Mana recovers quite fast if you're meditating. And you know how you can also meditate? You can do... well, basically anything, as long as it's not a physical activity. In some cases, it might be a physical activity as well, but not in my case, I tend to lose the meditation buff, I guess you can consider it a buff, and my mana starts regenerating at a slower pace.

Anyway, I spent three days reading books bought from system, considering that it was the fastest way to recharge mana, and get some research done. Right now I need a mentor in necromancy, as I don't really want to buy necromancy spells from system, they cost a significant amount of credits. Well, not that significant, but eventually, they add up and the cost becomes significant, and it's still totally fine using my Raise Dead spell for the time being.

Ahem, research. So from the few books I got, I managed to discern the following. Most of the times people don't have summoning affinity. So? So they made complex rituals to summon creatures and bind them to their will. Troublesome? Yes. Will I do that? Absolutely. If what these books saying are true, then I will need only some sacrifices to summon something. Yeah, yeah, blood magic, sort of, it's evil, it's dangerous etcetera, etcetera. In reality it's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and you don't have summoning affinity, or soul, or certain combinations of common affinities. Me? I have everything, besides knowing what the hell I am going to do. Oh, and by the way, I totally know that in these blood rituals you get about two to one conversion rate for mana. That means you get two mana points for one health point. Also you steal mana from the people affected with the stuff, so in the end you get anywhere from two to three mana points per health point from a living creature. Let's say, that the average human has about 300 hp, maybe an average human has 300 mp as well. Now a city, like the academy one, houses about a hundred thousand people in it, yeah, comparing to Earth, it is pathetic. Now, as we know, there are people that are stronger, or weaker than that, but you just have to multiply six hundred, or nine hundred by one hundred thousands, and you'll get yourself about sixty million mana, or ninety. Now that amount of mana can be used to do a lot of stuff, but, if I am right about this, people usually summon creatures in lesser rituals, which are still quite powerful. Now for sixty million you could probably bring an army of demons in this world, but instead of using all this stuff to summon some unbound thingie, I will absorb all this mana myself and summon the strongest being in this world. And then I will unleash it on that behemoth, which probably ate me, ripped me to shreds or whatever the sick fuck did to me. Now here comes the question, where could I do that? You see, the ritual must be in enclosed space, and it is not a frigging circle, so I need a sphere that would encompass everything. Well, circle will work too, but it will be less than efficient, and will be more of an alternative way to complete my summoning, which will result in about... I dunno, but the bigger the circle, the higher the loss of mana in the sacrificial ritual. So, any ideas where I am going? That's right, to the dwarves... dwarfs? They live in the mountain cities, so all you need to do is to make a complex sphere of sacrifice, and voila, you got yourself up to ninety million mana points directed at yours truly, to summon the most awesome creature in this world. But first, heh, first I'm going to test if it works.

So, let's start with something simple. Small animals in the forest. Capturing them is relatively easy, considering that I'm faster than most of these critters, and for the test I don't need much anyway, about ten would suffice, and as I already have... well, not the greatest, but still quite powerful elemental on my side, the hunt was even faster. Now that these annoying rodents, mostly squirrels, were bound to sticks with vines, and set across the small circle, made with earth magic, I started inscribing runes with... on the other hand, what do you use for these circles? Mana? Let's try with that. I started drawing the necessary, I guess it's could be called arrays, on the ground, and looked how rodents tried to escape, but all for naught. Once the circle was complete, and the rodents were in their assigned positions, I stood in the middle of the circle and activated it... weird, these little shits died, but I don't see increase in mana...

I blink out of the circle and see how my health dropped by about a hundred points. Alright, testing phase complete, don't stand in the middle, it's just dumb. Instead, how about placing a diamond to absorb the mana? Wait, first, what the hell did I summon?

Forest Imp

HP: 120/120

MP: 200/200

Hm... it doesn't look like it's under my control. Yep, unbound creature. It started... laughing?

“Oi little shit, stand in there.” I order it, but it ignores me and flies out of the circle, so I pin it with darkness magic to the ground. “I said, stand in there.” did that little shit just used the most common non verbal insult? I rip off his fingers one by one, and then pin him to the circle with the earth spike. “Now stand there.” I make a small diamond and drop it in the circle, I hope it will gather mana. I activate the circle once again, now from the outside, and see how the imp whithers, as his health drops to zero... from what it was anyway? I didn't do much damage, did I?

As the little shit dies, I grab the diamond with a small red glow in it... appraisal.

Infused Diamond (Tiny)

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Mana: 11/11

Refined (+10% to mana storage)

Hm... a diamond that costs what? hundred mana, can store ten mana? So, you get approximately one mana storage for ten mana invested, but if it's refined, it's more like nine to one? That's terrible. Or not, can't decide. Also it seems that I nearly killed imp, but the mana was transfered without an issue. Test with rodent is necessary anyway. Oh well, drop the diamond in the inventory, and make a new one. Let's see, how about making it... I dunno, how much mana do I have anyway? A bit over nine thousand? Well, that transforms into either nine hundred mana, or a thousand and eight hundred mana. Let's do that...

