Beep. Beep. Beep.

I blinked twice and slowly turned my head sideways, the world revolving like an oil painting, various colors swirling until my gaze sharpened to focus on a sole figure slouched on a chair. His head hung slightly to the side, as if he had passed out in exhaustion. There was a lot of stubble on his chin, and a lot more wrinkles and white hairs than I had seem him last. Deep, dark bags rested under his eyelids, barely covered by his thick glasses.

“D-dad?” I croaked.

Dad’s eyes jumped open in a heartbeat, and he quickly turned to look at me, his mouth slightly parted as if he wasn’t believing what he was seeing. A single tear ran down his cheek as his lips began to tremble.

“S-son… you’re awake. The doctors said…. I’m so glad… I’m so glad…” He tumbled out of his chair as he reached out towards me. The chair fell to the ground with a clatter, but he ignored it completely and grasped my hand tightly, as if to tell the world that he was never letting go again. Streams of tears rolled down his aged face as he made an expression that was a combination of relief and heartache.

‘Wait… if I’m still alive…?’

“W-what happened to mom? Is she…” I tried to get up, but my body flared up in pain and rendered me unable to move.

“I’m sorry, John… She didn’t make it.” Dad said. My heart sank, as the glimmer of hope was snuffed out and I was dragged into the black abyss. I silently let the tears fall, grasping my father’s hand as tightly as he held mine, afraid to lose myself in the darkness.

What did I expect? I already understood that the truth… couldn’t be changed.

“…It’s my fault, Dad.” I managed to whisper, barely audible. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not.” He affirmed, shaking his head. “It’s not, John—”

“YES IT IS. Yes… it is, Dad.” I said, with conviction. There was one thing that I had etched into my soul and very being in the past two years, and it was that my guilt wouldn’t be washed away with petty forgiveness or repentance. I would never forget. Every night, I replayed the last moments I spent with mom. So foolish and naïve, so fucking STUPID.

Not a single day passed without tasting bitter regret.

“Dad, it’s my fault. It’s not yours. I was a terrible son. All I want is to undo everything that I’ve done, and make things go back to the way they were. But… but I can’t.”

We mourned in silence for what seemed like an eternity. For the loss of a loving mother. And a loving wife. The only sound in the room was the beeping of the heart monitor. Dad’s shoulders started to shake as tears began to fall uncontrollably.

“Son, I love you so much… How am I going to live without you or your mom?” His head hung low and his hand tightened its grip on mine. I could feel his heartbeat racing and a torrent of remorse and anguish ravage his thoughts.

I forced every ounce of will I had left into moving my broken body to give my father a final embrace. My arms wrapped around his trembling frame and brought his head to my chest. My tears dripped onto his glasses as I hugged Dad for the last time.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I love you.”

----------------------------------------

I woke up sobbing on the floor of the Dungeon Sanctuary. Was that… a dream? It felt so real.... I could still feel the warmth of my father’s hand, and the trembling figure that was in my arms. Fresh tears welled up in my eyes, but I quickly wiped them off with my sleeve, steeling my heart as I had done for the past two years. And then I realized I didn’t have a sleeve.

…Sigh.

I took a moment to breathe deeply, and focused on relaxing my physical and mental tension.

'I will never forget, but I will move on.'  I told myself.

I tried to recall what had happened before I fainted.

After I ingested the berries, some eerie entity told me that it was some strange, hive mind of the dungeon, that it would give me a mana core, and that I should stay put for the time being… was it? I groaned, remembering the pain that I had been subjected to. At least it was gone now.

I took another deep breath, and noticed something peculiar in the corner of my eye.

For some reason, the green glow at the top of the room seemed brighter and more detailed than I remembered. I tried to sit up to get a closer look, but pain jolted through my body, scaring me into thinking that it might seize my body again. To my relief, it was but a brief passing, and I seemed to be able move my body and pseudopods freely. I wiggled and jiggled a few times for good measure.

