“Whoa!”
She rose from her slumber, shaking her head as she recognized her surroundings. Mikella found herself in the Mystio study filled with dusty looking tomes and furnishing draped with soft covers for comfy sitting.
Heat flared in her cheeks when she found out that she ended up sleeping on the table, a book page now slightly crumpled thanks to her head resting on it. She grimaced, trying to flatten the paper as much as she could.
“I can see why Val likes you so much. You remind me so much of her, it feels like she never left.”
Mikella flinched when she noticed Cloud coming over to her, showing a rather tired expression on his face. Though a small smile, as though reminiscing his memories, surfaced on it.
“She’s not much for reading books either,” Cloud said, showing a rising smirk on his lips that made Mikella blush harder. It was worse since Cloud was so damn handsome, it made her more conscious than she would’ve liked. “Why the sudden interest in literature?”
“Uhh, well…” Mikella tried to prop up her book, trying to stay her embarrassment from her cheeks as she looked back at him. “I was just trying to read up on the next level milestone. I just got a notification from leveling, so I’m level 28 now. I’m getting pretty close, so I wanted to know what to expect.”
As an example, she showed her notification to him.
> Level up! You are now Level 28. You gain 2 free points (2 FP total).
>
> You have gained +1 STR from your class.
> You have gained +1 DEX from your class.
> You have gained +1 END from your class.
“Ah, I see Zeke’s working his due,” Cloud nodded in approval. If Mikella remembered from earlier, then the reason why Cloud is interested in Zeke is due to how similar the two were as well. She wondered at the coincidence.
“Is there anything I need to look out for?” She asked, figuring that it was easier to ask a Journeyman user about it than some dusty tome. “It says here that at level 30, I gotta look out for something called an Attunement… what is that?”
“Oh, I’m surprised Val hasn’t told you that,” Cloud said with a mild look of surprise. He then went over to her, sitting down at a nearby chair to shift towards her table to answer. “Then again, we got a little busy with what’s going on. I haven’t even told Zeke about it yet, though I’m not surprised if he already knew about it. Well, let’s see…”
Cloud closed his eyes, the mood shifting to silence as he slowly explained.
“An attunement is an important part of the person under the guidance of the system. it defines not only their mana, but their way of being and even affects their way of life.”
Cloud went on to explain the process, something that clearly caught her interest as it mentioned being able to improve her power by taking in an aspect, using her specialized Mana from the attunement to change the way one fights. It can shift dramatically from powering up your attacks or even leaving lingering damage, perhaps even changing one’s attacks into something else entirely.
She really did wonder why Val hadn't told her something so useful, considering how close she was. But then Cloud explained that.
“It’s not often that one has the ability to take an attunement of their choosing,” Cloud said, showing an uneasy smile. “For one thing, even we’re hard pressed to find anything to help others gain their preferred attunement. The basic four elements alone, despite being so common, is pretty expensive to purchase. Otherwise, one has to go across the land to find a worthy source of that elemental mana, which can be a real drain in resources. Not to mention if you reach level 30 by that point, you have a limited time window before your body refuses to take in anything any longer, making it difficult to take in any aspect without using some expensive specialized concoctions to relive that phase.”
“Oh, damn…” Mikella nodded in understanding. In other words, it’s expensive to keep up. “So, what happens if you end up not taking in an aspect?”
“The body would, naturally, take in anything around you as your body breaks through the milestone. Oftentimes one can just take in the pure mana around them, giving them a simple boost with no added effect. Other times, one can actually take in an aspect that might not have been originally planned, but that’s rare enough as it is, and sometimes it’s better to just get it directly from a source for a stronger attunement.
“For example, if you decide to break through in a natural environment, you might end up with a Nature attunement based on your location, but compared to being in an undulated amount of nature mana around you, it would be at a weaker tier from just breaking the milestone in a natural forest. On the other hand, if you drink a potion made entirely out of an aspect made by a talented alchemist, you can take an attunement that is completely different from what your surroundings may give.”
“I see, and that’s the expensive part, right?” Mikella asked. Cloud nodded in understanding. “So, did you two want us to see what sort of aspect we would get? Or just get pure mana?”
“Frankly, we didn’t think you would level up so quickly,” Cloud shrugged his shoulders. “We planned on telling you about it once you were reaching level 30, but you shot up a little too quickly for us to handle.”
Mikella looked away in embarrassment. Something told her that she was the reason for the vast improvement.
Cloud chuckled, easily noticing her inner strife. “Hey, don’t worry about it. The fact that you two have shot up so dramatically made it worth taking care of you. As long as your intentions are good, and you have no reason to go against this town, we’ll do what we can.”
