“Did you two get the updated prompt?” Alex asked after confirming his suspicion. The greater number of points meant that he was not closer to what these buildings were, at least.
“Yes,” Jess replied. She put the thread back down, likely coming to the same realization as Alex even though she’d never handled Mana Veins before. The Mana Bodies of the dead in New Chicago were frequently studied, but it felt a bit different when it was an alien like this.
As he rubbed the small aperture between his fingers, Alex couldn’t help but remember what Muhammad had done with a monster’s Soul Aperture. Could they achieve something similar with these items?
“Should we take the veins?” Anthony asked, the conflicted look on his face was highlighted by the light he held. It made him look far more worried than he likely was.
“It feels a bit wrong,” Alex opined, “This is where they were buried.”
“Their society is long dead, and ours is still fighting,” Anthony pointed out, “It’s pretty normal for Mana Bodies to find some use after death, anyway.”
In New Chicago, the dead were cremated without exception. The undead hordes to the North were widely despised, and no one wanted to risk their reanimation as fodder should those hordes turn to the South.
Mana Bodies, or at least the parts that had been condensed into physical form, normally survived this process. The family of the dead would keep them as a memento, and the items were simply too useful to let go to waste. Using an aperture just meant studying the runework and seeing if anything could be replicated.
Alex had never heard of a situation like Muhammad’s where a new person would take a Soul Aperture and make it their own. They were far too personalized for that unless you had a mana type working in your favor. For those with a mana type, it would usually be easier to create their own.
It was hard to deny the value of a Soul Aperture. If the ability to reclaim them was more widespread it would immediately become quite popular to bequeath them to loved ones. Who wouldn’t want to leave their family stronger as a last gift?
Even a blank Soul Aperture, one without any affiliation to a mana type, would improve your power. Creating an aperture provided more attributes when you leveled up.
“This reminds me of Instructor Harrison’s lectures,” Jess said. She was staring down at the Mana Veins, but the poor light made it hard to determine her expression.
“Harrison?” Alex asked, “I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
Jess smiled a bit at the weak joke, “History class wasn’t that bad, Alex.”
History had been a mixed bag, in Alex’s opinion. Some teachers were fascinating, others were like Instructor Harrison.
Why Harrison was one of Jess’s favorite teachers, Alex had never figured out.
“Well, don’t leave us in suspense,” Anthony smiled as well. Their situation might be a bit of an odd one, but it was exciting. These huts were a treasure trove of magical items.
“I don’t know, if Alex doesn’t want me to…”
“Oh, just say it,” Alex grinned at the banter. Now that the dirty work of excavating an opening was done, the excitement of their discovery was starting to settle in. He felt lighter than he had in weeks, despite handling what had once been someone’s Soul Aperture.
“You know how Harrison was,” Jess said, “Always talking about learning from the past. This isn’t our past, but I’m sure there’s something to learn.”
“So you want to study the apertures?” Anthony asked.
“Isn’t it exciting?” Jess asked in turn, “These apertures have survived for longer than human civilization. It’s kind of like paleontologists finding fossils.”
She did have a point. This was pretty similar to people back on earth recovering pieces of a fallen society to learn about it. It wasn’t like they were taking these things from anybody, everyone from this planet was long gone.
“Good point,” Alex nodded. Honestly, he was quite happy to be convinced. Finding lost treasure was much more exciting if you didn’t worry about how the people who had it before you would’ve felt, “I guess it’s not that odd. So we take everything?”
“That we have space for,” Anthony agreed, “Honestly, we might even want to use the veins.”
Alex shrugged, but Jess frowned, “What would we even use them for?”
While it was difficult to think of a use for Soul Apertures beyond study, Mana Veins were just about the opposite. The idea of threading someone else’s Mana Veins through your body was unpleasant, and Alex wasn’t sure how you’d manage to prevent rejection from the new body, but that wasn’t what they were really useful for.
Mana Veins were essentially solidified mana designed to act as a conduit. This made them ideal for mana transference in arrays and rituals.
Between their incredible conductivity and the laborious process of creating them, Mana Veins were unquestionably valuable. An attunement could make them even more valuable if the mana type had a useful effect.
Anthony sighed, “Good point. I don’t have any designs for a ritual sitting around.”
“We could probably figure out a really basic alarm ward,” Alex said, “But I don’t know if it would pick up the snakes.”
Even that was pushing it. Becca was the one who would be able to design something, the rest of them were focused on Mana Bodies when it came to runework.
Alex was interested enough that the thought of Becca’s absence didn’t bring down his mood too much. He would’ve liked it if she was here, but that didn’t change the reality that she wasn’t.
