sigh

'it seems like The fight is coming to an end.

Gen narrowed his eyes at the unexpected battle outcome; the wolves had the upper hand almost all the time, However, the tribe still killed nearly all of them even though their numbers shrank sharply.

Their numbers were just massive compared to wolves, It was a 4 to 1 ratio; Both sides had suffered irreversible damage, but they didn't mind.

Now the pack of wolves had only four members, while the goblin tribe had 16 members, and the numbers were going down sharply.

Both parties were going for each other throats like no tomorrow, It was a gruesome scene with the stench of blood and piled bodies everywhere.

On the other hand, the white Alpha was panting heavily; It couldn't run around anymore, so it was taking direct hits from the Elder fireballs, the Elder was overusing his Mana while being severely wounded all around his body, but in a disparate moment the Alpha Jumped forward and ran to the Elder's throat

whoosh

The Alpha took the direct hit of the fireball on its head, but it didn't care about it and used crystal ice that penetrated the elder eye.

UWAAA

the Elder cried from pain, and the Alpha used this second of distraction and Jumped on the Elder's throat and Bite the Elder's neck.

The Alpha managed to grab the Elder's throat, However, the Elder tried to struggle by stabbing his wooden staff into the Alpha's eyes

AWWWOOO the staff penetrate the white wolf left eye, the Alpha howled in pain, but it didn't lose its momentum forcing his jaw on the Elder's neck and biting the elder throat harder while using deadlier force in his bite with a Snap sound, the Elder's neck broke in the Alpha's Jaws.

green blood could be seen dripping from the Elder's body, his eyes were dead and emotionless.

HOOOWWWL HOOWWWWL

with two loud war cries from the Alpha while stepping on the elder dead body, marking his winning and warning to every living being at the same time.

However, The Alpha was not done and tore the goblin's body with a furious expression and kept disfiguring the elder limbs and cutting him to pieces starting with his neck and then body parts after getting blind in 1 eye and scorched in the other.

Meanwhile, Gen was watching this gruesome scene with a dread expression from the top of the tree,

Gen was conflicted because it was his chance to take out the Alpha in this state,

While the Alpha was busy destroying the goblin elder body,

Gen jumped from tree to tree, His movement ware fast while approaching the ignorant Alpha, but it was still on high alert. No matter what, wolves always have incredible instincts and heightened senses.

While Gen was approaching, the Alpha stopped what's it doing and perked its ears in Gen's direction it felt something moving closer.

Sadly for Gen, this time was not able to make a stealth kill.

'Shit shit shit, mumbling and cursing to himself, Gen jumped on the wounded Alpha but it dodged his knife.

Grrrrr

HOOOOWWWL

the Alpha Charged toward the human in front of him without a second thought.

'Fuck me sideways It's time to finish this.

Gen ran forward toward the wounded wolf but the Alpha stopped suddenly and shot an ice crystal, It moved fast like a bullet, luckily Gen saw it coming miles away because it took time to cast and Gen knew everything about it after watching the battle with the goblin Elder, so Gen managed to dodge it in time, then launched himself forward and stabbed the Alpha in its neck with the knife in his hand, the Alpha took a direct hit from it, the Alpha ran out of Mana a while ago and couldn't move much anymore; It was bleeding from various parts of its body with many scorched marks, so it was slow and sluggish and couldn't use mana anymore.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

So it was really easy for someone fast, The knife landed on the Alpha's neck that kept oozing blood its body start losing balance with a last Howl the Alpha dropped dead.

pant pant

'Shit this was a close, My heart is racing hard this is crazy, I would have never stood a chance if the Alpha were in its prime condition.

'imagining Getting hit by this crystal sends chills down my spine, Glad I managed to dodge it in time and bet my time waiting them until they both tired each other down to the last breath so I could have the final hit and bountiful rewards, time to check the other side of the battlefield.

In the next few minutes, both clans fought fearlessly; Gen didn't sit still and was taking his chances to deliver the final hits from shadows for heavily wounded targets from both sides until he was alone with hundreds of corpses around him.

'Hmm, it's truly confusing to fight like this to the bitter end, What is worth more than one life, and why was the tribe hell-bent on protecting this lake

step step

Gen moved toward the lake, It looked like a typical lake at first glance; its color was a deep blue ocean-like, and it was emitting otherworldly blue light with blue steam coming out of it, when Gen moved closer he noticed something extraordinary, Gen saw the same blue strands steaming out of the lake, With a stunned expression Gen dipped his hand into it.

