When I woke up, my body was still aching somewhat, reminding me that using Health from the System to heal wasn't exactly perfect, or painless.

"I can't believe I was that reckless," I muttered, my body reminding me of the cost of trying to use a skill without understanding it fully. It was arrogant of me to self-experiment without properly assessing the situation. I had assumed a mere one point of mana wouldn't be a problem.

At least, instead of a painful injury, I had received some upgrades to my skill, as well as a valid way to rapidly improve it. Curious to test, I went to the forge, and intentionally damaged one of the swords before repairing it again.

"Wow, controlled flow is amazing," I muttered as I repaired the weapon. It allowed me to somehow nudge the enchantment to the side while repairing. It didn't have too much of an advantage when I was repairing the sharpness enchantment, as I had long learned how to bypass it.

Instead, I had pulled a broken weapon from the pile Eleanor had provided for me to experiment with, one with a simple durability enchantment. I wasn't able to repair those before, because the enchantment was shaped more like a web, making it difficult for me to work on the metal without breaking the enchantment.

Now, with my ability to nudge the enchantment to the side without destroying it, I was actually able to repair it. It was a slow process, taking almost an hour of my time before I could even reach halfway. Theoretically, mana blow might have been usable, but with each blow requiring at least one point of mana, it was not something I could test.

I quit there, because I had nudged too hard, and the enchantment had destabilized.

However, that was not exactly bad news. A small mana cloud appeared as I destroyed the enchantment. It was less than what had been revealed by destroying the ingot, but with my improved Meditation, it was just enough for me to capture it.

[+1 Mana]

"That's a nice surprise," I muttered, my smile growing. The broken weapons that were here for my experiments were not as valuable as the bronze ingots, meaning I didn't have to choose between improving Repair, Forge, and Meditation. It was good news.

"Now, to the not-so-good one," I said as I prepared myself to repeat the same reversal trick. I needed to see if my newest perk would help me reduce the pain somewhat. However, this time, I first went to my bedroom.

I didn't want to be caught by a visitor. I closed my eyes, focusing on the flow of the mana, reversing the rotation of the orb as I pushed the mana out. The pain hit, but it was far less than I had expected.

[Meditation (Common) - 11 - 13]

[-85 Health]

"Success through self-mutilation. My psychologist would have had a field day with it." For a moment, I wondered if he was still alive, but that was just a momentary thought. Thinking if the friends from before the Cataclysm were alive or not was a quick road to ruin.

Especially for someone like me, who had the misfortune to experience the disaster while traveling for a conference on the East Coast, and was caught halfway, surviving only because I chose to drive rather than fly … away from everyone I had ever known, lost in a town in the middle of nowhere.

"Focus," I muttered even as I went downstairs once more, picked some more broken weapons, and started destroying their enchantments for extra mana, only to push said mana out of my body.

Every repeat damaged my body somewhat, but I ignored the potential risks. It was not my usual careful attitude … but what had following my careful attitude for three years given me? A pile of rejections while I eked out a pathetic living, barely able to afford a room that I could keep my books in.

No, some risk was inevitable.

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With that in mind, I repeated the same trick. As meditation reached twenty, I was required to exude three points of mana to increase Meditation once, but considering the damage it created had already dropped to single digits, it had become an acceptable tradeoff.

By midday, I had reached the point I had been searching for.

[Meditation (Common) - 24 - 25]

[Perk Options — Efficient Absorption / Contained Flow / Enhanced Sensing]

"Oh, a difficult choice," I muttered as I examined the benefits. Contained Flow was clearly the next step of Controlled Flow, and taking it was tempting. But, in the end, I chose Enhanced Sensing.

The moment I did so, my ability to read the mana patterns had increased. I could see some surface-level details on the enchantments … which were naturally incomprehensible, like trying to understand how a computer worked by opening the casing.

Still, it was better than looking from the outside.

I broke another enchantment, and confirmed the same thing was true for the mana cloud. Rather than seeing a featureless fog, I found myself looking at … a fog with slightly more discernible features.

Well, it was still only a Perk to a common skill.

The same was true for the absorption. I could see that, as the ephemeral sphere rotated, the mana patterns turned slightly more discernible. And, that allowed me to reverse the rotation smoothly. Three more attempts, and I had succeeded once more.

"No pain," I said happily. Finally, I was able to repeat that trick without hurting myself.

Of course, now that I had cleared the next threshold, the improvement of the skill would slow down noticeably. I doubted that I could get it to reach thirty even if I destroyed every weapon and material I had in here, including the forge.

An acceptable loss, as being able to improve a mana skill in a location with no environmental mana had already been pushing it. I just needed to return to the town, and meditate in my room safely to increase it even further.

Honestly, a part of me was telling me to quit and go back to town, maybe even migrate to one of the cities with a better environment, preferably with a System Shop. But, one thing prevented me.

I didn't know if I would be able to actually use the System Shop. Every city had certain rules when it came to using those shops, as not everything was sold without limit. Eleanor had already revealed that the bronze mana ingots had a certain quota every day.

No, even if it slowed down the improvement of my newest skill, the opportunity to push my two production skills higher was too valuable. Not to mention, quitting suddenly would anger my new bosses, which was not exactly smart.

I could always change my mind once I had taught the other blacksmiths how to repair the weapons.

With that, I returned downstairs, forging another dagger to test the benefits of Meditation and my newest perk. "Beautiful," I muttered.

Having meditation didn't change the way I forged the weapon based on the skill, which was not surprising. It was clear that the autopilot of the System was working with far better detection than what it allowed me to access.

Technically, it meant that Mana Forge drew no benefit from increasing Meditation. It looked like the only reason that I received that skill was to gather mana, and trust Mana Forge and Mana Repair to use it.

Not exactly a rare event. The origin and the objective of the System were a mystery, but the working principles were not. It clearly expected every user to follow its guidance to rapidly improve. It had certain benefits to it, as I had experienced with my external combat skills.

Of course, there was the skill upgrade aspect, a great reward for overcoming those limitations, which made the subject a little murkier.

"Either way, it doesn't make my new perk any less valuable," I said to myself as I continued forging. Meditation might not benefit Forging directly, but my newest perk allowed me to observe the process even better.

Especially when I stopped occasionally to use Inspect, which gave me a completely new set of information. With multiple methods of observation in place, I was able to watch the process of the skill more carefully, learning more and more.

And, observation was the cornerstone of science. It was the seventeenth century when humanity discovered the existence of bacteria, and it wasn't because we suddenly became more intelligent. No, we simply invented the microscope, revealing the existence of a whole new world.

From there, many mysteries had been solved one by one. That had been true for X-ray, radar, and heat sensors … every time our observation methods increased, the developments followed.

No, I didn't care if increasing meditation didn't suddenly enhance my Forging abilities. It made me learn and discover faster, which was all I needed. All I needed was to work with full focus and discover more and more secrets.

However, when the door opened, I immediately interrupted my work, even smashing the dagger hard enough to ruin my work. I guessed it was not Eleanor, as she didn't bother keeping the sound down. Meanwhile, servants opened the door carefully, trying not to disturb me.

Unfortunately, inadvertently, they still ruined it. I immediately threw the dagger into the fire, letting it melt completely. Instead I pulled another sword, acting like I had been repairing them.

I didn't want others to realize just how much of my time I spent experimenting on unrelated subjects. I expected another servant to walk forward … instead, it was a mana cloud.

A nasty surprise.