With their path forward decided, the group searched the building with the aid of Anthony’s lantern. Having only one source of light inside with them made for a creepy ambiance, especially with night having fallen outside, but they hadn’t brought any other light sources with them. They hadn’t packed for exploration, after all.
None of them were particularly affected by the eerie feeling of the area. Sure, it was a gravesite, but they’d killed enough zombies to know what undead felt like to their magical senses. They weren’t worried.
It only took them around ten minutes to clear out any items that had lasted all these years, but they waited until after they were done to examine anything closely. The Soul Aperture Alex found near the entrance was one of only two, but that was hardly a surprise. There were plenty of Neophytes without apertures back on Earth, and this world was of a lower tier.
Alex wouldn’t be surprised if the trend went down to zero or one aperture in a hut on average.
Then again, it also wouldn’t be a shock if these burial grounds were special and this was on the low side. It was just impossible to know with any certainty until they checked.
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On top of the two apertures, they also discovered five sets of Mana Veins. They varied in length but were all less than three feet long. In total, they had around ten feet of the material. Most of it was unattuned, but one length must have come from a Tier 2. That length had been found by the second aperture, and both glowed faintly to their Sensitivity even without the lanter.
All in all, it wasn’t an incredible haul, but this was only the first of the buildings.
“Let’s take a quick break,” Jess declared, “We’ll make our way through the other buildings in a bit.”
Alex rolled the aperture that he’d found between his fingers again. He hadn’t truly examined it yet, too focused on looking for other treasures in the dirt.
The four spheres that made up the aperture were linked together, with a different amount of each sphere being submerged into the others. The spheres would each be the same size if separated from each other and somehow kept whole, but it would be impossible to extract them in that way.
The design wasn’t symmetrical. Each sphere possessed a different amount of its hypothetical mass. One sphere was only half there, while another was all but complete. This nearly complete one protruded obviously, with only a small part subsumed into the others.
Despite the spheres each only being partially visible, Alex thought of them as full spheres. The reason for this was their density. At the points where the spheres met, the design grew thicker to his mana sight. He quickly determined that the aperture had been created by forming four full spheres and then pushing them together before solidifying the mana. Imperfect work had led to an obvious imbalance, and Alex was quite certain that this aperture had been barely functional.
Any aperture was better than no aperture, but you would receive more benefits from a good one. Alex was quite sure that he was looking at an aperture that had been designed by a Neophyte grasping for any power they could get, lacking the privilege to chase greatness.
Apertures were supposed to be personal, but Alex got the sense that this one had been created from a blueprint. The Adventurer’s Guild and Defense Forces back in New Chicago each offered similar things to Neophytes who had managed to pass ten Connection.
Still, just because a “one size fits all” unattuned aperture was possible, didn’t mean it was easy to create. Most would struggle to get the aperture to form, and some would discover that the design was just too incompatible after they created it. In New Chicago, out of ten people with ten Connection, nine would eventually form an unattuned aperture.
Almost all who followed a blueprint would receive the minimum from their creation, but the extra attributes when leveling made weeks or months of effort worthwhile.
As he stared down at the aperture, Alex came to a realization.
Anthony and Jess would both be reaching Tier 1 quite soon. Without a Soul Aperture, they would receive ten attributes from each level up.
If Alex successfully reverse-engineered a blueprint from this unattuned aperture, and they managed to create an aperture using that blueprint, the number would increase to fifteen.
They could always try to farm attributes in Hard Mode trials to make up for any they lost, but why accept anything less than the best?
The thought resonated with Alex, and he recognized that this was a result of his new mana type. Refine was Alex’s creation, and it emphasized parts of himself that he was quite happy with. Striving to be better, and never settling for “good enough,” were traits that would become important parts of his path going forward.
He’d quite literally written them into his soul, after all.
Maybe he could go further than creating a blueprint. This aperture was imperfect, and it bore the mark of its previous owner. It wouldn’t be compatible with any other person, as the mana used to create it was irreconcilable with another soul.
But could Alex refine that mark out of it? Could he remove the incompatibility, so that Jess or Anthony would be able to claim the aperture as their own, at least for now?
Even if things went perfectly, he doubted he would be able to give them an aperture that provided more than one Connection. Something that low quality would hardly improve their Mana Body quality at Tier 1.
It would be an improvement though.
Caught up in his idea, and thrilled by the thought of being able to use his mana to help his close friends, Alex prodded the Trialbringer for Guidance.
Body Guidance rejected. Refining this unattuned aperture will not aid in the creation of a Mythic Mana Body.
