Steam rose from Mannat’s body as the cold wind played with him under the cover of a boundless sky. He was hot and warm, not unbearable so, but discomforting it was for sure.

“Now what?” He asked the Witch wondering if she had some advice, which she sure did.

“You can meditate,” Answered his master whilst preparing to leave her precious staff stuck in the ground like the fabled king's sword. “--don’t cultivate. Your mana is in an unstable state. There is a chance you will injure yourself if you forced your heart.”

She expected some hesitant reaction, but Mannat’s silence let her know that perhaps the boy wasn’t as one-track-minded as she believed him to be.

The staff was now firmly in its place, prepared to leave when she saw the boy in a daze. She was all too familiar with his state. Hope is a difficult thing to digest -- especially so when it is just another station on a long road.

“Don’t be desperate, boy.” She told him. “You have waited a year for this. A few more days or a week shouldn’t mean much to you. Believe in yourself. Don’t let desperation swindle you out of your hard-fought victory.”

Mannat nodded. He was silent. It was not a victory, but it was not a complete defeat either. There was a valid chance, a light at the end of the tunnel. The Witch was right. He knew she was right. Yet-yet… it was not easy. He was just a boy, after all. The burden wasn’t off his chest yet; it had only shifted to a lower place.

He badly wanted to hold on where his father hadn’t managed. But who was he kidding? He needed her more than his father did. He was not showing it, but he was reaching his limit. He had reached his limits. Things would have been better if he could only cry. Alas, the tears had never come easily to his eyes.

However, even in desperation, he needed to know the reason why he could do what he had done today. The Witch might have stopped him from trying to repeat the miracle, but he needed her to tell him the reason. His whole life, everything that had happened to his mother, to Pandit’s brother, to the rabbits, they all proved that he couldn’t have done what he did. He couldn’t have absorbed miasma -- yet he had done exactly that.

“I need to know…” Mannat said in the utmost seriousness. “Don’t hide it from me. I need to know so I can have peace of mind.” His chest grew heavy. The Witch was right. The effects of absorbing the miasma were hiding in his body, sharpening their claws, dampening his mood, and waiting for the right time to act.

He expected her to hide the truth behind a veil of reason, but she surprised him. She did the opposite of exactly that; she had nothing to hide.

“The simple answer is that I don’t know.” She looked straight at him and Mannat didn’t find a hint of shrewdness in her squinted yellow eyes. “Yet, I believe your lone title: The child of life to be responsible for the miracle.”

Mannat’s brows rose in surprise. “Can you tell me what it says? Because I can’t read Examine it.”

“I thought you would only ask one question.”

“It’s the same question...” He grumbled feeling annoyed.

Perhaps, it was the way he said the words or the words themselves, but it made the Witch smile, not cackle out in her usual cacophony of wickedness, but a smile that made her look human.

“I have been watching you grow since you were in your mother’s womb and not even I can say that I know everything about you, boy. Your title is unique to you. You are the only ‘child of life’. I can tell you that there has never been one before you and as things stand, there might not be another one either. Only you can know what it means and how it allowed you to absorb miasma.”

“How will I do that? Even Examine doesn’t yet reveal the title, and it’s a second-tier skill!”

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“Then you just have to wait for it to reach level six when you unlock another one of its functions. And if that doesn’t do the trick then there is always the next tier.”

Mannat sighed helplessly. The Witch talked like it was easy to evolve a skill. He had barely reached level three in Examine after a year of grit and hard work. To evolve it might take an amount of time that he was not in favor of spending. He had better things to do.

Since she had nothing more to tell him, he left her to meditate under the glowing tree. Getting in position, he pulled out a tomato to replenish his mana only for the Witch to stop him.

“Did you leave your mind besides your mother?” Crowed an angry rooster, or so it seemed, but it was the Witch yelling at Mannat. “Did I not tell you to rest your mana?”

“I only wanted to regenerate—”

“I must be talking in tongues for you to not understand what I am saying.” And she was back to her old familiar self. “Do you not know what happens when you absorb foreign mana?”

“Ahh…” Mannat understood.

A foreign flow of mana no matter how apathetic would need to be controlled before he could absorb it, which would leave his heart defenseless, exactly what the Witch had advised him against.

“Seriously, I can’t figure out whether you are actually smart or acting like one because I remember you being dumb at more instances than I can—”

Meditation was then. Mannat dropped the tomato back in the bag and closed his eyes. He had long been able to actively meditate, no longer needing to sit still to passively bring it to motion. However, he did just that to drone out the old coots nagging. He had had enough of her for one day. The skill worked charms. His thoughts and worries started disappearing one by one until he entered a state of calm nothingness while his body slowly absorbed mana from his surroundings.

The Witch watched him for a while before slowly leaving him for the night. It was something she wouldn’t have done in the past. Alas, she had grown too fond of the boy. Perhaps, it would be good for her persona to distance herself from him. As things stood, there was a good chance as she changed him into a better person he might also change her into… well, something.

Mana collected through meditation was not under the influence of anything and therefore could be readily absorbed without affecting his heart. Mannat’s skill level was high enough that he shouldn’t have needed to spend the whole night in meditation to recover his mana. But when he opened his eyes the night had passed, the sun had risen and morning had arrived.

A quick Examination of his internal system revealed everything to be working properly. His mana had also recovered.

Birds singing, a cold wave of wet air blowing at his face, his eyes fell on the staff. Morning dew stuck to the staff's crystal globe like his expectations. There was a lot of it and in pieces, slowly slipping from the surface, ready, but in no hurry to fall. Perhaps, it was all for the better that he had not awakened once his mana had regenerated. He might have been tempted to discharge it a few times to cultivate one of his skills which would have definitely angered the Witch, or let her ravens wraith upon him.

Thankfully, she wasn’t around to mess with him. That was what Mannat thought until something wet and light fell to his right with a disgusting plop. It sounded aggravatingly like bird poop. He was not surprised to see the damned raven sitting on one of the branches right above his head. She noticed his attention and scooted over just enough so that she wouldn’t miss him the second time. Almost as if, she was aiming for him.

“Don’t do it!” He told the bird because of course. Who wouldn’t? The raven squawked as if it was grunting and Mannat knew it was time to move.

He got to his feet and moved away from the tree while damning the bird and its lineage as sleep disappeared from his eyes. He heard the raven take to the air right after him as he stopped running; it was definitely flying away to her master, to report the successful completion of her mission.

Sighing, Mannat went about his day. Later, he checked his status once again before leaving the clearing for the day. There was no increase or decrease in his stats. He had wanted to pay another visit to his mother and absorb another vial of miasma from her heart but didn’t dare inquire about her condition alone. The staff was right where the Witch had left it, standing in front of the tree like a temptation. He kept his distance from it that day so he wouldn’t have to tomorrow.

After all, he didn’t just want to wake his mother; he also wanted to be there for her and his father, because as much he needed them, they needed him too.