Taking a sigh of relief, I looked at the shadow mana, trying to escape the prison of condensed mana I created. It looks like a slippery mass of black, with distorted lines between when it ends and my mana barrier begins. Now how do I deal with it?

But before that, I could see Hein waking up slowly. I whispered to him, “It’s me Jon. Hein, don’t get up. Just act to be unconscious. Sake is planning something and I want to see what. Ok?”

“Ugh, uhm sure?” he replied

Good, now, how to deal with this ball of shadow?

Should I just dispose of it? No, that might infect someone else and convert them into the shadow beings! Now that would be a real pandemic! Should I hand it over to mother? No! She will definitely experiment with it! Something could go terribly wrong! We might even have a shadow archmage!! Terrifying thought!! As far as I know, shadow mana is something that does not belong to this world. It is created by some evil gods, who use quite a bit of their strength to compress the void around Nezreal into biological plants, containing a complex form of mana. When this mana is extracted, it turns semi-conscient. Some people use this to program things like erode mana into it.

In the game, everyone who was able to cure this poison, would get this backstory, and then the shadow mana would disappear. But this is real life, and mana doesn’t just disappear. Should I convert it into my own mana? No, that might result in me being mana poisoned. Wait! Why don’t I try to imprint my mana signature onto it, since it is semi conscient! I could try to make it into my summon creature. Would that work? Well, what is the harm in trying? It will definitely escape if I don’t do anything. So let’s do it!

First, took about 20 drops of mana from my mana pool, and held it in my right hand, while the shadow mana was in my left. Next, I extracted mana from the ball of 20 drops in a steady stream. Compressing it even further as it moved, I aimed the stream towards the ball of shadow mana. By the time it reached the ball, it was so compressed that 1 drop of this mana would be able to cover 2 of my converse fireball! Using it as a drill, I entered the mana container I created, and then sent straight into the ball of shadow. After almost completing half of the extracted mana, some ripples began to form on the ball.

…

After finishing all the extracted mana, the ripples only became stronger, and its movements became slower. I knew I needed more mana, so I extracted another 50 drops of mana, which almost drained 85% of my left over mana. Repeating the same process again, the ripples only got larger and larger!

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Until it stopped. Everything stopped. The ball was no longer moving or rippling. It just stopped. Shaking the container, I found that it was not moving. Was it done? After spending 30 of my extracted 50 drops, did I finally make it my summoned pet?

*Crack*

Hearing cracks from the container, I quickly looked at it with mana sense, and found that the ball was actually trying to slowly crack the container, blocking its attempts with its own body. Now that was clever. But you are facing the wrong opponent.

I spent 2 drops on further solidifying the container, before continuing my endeavour to tame the creature.

…

After nearly spending all my extracted mana, I could suddenly feel the existence that is the ball of shadow inside my mana pool. Not my soul dimension, but my mana pool!? It wasn’t in the pool, but sort of hovering over it.

Looking down at the container, it wasn’t there anymore.

What is this? Why isn’t it in my soul dimension like mother said? In the game, you summon would sort of appear when you called it. No extra feature, and nobody asked why s well. But in the real world, things are different and I was never actually able to try it since mother always said it was very dangerous!

Doesn’t that mean that this ball of shadow could actually be dangerous? I need to get it out of my mana pool! NOW!

Thinking about this, the shadow ball suddenly disappeared from my mana pool and appeared in my right hand, greedily devouring the left over mana in my hand.

Wait! No! STOP! I thought.

Suddenly the mass of shadow stopped halfway from eating everything. What is this? Is it listening to me? How is that possible? I am not connected to it with any sort of mana, so it cannot be a summoned creature.

‘What are you’ I tried to communicate with it using some of my left over mana.

‘…’ Although it said nothing, I could feel its mental shrug directly inside my mana pool, not through the mana tendril I extended towards it.

‘Can you hear me?’ I questioned directly into my mana pool because of the emotions I felt there. The ball started nodding! Or at least I think it is a nod.

Hmm, do I have full control over it? Yes. Is it in the space in my mana pool? Yes. Is it only visible using mana sense? Yes.

Could it be?

‘Hey ball, are you some sort of mutated mana?’ I asked

‘…’ but got no reply. Makes sense. I don’t think it even knows what mana is. But I know that it is now completely sentient. Which means that the inserting mana process I conducted on the shadow mana changed it fundamentally into a completely sentient being, that seems to feed on mana to grow stronger? Maybe I can keep it as a summoned pet, because it behave like that as well. But I need a name for it.

‘U do need a name! I can’t call you a blob forever can I?’

‘…’

‘It just feels bad, u know right?’

‘…’

And now I’m thinking to myself. Anyway, I decided to name it Erebus, the Greek god of chaos and darkness, because that is what it looks like; ball of chaos and darkness.