However, a unique phenomenon that happened to his hand shocked him to the core, Under his dumbfounded expression, His hand started to absorb the blue liquid like a sponge, He felt a tingling sensation while watching the blue liquid move under his skin from his fingers to his arm toward his chest.

With a panicked expression, Gen removed his hand quickly from the lake.

'What the hell is that thing?'

Gen pondered for a few minutes before coming to a realization.

With startling shock visible on his face said

'is this Mana!!! How?!'

'Why is there Mana on the face of the Earth, and why it's in a liquid state? I had never heard of such a thing, even in my wildest dream.

No wonder they fought tooth and nail for it to the bitter end, if this lake could get them stronger somehow, every living being would want a piece of it.

Gen stayed in front of the lake studying it, then noticed the blue stands; his eyes widened because he realized something crazy,

It reminds me of the blue stands that emerged from experimenting with the goblin's tiny black heart.

Gen rubbed the template of his nose while thinking about something crazy because it didn't make sense otherwise.

So the tiny black heart is a mana heart??!!!!

Is this mean every living being can use Mana? Did the goblin born with it or formulated it? The goblin was so fragile it couldn't be born with it. Besides, if the goblin learned to use Mana, it would actively use it instead of searching and hunting using a wooden stick, same with the tribe; only the Elder goblin could utilize Mana and use magic, so my guess is the black heart was in the infantry stage and not able to use magic freely.

Oh God, I need a minute to digest all this information.

Gen sat in front of the lake deep in his thoughts, thinking about many things.

A few minutes later

Alright, I have a clue now on why this fight happened; time to confirm if my speculation is right or wrong; first, I need to check the corpses of the Alpha and the Elder.

Gen ran toward the two dead bodies and started examining them from different angles.

It seems Mana doesn't affect the body itself; there is no clear indication to prove otherwise, so Mana doesn't add to the body's strength or impact it besides utilizing it as a type of energy to produce what we know as magic.

Let's open them up and take out their hearts out.

'Holly shit, I was right.

Two hearts were sitting in front of Gen's. Both were red, but one with two vines and the other with one vine looked like the black heart but more prominent in size. It could fit an 8-year-old kid's palm.

Gen then moved to the elder corpse. It was already in a deplorable condition. Only the chest area was still intact, with claw marks all over it, Gen didn't care much, then preceded to do the same process over again; and took two different heart colors, This time, one was green, the other was dark red, the green one had two vines, and the red one had one vine; however, the Elder's red heart was slightly bigger than the Alpha.

Gen muttered to himself. Deep thinking expression visible on his face

So both mana hearts are dark red. So did this mean the black heart was dormant and incomplete, and the elder heart looked bigger? It seems it didn't reach its final form yet based on the fact they couldn't use more than one simple spell, so they either didn't or couldn't use it.

So what about the colors? Why do the hearts have different colors, to begin with, is this mean there are stages to mana heart? It would make sense but will the heart keep growing infinitely? The red ones didn't even reach the mature stage; does this mean it's on the first stage of mana heart?

I will also search the other bodies to see any differences.

45 minutes later:

'Whew, that was a lot of work. So some of my hypotheses were not right; it appears not every being has a mana heart; 20 goblins out of over 100 had black mana hearts, while the pack of wolves only had three black hearts. So this concludes that not all beings have mana hearts.

This raises more questions: Did the hearts form naturally when they were born or did something trigger them?

Is this even possible?

Something like forming a mana heart?

Wait a minute, I just remembered now that a few goblins jumped into this lake; maybe it helped them in a way that's why they wanted to protect it.

There is only one way to find out.

By only testing and experimenting, I could find out the truth.

So Gen piled the mana hearts together near the lake and dragged the dead wolf's corpses to the exact location; after finishing the experiment on the lake, I would take them back to the bunker.

It's time to test this mana lake myself.

I was wasting so much time by running around like an idiot.

'That reminds me, I have been out for a few hours now, and it's still dark; luckily, the light emitting from the moon and trees with the lake made up for it.

sigh

I have so much on my plate now, so I will not bother with it; there is nothing I can do about it. Anyway time to test this lake.