Slowly and cautiously, I wove together my new mana forms. Though based on the water gathering spell, I found this one much easier to piece together. Between the fact that this spell didn’t need to examine anything and my practice with its more complex precursor, it didn’t take me long to finish the spell.
As I pushed mana into the spell, there was suddenly a loud pop. The sudden noise made me jump, as I hadn’t expected that at all.
My spell had only been designed to move all of the heat in a small area into a single tiny point. I was left scratching my head as to why it made such a loud noise. Thanks to the fact that I had cast my spell on the air in front of me, I wasn’t even sure if it had heated anything up. Next time, I was going to need to cast it on a piece of kindling or something.
Despite my confusion over the mysterious sound my spell produced, I wasn’t discouraged. I still had another version I wanted to try.
Cooling sigils worked by converting heat into mana. The process of doing so was slow and inefficient, but the result could make a hot day more manageable. What I wanted to know was if I could cool things faster by simply moving the heat away rather than trying to convert it.
Not wanting more ambiguous results, I wove the spell together on the rain soaked ground this time. Weaving the second spell was even easier than the first. The two were nearly identical, with only the direction I was sending the heat reversed.
Ready for any mysterious sounds or other odd effects, I poured mana into the spell. The quiet crack this spell made didn’t startle me anywhere near as badly as the pop before. Curious, I examined my handiwork.
All of the water in a small circle on the ground had turned to ice. More interestingly, there were quite a few cracks around the edge of the stone that I was pretty sure weren’t there before.
This was far, far more impressive than any sigil of cooling I had ever seen. I could even see something like this being effective in combat if used right. It was unfortunate that weaving mana forms directly inside living creatures was so difficult. Being able to freeze a monster’s head instantly would have been quite effective.
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As I considered that, I once more marveled over the system. For most magic that affected creatures directly, like my phantom fire spell or the serpent’s fog, the mana forms had to first be created outside the body. Forcing the completed mana forms through the bodies’ natural mana was a lot easier than trying to craft something using that mana itself.
The fact that the system not only crafted wonderfully complex mana constructs, but did it inside my body was nothing short of incredible. I briefly wondered what Sanctuary Valley would have looked like if we all had the system.
One change I could imagine immediately was that we would have had a lot more meat to go around. Some of the hunters had already been able to use small spells here and there when fighting. If they had access to the magic I had obtained, few things in the jungle would have proven a match for a fully armed hunting team.
Besides the hunters, the sigil painters would have seen an incredible increase in capability. I could hardly imagine how much stronger the warding walls could have been. Perhaps with enough barrier sigils, it could have even deflected the titans away.
At that thought, I remembered what happened to the people of Tanru. They were not able to survive a titan even with the power granted to them by the system. Considering how much larger the horned creature that destroyed Sanctuary Valley was, I wasn’t sure if anything could have stopped it.
Disheartened by the thought, I packed away some more meat from the serpent. It was disappointing that I couldn’t carry very much more while climbing.
As I was about to start climbing, I realized that I could still harvest more from the snake. Tracing out a few runes in the muddy ground, I prepared to send the snake on ahead.
Just like with the stone table back in the ruined town hall, I launched the snake out towards the edge of the ledge. I only got about a third of the snake’s body over the edge with my little rune array, but it was plenty to pull the rest of the body down after it.
After watching the body tumble down the side of the cliff, I resumed my descent.
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Finally down in the undergrowth once more, I looked around in amazement. The plants around weren’t terribly different from those on the other side of the mountain. The real change was in how I perceived them.
I had been too exhausted and distracted while I was up on the plateau, but my enhanced mana perception had unlocked an entire unseen world for me. I could feel the mana flowing around inside each leaf and branch.
Running my hand over a small fern, I marveled at the subtle magics that I had never noticed before. It was nothing like the power created by the system, but tiny little mana forms ran through pretty much every living thing. The implications of this tantalized me, but I didn't dwell upon it for long.
A flashing purple symbol tore my attention away from the plant.