As soon as his Mana Control changed into Mana Mastery, Thomas felt something subtly change within his body. It was extremely hard to describe in words. It was almost like something was... Loosened? Unlocked? Whatever it was his mana now flowed more freely through his body and immediately responded to his thoughts. If he wanted mana to gather in just his big toe, it did. If he wanted mana to gather inside of his pinky finger, it did. As he was playing around, he channeled mana into his eyes. Immediately his 'All Seeing Eyes' activated and his vision became blurred for a moment before it sharply focused on everything around him within all 360°.
He could see in front of himself normally but on his sides and back, he could see out to a range of ten meters. He barely managed to process that much before a splitting migraine caused him to lose control of his mana and cancel his vision. He gripped his head as every beat of his racing heart sent a spear of pain lancing through his brain. The human brain was not designed to handle that much visual input. Add to that his almost completely drained mana pool and you had a recipe for a magnitude ten headache.
While gripping his head he roughly dropped down to sit on the ground. He closed his eyes and did his best to clear his mind and activate his Serenity skill to help him recover. Since it could both recover his mana and heal him he hoped it would help with the splitting headache. It took a few minutes before the skill activated and the throbbing headache slowly went from the level of 'every heartbeat feels like his head is going to explode' to 'every heartbeat feels like his eyes are going to pop out'. He sat still for an hour until the headache completely receded and left only a bad memory.
When he finally opened his eyes they were still a little red from the increased blood pressure caused by the pain but he was otherwise fully recovered. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Activating the 360° vision had drained his remaining mana at a prodigious rate. Granted, he only had a little over a quarter of his mana at the time but it was nearly completely drained within just a few seconds. He rubbed his eyes as he tried to decide what to do with this new information.
Having 360° vision was pretty nifty, but was it really worth all that much to him? He had his Mana Field ability that let him have a rough understanding of what was happening around him and it could even be used to detect things at a greater distance. However, the new vision mode let him see everything within a short range of his body with perfect clarity at a massive mana cost. Both had their pros and cons. There was also a question that had to be asked. If he channeled mana into his eyes again, could he activate other vision modes that might be more helpful or powerful? If he could, would they drain his mana as much? Part of him wanted to try to find out, the other part was completely uninterested in risking another throbbing migraine just to sate his curiosity.
He rubbed his temples as he tried to decide what to do. The result? Procrastinate! He decided to wait to experiment more until he'd raised his Magic attribute to a much higher degree and had a much larger mana pool. With that, he could at least keep any potential headaches from becoming as debilitating as the last one. His decision would override his previous decision to keep his attributes balanced but it couldn't be helped. Having a higher mana pool would also affect his other mana hungry abilities and allow him to create better magical gear. After all, creating the 'embryo' in the iron ingot had taken nearly half of his available mana pool.
The next issue would be gaining experience so that he could actually increase his Magic attribute. It wasn't like he could just go out and farm a dungeon. He was currently in captivity and being forced to work for the pirates that had captured him. His only source of experience would be from crafting and to get it he needed to create items with a rarity of uncommon or higher. Even then he would need to make at least four to five items in order to gain just a single attribute point. At that rate, he could gain one attribute point per day if everything he made was Uncommon rarity.
He let out a sigh and climbed to his feet. He wouldn't be gaining any points today as he refused to use any of his personal stash to make items for the pirates. He would have to wait for them to gather the materials he'd requested and that could take a couple of days. He walked over and placed his foot on the blower to get the flames in the forge going again while he crossed his arms over his chest to think. Right now he wanted nothing more than to dive into a dungeon and slaughter monsters wholesale. He needed to escape from the pirates a lot sooner. He couldn't afford to just sit here making things for them.
Thomas let out a sigh and felt depressed. At first, he didn't care about being captured but now that he had a need for a large amount of experience, it was a pain in his ass. His other option was triggering his 'Inventor' title by making new things but he doubted his captors would appreciate him wasting time by making random things they couldn't even use. He plucked the ingot out of the flames with a pair of tongs and set it on the anvil. For now, he dismissed his thoughts on the subject and focused on the work before him.
He started to channel his mana through the tongs and hammer while focusing on the Metal element. His mana took on a grayish hue as it slithered down the tongs and into the ingot. His 'All Seeing Eyes' activated to allow him to watch the mana within the ingot. His whole body froze as he looked at the ingot. Before he could see the mana as a sort of gaseous cloud that floated within the metal and slowly dispersed into the air. Now, it looked like a field of countless stars within his vision. It still maintained a fluffy cloud-like arrangement within the metal and still dispersed but now he could see the mana as it seeped out of the ingot more clearly. He was shocked because the mana didn't just disappear.
He watched as the mana coming out of the ingot floated randomly in different directions and disappeared into the various surfaces of the cave. He stopped channeling his mana without striking the ingot a single time. As his mana flow stopped his vision was suddenly clouded with a myriad of stars of various colors all floating randomly through the air. They passed through solid objects without any deviation in their paths. The colors that dominated his view were red and brown, the colors of fire and earth. The red fire stars dominated around the flames flickering in the forge while the brown earth color controlled the rest of the room.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
His eyes wandered around randomly as he took in the sight before him. When they landed on the stack of supplies he was treated to a rainbow of colors as various elements from all the materials mixed together. Grey from the metal element, green from the wood elements, blue from the water element, and more. The stars of light dominated his vision and made it nearly impossible for him to see anything else. He looked around the cave in awe until he noticed a clump of grey Metal mana within the massive Brown earth mana in the room. It was coming from a section of the cave wall.
