Jiran quickly realized there was a problem with his plan. The distance he could manipulate mana outside his body was limited to only a few meters. Meanwhile, the hundreds of streams of mana being drawn to him from across the Forkara town were well outside that range. Wisps of energy dissipated from each stream, the precious energy fading into nothing as he watched.
“What have you done?! How dare you! Die!” The large tier five Forkara screeched and charged with powerful flaps of his wings. “Keah!” The man cried out in alarm as fifty tier three beast corpses were thrown at him before he had a chance to thrust his spear.
Jiran dashed past while he was distracted, easily pushing away the tier three and four warriors between him and the streams of mana. He made a quick circle of the sideways town, sucking in every ounce of mana in the air. During his pass, he noted that the pile of corpses he threw had been hastily discarded on the top side of one of the buildings. When he turned to leave, the fifty soldiers were blocking his path, mixed fury and fear marring their features.
Their leader leveled his spear again and shouted while pushing mana into a skill, “Scathing Tempest!”
“Sorry, I really don’t have time to play,” The soldiers ignored Jiran’s dismissal, their wings sending out gusts of wind that combined into a massive cyclone. Mana Omnis could see the elemental mana within and Jiran clicked his tongue, annoyed he couldn’t claim the precious energy. Since the mana had already been converted to an element, it was beyond enthralling touch’s ability to steal—that was something he could only do with elemental mana he had created.
Mana Confluence coated his skin as he dashed straight through the cyclone. Elemental Castigation wrapped his coating with a layer of obfuscating light, causing him to vanish from their sight. Once he was far enough beyond their blockade that they wouldn't be burned, he rocketed away.
image [https://i.imgur.com/LlXURdW.png]
Jiran arrived above the Land of the Lost for the second time that morning. He looked down at the utterly still fog that permeated the forest, instantly spotting two of the tier seven beasts that called the area home. He held his forearm in front of his face, keenly recalling the pain from when he had been struck. Despite its graphene reinforcing, his cloth sleeve had only stopped the tier seven claws from piercing his flesh while the blow’s force alone had nearly destroyed his limb.
Okay, armor upgrade first.
He flew to the ground, a gout of flames quickly turning several nearby trees and bushes to charcoal. Mana Confluence converted the material into dozens of sheets of graphene. His aura stretched deep into the ground, quickly finding and pulling out several chunks of ore-laced stone. He melted them down and filtered out their impurities in a furnace formed of aura. As the metal cooled, He stripped off his clothes and brought all of his raw materials together.
One centimeter at a time, Mana Confluence tore apart the cloth and metal at a molecular level before reforming the matter into his crystal-clear mental image. He fed his creation as much mana as it needed to turn his shirt and pants into hardened metal interlaced with hundreds of layers of graphene. Ten minutes, and half of his manapool later, he stared down at a suit of armor that he knew would have put stars in Mayalyn’s eyes.
Thankfully, nobody is around to see me wear this thing.
Jiran continued to grumble internally as he donned the armor. The black and gray semi-metallic bodysuit fit snugly across his muscled chest and arms, restricting his movements a little more than he was used to. The golden, heavy armor layer that hung around his shoulders and chest was too loose, so he fashioned several straps to keep everything in position. Golden-colored gauntlets covered his wrists and forearms, filaments of the reinforced metal extending down to his knuckles. After a few experimental punches and kicks, Jiran briefly cycled through the stretching and balancing movements of the Soratta.
Flexibility of the joints needs a little work but the graphene is too mana-expensive to change so it’ll have to wait. At least my neck and head have a good range of movement. Just a few more tests.
Jiran pulled his aura away from his arm and punched. His gauntleted hand shot forward, and without his manabody bending the laws of physics, he easily blasted through the sound barrier with a crack of force. Dirt in a five-meter radius around him was sent swirling through the air, leaving a circular indent in the ground. Satisfied with the feel of the bodysuit and armor resisting the natural atmosphere, Jiran moved to his last test. He pushed mana out of his skin and into the suit, feeling the energy race through the layers of graphene where it moved as easily as it would through his own body.
Suddenly, Jiran stood perfectly still as his minds were flooded with ideas.
Because the graphene sheets are completely enveloped inside metal and cloth, the mana won’t dissipate into the air over time! If the mana inside the suit won’t dissipate, I could turn the whole thing into a formation! Or individual parts into formations with more specific purposes…
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Shivers raced across his skin as he considered the possibilities for an entire minute. He shook himself free of the wild thoughts. His eyes gleamed with anticipation as he gazed at the nearby foggy woods. “All I’m missing is enough mana to get the ball rolling.”
Jiran pulled his aura inside his body, leaving only enough outside of his skin to cover his armor. With Oneness active, he catapulted forward, quickly closing in on the nearest beast that had been watching him from the forest’s edge. It reacted to his approach by leaping backward, moving deeper into the fog. The beast’s leaps were so quick that it was impossible to see it transition from one perch to the next. If not for Oneness suppressing his emotions, Jiran certainly would have been annoyed that his enhanced perception still wasn’t capable of tracking them through the fog.
