Everything seemed to take on a blue mental hue. The color of the world was still the same. But everything felt cold. A kind of distance.

“Yo, you good?” Lucas said.

Jack’s brain registered the meaning of the sentence. But it had a kind of distance between it and him.

I am completely focused. Okay. State problems. Lucas’ fingers. Create the mana blueprint. Use it on him. I feel like I can pick exactly what I need to focus on, and ignore everything else.

Lucas kept talking loudly and trying to get Jack’s attention. His sounds were filtered out since it was not needed for what Jack was focusing on.

Time and temperature and outside words lost all meaning while Jack was focused on his task.

He started spinning all of the mana generating in his stomach into a circle. It was much easier to do this than last time. Order of magnitude easier.

He got an idea. Instead of trying to crudely draw the symbols and lines inside the mana blueprint, he decided to create smaller and smaller circles inside the main circles. Then he changed those circles into the symbols and lines needed.

The mana blueprint was finished and way more solid than before.

He started examining it internally.

He noticed that there was another input inside the mana blueprint that he hadn’t noticed before. He created a string of mana from his core and guided it into the input.

The input activated a circulation inside the blueprint and started maintaining itself as long as he fed mana into it.

He found the larger input ‘hole’ of the blueprint and created a separate string of mana from his constantly generating mana core, and started funneling mana into it.

The ratio was about ‘100’ mana before ‘1’ healing output happened.

His mana senses were way too crude to even comprehend what was happening on the output part, but he knew it was some kind of healing.

Forming the mana circle and maintaining it and activating it was now finished.

His mind let his eyes transmit information to his brain and he saw the location of Lucas’ fingerless hand. He grabbed it and ripped off the bandages.

Where the fingers were cut off, it was very bloody and crusty and filled with scar tissue.

Jack shoved the cut off parts into his stomach. But he could sense that the healing output wasn’t reaching.

He focused on the mana blueprint again. He then started trying to move it closer to the skin of his stomach. That didn’t work. He couldn’t move the big and complex mana blueprint.

He had to make a new one.

There was no emotional response to this realization. He released Lucas’ hand, sat down on the ground, and cut off information from his eyes and focused internally again.

He reached for the string of mana he was guiding into the input that was maintaining the mana blueprint.

He cut it off. Very quickly, a lot of complex mana started dissolving rapidly. It was very painful and he realized it was going to kill him if it continued.

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He quickly inputted the mana into the input maintaining the mana blueprint again.

The healing circle was broken and useless, but it stopped dissolving and hurting.

A well made and dense and strong mana blueprint will kill you if you just release it chaotically inside yourself.

He shoved this realization into the back of his mind and got to work dissolving the mana blueprint.

His intuition told him there was a way more effective way of dissolving the mana blueprint. And that he had no way to use this effective way for lack of skill and experience.

Instead, he decided to slowly unplug and plug in the input maintaining the mana blueprint. When he did it like this, slowly letting it dissolve, it did not hurt. The mana just floated out of his stomach and into the world without doing any harm.

…

“What the fuck is this? Did that skill give him autism or something? Lucas said

“I dunno. But he is focused like a fucking monk,” Brian said.

They were staring at Jack who was sitting on the ground like a monk with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, his eyes opened. He stood up like a robot. Grabbed Lucas’ hand and shoved it under his t-shirt into his belly again. And then he just did nothing. For a long time.

“Yo, Jack? How long do we have to stay like this?” Lucas said.

Jack didn’t move or respond, as if Lucas hadn’t said anything.

“Bro, he can’t hear you. Just let him focus,” Brian said.

Many hours passed like this until it was nighttime. Brian had to once in a while kill the butterfly monsters closeby to the camp while Lucas and Jack were doing this.

Lucas decided after 5 minutes to just play on his phone. He had Brian give him a powerbank when the battery was low.

Lucas asked Jack if they could sit on the ground at one point, and Jack nodded and they slowly sat down simultaneously.

…

The cold was starting to wear off.

If I don’t dissolve the mana blueprint before this ritual wears off, I will die.

Jack let go of Lucas’ hand.

Lucas took a look at his cut off fingers and saw that it was still ugly and full of scar tissue and dried blood and that he had not gotten his fingers back at all. But when he looked closer he saw that some of the scar tissue had disappeared and was replaced by pink spots of flesh.

You have unlocked the achievement–

Jack ignored the notification. The focus ritual was trying to collapse while Jack was trying to maintain it and dissolve the mana blueprint inside his stomach at the same time.

Suddenly, the ritual collapsed, and then…

/////////

Jack:

Knife Fighting: Rank 1

Knife Fighting: Rank 2

Python (programming language): Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Sand to Glass Conversion Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Healing Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Origami: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Speed Counting: Rank 1

Enemy Weakness Identification: Rank 1

Poetry: Rank 2

Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Pool: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Specialized Mental Sacrifice Ritual Focus Borrow: Rank 1

Typography: Rank 1

Brian:

Shield Defending: Rank 1

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1

Mana manipulation: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Enhanced Propriosense in Toes: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Flame Shield Dispel: Rank 1

Cryptography: Rank 1

Enemy Pattern Recognition: Rank 1

Airplane Pilot: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Finnish: Rank 1

French oil painting technique: Rank 1

Lucas:

Insect Movement Control: Rank 1

Enlarged Penis: Rank 1

Mana sense: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Surfing: Rank 1

Arithmetic: Rank 1

Chess: Rank 1

Human Interpersonal Non-verbal Bodily Social Behaviors Enhanced Perception: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Changing car tires: Rank 1

Water Mana Affinity: Rank 1

Walking: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1