“Haha-” Tim released a fake laugh, “The fish planted them, huh? That makes sense.”
Afterwards, he tried to force a question in, as he wanted some information. “So it is you who planted them, then… judging from the marks on your wrists, you crossed a few realms already, so you must've harvested a bunch of roots in your lifetime yourself?”
“I have, yes.” Genta answered, and in the meantime she was looking upwards, and then she asked. “What year is it in Valporovus now? I've been told that time moves differently back home when we're in needle universes.”
“Years…?” Timothy stretched his question, and then remarked. “I'm not sure they count the years back home, no city that I know of, at least. They just count moons.”
“Oh, dear… the Religious Era then?” She grunted, she was very distressed. “I'm in trouble, I've been here for too long. According to my calculations, when I cross that portal, I'll teleport somewhere around five-thousand years back in time, or… at your contemporary time. This is Purpureus Mundi’s curse, I'll never be able to see my people again. Darned Farming Initiative, they left me here for dead! Those dirty fiends!”
Genta rambled on about a lot of things here, so it was difficult to catch up with her train of thoughts. Timothy was beyond confused, and at some point he started getting scared too!
He asked, “Are you saying that me, and my friends are about to time travel five-thousand years into the past?!”
“No,” She sighed, and got irritated. “Forty days at most, or none, if you know how to reverse the Time Dilation effect.”
For a second, Timothy was confused, but as soon as the other mentioned Time Dilation, something in his head clicked! In an instinctive manner, he suddenly figured out how to reverse the effects of Time Dilation. He felt capable of this inwardly, though he didn't understand the name itself.
“It looks like I do know how to reverse it. My understanding of portals has improved a bit ever since I got here, so I'm guessing all the levels I gained today did the trick. Your roots really helped us today.” He said.
“You’re welcome to harvest the rest of them,” She sighed, and then she was preparing to swim upwards. “You’re going to understand the portals even better, as soon as you enter the next realm of mana. My colleagues experienced the same, I used to know a couple of girls who could create portals.”
Genta then started swimming upwards, and she was bound to be a good swimmer because she too had assumed the form of an aqus goblin. Tim figured that she was of another race, though, she had to be.
Before she left, she warned. “Do not try to follow me, because we don't need to run into each other again, especially in Valporovus. Abide my request, and in return, I won't hurt any of your friends!”
Timothy wanted to follow after her, because a woman from the future, who also knew how to create mana roots, was absolutely priceless! He wanted to learn her tricks, but he was forced to listen to her direct demand here, because he wasn't nearly strong enough to fight her! Judging from the tattoo-like marks on her left arm, she was at the fifth realm of mana quality, so she was a goblin who could be considered godly, her powers were monstrous! He couldn’t challenge her decisions, he couldn’t afford it.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Ah, you bastard…” He grunted, and watched her beam away.
The rest of the team had heard the distortion in the water as she beamed off, but they were none the wiser. They were too focused on harvesting the mana around them, so they couldn’t have cared less even if a giant fish had come down here to try and eat them. Arvena had even heard Timothy talking to someone, but she simply did not care to intervene as long as a battle did not break out, so Tim was the sole witness of this mysterious old lady!
Timothy's impulsive thoughts almost made him follow the lady, his head was steaming as he stood still and watched, but eventually he remembered that he was around a bunch of roots. Staying here for a while was the most beneficial, so he dared not swim away!
A minute later, he had another flash upgrade, so now he was at level five in terms of mana quality! This was a great gain, however, considering that more than half of the mana roots were depleted by now, he figured that he’d reach level six soon, and stop progressing there.
Level four, the level that he crossed, was called the Branching Dragon level, and the pool associated with this level had been absolutely huge! Now at level five, he had an even bigger pool to fill, so he was certain that their luck would run out soon. The point counter that the system flashed in one of his eyes, helped convince him even further.
[Grand Mana Pool = 110,045/1,000,000]
“God damn, this is getting stupid. I can't believe my mana pool was like fifty thousand points, total, before we fucking leaped into this universe. It's sad that the roots are depleting, but the amount of levels we gained today is stupidly lucky! I’m up by a whole fucking realm!” He waffled.
Tim needed a bunch more points to cross into the next level, so he started poking the remaining roots. He poked all of them, and made it to level six after two minutes! The blue flash that surrounded him, made it official, and so, all of the mana roots were depleted, and gone for good!
[Congratulations, your mana quality is now at level six! This level is otherwise known as The Goddess’ Kiss level, and it is said to be a gift from Falakame, which is the same goddess that had insisted on punishing you until a short while ago.] The system beeped.
Furthermore, she explained. [Your current mana pool can fit a total of 1,400,000 mana points, and you can generate 1,500 mana points per hour.]
“Hmm… looks like we're gonna need to avoid fights for a while, then.” He said.
Tim was excited that he reached this level, he went almost an entire realm up in mana quality, and this was beyond fascinating! However, he also found the math behind the new mana pool to be inconsistent, or worrying at the very least.
It took some basic math to figure out that a single fireball, might cost him five-thousand mana points to throw, on the count that his fire would burn a lot hotter than before. Considering that he could only generate fifteen-hundred points of mana in an hour, spending five-thousand points on a fireball was less than ideal. He wanted to avoid fights, at least up until his pool was filled by a quarter million points, and that itself should take up to a week to accumulate under their new, standard circumstances! He felt stressed, though indefinitely happy that he got to do this kind of math now.
Skendus and Ortana were at the same level as him, while Arvena was two levels ahead. She was at level eight, so she was closer than anyone else when it came to leaving the Fintelus’ Apprentices Realm of mana, once more, and for good! Her depression lessened.