After another half an hour, Mika’s mind and body had finally settled down from ingesting the Centaremors Mushroom spores.
“Phew… For a second there, I thought I was really going to die! Thankfully, circulating mana throughout my body helped counteract the pain, but why is that? I don’t think I did anything special, so how come doing that helped keep me alive?” Mika asked aloud.
[Think of your mana core as a second heart, Host, but instead of pumping blood, it pumps mana throughout your body. However, the effects of doing this depend primarily on your intent. For example, if you want to create a flame in your palm, you enforce your will onto your mana and generate a flame. Now tell me, Host, what intent did you have when circulating your mana after you inhaled those spores?]
“Umm… I just wanted to live and for the pain to go away.”
[Exactly. Due to your extreme situation, your intent unconsciously leaked into the mana you circulated, helping you destroy those spores.]
Mika needed a moment to gather her thoughts because she felt the System had revealed something significant.
“Wait! So, you’re telling me that I can make my mana do anything I want as long as I exert my will onto it?”
[Yes. That is correct, Host. However, there are limitations. Mana control is also related to the quality and quantity of intent you can exert on your mana. When your mana control improves, you’ll be able to do more things with it.]
“I… see,” Mika muttered, slowly digesting this information.
Although the System hadn’t said all that much, it was more than enough to help Mika further understand the mysteries of mana.
“But System, isn’t mana a little too… I don’t know… overpowered if what your saying is true? Won’t I be invincible as long as my will is strong enough? Also, if the intent is needed, how was the world created? Is there actually a god who created this world?” Mika suddenly asked an intelligent question.
[...]
Even the System was so surprised that it went silent for a moment!
[The building blocks to this universe are mana, Host. The world you see today was only created because it was possible. Theoretically, you could be invincible if your will and mana control are strong enough, but that’ll depend on you.]
The System was still cryptic with its words, but Mika felt she could gain a lot from those few sentences.
She might not have understood most of it, but she nonetheless engraved those words onto her heart.
Mika’s learned that whenever the System says something cryptic and weird, it's crucial.
“A more substantial foundation, huh….” Mika whispered.
She closed her eyes, grabbed hold of the panther’s core, and tried to exert her will onto the mana inside.
At first, nothing happened, but as the hours ticked by, she started to grasp something. It was faint, but she could feel the mana inside the core.
With shallow breaths and sweat dripping down her face, she opened her eyes with a smile!
“I think I understand! Mana control isn’t just about controlling my own mana but the mana around me as well! Is this why I haven’t been able to develop a Mana Cultivation Technique yet?”
[Not quite, Host. A Cultivation Technique is more than just controlling, absorbing, and refining mana.]
Mika once again began to think deeply about the System’s words, but in the end, she couldn’t understand the deeper meaning.
Nobody could blame her for this, as she’s never seen a cultivation technique and has just understood the basics of mana.
If she could have stayed with her new family, the Zollers, for a few more years, this information would’ve come naturally, but since she’s in some random part of the world struggling in a jungle, she can’t ask her parents or siblings about this stuff.
‘But then I wouldn’t be able to come to my own conclusions.’ Mika thought, feeling a bit complex.
As someone who lived and died by the sword, thinking profoundly about the nature of things was not her specialty. All she wanted to do was find better ways to slice people open, not think about why a sword could cut people in the first place.
However, she was also someone who always relied on herself to learn things. Not once has she ever had a teacher, master, or mentor.
Therefore, making her own judgments and coming to her own conclusions was something she’s always done and loved doing.
That’s why she’s still feeling quite complex about having the System tell her all these things.
On the one hand, she has to rely on the System for information. On the other hand, it only tells her the facts and lets her form her own opinions and conclusions based on those facts.
“Ugh! Whatever. Let’s focus on training and consolidating my foundation.” Mika said while thinking about the System’s riddle.
After training her mana control, Mika entered her [Mind Space Lv. 1] and began meditating on the System’s hint about developing a Cultivation Technique.
Mana is omnipresent yet cannot be seen.
‘I don’t understand the importance of this sentence. Did the System just put it there so the rest of the hint rhymes?’
The core’s duty is to conceive the unseen.
‘Is the System trying to tell me to make the mana in my core visible? Because that wouldn’t make any sense. The mana in my core is already somewhat visible due to my affinities.’
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The core is the nucleus, while the pathways are the roots.
‘I guess the System is trying to say that you can’t have one without the other. So, should my cultivation technique involve my core and mana pathways? That would make the most sense, but why? Why would this be the case?’
-the more substantial the foundation, the more room for pursuit.
‘On the surface, this seems like the easiest to understand, but is it really? The System is basically saying that the deeper and stronger my foundation, the farther up the path to power I’ll be able to climb, but I don’t think the System would include something so obvious in its hint. There must be something else I’m missing.’
The System's hint kept replaying in her mind, and she kept trying to dissect it, but the problem was, she didn’t even know where to start.
