise for her was her ability to change formations, or soul marks, using willpower after they were already in place. She would need to test the ability to learn its limitations, but the fact that she could do it at all meant she was only just beginning to learn about her true capabilities. From one perspective, she was creating reality using only willpower. If that was actually the case, what else could she achieve? Also she had not even started to play with stamina as an energy source, she would need to learn just what it was capable of.

Suddenly Adya remembered what she had meant to ask before her mind wandered down a tangent. “Jarel, talk to me about mana stones,” said Adya. “Where do they come from, what are the uses, and why is the price fixed?”

“Mana stones are crystallised mana.” replied Jarel. “They are widely available in the lower tiers, becoming more and more difficult to get above tier 6. The availability varies wildly. They are said to be 100 mana, but are actually between 97 and 103 mana. The same is true at each rank. Most mana stones are mined. At the lower end the prices are fixed. This is to control the costs for the new cultivators and prevent hoarding. Tier 1 is 10 silver, tier 2 is 1 gold, tier 3 is 10 gold, tier 4 is 100 gold / 1 platinum. From tier 5 the prices start to increase. Tier 5 is 25 platinum, tier 6 is 800 platinum. Above that they are only auctioned off, but the prices jump massively. A tier 7 can sell starting from 20,000 platinum but will usually go for double that. A tier 8 at auction would start at more than 1M platinum. Tier 9s and 10s are all exchanged privately, and never available in the open market, so the price is not known but the guesses are in the billions of platinum for the tier 9s. Not even sure what a tier 10 would go for.”

“There are people with high enough mana control that they can create mana stones,” said Jarel. “The problem is that mana becomes an issue at the higher tiers. So, you would not know this yet, but the regeneration is based on tier 1 mana. So at tier 1 you need 10 minutes to refill your core. At tier 2 that is 40 minutes, at tier 3 160 minutes and so on. At tier 10 you would need 5 years to fully replenish your core. At that level the mana stones are the only way to get mana fast. They are also necessary to push your tier forward. Most people don’t have a good enough skill to create mana stones until they are tier 5. I can't even do it. By that point spending a lot of time creating a mana stone and losing that mana is not worth the effort.”

“I guess, some people would do it to store mana for the future, but it still takes a lot of time.” mused Jarel.

“Just out of curiosity what skill do you need and at what level to create mana stones?” asked Adya. While she waited for an answer she checked, and her mana regeneration was not a tier 1 but at tier 2. She checked all her resource pools, and they were all the same. Why was she different? Even more questions!

“You need Mana Manipulation, that is hard to get, as generally you only get Internal Mana Manipulation. The internal skill lets you start to cultivate, but not control mana outside your body. You need to get internal mana manipulation to level 256 to get it to evolve to mana manipulation. Then you need to get mana manipulation to level 40 just to be able to attempt it. Even then, you would need more than an hour to form one crystal. All that effort is not worth it for most people.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Even more questions to answer, she had started with the soul version of the skill and it had evolved into energy manipulation, but she had never lost levels, only gained them. There were a lot of discrepancies between her lived experience and what Jarel was telling her. If he were not soul marked, she would think that he was lying to her.

“As for uses of mana stones,” said Jarel. “They are used to top up mana, in formations, as currency, for training, for tiering up at higher levels.”

“Would there be any interest in creating mana coins?” asked Adya. “I have heard that some people were trying, but no one succeeded.”

“Yes, every few years someone will try to solve that issue,” said Jarel. “There are 2 major problems, people can only create stones or coins at the same tier as themselves. That limits the market significantly. And that requires someone to sit there, absorb mana stones and make coins all day. It would get boring very fast. No one has come up with a way to have a machine do that. If someone succeeds, then it would be amazing. Stones are a pain to store and use, the weird shapes not helping. Coins would be much easier to deal with and would hopefully be the exact same value. The variable sizes can play havoc with the more sensitive formations.”

