“Your mana felt like we were in a castle on top of a mountain and the mountain itself was floating high in the clouds,” muttered Bella in almost a daze. “In all my travels, I had never felt anything like it.”

Adrin was surprised as it sounded all too familiar. What she said was something he had imagined after [Magni-Flux] was added to his list of skills. The ability to control electromagnetic fields freely would make anti-gravity a reality, and what was better than a castle in the sky?

“This mana-vision we see, does it mean anything?”

“Yes, it represents your potential, and the sky is your limit,” Bella said in awe.

The lady was enamored. Bella’s hands were gripping the bed sheets as if she wanted to tear them apart. Her chest was heaving and she would have been all over him if he had let her.

It was troubling to imagine others learning about this. No wonder she was so excited to help him. She wanted to learn all of this [Lightbringer]’s secrets.

But if this was the reaction he got from the ex-Matriarch then he should be careful with whom he exchanged mana in the future. Anaxandra, the young Matriarch, might be a fine exchange as he would need her resources and support but he couldn’t see it happening.

She didn’t seem to be too impressed with him or needed his help. The girl also had this look in her eyes that reminded him of an aloof woman he had met in the previous life. Someone whose heart could never be reached with his hands. Not that he wanted to, but it just felt that way.

Either way, Adrin was sure that this mana circulating ritual was used as a way to avoid friendly fire within a team, or at least, a certain version of it. This also told him how close-knit a true adventuring team would be.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Adrin said.

“I knew you would say that,” she said with a wide triumphant smile. “Being the one responsible is quite troublesome, right? It is fine lending a hand once in and while, but every single day of your life? It is just suffocating. Why can’t everyone just take care of their own god damn problems?”

What a heartless thing to say. Adrin chuckled, no wonder she let the title like ‘the Matriarch’ go as easily. It felt like he only began to understand the woman behind her sultry smile of hers.

Unlike Ana, Bella didn’t have the urge to announce his multitude of talents to the world as it would just fill up his schedule. It would decrease his time for her.

Deep inside, Bella was just a selfish girl who enjoyed carefree life while occasionally loving to bask in the limelight. He could live with someone like that.

“I think you should be ready to form your mana pool foundation, right?” she got up and offered her hands again.

Adrin looked at the dainty hands and sighed inside. He might have little interest to have any ties with anyone, but fate it seemed was disagreeing with him. Bella’s hands were as warm as her smile before her soul-comforting mana began to envelop him once more.

And honestly, it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

Adrin followed the woman’s guidance for some time until the system responded.

Mana Foundation formation process detected,

Alert, unique condition detected, scanning,

.

.

Massive secondary mana pool detected,

.

Primordial Affinity detected,

.

Mana Vortex breathing technique detected,

.

.

.

Reselecting foundation type,

Geotic Core foundation selected, reconfiguring.

Mana dispersed,

Transferring the user to the Soul Space,

Restarting foundation formation,

.

.

.

.

.

Geotic Core completed.

Mana Capacity: 112

Mana Density: 2.4

Mana Regen: 6 per-second

Adrin found himself floating in the dark. He knew that he was still sitting on the bed, circulating his mana, but at the same time, he was also somewhere else.

Was this his Soul Space?

He felt a pull from his back, and when he turned around, he saw something was forming in the distance. There was a vortex pulling everything in the vicinity.

It looked like the black hole visualization he once had seen in the old world; only this was no black abyss. Something was forming in the middle of the vortex and he realized it was his [Geotic Core].

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It would be his mana pool foundation. Unlike the deep lake he saw in Bella, his core was pulling mana and keeping it contained like a tiny watery planetoid.

‘Is that why it is called a Geotic Core?’ he mused as he watched the liquid thicken, no, it was compressed around the Core.

Adrin was marveling at his inner planetary core formation when he felt an anxious presence just outside his soul space. He knew who the person was almost immediately and he had no qualm about letting the woman in.

It gnawed on him how he could only begin to trust the lady only after she became his long-life slave. He knew that he could do better than that but also he didn’t think he would realize it if things hadn’t happened as they had.

Bella appeared beside him and she immediately clung to his arm. She, for whatever reason, loved every second she spent with him. The lady didn’t seem to have any lingering regret, or whatever. It was just hard for him to believe it.

Maybe he could adjust the magic circuit to remove or disable the compulsion of loving her primary and see what would happen. The lady’s eyes were wide open and mouth agape as soon as she saw his [Core].

