November 3, 2022
Day 14
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After all her practice with mana manipulation, Maya could now both see and feel the fire mana condensing over Kelly's open palm. As expected, the mage kept pouring mana into the spell until it had more mana than five of Maya's regular fireballs combined.
The total damage output of this spell would be scary, but due to Kelly's lack of control, most of it would be wasted in a wide explosion. Good for AOE damage, but no different than a concerted attack by five weaker mages.
Maya knew she was being harsh, but her first reaction was certainly that of disappointment. Then she saw Kelly rapidly create a second fireball to send behind the last one, and noticed something interesting.
This might not be as useless as I thought.
This time Kelly had poured the excess mana too quickly, and the particles had become very agitated and unstable.
The same must have happened to a lesser extent the last time, but I had failed to notice. Such highly agitated mana might be a good target for practicing my control.
Maya considered the possibilities as she looked toward the courtyard, at the prone figure, more curious now than fearful. The weak arrows of the sentinels fell around him, failing to do any damage.
The world congress explains why you aren't killing anyone, but it doesn't explain everything. Who are you, why are you here, and what do you stand to gain from these games you are playing with us?
The attacks of the highest level mages and archers on the wall covered the stranger in a beautiful cloud comprised of dozens of manas and intents.
I know I'm missing something. A piece of the puzzle.
The smoke cleared, and the man stood unharmed, his cloak slightly ruffled.
I'm not as strong as Rahul or as steadfast as Ivan.
Maya walked toward the edge of the wall and joined the host of archers and mages.
I don't have a fraction of the control Daniel has with intent, nor the resourcefulness that Charlie possesses.
Everyone wordlessly understood the need to blast the enemy with incessant attacks and were readying their spells.
I'm not remotely close to manifesting a presence, and I lack purpose and direction in this new reality.
Maya prepared her own spell, tuning the lattice structure and the vibrational frequency to get a fireball with maximum heat output and stability.
I can't do many of the things my teammates excel at, but when it comes to problem-solving, Daniel told me, in front of the entire team, that I'm peerless.
Maya was getting pumped up now, and the fact that her fireball was as impotent against the enemy as all the other attacks in the first barrage did not dissuade her.
It might take time, but I will figure out just what you came here to do.
Maya fired fireball after fireball, as the rogue just stood there and took all their attacks smugly, his arms wide open as if to embrace the attacks.
But first, I will make sure you pay back tenfold for all the pain you inflicted on my friends.
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Ever since the attack had started, barring the moments when she had been overcome by fear, Maya had watched the rogue's actions with almost academic curiosity. She seemed to have casually dismissed the rogue's attacks as non-lethal, ignoring the pain and trauma he was causing to the defenders who suffered helplessly under the onslaught of a vastly superior foe.
But that was far from the truth.
Admittedly, she had been preoccupied, wondering about the intention of that rogue, but Maya had never lost sight of what was important. She had noticed every bruise that the attacks had left behind on her friend's bodies, seen every drop that they had shed while fighting, and heard every scream of pain, even the quiet ones that died before leaving their throats.
It was because of the horrible ordeal that the rogue had put her friends through that Maya could do what she was about to do next.
Ever since she had attacked the group of crocodiles with her fireball in the swamp, the images of those screaming and burnt crocodiles drowning slowly in the water had been haunting her. Maya would never forget how the last crocodile had suffered from the burns for two whole minutes before dying. She didn't think she could bring herself to use that skill on a living creature again, let alone a human. It had taken a truly desperate situation for her to even agree to set the forest ablaze after that, with Rahul having received a deadly thrashing and Matt in a trance, somehow keeping the alpha at bay.
The ruthlessness with which the rogue had hurt her friends helped weaken Maya's shackles. And the knowledge that the worst she could do was inflict an injury that a healing potion would fix in seconds had set her free.
With that freedom, Maya would hone her fireball into a weapon of instant, painless death, reserved only for monsters that threatened the lives of those she loved.
Driven by these emotions, Maya cast fireball after fireball, and her control over the mana particles grew at a prodigious rate.
A minute later, she pulled out a mana potion from her belt and downed it, pleased that the rogue was just standing there and taking everyone's attacks, giving her ample opportunity to keep improving.
And improve she did.
Her fireballs were now the size of golf balls, and the explosion radius had been reduced to a mere foot.
The system rewarded her efforts with a skill. Maya glanced over it briefly and then continued with twice the intensity.
You have gained a skill
Mana Control I - You have felt the fundamental units that build mana, and although your understanding is rudimentary, your application of that understanding has set you on the path of mana manipulation, letting you tailor your spells to your needs.
