Joe brought his Presence up around the woman once again, condensing it with purpose while also trying to keep all of it in mind. Give mana… to the diagnose constructs… and… uh… figure out the time left to find the curse… uh… give that to the diagnose as well… and… display it with diagnose… and… uh…. Diagnose… the girl… and… add.. power… Joe’s thoughts spiraled after that, his main focus purely on just giving as much power as he could to the mana constructs. The mana tanks ballooned to much larger size than before then abruptly stopped and Joe realized he was out of system mana. He pushed through, pouring his personal mana in as well until he felt about half empty, not wanting to empty himself completely in case he needed to do another run. I can always add it in later…so… or right… feed the constructs mana during the time… so… feed it from my personal mana… and system mana… ooh… my mana points as well?

His mana points responded immediately, zooming out to connect to each of the diagnose constructs, several having a couple points while others only got one. Simultaneously, foggy strands formed from him and from a location just off to the right side of his chest to each of the constructs and then began draining mana from him. Ooh… ok… not too pleasant… but not bad… So… hold off on starting… let’s try to get my mana back… that… Joe fell into silent meditation which turned more into a tense effort to hold off starting the diagnoses as well as just waiting. It took some time, much more than Joe felt comfortable with, but his system mana finally started filling again, and Joe felt some sense of relief at that. Having a number to stare at as it filled up gave him focus, and he held on, the effort actually making him begin to sweat as well. Finally, his mana refilled over seventy percent and Joe relaxed, allowing the spell skill to release and begin its work.

During this whole time and throughout his Presence sphere, he noticed streams of fog coalescing as well to contact the constructs, the mana in his sphere all streaming towards the foggy streams, each combining until they began forming rivers of power to each construct. Only the mana around the young girl proved different, streaming into her before coming out and forming a separate stream that seemed… looks… a bit off… it’s … not wrong, just different than the other’s… why is …

His thought was cut off when suddenly the display construct zoomed towards him and opened up a small window display a simple number centered in the middle.

0.01%

“Oh! Nice… a display.”

Joe’s exclamation brought attention from almost all in the room, but they remained silent and watched on. Joe maintained himself pretty well now that he wasn’t holding the spell back, the mana for the constructs well supplied by his initial filling and he found himself rejuvenating his own system mana pretty quickly to full although his personal mana still remained a bit obscure to him. With his mana full, he attempted to shunt all of it into the mana battery bulbs attached to each of the constructs. It took some effort, but he was finally able to push some mana into the bulbs, the bulbs swelling again slightly, but not back to full, and Joe frowned. Right… gonna slowly lose all my mana, I guess…

Without any other need to do anything but wait, Joe found his mind wandering and his curiosity coming to the fore as he watched his Presence sphere while he wanted for his system mana to refill once more. He soon began to notice that the mana within the sphere acted a bit funny. He hadn’t really noticed it too much before, but mana had permeated everything around, although it proved to be much less dense than when he emitted mana in a torrent. The very air around him was saturated with small points of mana that lazily wafted around the room. But when it was within his Presence sphere, it became … seems like it’s… locked… like… quantum locked… that’s… weird. Each particulate of mana appeared to be almost magnetically locked to all the other mana particulates within his sphere, dancing under some kind of controlled pattern, even as they were drawn towards his diagnose constructs to feed them.

Outside his sphere of influence, the particulates wafted around the room in typical random patterns. They seemed to move as if randomly following drafts and wind currents. The mana particulates in the ground at his feet, however, were relatively static, not moving at all except when pulled from the ground by his Presence’s efforts to feed mana to the diagnose constructs.

He, of course, could not see the mana particulates in the ground. His physical sight was blocked from entering the ground. But, at least within his Presence’s radius, he could somehow sense the particulates as they remained locked in a rather strong way as his own Presence’s effect upon it was much more subdued than the power his Presence was able to import upon the mana in the air. But he had no way to compare as the mana in the ground outside his Presence sphere was impossible for him to see. Although… the surface… Joe watched the surface and found the mana on the surface of the ground to be rather static, especially outside his Presence radius, locked and unmoving at all, a web of interconnected particulates that stretched across the ground. The thought that he was seeing the mana in the ground brought him up short, and he stopped, lifting a hand with some trepidation into his line of sight.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Holy… wow! That’s… that’s cool! The mana across the surface of his hand was not as solidly unmoving as the mana on the ground, and with that realization, he began looking around the room before he blinked in shock, seeing the entire world in a sudden new light, mana particulates wafting throughout the room, on clothing, across skin, in the waving of hair and the wafting of … Joe blinked, and it all vanished, a soft sigh of wonder escaping his lips as the image that he’d seen faded from sight. He took a deep breath before finally calming himself and looking back at his work.