Cloud’s atmosphere suddenly shifted. Mikella’s body instinctively shivered as Cloud turned to her, his eyes turning solemn.
“But if you two intend to do harm to my town, and worse, to my family… well, you’ll have to take it up with me.”
Mikella stayed silent, unable to even speak from his gaze. This stare was just like when Val glared at her after insulting her, the way she handled things. It was the glare of a Journeyman.
Then his mood eased up, showing a small smile. “Guess Val really put a number on you, huh? That’s good. That fear will help you grow stronger.”
Mikella was taken aback by that, but a little bit of frustration rose to her voice. “What do you mean? I’m lucky that I didn’t get traumatized!”
“True, some would get traumatized by the aura alone…” Cloud’s lips curled into a devilish smile. “But true warriors use that as a stepping stone to further improve themselves. It’s up to you on how to channel that fear.”
Cloud finished before turning around and leaving the study, leaving Mikella alone. She got exasperated and let out a big breath.
“That’s easier said than done,” Mikella shook her head. “These lords are crazy…”
However, a small hint of excitement nestled in her heart. That fear, that tiny sense of panic and despair. If she was able to conquer that fear, then…
Wouldn’t it be possible for her to face even stronger foes than her, but weaker than the Journeyman users? Finally realizing what Cloud meant, she stood up from her table and went outside to the training yard.
All the while, she never realized that a fearless smirk was plastered on her lips.
…..
“Gaaaaaah!”
Zeke gritted his teeth, the screams of the clearly hurting Myra breaking his eardrums. It was clear already that her physical body has already improved well enough that her shouts are becoming stronger.
But her channels were burning from the excess fire mana coursing through her veins. At the moment, his hand was on her naked back, enforcing his Recovery skill to the maximum.
Val stood by the side, using whatever she could to ease Myra’s pain. She wasn’t a healer, and they didn’t have that many Health Potions to spare. The rest were back at the team, and right now Myra couldn’t be alone with just Zeke.
So Valorie stared deep into Myra’s eyes, making sure that Myra could be at ease.
“Myra,” Val said, her tone calm and clear, not a single speck of panic in her eyes. “Listen to me. I’m not sure what is happening, but this is another trial at hand. Warriors go through this all the time–sudden trials that demand our full attention even at the worst of times.”
Val’s words cut deep, but there was a sense of calm and precise experience within them. She was speaking through the years of fighting and trials she herself had to the non-experienced Myra.
“No matter what, you cannot give up. Zeke is doing his best, but it won’t amount to anything if you give up. Search within yourself, enforce your will through your channels. Can you do that for me, Myra?”
Myra kept screaming, but once Val gave her a good staredown, she ceased screaming and only nodded once, something that she can only do at the moment.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Meanwhile, Zeke stayed absolutely silent as his eyes did the work of searching through the channels with Internal Senses. From the inside, her channels were burning up, almos turning to cinders from the powerful fire mana trying to eat her alive.
The same fire mana was nearly melting the channels away and entering straight into her body, eating her up. Through his Recovery, Zeke did the first thing he could do–fix the channels.
It was like a pipeline bursting. You can’t just get rid of the excess water without fixing the hole the water was coming from. In that sense, Zeke tried to repair the channels as best he could. But that proved to be difficult.
If it were outside the channels, he could do it no problem. But this was the first time he ever tried to fix someone’s own channels. Even worse, the channels being damaged were her own mana channels, something that his skill had difficulty even touching without breaking apart.
Mixing foreign mana with each other from different people would disrupt the flow of the skill, causing it to go unbalanced and burst apart.
However, Zeke didn’t give up. If he doesn't know, he’s gonna learn. He instilled his mana through her body to connect with her mana channels, the ones being devoured by the clearly hostile fire mana swirling within.
His Mana Perception skill flared wildly, trying to overcome the heavy burden Zeke was placing on it. But his casting broke apart immediately. A sharp pain flashed behind Zeke’s eyes as he yelped. He cursed, and he swore something hot and wet were pouring from his eyes, but he went back in. He didn’t even care how much mana he was spending.
His Internal Senses could see her body burning, and he can only imagine the pain as it tried to devour her from the inside. He kept focusing, connecting his mana to her channels, failing, and retrying over and over. He cursed multiple times on not thinking ahead and drawing runes to encircle Myra, helping the process of healing if this ever came to pass.
Not that he knew how to exactly do that, nor would he know exactly how that would work out in the first place. Experience was always necessary, but he really wished it wouldn’t have come to this.