Effect: Mana will be 10% more malleable.
You have gained 10,000 experience from this skill.
Maya kept firing incessantly and emptied another potion, her fireballs getting denser and hotter, but eventually, she hit a wall, her rapid gains coming to a halt.
Maya felt like she was at the cusp of securing her goal, but this last stretch seemed to be dragging on and on. The lattice was getting more stable with every fireball, the vibrational frequency was still increasing, and the potential energy was approaching zero.
But very very slowly.
While earlier Maya was improving in leaps and bounds, now every bit of incremental benefit came after dozens of fireballs.
Maya wiped the sweat off her eyebrows and tried to ignore the throbbing headache that had resulted from the insane concentration her attacks required.
She had reached the maximum benefit she could get out of brute-forcing her way through this problem.
I need to switch things up, try something new.
Maya remembered her recent insights while watching Kelly's bloated fireball, and got to work.
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While she had focused her stats heavily on intelligence, her mana pool still wasn't big enough to rival Kelly's, and abruptly increasing the mana she poured into her fireballs wasn't going to be possible with just that pool. Thankfully, this was not a problem, as Maya had not forgotten the basics of magic.
She went back to those first principles and recalled Anand's lesson on creating the spell, how he instructed the group on the roof on feeling the high concentration of fire mana in the air around them.
Maya could see the castle roof across the courtyard, where the lesson had taken place less than two weeks ago.
So much has changed in just two weeks.
Maya brushed off those thoughts before the emotions could overwhelm her, and closed her eyes, focusing on the ambient mana around her. The concentration wasn't anywhere as high as it had been on that day, but Maya managed to isolate and extract the fire mana.
Then she used that mana to augment the stream of mana from her own pool that she was pouring into the spell, finally creating a fireball with twice her regular amount of mana.
It took noticeably longer to create, but the fireball Maya send hurling toward the rogue was exactly the same as one a more powerful mage could have created without reaching for ambient mana.
Due to that sudden increase in mana and Maya's lack of control, this fireball had grown to the size of a basketball and exploded in a big radius.
Something I intend to rectify.
Maya thought as she looked at that shabby display, and started to practice her control over this large agitated pool of mana.
Two mana potions later, she was able to bring it down to the size of a tennis ball, and before long, it was no bigger than a golf ball.
Not yet satisfied, she poured even more mana into the spell and toiled till she could get a 2.5x mana fireball to the size of a golf ball.
She glanced over the notification telling her that the weak fireball skill had upgraded.
Weak Fireball I - Summon a weak fireball and launch it toward your enemy. It will explode on impact or upon reaching maximum projectile range, dealing AOE damage. Damage and range can be improved with better mana control.
Afflictions: Has a small chance to set the target on fire.
Changed to.
Weak Fireball II - Summon a weak fireball and launch it toward your enemy. It will explode on impact or upon reaching maximum projectile range, dealing AOE damage. Damage and range can be improved further with better mana control.
Afflictions: Has a moderate chance to set the target on fire.
You have gained 10,000 experience from this skill upgrade.
That wasn't the upgrade she was looking for, but it did mean that Maya could now create a large fireball using just her mana pool. Of course, the assistance of the skill only let her pull more out of her mana pool at once, and did nothing to increase her total mana capacity.
Creating more potent fireballs using just my mana is now possible, but it'll simply deplete my mana 2.5 times faster and force me to use mana potions more frequently.
Maya thought, and decided to start the journey back to the regular mana spells.
As opposed to the abrupt change from the normal fireball to a 2x fireball, the way back was slow and deliberate, and Maya very carefully reduced the amount of mana she was pouring into the spells, making sure to proportionally reduce the volume of the spell.
Before long, she found success.
The 2x mana fireball could now be packed into the size of a ping pong ball, only slightly smaller than the golf ball, but that difference meant her plan was working.
The system seemed to agree, as she was rewarded with another skill upgrade.
Mana Control I - You have felt the fundamental units that build mana, and although your understanding is rudimentary, your application of that understanding has set you on the path of mana manipulation, letting you tailor your spells to your needs.
Effect: Mana will be 10% more malleable.
changed to
Mana Control II - You have felt the fundamental units that build mana, and your understanding of that mana is growing, affording you more grace when manipulating it, thereby letting you perform noticeable alterations to your spells when tailoring them to your needs.
Effect: Mana will be 25% more malleable.
You have gained 10,000 experience from this skill upgrade.
Pleased with the notification, Maya kept reducing the mana poured into the fireball while working to proportionally decrease the size of the fireball.