Alex frowned, that was annoying. Sure, he’d known that there had to be a limit somewhere, but why couldn’t the Trialbringer give him this one?
“Alex, you doing alright?” Anthony asked, poking his shoulder to get his attention.
“Huh?” Alex was drawn out of his focus by the contact, “Yeah, what’s up?”
“I asked why you’re staring at the aperture,” Anthony said.
Alex quickly detailed his thought process. If there was one thing he’d learned in the past few weeks, it was that his ideas could sometimes use a second opinion.
“It’s kinda like an instinct from my mana type,” He stated, “I know that I can do this, but I’m not sure how.”
“Weren’t you the one questioning taking the apertures earlier?” Anthony asked.
“Uh, yeah,” The thought had slipped Alex’s mind, consumed by the thought of Refining the aperture. Was he going too far? “This is a big deal, though. It would let you guys get Rare Tier 1 Mana Bodies early.”
“That’s true,” Anthony shrugged, “Won’t make a big difference for me, though. My dad and I are agreed that the improvements from a Legendary tier up will be enough to create a high-quality aperture for Restore. I actually tried to do it with my Minor Mana Baptism, but couldn’t pull it off.”
Alex had forgotten about the Minor Baptism a Legendary Achievement granted, since it was upgraded to Greater by his Planetary Achievement.
“Oh, have you used yours yet, Jess?” He asked.
“Of course I have,” Jess rolled her eyes at him, “I’m trying to tier up.”
Alex winced a bit. Yeah, that was obvious. In his defense, she must have done it while he was sleeping off his aura removal.
“How did I miss you doing that?” He asked Anthony.
“I was a bit embarrassed that I didn’t manage to create an aperture at all,” Anthony admitted, “My dad helped me with a blueprint, but solidifying mana is pretty much impossible before your first tier up.”
Alex just nodded, that made sense. Anthony’s struggle to form an aperture was a reminder that he would have to take the task seriously, even with his attributes and Body Guidance, but he wasn’t worried. It would take hard work, and he doubted he’d get there on his first try, but he’d pull it off.
It was too bad Jess hadn’t created a mana type in their Area Baptism or her Minor Baptism, but that was more testament to the difficulty than her own shortcomings. There hadn’t been a single Aspirant with a mana type in New Chicago before Alex’s group started tackling Hard Mode trials.
“Well, it would still be good for any Tier 1 levels you get in this trial,” Alex returned to the original topic.
“True,” Anthony nodded, “I’d have to take it out after, though.”
Changing your Mana Body at Tier 0 was pretty easy, but removing a Soul Aperture was not. While Anthony’s healing would mitigate the physical strain of cutting himself open to remove it from his body, that wouldn’t change the fact that it was something connected to his soul.
Severing that connection would hurt, and not just because the Connection he gained from the aperture would go away. It would put a strain on his soul that made mana control more difficult for weeks or even months. Until that strain faded, he wouldn’t be able to replace the aperture, either.
Mr. Stirling could likely fix that, but Alex wasn’t certain. The man might leave the strain as a lesson, it wasn’t like it was dangerous.
“Probably not worth it, then,” Alex sighed, “Are you interested, Jess?”
Jess frowned a bit, and Alex didn’t have to think too hard about the reason. Now that his excitement had waned, he could think his idea through a bit more. If someone else was offering a Soul Aperture to him, he would decline and probably feel a bit insulted.
He couldn’t project that onto Jess, but he could imagine that it stung a bit to be reminded that she lagged behind compared to the rest of them when it came to mana control and a mana type.
“Yes,” She said after thinking the offer over for a few seconds, “Even if it's just one point of Connection, it’ll help.”
Alex smiled, “Let’s see how this goes then.”
Carefully, he injected his mana into the aperture held between his fingers. Immediately, he could feel that the aperture was fragile. Its imperfect design made it so that his work could Refine the imbalanced shapes out of existence, instead of removing the imprint left by its previous owner.
After a minute of intense focus, Alex sighed, “I think we might want to try and find a better one, this aperture is… bad.”
“The other one we have is from an Attuned,” Anthony stated. The reminder led to Alex redoubling his efforts. There was no way he could Refine something from a Tier 2, not yet. This one would have to suffice.
“We can see if there’s a better one in one of the other huts,” Jess reminded him.
She was right, but the reminder distracted Alex while his mana was moving about inside the aperture. He’d been a bit overeager, jumping back into his task before the conversation he’d started could finish.
The smallest sphere disintegrated.
It seemed that they would be going with Jess’s plan.