“The green stuff drives fish mad, yes.” Tim emphasized, “Anti-mana thing is no joke, then, but is there a cure to it, Marlo, a fix? I wasted a lot of meat today, because I couldn’t eat all those crazy dolphins that I ended up killing, and now, I can see that you're losing your home too, all because of this anti-mana shit! It’s no fun, and that's why we need to do something. Is there a fix to this?”
“We’re already doing something about it, we're fixing it.” Marlo said.
Afterwards, he went into more detail about what some would consider a rather boring topic. The topic itself wasn’t entirely boring, but for one to understand the concept of anti-mana thoroughly, a one-hour long lecture was mandatory.
Marlo didn’t hesitate to lecture the other, regarding everything one needed to know about anti-mana, or at least everything that he knew of, so that was exactly what Marlo did. Tim listened to what Marlo had to yap on about, and at the end, he was confident to boast about remembering a whole third of the hour-long lecture! He remembered the key bits of information, at least. He started looking at the imploded lair here, with a freshly new perspective.
He asked, “So, our big guys are purifying the anti-mana, huh? They’re giving it what it wants, which is mana.”
“Yes,” Marlo nodded, “Anti-mana feeds on less than competent mages, it's how it expands its grip on the world. But in actuality, it can be thoroughly eradicated with pure, strong mana. We got the situation under control, at least a little bit. Our best guys are on the job, as you said.”
Marlo was confident about that, because ironically, he was more well-informed than the system itself, when the topic was about the phenomenon that was anti-mana.
In theory, anti-mana had two purposes; To harvest, and to corrupt. Those were the two things that some fish had figured out on their own, through various experiences, but in this case, Marlo was guiding the sect to react accordingly!
Anti-mana could only corrupt those with a weak level of mana purity, that’s what they knew. For that matter, in order to cripple this huge pool's capabilities for destruction, the strongest fish had gathered up, and were feeding the pool with their own mana. Marlo taught them to do so, and it was a fool-proof plan!
Since the anti-mana couldn’t corrupt these strong fish, the counter-result would be for the pool of anti-mana, to be dried out and stripped out of power instead. In technical words, they were overwhelming whatever magical (or non-magical) circuits this anti-mana had, these tough fish were deep frying the internal properties of this substance that had invaded their home!
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
These fish were pretty good at it too, as if they had a bunch of prior experience. They may have experience, or they may not, but the key point of their contributions was the purity of their mana, rather than experience itself.
There were five fish here, for example, who were oozing bronze mana, of ~level four quality~ and they were pouring this mana, towards the pool, in insane quantities! Tim could only imagine how much mana these five folks could accumulate.
At the same time, two other, even stronger fish were pouring dense, iron mana towards the same pool, and their mana was ~level six~ at the quality scale! This level was well within the god’s punishment realm in mana quality, but one had no choice but to respect these marvelously powerful fish. They were sharks, and they weren’t so huge in body-weight, but their worth excelled beyond what the reef typically had to offer!
Tim had a good time observing everything, especially since no one really bothered him so far. The sect accepted him with open arms, so he was calm-ish, however, there was this one thing that still confused him dearly, and it didn't allow him to relax thoroughly either. He was thinking about a topic regarding anti-mana, which Marlo failed to explain.
Tim was direct with his question, he asked. “Okay, so we know how to destroy anti-mana, I’m glad we’re not hopeless about that, but… where does it come from, Marlo? Did all of this green stuff come from underground, and exploded in here like some volcano? I gotta know, so I can avoid it for good. As you can tell, my mana isn't nearly good enough to fight a whole fucking pool of anti-mana!”
“We don’t know where it comes from,” Marlo emphasized. “As a kid, I was taught not to ask too many questions about anti-mana. I just know that when it appears, and if one lets it, mass-destruction follows! For that matter, I was only taught how to prevent the anti-mana from expanding and inflicting its invasive properties, that’s all I know. Don’t ask me about anything more regarding it, as it was never my responsibility to know either.”
With that said, Tim chose to stay quiet, he didn’t have another choice. Tim felt like the other made a vague threat, one which most fish would not notice, so he knew not to ask any more questions!
Anyway, as far as facts were concerned, it would appear that even the smartest of fish kind, didn’t know everything there was to know about anti-mana! This made a bit of sense, because fish weren’t scientists, after all, they weren’t supposed to know everything. That itself was comforting, but the overall gray area regarding anti-mana, was still pretty frustrating!
Anyway, Tim understood that this lack of knowledge, may or may not affect the system’s self-esteem as well. She didn’t know anything about anti-mana, which was odd considering how powerful and knowledgeable she was, but it may make her feel better to know that even fishkind didn’t know everything there was to know about anti-mana.
He wanted to ask how she felt about the matter, even, but now was not the time. There was a lot going on.
Tim wanted to observe the best of wizards and witches within this sect right now, he wanted to see how they handled the pool of literal death below them. These fish were pouring thousands upon thousands of points of mana towards the pool, which was something truly amazing to witness! The visible waves of blue they were pouring were magnificent!