“Now Zeno, I’m going to need you to practice this method of meditation for a while, so that your mana doesn’t spread everywhere” Theodore handed Zeno a scroll covered in script instructing him how to move his mana as well as what thoughts to have while channeling it to get the skill. Theodore also handed Zeno a small red marble, meant to enhance the mana containing effect. Theodore went to talk to Yvonne about any powers that allowed for mana containment, and was honestly surprised at the enthusiasm she showed when he asked. He told her that one of his assistants was leaking a large amount of mana that could be detrimental to any experiment he carried out. He deliberately didn’t inform her about the mind control aspect, since the less people knew, the better. “Remember Zeno, you cant let your mana out around others. If people learn about what you can do, it won’t end well for either of us” “Professor, aren’t you affected?” Zeno was worried. He did his best to avoid everyone for the last few days, but he didn’t want his mentor to suffer the effects of his mana. “Don’t worry about me boy, I have my methods against mental intrusions, something as slight as what your mana does won’t affect me, now get practicing” Zeno began reading the scroll inside his space, sitting in a lotus position. The scripture mainly dealt with focusing on the self, closing oneself away from external influences. Basically to shut of his senses and focus on what his mind did while idling, passing through it and clearing it away before going deeper. His mana was channeled towards his center of mass, just behind and above his belly button. He barely noticed as maroon light flowed into the continuously condensing mass of mana. Mana flooded into him from the space around him. It was as if the mana that went into him from the space around him was on a loop, appearing back in the space around him after it went into him. Like a river rushing down a cliff it gained more and more speed, the flow of mana exceeding Zeno’s personal ability to control it by several orders of magnitude. The only reason Zeno wasn’t washed away was because the mana served his wishes automatically. Soon enough he felt the island itself expanding, the central building where all the tools were held growing and changing, trees rising up out of the ground, and the building shifting into a cross of the gothic and neo classical styles of construction, forming into a kind of baroque architectural style. [unlocked Hesychía skill] [unlocked Métis skill] [Métis and Hesychía fuse and become Henosis skill] [due to dimensional sovereign sovereign perk, henosis skill is amplified] [henosis: allows the user to become one with the world around them. Due to the fact that the user is already technically a world onto themselves, this skill condenses hosts mana, increasing mana density of miniature space and enhancing host abilities. +10 will, attunement, memory, vitality, strength, perception and luck per skill level] “Well, those are a lot of stats, it even includes luck…” Of course it was also interesting, as most of those “internal cultivation” powers multiplied the stats of the practitioner based on level. Certain techniques, like tai-chi, are able to give a multiplicative 50% increase per level, while legendary techniques like the Heart Sutra actually doubled the users stats every level, along with being able to seemingly bend reality. Of course techniques like those were proportionately hard to level, where as Zeno didn’t even need to do anything for Henosis to grow. Looking inside himself, he could see the ball of mana inside of him where all of his mana collected, surrounded by a red sphere of light making sure nothing escaped by mana emission. This meant that Zeno could finally return to his regular classes. He went over the syllabus and did some miniature space enhanced studying to make sure he wasn’t completely out of his depth, even though with his learning stat he could coast through pretty easily. “So Zeno, what happened that you couldn’t come to class?” It was in his principles of conjuration class where his friend Marcus went over and asked. Marcus and Zeno met a couple years ago when Zeno first entered campus, having moved to the capital where the university was from a city near the edge of the island. Marcus had tanned skin and curly dark hair, dressed in a casual long tunic, clearly superior to the modern dress code due to the lack of redundant pants. “Well, there was an accident in the lab and the mana that I was giving off would have been a bit hazardous to be around. I had to try and do self study until the problem was fixed, so here I am” Zeno didn't mention the exact nature of the accident, once he learned from Theodore how it was possible for all of them to be hunted down. After a while and a few level ups his mind somewhat recovered from the immediate effects of the change, his human side began to reassert itself. Just remembering the robotic and unthinking manner in which he tried to handle the problem gave him chills. He actually still felt like he was controlling his body remotely, just that his consciousness was more “awake”, as if a large part of his brain power was inaccessible until a few levels later. It reminded him of when he was younger, when his mind was less developed and he didn't know how to handle himself in situations more complex than solving a math problem. He still had a few eccentricities, such as the fact that he was more comfortable among books than people. Books were at the very least predictable, unlike humans who’s actions and state of mind were even less orderly than the most arbitrary weather patterns. It helped him get where he was academically, since most of that time spent with books did slowly increase his memory and attunement stats. Most people didn't exactly believe that to be the best usage of time at his age, but he was never one to partake in the more iniquitous parts of social interaction such as drugs and alcohol. This did have the side effect of making his baseline thought process become “emotionally detached” and thus make it harder for him to interact with others. He still felt emotions like empathy, but they were logical in process if not immediately logical in origin, i.e. he would feel bad for someone who broke their arm because of the pain they feel and the temporary disability they suffered because of the fact, while if someone was going through a rough breakup with a slightly abusive significant other he would probably feel happy for the person despite the pain they go through. Of course there were always people in a similar position to him, if not an identical one. For example, Emilia Wattson, a girl he met in the library. Emilia was a foreigner, from the Imperium Sacrum Francais to the east. The girl was the daughter of a traveling financier merchant family, the kind that travelled the land and moved money around to provide interest. Her family was fairly well off, but the constant moving from place to place meant she couldn't really make that many friends, and thus decided to spend her time diving into art, books and