Looking up, I could see now that the green glow emitted from the leaf at the center of the sanctuary’s dome was actually an aura of green mana particles, which circulated concentrically to form four interconnected rings of mana streams around the leaf. Turning my attention inwards, I was surprised to discover that the ‘electrons’ surrounding the ‘proton and neutron cluster’ in my nucleus had begun to slowly orbit. I conjectured that this subtle movement was powered by the red mana that swirled inside each of the electron orbs.

Despite my previous inner turmoils, excitement began to build inside of me.

'I have a mana core!

‘, complete.’

By all means, the path I took to get there was completely different than what I had expected, but surely this was a reason to celebrate? Then again, according to the hive mind, I would’ve died without its intervention. I should at least be happy that I’m alive and pain-free, right?

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I couldn’t help but chuckle victoriously.

I stretched a bit and poked my head outside. Thankfully, it was only beginning to approach nighttime, but my parents were still likely to be worrying about me. I should probably go… home?

And then I remembered the advice the hive mind told me. ‘…do not exit this area for one day.’

…

As much as I wanted to reassure my family, I figured that should heed the word of this powerful being. After all, he was strong enough to give me a mana core of my own. Unfortunately, this would probably mean that I was in for a harsh lecturing when I got back home. I was sure that Ellie was going to kill me.

A bead of sweat rolled down my face as my imagination ran wild, but I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, choosing to cross that bridge when the time came.

Instead, I opted to focus on studying my new mana core as much as I could in this time.

Gururu…

‘After dinner,’ I told myself.

…

‘A light dinner,’ I added.

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A dusk breeze whooshed past the entrance, filling the sanctuary with fresh, lakeshore air. I sat in the middle of this area, closing my eyes as I concentrated on bending the atmospheric mana to my own will. My core glowed deep maroon as I stretched my perception outwards like tendrils, seeking greater and greater power.

Unfortunately, in reality, I looked like a constipated slime.

I paused my efforts and opened my eyes, fatigued mentally. I had been able to snatch three particles of green mana from the air, and they were currently free floating in my body. With my remaining strength, I directed them towards my mana core, which absorbed them greedily and converted them to their collective red. I felt the tiniest bit of mental rejuvenation as if the mana relieved my cerebral stress.

What did the color signify, anyway? Why the hell was it so difficult to gather just three particles of mana? The leaf at the center of the room had a glow that had to be made up of at least a billion, or more.

It was much easier to consume one of the sponge berries, as I now called them, since each one easily contained at least ten particles. Once in my body, it was much easier to direct them into my core.

However, this fact was irrelevant at the moment. I was in the middle of conducting an experiment. The aims of my current project was to figure out 1) whether I could reliably acquire mana from my surroundings, and 2) if this acquisition ability could be trained. Although I could hoard some of these berries in my pouch at all times, having a back-up plan wasn’t a bad idea.

I also wanted to know if my core had a maximum capacity, but I was afraid to eat too much, lest I incur the wrath of the hive mind and the unending agony of excessive mana consumption again. That would have to be a question left to someone more knowledgeable.

I closed my eyes and focused on the mana outside my body. Somehow, I was able to perceive it without having to rely on my vision. It was something skin to smell, but with the benefit of being able to vaguely judge the distance and shape of whatever the mana was forming.

The outside breeze that made its way into the sanctuary carried with it tiny specks of blue mana dispersed like mist, likely originating from the lake. The walls of the sanctuary were coated in a light green aura that seemed to slowly draw mana from the earth and channel it into the central leaf. Sort of like the matrix, but in reverse, and in slow-mo. And finally, the heart of the sanctuary itself, the central leaf, possessed the densest cluster of mana, whose rings seemed to pulsate with life. Every few minutes, half of the mana stored in the leaf would shoot up through the tree and out its branches, showering a vast area in mana.

Sort of like ejaculation.