“A celestial?” she mumbled under her breath. “You can't possibly be a celestial child, right? I was worried something was wrong but this, this is…” the woman closed her mouth with her hand.

She was out of words for a long moment.

“Should I kneel to you now?” she suddenly blurted out.

Her playful eyes told him that she was just messing around with him.

She already knew that he despised those kinds of things and she was right. Adrin couldn’t stand people kneeling towards him as the priestesses had done during the buffet. If there was no one else around he would have slapped the priestesses silly.

The intense, fervent look in their eyes just before they almost slammed their heads on the ground was still fresh inside his head. They had looked at him as if he was the messiah, the savior of humanity. Only God would know what would happen if the church got its hands on him. He intended to never find out but something was telling him that he wouldn’t be able to avoid it for long. It was a tough truth pill to swallow.

With a conscious tug of his mind, they were back in the room, holding each other's hands. Bella pouted as she opened her eyes as if he had taken her toys away from her.

“What can you tell me about Mana Capacity and Density?”

The pout turned into a gasp was telling enough. Bella looked at him with a new level of intensity like a hunter who had finally found her big juicy prey.

“Capacity determines how much room you have for mana. Mana Capacity can be increased by frequent emptying and filling the mana pool, but not many even had Mana Density mentioned in their Soul Ledger.”

Adrin sighed inside. One more thing to be added to the ‘no tell no show’ list.

He returned to his original position and rested his back on the bed as he could feel [Metallurgy] struggling to keep him upright. There was probably a limitation to the [Skill] as he didn’t think it was meant to be used this way.

“And what do you mean about this Celestial thing?”

“You do notice the huge moon in the sky every night, right?”

Adrin nodded. Only the mentally challenged won’t notice such things. Bella scooted closer and leaned down to rest her head on his shoulder before she answered.

“Well, that is where the Celestial lives, at least in the legends foretold.”

“Alright, I’ll bite, give me the short version.”

Bella pouted for a moment before her lips drew a coy smile. She took his free hand and tucked his hand under her thin dress. It took him a while to literally squeeze an answer out of her lovely quivering lips. The woman placed her hand on his arm when she had enough and so she could breathe normally before answering.

“The legends said that we are the descendants of people banished from the giant moon we see every night. It was foretold that a Celestial child will descend and guide humanity back to where they came from. It was written that this child will have manifested a Mana Core decades earlier than any other mages on the planet.”

“That sounds like loads of bullshit,” Adrin commented.

“Yes, that’s what I and whoever had read the story thought so,” Bella chuckled. “A bunch of shit piled together in a long-winded story. Well, at least, until today.”

“Confirmation bias, coincidence happens more often than it is thought it is.”

“Then how do you explain your [Geotic Core] formation, even someone like me still struggling to form one.”

“Knowledge inside here,” Adrin tapped his finger on the side of his head. “That is the difference, and I know a lot more than you think I do. A whole lot more. I’ll prove it someday when I find a suitable subject.”

A trustworthy one. Adrin didn’t want anyone to misuse what he taught.

It was probably what had happened to the [Necromancer]. He or she had missed using the knowledge made available to him, intentional or not. A part of him even presumed it might be not even the person’s entire fault as excitement would always make people get carried away. It happened all the time.

Adrin didn’t say it out loud but there was a flash in her eyes that made him believe that Bella already knew what he meant by suitable subject. She probably understood it from their magical bond which kept growing stronger but this alone shouldn’t be enough.

Bella's youthful appearance was deceiving. The woman probably had lived for many more decades than the twenty-something smoking-hot-lady look. It was impossible to imagine the young woman in front of him was probably almost a century old, all thanks to mana.

“What is magic and mana anyway?” Adrin mumbled to himself.

“It is God’s gift to its creations, what else?” replied Bella who was all focused on him.

“I can’t disagree with that statement, but it is too vague. Too simple.”

It was hard to think when such a woman had her beautiful big green eyes trained on his every word and reaction. She might not be able to fall in love as an average human could, but he could see the adoration in her eyes now. The kind of eyes you see in the fans of super idols, or a crazy woman who had found a stray dog unbelievably adorable.

Adrin decided to throw a carrot at the woman. It was unhealthy to keep a woman like her taut all the time like a bowstring to be released, and he had to admit, he was also curious about how it felt like. She had made it sound fascinating.

“Maybe I’ll realize what it is while in the mirage construct?” he offered and the woman’s eyes grew wide.

Bella was overjoyed to cuddle beside him and activate the magic circuit built into the room.

Of course, he had other plans, well, besides the obvious.