He grimaced. Almost fifteen and a half percent… still… a long way to go! Joe sighed and looked over at the girl, then blinked in surprise to find her corruption had dropped to sixteen percent. Why… what is happening that… Joe looked around and then suddenly felt the mana in his sphere spring out to him in stark epiphany. He wasn’t able to see the mana… not as he had before, but he was still able to see the larger streams of it as his Presence pulled it from the air into the constructs as they worked. As the constructs spun around the woman’s body, one of the larger streams of mana would rarely flood through her body, but when it did so, the corruption percentage would immediately drop. Well… duh! Mana corruption! But flood her and removed the corrupted mana… then… that makes…

“Kilniara! Could you come here?”

Gwenvair spoke up at that, whispering at bit softly, “Joe… she’s…”

“Oh… I’m sorry, Kilniara! Shoot… should have remembered that… uh… Gwenvair, do you mind?”

Gwenvair quickly stepped to his side, nodding softly, “Of course, eccentric.”

Joe smiled up at her, taking his eyes off the young woman for a moment, speaking very softly, “You don’t have to call me that.”

Gwenvair smiled at that, whispering back, “Thank you, but…”

Joe hid his frown and nodded, turning back to the patient, “Could you emit mana at her, please?”

There was a gasp around the room and Joe glanced around, “What?”

Gwenvair frowned and hid a small grimace before replying, explaining to Joe, “It’s… considered a bit rude.”

“It is… ah… right. Um … I apologize. But, uh,” Joe turned to glance at the patient, “Could you allow her? Is it ok?”

The woman nodded with some trepidation, and Gwenvair looked at Joe before grimacing and doing so, sending a stream of mana into the woman’s arm. Huh… nothing’s happening… why is… Joe turned his eyes back to his streams of mana, especially the one that would periodically go through the woman and soon noticed that the percentage would drop when the stream would pass through the center of her chest. Ooh… the center of mana generation… that’s…

“Gwenvair? Could you please target the center of her chest, pass your mana directly through here?” Joe asked, while giving a target on the young woman’s chest, right about the center of the chest directly through the center of her sternum. Does she have a sternum? Is she… never mind!

Gwenvair looked at him, then looked at the girl with some apology, frowning slightly, “Joe… that is… not… that is very unusual.”

Joe looked up at her, struggling to restrain his frustration, “I’m sorry if this is some form of taboo amongst your people, but… I think I have found a way to hold off monsterization.”

Gwenvair blinked at that, surprised, “Oh?”

Joe nodded but grimaced, “It’s not a cure. She will still monsterize, but if we pass pure mana through her core, it seems to clean the corrupted mana from her system. It … it is not a permanent cure, but it will give them time!”

“Truly?”

Joe nodded, “Yes. That is why I am asking. Her mana corruption is going down each time my mana passes through her core. That is why I am asking if you could do as well, just to see.”

One of the new priests, obviously the one that knew about monsterization, interjected, “The eccentric is correct. Passing clean and pure mana through a monsterized individual will stave off monsterization… for a time. But monsterization always wins out. It will return faster and faster.”

Joe glanced up at the man, “You knew this?”

The man bowed, seeming apologetic, “Yes, but there is little meaning without the cure, eccentric. They will still monsterize.”

Joe’s frustration eased, “How much time?”

The priest nodded, “It can add almost a year, although by even half a year, one must purify the mana daily or even several times a day. By the end of the year, one must stream mana constantly until the monsterization process becomes so great it overwhelms even fresh streams of powerful pure mana.”

Joe sighed, nodding, “But it does help… for now right at the beginning.”

The priest nodded again, “It does, although most of the young women here will not need purification for a month, likely more. There is no need to purify until then.”

Joe nodded but contradicted, “But it costs nothing to do so to give them something to hope for… to hang on to.”

The priest paused at that, then nodded softly, “Hope is powerful. That is true, eccentric.”

Gwenvair looked to Joe and he nodded, smiling sofly. Gwenvair’s concern vanished at that and she turned to the young woman with a firm look on her face, although still questioning. The patient agreed with a soft nod, and Gwenvair began, her mana streaming towards and through the woman’s chest.

“Just a bit higher, you are too… no… too high now, a little lower… there perfect, right there!”

Joe avidly looked at her monsterization and quickly saw the number dropping and he smiled, “Yup! I was right! If you pass mana through a person’s core, their monsterization will drop! It will not cure the curse, but it will delay it! Please, let the others know?”

Gwenvair stopped her mana emissions and stared at Joe with some shock, “It worked?”

Joe laughed, “It looked that way to me. She has dropped almost back to zero.”

Joe felt his face twitch when he saw it immediately tick back up again. Keep positive!