I shuddered, imagining that all of the berries I had eaten until now were the by-products of dungeon mana semen. Was that why the popular berries in this region were white and sweet?

Shifting my attention to the four blue specks in front of me, I willed them to enter my body, enticing them with mental jiggles. If I had veins, all of the ones on my face would’ve been popping out, with how much effort I was putting in.

I sighed. The specks weren’t moving at all. How did I even do it before?

I blobbed onto the ground to take a quick break, cursing the fact that there wasn't any sort of instruction manual at my disposal.

'Maybe I should try something different. Instead of collecting it, maybe I should try using it?' I recalled my grandfather’s explanation of elemental magic in his journal.

‘Magic is about using mana to manipulate atoms in the air…’

I tried to remember everything I could about the period table, the bonds between molecules, and the structure of gases, liquids, and solids. I learned this stuff so long ago that I had forgotten most of it, only retaining some basic knowledge. I guessed that the simplest thing to try was creating oxygen. But how would I even do it? It’s not like I could feel nor see the oxygen molecules.

Once I felt rested enough, I closed my eyes and concentrated again. This time, I directed my focus inwards, and willed a sizeable cluster of mana particles to hover in front of me, holding out a pseudopod as a conduit for them to exit my body. While still inside, the particles were fairly easy to manipulate; however, as soon as they left the surface of my body, the strain on my mind suddenly multiplied. I lost focus in the moment of surprise, and the expelled mana instantly dissipated.

‘Fuck.’

I tried again, but with a much smaller cluster, consisting only of four particles of my red mana.

‘Guide it into the arm… hold it at the tip…’

Then I had an idea.

‘EJACULATE!’

Poof.

A small blast of air left my pseudopod with about the force of a silent, deadly fart. I didn’t know what such a move would accomplish, but at least it was progress!

I repeated the motion twice using larger and larger amounts of mana each time. Screw elemental manipulation; this action was so much easier to understand and perform. I’d learn about using proper magic later, and focus on what I did know, for now.

On the fourth attempt, I willed the mana in my pseudopod to flow turbulently. I felt a familiar sensation of pain creep up, but I ignored it and commanded the particles to spin as fast as they could. The cluster began to rotate once per second… two per second… four… eight… sixteen… I lost count as the cluster spun at an outrageous velocity. I gritted through the burning sensation in my arm and focused on the cluster, now a tightly packed, rapidly spinning crimson sphere of over a hundred particles.

BOOM.

Forcefully expelling the mana fired a bullet of air that tore through the wall of the sanctuary with a resounding crack, and flashed through the forest beyond. I heard several similar sounding cracks, and assumed that… yep.

Peering through the hole I made, I could see at least one more tree that had been penetrated by my bullet.

A wave of exhaustion rolled over me, and I caught myself from falling backwards by extending a pseudopod. Strangely, the mana particles in the surrounding area seemed to be floating towards me. I watched them in fear, thinking that I had incurred the wrath of the hive mind by damaging its sanctuary, but the particles didn’t seem to be particularly hostile. I absorbed the ones closest to me, about forty in total, and the others seemed to lose interest. Thankfully, the exhaustion lessened as well.

‘Diffusion.’

That was my conclusion. Because I had used so much mana in one go, the lack of mana in my body created some sort of gradient-driven vacuum that drew the surrounding particles towards me. Once I had collected enough to offset the difference, the gradient was diminished. This also explained why it was so difficult to collect mana at the beginning, when I had so much inside my body. The gradient would’ve been directed outwards, and there would’ve been a negative pressure that must have repelled the surrounding mana from entering my body.

Furthermore, this meant that if I could enlarge my mana capacity somehow, I could not only store more mana, but I could absorb it that much faster. Excited, I began to hypothesize different ways that I could improve my mana capacity. However, my thoughts were broken by a shrill scream that resounded through the night.

“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

My eyes widened.

‘Strange. Wasn’t that coming from… right below me?’