Timothy, Skendus, Ortana, Arvena, and Gustav explored Valporovus together. Their target was clear, they wanted to get to the Ruins of Aqumus, with the hopes of accumulating great amounts of mana there!
The team has been on the air for a couple of days now, their dragons really came in handy in terms of proper transportation, so it wouldn't take long until they finally reached the ruins, it may take them a couple more weeks. They were very enthusiastic to reach the ruins, though one couldn't say that their progress, regarding mana quality improvement, has been slow. The team was doing fine, and with minimal trouble throughout their flight, their mana had mostly been accumulating!
Since their mana accumulated, the weakest members of the team could upgrade their mana quality soon! They could either choose to initiate an upgrade, or spend the mana over a period of time, they had those couple of options. The latter option would be less than ideal, because a better mana quality would do them a lot more good than having some extra mana to spend.
The lot of them who could improve their mana quality today, had made their mind up to do exactly so, that was a no-brainer. Due to their decision, they had to stop somewhere secluded for the night, and give it a shot!
They needed to be somewhere safe tonight, because the process of jumping from one level to the other was quite painful. Most of the team experienced that sensation of pain before, they were familiar with it, and had even experienced it a couple of times before they visited those three cities! They knew how to prepare for it.
Initially they wanted to hide in a cave to do this, as caves were often one of the safest places, but while they were in the sky, they spotted a village of sorts which looked a lot more appealing. When they flew down there, they noticed that it was empty, abandoned.
Considering that this village was built on a dry, short mountain, it was likely abandoned because one's livelihood was difficult to sustain here. It was a beautiful place nonetheless, especially if someone bothered to dust off all of the cobwebs, and perhaps replace a few of the rotten boards from the several small buildings that were situated here. It was a lovely set up.
The cold breeze became more consistent every hour, especially after noon, which would make this place a smashing vacation home. It was refreshing to be here!
Anyway, seeing that this place was rather safe, the team set up in the town houses. They ate a fine steak dinner first, as they needed a lot of energy if they were to upgrade their mana quality, and then they separated.
Jumping from one level of mana quality to the other, wasn't only painful, but recently, it was also quite disgusting. Small amounts of this black, tar-like substance would come out of their skin during their ascension, and also, since their inner organs literally sloshed around to adapt towards the encouraged changes, they ended up smelling like death, so they had to shower in the end.
In other words, the team needed privacy, so those who could ascend tonight, set off in different houses with a couple of buckets of water on their hands. Arvena and Gustav didn't have enough mana to initiate an upgrade, so they just decided to sleep in the same house. They had enough room here to respect each other's privacy, and they didn't need to guard their friends either, because there were eight, agile dragons around them to do that job for them! The dragons surely were grand protectors!
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“Okay… don't panic, you’ve done this before.” Tim spoke to himself, and he stared at the crackling fire as it roared, sheltered by the stonework of the fire pit. “I'm under much happier circumstances here too, better than what I had to go through when I was in the sea. I'm in a house here! Besides, it's gonna be fun to have enough firepower to burn a whole town, heh, cuz level seven isn't as puny as those bastarding guards made it out to be. Maybe I'll go and burn their bastarding city one day? We'll see.”
Timothy spoke with himself a lot, and this was especially the case when he was nervous. He forgot half of the things that he was saying, and at some point he even started annoying himself, so he decided to be more serious, and started to focus. It was necessary to have a clear mind if one was to go through the upcoming process quicker, but at this point, he figured that the pain would clear out his mind really well.
Anyway, after he felt ready, he started uttering a spell that was appropriately designed for mages that lived in the micro-universe of Valporovus. This spoken-word spell was used to trigger the mana quality upgrading process, and its effects were rather instant. This was about to be the fourth time he recited this spell, so he memorized it thoroughly!
He muttered, “My will is but mana, and mana is life! Gods, you know where I am, you know why I’m here, and you know what my intentions are - my will is pure. Gods, please bless me with purity, I demand it, as mana is greater when pure! On behalf of the creator of this micro universe, I ask you to bless me!”
Considering that he wasn't cursed with the Mark of Death anymore, he had the courage to address the mana gods directly. They couldn't kill him during the upcoming ascension, as the micro-universe of Valporovus protected him from such death.
The pain, however, was eminent. The upgrade started taking a real physical toll on him, he felt a lot of sharp pains within his organs right away, and it was brutal! The reason behind this pain was logical at least, it wasn’t random, no matter how brutal the process may be.
Mana was a magical substance that had to be stored, and processed through organic bodies, as that was how mana typically worked. With that said, this upgrade was simply preparing Timothy's body to accept a better quality of mana! It made sense.
Tim's muscles twitched for about thirty minutes, at a rate that one would confuse this process with severe seizures, which wasn’t fun at all, but the twitching stopped eventually, and that was what mattered the most. His pain halved immediately, but now, he couldn’t move all that much, he was immobile. Timothy's body remained dormant for a moment there, but then he started radiating a luscious, blue light out of his body!
The light pushed out impurities out of his skin, hence making the mana more pure. This was when the tar-like substance appeared, as expected, and it was mostly coming out of his chest. A smaller portion dripped out of his forehead, and it got his thighs dirty, as he was in a strict, meditative position right now.
“Ahh!” He yelled out afterwards.
Timothy's organs were sloshing around again, and the pain returned, in fact, it became all the more violent! He couldn’t hold in his cries, and it was fair to say that he couldn't focus that much either right now, despite the meditative position he took! Since focusing was out of the question, this process was going to take longer than he expected, he might suffer like this for another couple of hours. The extreme pain was inevitable!
Skendus and Ortana, were also screaming from their individual little houses. This was going to be a long, painful night for the three of them!