“Is there such a thing as dimensional storage?” asked Adya, now in full interrogation mode.”

“You mean a personal storage space?” replied Jarel. “Again people have attempted to create something similar, but no luck. There are said to be a few of the tier 10s, who have something like a personal dimension they can store things in. The ones that are known about are small and can only be used by the person who created it. It also uses a lot of mana.”

It was good to have someone from the most powerful group in this world to answer her questions, she had a feeling she would come up with a lot more.

As they were talking, Dexter finally returned with Gauri.

“So I hear we have a special guest,” said Gauri with a sardonic tone. “What is so secret that even Parth was not to join us?”

“Mother let me introduce Jarel, he is a cultivator, and an agent working directly for the council of sects.” said Adya with a smirk on her face.

As Adya spoke, the colour drained from Gauri’s face. “Welcome to our estate Cultivator Jarel” stammered Gauri. “Please accept our apologies for the way our family has treated you. I hope you can forgive us.”

“No need, no need.” said Jarel, putting on an act for Gauri. “I was, and am still undercover. It is the only way to hunt demonic cultivators. Adya here somehow recognised what I was. She has shown great promise. I have offered to take her as my apprentice.”

“Apprentice, Lord Cultivator?” stammered an ashen faced Gauri. “You honour us. We are not worthy. We have nothing that would be of equal value.”

“Relax mother.” said Adya with a teasing tone. “Jarel is not all that stuck up. He only acts like that. He is only a tier 5 cultivator.”

“T…Tier 5!” whispered Gauri, not appreciating Adya’s joke.

“It really is fine, mother,” said Adya. “He needs a place to stay out of sight while he continues his hunt. I told him he can stay here. In exchange he has agreed to give me and maybe a few others, if he thinks them suitable, a few pointers.”

“No one else should know about his situation,” continued Adya. “He will need a reason that he is here. Some will recognise him as part of the bandits, and without my formation, that will cause some questions.”

At her words Dexter looked up and tried to identify Jarel and received nothing. He directed a quizzical look at Adya, but said nothing. Gauri was deep in thought. This cultivator was very dangerous, but if Adya had managed to come to an arrangement, then he might well become a shield for the family.

“We use the story of the other one.” said Gauri, suddenly inspired. “Lord Jarel is an agent of the king, here to infiltrate the criminal underworld. He was with the bandits to see who they worked for.”

“Yes, that would work as a good cover story.” replied Jarel. “Thank you for your hospitality Gauri.”

“Mother, I will leave you to get to know our new guest,” said Adya. “If that is alright with you. I have some errands to run. Dexter, will you please keep mother company?”

“Sure Adya,” said Gauri. “You may go about your day.”

Adya gave a look to Jarel, signaling him to be on his best behaviour then left to return to her rooms. She needed food and she needed time to digest the massive amount of new information that she had just absorbed.

She returned to her room and sent Sally to the kitchens with an order for hot food. While she waited for the food she spent time reviewing all the information she had received.

The biggest nugget that she had unearthed, that for most cultivators, their mana pool was rarely larger than 10M. The second biggest, was that if she actually made the mana coin machine work, then she would have a way to launder her stones.

She was finding more and more differences between her lived experience versus what others were describing to her. Her stats, her regeneration, access to a massive storage, memories of her past life, the list just went on and on. There were a few things that could be at the root of all these changes. The multiple souls, the scion protocol, her gestalt nature. Yet, she had no way to get real answers.

Whatever steps she took, would invite danger from other sources. She was nowhere near strong enough to protect herself or her family. Then a sudden thought jumped to the front of her thoughts. When she had been born, she had been under the protection protocol. For this elder to know about her, they would have to be more powerful than the system, or they would have to have the system’s permission. Both were scary thoughts, but one gave her a potential option to learn more. She would have to investigate and weigh the risks carefully before proceeding, but there was no route forward without risk.

She would spend the rest of the day in meditation, and revisit this issue the next day with a clear perspective.