As his mana dwindled, his mind went into overdrive. There was something he was missing, he knew. He just didn’t know what. For his usual wound healing, he would connect his mana to connect with her life energy, or health, to fix the wounds. Then, for added insurance, he would rouse the kinetic energy of the target to keep the life energy in line, further healing the wounds. He experimented a lot during his rune studies, his Internal Senses making it ten times easier to use Recovery in this case.
Then, he had an idea. If he can connect both life and kinetic energy to fix the wound, but he can’t touch the magical energy, then… wouldn’t it be possible to use both of her energies to force his way into her magical channels?
His Recovery skill was incredible in this case. It didn’t only just force Zeke’s mana into a person or object’s inner workings, but also used it to control from within to repair. He didn’t have any ability to actually harm the being, since the skill would never allow it–it was only based to repair the inner workings.
He was thankful for the skill, because if it weren’t for its complex and high-tier ability, any ordinary healing skill would never be able to repair her body in this state.
The fire mana was slowly corroding her body, and through his real eyes which he somehow managed to see through at the same time, the fire mana was actively trying to break through her tanned skin, the scent of burning flesh and cinder filling his nose.
He had to give props to Myra who remained just groaning rather than outright screaming in pain. He would be crying like a little bitch right about now if he were in her shoes.
Val was doing her best, but it was clear that her facade of a calm master was breaking after the wounds began to appear burning and tearing through Myra’s flesh.
He didn’t have any time to hesitate. He willed Myra’s life and kinetic energy, the latter being the strongest energy source she had to force her mana channels to obey. He knew the risk of using her own health which was currently being used to keep her alive. But thanks to Val’s prompting, Myra’s Stamina was working overtime to drive the foreign mana out, or at least to make it stop hurting her. So he only used a bit of her health along with her rampaging stamina to blast into the fire mana.
At first, it didn’t break entirely like before. He could feel his own mana rapidly decreasing, but he ignored the sudden chill down his spine as he realized that the channels were heavily resisting his access.
But he willed the energies to go deeper in. He infused Myra’s twin energies into his own mana, like a buffer to break through her channels.
His mana was the drill, her energies the outer shell protecting it. With that image fully planted in his mind, he forged right on through.
He succeeded.
It was not a pleasant experience for both of them. His body entered into that same cold-like state from breaking through, and Myra’s screams got louder, more frantic.
But he couldn’t stop now. He willed his mana to travel across her channels. He forced all of her energies and his own mana to repair the channels. Slowly, little by little, the energies were fixing up the tiny abrasions caused by the rampant fire mana.
Once he finally healed the damage, he focused on the rampant fire mana itself. The damn energy was still coursing through her body, trying to eat her. But as though entering into her mana channels granted him further control, he was able to control the fire mana. It’s gonna be a major drain on his mental power, but he didn’t care.
Someone’s life was on the line. He forced his will on the fire mana, making it yield to his demands.
The fire mana finally ceased rampaging around her body. It was like controlling the seas with his mind, the mana swirling and churning in her body just stopped as though he pressed the keyboard to pause a video. But the problem remained that the fire mana was still there. It was too much for her body to take, but he didn’t know what else to do with it.
He could expel it, but then wouldn’t that make Myra’s attunement worse? He knew that such a thing wouldn’t really matter when it came to her life, but there was such a thing as ruining her life even by helping her survive this. When he imagined her excitement earlier about receiving a powerful attunement, using the fire aspect to further improve her damage to become stronger, he couldn’t help but think of her just like Mikella, her own excitement nearly the same.
So, he thought of a plan. He drained more of his mana, purely for his own selfishness. Somehow, the idea he had in his mind totally put aside the fact that his body was entering into a state of cold that could endanger his life.
He forced the fire mana to slowly return back to the channels, still in the progress of fixing itself up. Normally, that would be a bad idea, but Zeke trusted his foolhardiness. If there’s anything he can trust at this time, it’s his own crazy ideas.
So he decided that, rather than using his own unattributed Mana, he would use the new fire mana to reconstruct her mana channels. The fire mana seeped straight into the channel walls, the burning flames from the mana cauterizing them to a certain extent. Mixing his own mana to restore it with Recovery, he used the fire mana to ‘enforce’ the channels, improving them–making them stronger. He honestly was reminded of his Barrier Craft, using the fire mana to encase the channels like he would with his barriers.
He kept going, realizing that Myra’s screams finally ceased, but she was clearly in pain. He knew it was due to his melding, using fire mana on her own channels. He had this stray thought of what would be worse, magma coursing through your body, or your channels so deeply ingrained to your core being melded like a smith hammering on a hot piece of metal?
