Three hours after midnight, Timothy successfully improved the quality of his mana. He now had the honor to identify himself as a bearer of Great, Golden Mana, and he was very excited about it!
Despite the name, this didn’t mean that his mana had a golden color now, it was still as blue as the ocean, but it still was a great level to attain. This sort of mana quality was also known as level seven, and as of now, he only had to pass through another level, the eighth one, and then he'd have the opportunity to escape the God's Punishment Realm of mana once and for good!
“Oh… my god.” He grunted, as his spine cracked tens of times while he tried to straighten up, and then he muttered. “Whatever it is like to get chewed up and swallowed by a Demon Beetle, I understand it, this has to be a similar feeling.”
Timothy felt like all sorts of things. He felt like he was hit by a big truck, by an airplane too, or any other vehicles really. He felt like he was run down by all of them, and rightfully so, because at some point he had even felt his bones move, or retract, before they went back to their original position! He didn’t know why his bones moved around during the process, he didn’t know for sure, but he just assumed that it had something to do with his body accepting a better quality of mana. The mana was stored in his body, after all, so he could understand how a greater quality needed different physical conditions to suit it.
[Congratulations on ascending your mana quality to level seven. You've come a long way ever since you left the sea.] The system beeped, and then she also added. [You can accumulate up to 65,000 mana points now, while you're in this goblin form. It's a sizable amount, and although your mana pool has been emptied during the upgrade, you'll be glad to know that you can naturally generate 900 points of mana an hour now! These couple of changes came hand to hand with your mana quality upgrade, as you know?]
“I know… I don't have any mana now, huh? Good thing we found this town, then, because we'd be naked without a bunch of mana to protect ourselves with. Well, we are naked right now, but that's not what I meant.” Tim blabbered, he mostly spoke to himself, and wasn't really wanting to make conversation with the system right now.
Timothy didn’t lose as much mana when he was ascending through the first few levels of the mana realm, he got to keep a lot of it back then, but he could understand that higher levels had higher demands. It was logical.
Nevertheless, having an empty mana pool was a curse as much as it was a blessing. Sure he was an overall stronger mage now, but he couldn’t protect himself, not until after a few hours. He'd have to wait until dawn to have just enough points to protect himself from any and all attackers, which made him a bit anxious, but he found relief in the fact that the dragons were protecting them. That aside, Arvena and Gustav weren't upgrading their mana quality tonight, so they were to do all the hard work in case of an emergency.
Stolen story; please report.
Timothy managed to relax. He cleaned himself up with an old cloth, started a fire in the fireplace again so he wouldn't get cold at night, and then he just fell asleep. The upgrade had tired him beyond preparation, so it wasn’t a surprise that he fell asleep so quickly.
“I could've used a couple of naps earlier on, too bad the pain was keeping me up.” He muttered, moments before he fell asleep.
Anyway, Skendus and Ortana experienced the same night more or less. They ascended to level seven as well, so they suffered everything that came with making that attempt. Now, they too were proud to bear Great, Golden Mana in their veins!
It hasn't been an easy ascension, and they imagined that when the time came to upgrade their mana quality again, level eight was to shake them even harder! For now, they were happy that they could finally fall asleep.
…
Tim woke up at early noon. He realized that he had slept well, when he needed two minutes to remember where he was. He was stiff as a board too, because he had apparently crawled out of his sleeping bag throughout the night, and the cold had gotten to him, so he started blowing a low-temperature fire out of his palm, and tried to warm himself up with it. He warmed up eventually, and realized that the cold had also numbed any kind of pain he felt, post upgrade, so he’s been in a sort of deep sleep, as if he had been under the influence of anesthesia!
“I feel like a fucking mummy,” He grunted, and eventually, he walked out of the hut, because he was hungry.
Tim needed some meat down his stomach right now, he craved it, so he hoped that either Arvena or Gustav had hunted something today. Apart from feeding themselves, it took a lot of effort to feed eight dragons as well, so they had to hunt often, almost everyday.
When he walked outside, he was delighted to see that Arvena was preparing to cook something delicious! She had knocked down a few boars, from the looks of it, and brought them here. These boars had to be well over five feet tall, considering how huge and fatty their raw, meaty remains were, so his mouth started watering in response, his stomach singing! He couldn’t wait to have them cooked.
Noticing him and his enthusiasm, Arvena expressed. “Oh, you're awake? You must be hungry right enough, I'd be too if I slept for thirty-four hours. That's your new record.”
“Thirty four, huh?” Tim grunted, and despite his enthusiasm he was still walking around like a zombie. “Can't say that I'm surprised, that mana upgrade almost brought my kidneys to my throat, it was brutal. It's good I slept that long, cuz my body and my brain enjoyed it thoroughly!”
Anyway, as he tried to help Arvena prepare a large bonfire, he started noticing this weird feeling from deep inside his body. It was difficult for him to understand this feeling, but in short, he felt more capable of handling a power that was very new to him. Soon enough, it was all he could think about!
Timothy suddenly felt capable enough to try and open a portal, a portal that would lead him to the needle universe of Purpureus Mundi. The bug world, to be exact.
Firstly he didn’t understand where this urge came from, but since he was feeling very capable of summoning a portal today, it could only mean one thing. His ascension to the Great, Golden Mana level had to be tied with his sudden urge to open this portal. This had to be the root cause of his confidence!