plays. Most of the time their interaction was best described as “courteous”. Mainly ignoring each other while occasionally asking the other to pass a particular book. Sometimes however, they would find themselves wound into a debate over an arbitrary topic, from whether more wealth was generated by focusing it at the top and having it trickle down against spreading it out like at the bottom grassroots, to whether skill level or visualization contribute more to the effect of a spell. Of course this time Zeno avoided even that small amount of interaction, grabbing books on several subjects before jumping into the miniature world. He wanted to see what were the actual limits of his genesis skill… Meanwhile, professor Yvonne, from the department of magical powers, was kneeling in her darkened office. A screen of illusory magic covered the windows and walls to foil any divination magic pointed at her, showing instead her lazily sipping coffee while grading papers. In reality, she held a dark orb in her hands, whispering into it. “The mana siphon was given to Theodore without a hitch, and neither him nor any of my students suspect anything. The enhancement to the rate of skill growth was also confirmed, so soon enough it will be possible to distribute these items on mass” “Excellent, my little daevi. Proceed as planned, soon we will have enough forces to expand ever further…” A deep and gravelly voice emanated from the communication artifact, connected to a point in the shallow end of the abyss near Taarak. A lesser demonoid, with dark green skin and curled black horns, looked out over the parapets of the fort he currently inhabited. A tower of bloody bone held up a small blood red flame at its top, miasmic smoke gushing down deeper into the abyss, fiendish essence feeding the dark recesses the nutrients needed to grow and spread. Most demons made it their life's goal to gain and harvest fiendish essence. This was because that fiendish essence was what allowed demons, devils, daemons, daevas, asuras, qlippoth, yaoguai, oni, rakshasa and every other kind of fiend to level up, and even certain non-fiends could consume it to evolve to a different stage, such as from zombie to a ghul, skipping the standard ghoul form entirely. But beyond that, it let anyone who held a territory in the abyss to grow their domain. This not only increased the amount of territory they controlled, but also increased the rate at which lesser fiends spawned, granting the enterprising fiend countless minions. This is why demonic hordes, infernal legions, and other fiendish kingdoms were so worrisome, as they would consistently mount raids to neighboring regions to capture sacrifices. The mana siphons were another kind of sacrifice. While not as powerful as the standard blood sacrifice, they were much more efficient, slowly smoldering away at the mana and soul of the user. In the short term, this meant an increased rate of skill and level gain, but in the long term it decreased the lifespan of the user drastically, giving more than enough time to spread it so much that it was innocuous by the time the side effects appeared. At that point, Taarak would be more than strong enough to conquer every nearby country, allowing almost every fiend in Taarak a chance at promotion to a more powerful fiendish form. After conquering the Suining dynasty to the west, Tenobylon to the north and the Norian kingdoms to the south, they would have more than enough power to go against the Imperium Sacrum Francais head on, given that it was mainly uninhabited void islands and emptiness in every other direction. For now, the demonoid reported to the fiend above them, the daemon knight exilis. The demon knight would then collect the reports of countless fiendish gentry like the lesser demonoid, and then send them to the nearest fiendish baron, who sends it to the nearest fiendish viscount, who sends it to the nearest fiendish count, who sends it to the fiendish marquis, who decides the immediate plans for the territory, before reporting to the respective duke deeper in the abyss, who reports to the royal court. From their the court spreads the information until it reaches the imperial court, and from their the emperor enacts the will of the fiendish gods of the abyss. Of course each territory was assigned a specific patron god. in the case of Taarak that patron was tenebrous, abyssal god of darkness and death, and thus where the entire chain of command ended. In the meantime, daemon knight exilis was preparing his troops. In front of him was arrayed a mob of thin and pale creatures, split jaws filled with oversized fangs, and a long barbed tongue tasting the air in front of them. These were profane strigoi, a subset of vampires, with extraordinary strength, speed and control of necrotic force and fiendish essence. Straddling the line between fiends and undead, these monsters were able to generate both necrotic force and fiendish essence by consuming blood, and were thus able to grow stronger with every foe defeated. Their control of these forces also allowed them to heal each other at the same time they struck their enemy, so that they grew exponentially stronger in numbers as the area grew saturated in necrotic force and fiendish essence. Currently all the forces in Taarak had a total of 20,000 of these creatures, enough to take a city maybe, but not enough to conquer a nation, let alone 4. But they had 70 or so years to prepare, meaning that when the plan commences, they would have an army over at least 2,000,000 of these profane strigoi, each one at a much higher level than the few hundred in front of him. “Now all that’s left to do is make sure our plans aren’t found out before it’s too late, and everything will fall right into place…” The biggest worry on the mind of every demon knight and hellish baron was that the plan was discovered before the side effects of the mana siphons began to show. As soon as the side effects made themselves apparent, the fiendish forces of the abyss would have ample opportunity to strike a foe who’s greatest champions begin to drop like flies. On the other hand, the retaliation of every nearby force at once could possibly cause them to be forced back into the abyss itself, the void island of Tamara being lost and possibly even purified, while raiding parties would ravage the nearby area to harvest mana from demonic essence. Of course, that wasn’t exactly a guaranteed lose even now, as the sheer amount of demons and devils spawned since the last all out war was enormous. As things stood, Taarak was well prepared for this. It would take a near miracle for the nearby kingdoms to discover what they were doing before the mana siphons were spread to the general populace, and by then, all the fiends had to do was wait. And across the abyssal expanse below Taarak, the fiends were doing much more than waiting. Whether tending to newly spawned troops, preparing new kinds of magic, or planting false information in foreign intelligence, the fiends impatiently waited for the time of the attack to arrive. “The world beyond our abyss… it’s free real estate”