Somehow, the latter sounded far worse. It was like specific pain rather than overall pain. As he delved further into his stray thoughts, his work was progressing slowly. Then, he realized something else.
Myra’s energies were doing the work themselves. As he slowly put his mind out of her body, dispersing his mana control, he saw her body working as it intended.
Her attunement is now reaffirming itself into her. The milestone breaking is properly working now. He could somehow feel Val’s relief exploding out of her as Myra finally relaxed, her own energies working in concert with the now malleable fire mana thanks to his control.
It was a beautiful sight. Internal Senses was still active, so he picked up how her channels were working overtime with the fire mana. It traveled all around her, enforcing not just her channels, but her muscle, skin tissue, organs, her very bones.
They were all being improved dramatically. As the fire mana finally replaced her overall blue mana throughout her channels, Zeke’s skill gave out.
Soon his consciousness returned to the pitch black darkness.
…..
“Zeke!”
Val shouted as she caught the knocked out Zeke before falling. She may have her stats halved, but catching an unconscious boy from falling to the ground was easy for her.
She looked back at the boy, no, at the man that had saved Myra’s life, with shock. His face was pale, almost deathly white, as the heat from his body was practically dispersing from him. Blood seeped from his eyes, nose, and ears. It was a devastating sight.
He was entering into a state of Mana Deprivation.
Val cursed herself. How could she have let this happen? It was supposed to be a simple Level 30 milestone breaking, something that she’s seen many others do and helped before. Yet, somehow, the fire mana went apeshit in Myra’s body, almost killing her.
If it weren’t for Zeke’s persistence, the fire mana would’ve burned Myra alive, a death worse than anything else. She looked back at Myra now, her eyes picking up on her physical features.
She was sweating, exhausted by the look of the bags underneath her eyes. Her hair was caked to her tanned skin as steam seemed to bellow out of it. She was burning, but she wasn’t suffering. No, it was the very heat that became her new source of power. Somehow, Val could tell from her sharpened senses that her power was… stronger than usual.
It was a lot stronger compared to a normal Level 30 breakthrough. Something had changed. Whether it was the fire mana that went rampant, or Zeke’s skill at work, she didn’t know. Perhaps both, but she didn’t care.
Both were injured, and one was on the cusp of dying from Mana Deprivation.
“Myra, can you stand?” Val said, her voice calm and composed despite the urgency.
“Y-Yeah…” Myra hoarsely said, her voice rough like there were embers staining her vocal chords. “Just… Just hurts like a bitch, that’s all.”
“Good, then we need to move. Zeke is in trouble.”
The moment those words escaped, Myra’s eyes popped wide open. She turned her neck, only to nearly flinch from the pain. Looking back at Zeke now, her eyes widened further, almost bugging out.
“Holy… Zeke, Zeke! Hey! Are you okay?!”
“He entered into Mana Deprivation,” Val said, picking up Myra’s armor and shoving them to her arms. “Get dressed, and let’s move.”
“Got it!”
That’s what Val always liked about Myra. Someone who was willing to follow her footsteps and go all out for others’ sake, not just her own.
A girl after her own heart. If she could, she would gather up an army of these types of girls, Mikella included, to take over the world. But alas, there were only so many.
The two ushered forward, Myra taking the brunt of carrying the downed Zeke as Val rushed ahead to meet with the rest of the soldiers. The moment they came into view, the soldiers started wracking up noise at their coming, all of them each congratulating the now newly formed Myra.
But they quickly noticed something was off. Their eyes turned to the pale Zeke in Myra’s arms, looking ready to face death itself.
“Sorry to cut this short, but Zeke’s down. We need to get back into the town,” Val ordered, looking at the other soldiers who looked at Zeke with concern. “Something happened, and I’m not planning on moving forward till’ I know what the fuck is going on.”
“Captain, what happened?” Jacky, one of the twins, answered her call. “Did something happen to Zeke? Why does he look ready to puke?”
“Did something happen to Myra that made Zeke work?” Maxie realized the connection, worry claiming his face.
“I’m not certain, to be honest, but one thing’s for sure…”
Val’s face twisted into a glare, getting the rest of the soldiers to feel the twinge of panic and fear coursing through them after noticing it.
“Something fucked up Myra’s breakthrough, and I’m not stopping until I find out what’s responsible for it.”
No soldier dared to complain and followed her orders to return home. It was also obvious that without the barrier mage making it easier for them, it wouldn’t really be essential. They all stormed off to the town, preparing to save their mage.