How do these words translate into a Mana Cultivation Technique? Mika didn’t know the first thing about cultivation.
No, that’s wrong. She had information about her Body Cultivation Technique-The Absolute Sword Body Technique. Still, she didn’t see how this information would cross over to what she felt a Mana Cultivation Technique should be.
Body cultivation is all about strengthening every aspect of one’s body using various resources or energy, increasing one’s Life Essence, while mana cultivation-
“Ah! Since body cultivation is about strengthening one’s body, mana cultivation should strengthen one’s core! Furthermore, from the System’s hint, I should also strengthen my mana pathways! But what’s the best way to do that? How can I create the most substantial foundation?” Mika pondered, but although she felt closer to the answer, it still felt so far away.
She thought back to everything she’s learned about mana cultivation and remembered the System describing it as ‘The process of gathering, refining, and absorbing mana into one’s body…’.
Yet, now it had just told her that wasn’t all there was to it.
Then, she also remembered that cultivating comes passively because of her perfect mana pathways.
Over the past year and a half, she has felt her mana core slowly filling up with mana, but it was all done subconsciously, similar to how a heart gathers blood and pumps it throughout the body.
“For now, I feel like I should just observe how my body naturally cultivates and go from there. Once I understand the premise of gathering, refining, and absorbing, I can move on to substantiating my foundation.”
Mika left her [Mind Space Lv. 1] and began analyzing her mana pathways and mana core to better understand how they work.
Although it was sluggish, Mika could see how her body gathered the outside mana, refined it through her pathways, and made it her own by absorbing it in her core.
However, becoming a mana cultivation expert in a few hours wasn’t possible. She still needed to observe, analyze, and study more about how her passive cultivation works to develop her own technique.
After three hours of this, Mika stopped doing this to move on to training with her sword.
Mika didn’t like jumping from one thing to another, all on the same day. If she had a choice, she’d rather work and improve on one thing all day, every day, until she masters it than multiple things at once.
But unfortunately, she didn’t have that luxury.
The jungle she’s in is incredibly treacherous, and even though she might seem safe in her shelter, she doesn't want to stay here forever.
So, to increase her chances of surviving, she has to build up immunity against the Centaremors Mushrooms, practice her mana control, advance in her body cultivation, develop a mana cultivation technique, and keep practicing her swordsmanship.
All those things are necessary for her to have an easier time surviving in this place. Thus as much as Mika didn’t want to focus on multiple things at once, she had to.
It was still raining outside, but Mika wasn’t too bothered by this. She removed all her clothes and trained with her sword for three hours before returning to her shelter.
She was a bit cold from the rain but circulating Fire Mana throughout her body kept her warm enough to withstand it.
Afterward, she drank a nutritional serum and inhaled another lungful of Centaremors Mushroom spores.
It hurt like hell, just like last time, but now that her knowledge and control of mana and its uses had increased, the pain only lasted for exactly half an hour, slightly quicker than before.
Before going to sleep, she circulated mana throughout her body until she returned to her peak condition, then finally fell asleep, exhausted.
For the next two weeks, Mika did the same thing. She would:
1. Wake up at around dawn.
2. Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
3. Train with her sword for 3 hours.
4. Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
5. Work on her mana control for 3 hours.
6. Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
7. Meditate on developing her mana cultivation technique for 3 hours.
8. Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
Then, she’d finally go to sleep.
It rained every day, but it turned into more of a drizzle after the first few days, allowing Mika to go out hunting every day.
Thus, she added 2 hours of hunting time every day. Mika didn’t consider hunting time as sword training because although real battles were considered training, she spent most of her time tracking down the animals.
During her hunting time, she could scout the area surrounding her shelter, improving her understanding of the terrain, the jungle, and wildlife.
Mika had improved rapidly over these last two weeks and had adapted to living in a jungle.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t made any substantial breakthroughs. She still wasn’t immune to the mushroom, had no mana cultivation technique or body cultivation advancement, and still couldn’t fully control all the mana within the panther core.
She could, at most, control about 25% of the mana within the core while using all her concentration, but she couldn’t sustain this for very long.
Aside from that, Mika could now move up to 1.8 meters from the Centaremors Mushrooms to inhale its spores! This was a considerable achievement as Mika could feel her body building resistance against that damn mushroom!
Her swordsmanship hasn’t improved at all, but that’s a given. It's only been two weeks.
Lastly, her Mana Cultivation Technique was slowly taking shape in her mind, but there was still a long way to go.
Mika felt like she was finally on the right track, and it wouldn’t be long before she received a significant boost in strength.
During her hunting time, she could scout the area surrounding her shelter, improving her understanding of the terrain, the jungle, and wildlife.
Throughout this time of peace and training, Mika hasn’t run into any life-and-death scenarios…
*ROAR!!*
…though it seems her luck has officially run out.