Diamond (Small)

Mana: 0/660

Refined (+10% to mana storage)

Kinda shitty. So the bigger it is, the less mana it can store? Hm... Still, comparing the sizes, the tiny diamond is the one which could be fit on a wedding ring, I guess? It weights what? Two grams? On the other hand the medium one weights about... well, hard to say. Two hundred maybe, or is it a hundred? Why isn't there a weight category on these diamonds anyway? Not like I need it, but still. I wonder what I can use the smaller one for? I don't mean to judge, but eleven mana is a miserable amount. Anyway, need a rodent, and a few more books on rituals and whatnot.

After some testing I came to the following results. Diamonds suck. The brightglow crystal though? Well, that's way better. This crystal can store even more mana comparing to the diamond, though it does cost about three times as much to make one. But the cost effectiveness is increased by leaps and bounds. The cost is six to one in terms of mana, not much, I know, but the only thing I need now is to make it refined, and so, I need some lessons in gemcutting. Ah, about the reason why is it called brightglow? It's because it glows when it passes certain mana threshold.

Now as for the rituals. It seems that I read not everything the book had to offer. I found a few complicated rituals that should be able to convert live force to a physical form, only it requires large scale sacrifice, so my idea of sacrificing the dwarves... dwarfs? How the fuck are you calling them anyway? Fucking midgets. From now on, I dub thee bearded midgets... midgets? Drunkards? I remember there were also gnomes, but what are they? Dwarf type? Whatever, killing them as well. At least I totally know that elves are elves, and not elfes. Gonna kill a few though Why am I so bloodthirsty anyway?

Breathe in, breathe out... not that it provides any comfort whatsoever, but at least I stop with my murderous thoughts. Alright. According to the ritual book, the life force, which I gather every time I kill someone, is derived from total health of a creature. To be fair, it varies from creature to creature, it's age, diseases and other stuff. But for the simplicity, let's say each creature has a life force to total HP of about one to one. I steal some part of it when I kill one, because of my Siphon ability. On the other hand, I can't do anything with it, not that I tried, but I'm not wasting this resource for now. The sacrificial ritual uses health, and not life force, but it requires an immediate purpose, like summoning of something, or storing the gathered mana in inanimate object, that might include undead, I guess? But the other ritual, it gathers life force and creates a material made out of solidified life force, known as philosopher stone. The rate however is unknown to me, but you get mana stored immediately, so in a large scale, it's better to use this ritual.

Anyway, I get the ritual and prepare to start working on the circle. Yes, circle, this ritual is also way easier to make than the sacrificial ritual. I transform into my half-dragon form, still naked, aside from the large black robes, and start drawing a circle around the village. It will be a long night. Maybe day too. I'll still need to make a formation in the center of the circle, which will gather the life force.

Doing the preparations for the ritual was tiresome and way, way more complicated than I initially expected. Yeah, sure, small scale is easy because if you fuck up, it's easier to fix the circle, and then it's easier to draw lines, circles and gemoetrical shapes, but for the bigger ones? Well, I'm glad I had an elemental that could do all that without complaints. The only thing I had to do was to guide mana through the result of my minion's labor, at least the time frame was only two days and not more. Anyway, the circle was made and once the night fell, I activated the circle, and started watching what happens.

Initially, nothing happened. I was half expecting it to fail and redraw it again, but then after about five more minutes, the circle started glowing red. Of course after this, some of the villagers, who weren't sleeping, ran out of their homes, and went on to sound an alarm or something, which they managed to do, with a moderate success. By that, I mean they managed to ring the bell, organize some sort of defense, before they succumbed to the effects of this... let's call it life force conversion field, or just LFC field for short. It was surprising really, they probably didn't notice that they became weaker, as it might have been the effects of interrupted sleep, it was probably about three in the morning, and when they realized that it was something wrong with the village itself, and not the surrounding area, by having weird red smoke coming from the corpses, and gathering in the center of the village, or they freaked out that smoke gathered in the center and tried to run away, both versions seem plausible.

Still, the village housed what? A few hundred people? It took the ritual about half an hour to finish the ritual... wait, they also had some domesticated animals. Anyway, it took about half an hour to finish, and it produced a small blood red peeble.

Blood Gem (Small)

MP: 5225/5225

MR: 528/H

Blood gem, also known as philosopher's stone, is a product of condensing life force of a living creature into the physical form. Due to the nature of this material, it recovers mana on it's own.

Not refined? It recharges in ten hours? That's faster than my regeneration, unless we're talking about meditation. Hm... if that was only from a village, what if this was to be done in a major city? Wait, how do I get mana from items, without destroying them? I'll start with diamonds, so I won't be left without a blood gem. Anyway, time to loot the village.