It wasn't always easy, and often the fireballs stubbornly refused to be condensed any tighter, but Maya persevered. The 25% boost to malleability was certainly helpful, but Maya still had to struggle at every step.
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Finally.
Maya thought, as a pebble-sized fireball left her palm and flew as fast as an arrow toward the rogue's forearm. It exploded in a radius no bigger than a tennis ball, and the highly concentrated heat burned cleanly through layers of the rogue's cloak, but still failed to damage the skin.
This pebble-sized fireball is the last milestone before my final goal. I'm almost there.
Maya thought as she kept firing smaller and smaller pebbles at the same spot, trying and failing the sear the rogue's flesh. She had utilized her understanding of the mana particles. She had put to use the insights she had gained from watching Kelly.
But it wasn't enough.
Without days of practice, Maya knew this was as far as she could go if she kept trying to refine her control in this way.
Thankfully, in this new world, there were multiple ways to do things, and Maya had one last tool at her disposal.
A shortcut employed by the only other mage in her team.
Aware that getting to her goal with pure mana manipulation was not possible within this battle, Maya begrudgingly recalled her intent training with Daniel. She supplemented her mana manipulation with intent and coerced the tiny pebble to let go of the explosive aspect of the fireball and behave like a bullet.
And just like that, the fireball took on an aerodynamic shape and shed the last dregs of the potential energy that caused the explosion on contact. This perfect conversion of all of the mana's energy into kinetic energy meant that the vibrational frequency and the temperature of the fireball were raised to such an extent that it started to burn blue.
Maya ignored the waiting notification, and with great satisfaction, aimed and released her fire mana bullet toward the clueless rogue.
That man wouldn't know what hit him.
Maya couldn't help but smile as the bullet whizzed through the air, faster than all the spells and arrows in its path, and hit its target. The mana projectile had no difficulty melting through the rogue's cloak, and it did not stop there.
The bullet went on and penetrated an inch into the rogue's skin, drawing blood.
A feat that had only been managed by Rahul so far.
Then, it quietly fizzled out, its energy expended.
Maya felt a wave of weakness come over her. The amount of intent it took to coerce the mana to behave that way was significant, and she wouldn't be able to do it again soon.
Doesn't matter, now that the system has awarded me with a skill, future uses would be nowhere as taxing.
With that thought, she looked at the notification.
Mana Control II - You have felt the fundamental units that build mana, and your understanding of that mana is growing, affording you more grace when manipulating it, thereby letting you perform noticeable alterations to your spells when tailoring them to your needs.
Effect: Mana will be 25% more malleable.
changed to
Mana Control II - You have felt the fundamental units that build mana, and your understanding of that mana is growing, affording you more grace when manipulating it, thereby letting you perform noticeable alterations to your spells when tailoring them to your needs.
Effect: Mana will be 25% more malleable.
Specializations (1/unknown)
Touch of Intent - Enact tricky and subtle alterations to mana with a delicate yet unwavering touch of intent.
You have gained 100,000 experience from this skill upgrade.
To her dismay and elation, it was not what she expected.
Dismay because she would have to consciously put an effort into every mana bullet she created.
Elation because that specialization would certainly take the edge off the process, and allow her to create much more than just mana bullets.
Maya's mouth watered as she thought of all the possibilities that the open ended-specialization could lead to, and she finally looked at the level-up notification. The 130,000 experience had pushed her up a level, and quite close to level 14.
You have advanced to level 13.
81640/100000 experience to the next level.
Your intelligence has increased from 38 to 39. You have been awarded 5 free stat points.
She was still unsure of why she didn't get a new skill for mana bullets, but Maya's chain of thoughts was interrupted as she noticed something.
The rogue had been looking in that direction and had finally spotted her, the girl whose spell had managed to pierce his skin. She expected to get a look filled with fury and menace, and indeed, that is what the rogue tried to project.
But Maya just smiled.
In an attempt to keep up his posturing, the rogue had unwittingly given her the final piece of the puzzle. Even though his face was hidden in a mask and his intent radiated hate and fury, the rogue's eyes had betrayed him.
They were quirked upward in a way that indicated he was smiling underneath the mask.
A brutal and merciless murderer smiling after he got wounded by an attack? I can think of only one explanation that doesn't involve madness or perversion.
Almost certain she was right, Maya found herself surprised by the lengths the man had gone to accomplish his objective.
But then the results speak for themselves.
She conceded.
The rogue seemed to have noticed the look of understanding that swept over Maya's face, and quite predictably, did what he had been doing throughout the battle.
Upped the ante once again.