Without his aura extended, he was immediately surrounded by the disorienting fog. His ploy worked as the Murker instantly appeared at his side and materialized its body to strike. Its clawed arm flashed forward and Jiran raised his arms in response, only barely able to keep up with the beast. Knowing how fast the creatures were, Jiran had prepared his counter ahead of time. A thick layer of mana was converted by Elemental Castigation into a powerful gravitic force that wrapped around both of his gauntlets.
The blow that had been aimed toward his head was pulled off course and smashed into his shoulder with tremendous force. The impact was spread across his armor and a resounding crack echoed dully through the fog. Jiran was blasted to the side, but not before his aura wrapped around the beast and trapped it in its physical form. In the fraction of a second before the creature could retreat back into safety, the two chakrams of Elemental Castigation he had prepared unleashed their payload.
Two dazzling beams of lightning impacted the murker. Its body was wracked with convulsions as powerful currents exploded limbs that failed to contain the voltage. Jiran crashed through a dozen trees, unable to immediately halt his momentum. When he finally stopped, he blasted back toward the beast. It was still alive—though immobilized. Half of its head was gone and most of its skin had melted. The massive pool of mana within it desperately worked to regenerate lost limbs. If he had been even two seconds slower, it would have likely been back to full health.
Jiran’s aura enveloped it once more, not allowing it to turn back into mist. His armored fists came down on its regenerating body—blades of mana turning each strike into rending wounds that tore apart the air even as they cut away at its remaining health. Within four hits, the beast was still and Jiran was free to pull its remaining mana out of its body. He squeezed the energy, trying to filter out its impurities like he had done with the tier three beasts but found it impossible with how dense the energy was.
Not wanting to pull the mana into his body to purify it which would get the inside of his new suit all gooey with monster juice, he maintained a tight mental hold on the ball of mana which was rapidly diminishing in the open air. He opened his interface and used his map to navigate back out of the fog, dragging the heavy corpse behind him while keeping Mana Omins peeled on his surroundings. Stepping back into the light of day, he leaped away from the woods and fell into thought.
Of course they would go for my head, they aren’t stupid. Gravity worked well but it would be a lot smarter to just wear a helmet.
Jiran braced himself as the challenger density slammed into him. As his attributes and body were reinforced, he focused his emotions on the excitement of testing out new theories and the tantalizing opportunity to develop a better method to purify beast mana. When the longing for more density struck, he snapped his aura inside his skin and fell into the peaceful mindlessness that was Oneness. The mental technique relied on focusing so hard on the world around him that his mind had no spare power to wander into unnecessary thoughts. This time, instead of focusing on everything around him, he dedicated all five of his minds toward maintaining his hold on the floating ball of tier seven beast mana which almost immediately stopped dissipating.
The challenger density ran its course and left behind an ache to find more, an ache he would soon appease.
It’s too bad all mana from beasts isn’t as compatible as the Graymin. Best get to it, figuring this out now will save me a ton of time in the long run. I’ll try a formation first. If I can do this without bringing their nasty mana into my body, all the better.
Jiran pulled a hunk of ore out of the ground and melted away its impurities before fashioning it into a long tube. He divided the tube directly in the center with a thin sheet of metal before changing his mind and replacing the sheet with a dozen layers of graphene. He pushed some of his mana into one end of the tube and the beast mana into the other so they were only separated by the twelve-atom-thick sheet of graphene. Finally, he pushed his aura and intent into the entire tube.
Mana Omnis watched the energies going to war inside the tube. Since he knew his mana moved through graphene as if it were his own body, he had decided to use the ultra-thin layer of material as a filter. His mana flooded the filter, infecting the beast-mana on the far side with his intent and dominating it one mote at a time. The converted mana was then pulled through the filter, leaving only the black, tar-like substance on the other side of the tube. Realizing he only needed a tiny bit of mana to inhabit the filter, he pulled most of his mana back out of the tube.
Awesome! So I can filter it with a formation. This tube leaves a lot of room for improvement though. At this rate, it’ll take an hour to convert that much mana. The inside is only a couple centimeters in diameter, if I want to speed up the process, I need to increase the size of the filter. I should also design it in a way that it either attaches to or is part of my suit so I don’t have to carry a tube around.
Hmm, a design with a large internal storage area and plenty of space on both sides of the filter while not taking up a lot of total area. No, I only need a lot of space on one side of the filter, the other side can just lead directly inside the suit where I can absorb the filtered mana. The ball of mana I pulled from that beast was the size of my fist and that was only around half of its mana. So I should make it about double that size.
Jiran tried to think of more than one solution, he really did. The answer that stubbornly dominated his thoughts was similar to something he had done before. And the entire reason he had originally created that older design was based on something from his Earth memories that always called to him.
Jiran’s grin and the evil chuckle that accompanied it would have terrified anyone who was around to see it. Without wasting a heartbeat, he pulled off his new armor and got to work.