Drawn to the lump of Metal mana at the wall, Thomas slowly walked over to it. The hammer, tongs, and iron ingot completely forgotten on the anvil. While Thomas zoned out the guards watched him curiously. Thomas was acting even weirder than before! Now he was looking around the empty room like a possessed man seeing visions. They had no idea what was going on with this crazy-ass blacksmith. It was also none of their business. Their orders were to watch and report, that's exactly what they did. One of the guards left to report on Thomas's actions to Captain Yorik.
Thomas had no attention to spare the guards watching him or time to even care what they were seeing and thought of him. All of his focus was on the Metal mana hovering around a specific spot on the wall. As he got closer he placed his hand on the wall and stroked it. He couldn't feel the mana and the passage of is hand had no effect on the mana either. He lifted his right hand and immediately conjured up a pick made of metal using his Metal magic. The instant he cast the spell all other mana colors faded from view. He could only see the metal element still clumped up on the wall.
He looked away from the clump of metal mana and observed the room around him. All other mana was no longer within his view. He could only see clumps of metal mana. It hovered around the crates of iron ingots, the tools on the wall, and a few other spots on the walls of the cave. He grinned and turned to face the clump that originally attracted his attention. It was clear that whatever element he was channeling would be the element he could see exclusively. This meant that the clump of metal element mana he was looking at could mean only one thing! Metal ore!
That was his assumption as he lifted the pick and started digging into the wall. The sound of metal striking stone echoed through the room as the guards watched Thomas in confusion. First, he was looking around like an idiot. Now, he was swinging a pick at a wall in a random spot like a madman. Had they picked up a lunatic? Just watching him and his behavior was making them feel uncomfortable. They were all aware that this was a game and that everyone had different skills and abilities. This was obvious to them. The behavior he was displaying was rather odd though! If he'd done it right away they could assume it was a skill he already had. Doing it after a few hours of being in the room though? That made no sense! It's not like there was a skill trainer for him to learn new skills from inside of the room! It's not like people could just randomly get new skills out of nowhere. They had to be purchased before they could be used!
Thomas attacked the wall with the conjured pick for over an hour digging out a sizeable section of it in the process. The guards kept an eye on him the entire time. With them watching like hawks and the depth of the cave it was literally impossible for him to dig his way out like that. Still, they had their orders and they followed them. At some point, Yorik had joined the peanut gallery and was watching Thomas digging at the wall. Finally, there was a loud 'TING!' as metal struck metal. A piece of rock fell out of the hole and rolled on the ground. Thomas quickly picked it up and examined it.
Metal element mana was leaking out of the rock and he could see a bit of silvery color in the cross-section of the area that broke off. He'd found ore! He had no idea what kind of ore but it was ore! He tossed it toward the forge and immediately went back to mining. There was still metal mana gathered in the wall which meant there was more to mine. For another two hours, he dug out pieces of ore and kept tossing them toward the forge until a good section of the floor was covered in pieces of rock containing ore. He dug until the metal mana within that section of the wall had completely disappeared.
Even with his attributes, keeping a conjured item and digging for three hours straight had once again drained his mana pool and eaten through his stamina. He was sweating and tired but there were ample rewards for his work. It was the first time he got to dig materials out of the ground himself after all! He sat down for a moment to rest. It was only then that he noticed the peanut gallery of over two dozen pirates looking at him. He tilted his head to the side curiously as he asked, "What? Is seeing someone mining for ore really that entertaining?"
Yorik let out a sigh and shook his head, "No. But you were acting really weird. Stopping in the middle of getting ready to make something. Looking around all over the place like you were seeing ghosts. And then taking out a pick and digging at a random spot on the wall for hours to suddenly pull out ore! If there was ore in the walls you should have said something to begin with!"
Thomas scratched his head. Hearing it from their point of view his actions did seem to be a bit weird but he shrugged his shoulders, "I didn't know there was ore in the walls originally. I only discovered it after I learned a new skill."
Yorik stopped and glared at Thomas, "That's a lie. There's no one here to teach you new skills. How could you have possibly learned a new one?"
Thomas was confused for a moment. It took a second to process what Yorik was saying. Ever since he started to play AoG he'd only ever had to pay for his Inventory ability. Everything else he'd learned automatically when he performed the actions associated with it. Though, perhaps paying to join the academy back in Reykhoten counted as paying to learn skills? Still, aside from what he learned there he got all of his skills for free. Listening to Yorik it seemed that it didn't work that way for other players. He could only imagine one reason for that, 'Quick Learner'! Thomas grinned mysteriously but had no reason to explain anything to Yorik.
He rested for a bit while Yorik and the others waited for an explanation. When it became clear that Thomas had no intention of explaining, the majority of them assumed it was an innate skill and felt jealous. They had to fork over money to learn even the most mundane of skills but this man just learned them randomly! It was so unfair. Thomas ignored all of them and approached the pile of ore he'd extracted from the wall. There were at least forty small chunks of rock containing ore. Now the question was, what kind of ore?