She wasn't sure what to think after the nightmare but it became apparent that her little brother had changed when he – the sleepy head who was a pain in the ass at the best of times and one of the demon kings of hell itself at his worst – had made breakfast in place of mom to absolute perfection…as much as she hated to admit it. And he did so at the break of dawn which was the time when she usually woke up. Which was also the time dad also woke up and they tended to just have coffee and come back later in the day for lunch.
His smile was also different but somehow she knew that he was the same little brother in a way. She could see his mana and overnight it had become stronger. She'd done a bit of research on her smartphone when she went back to bed and couldn't sleep.
What to do when your little brother becomes a doppelganger or a skinwalker takes his place.
No answers. Just memes. She tried dumbing it down after that being less specific.
What does it mean when your little brother's entire personality changes overnight and he seems nicer but it's weird?
Puberty. Her phone fell on her face at that point but that stupid answer put her at ease. Just meant he was growing up a little… hopefully.
She heard a rustle in the trees as she came up to his usual spot by the creek. Running water poured over the edge of a mini waterfall. The sound of running water and splashing was soothing and sometimes when she got home from school she'd come sit by here and lay on the ground and take a nap before she had to go inside and deal with her little brother's tantrums and teasing and hair pulling. She cared about him, but after she said she wanted to join a guild after school to the rest of the family, he started acting egotistical and narcissistic. She figured the people online were right about it being an inferiority complex because he had no “latent talent” as the teachers called it but now he was completely different and it all started with that nightmare.
She heard rustling again and this time the sound came from above her. She saw a mat of hair dangling from above with legs curled over the branch he was hanging upside down from. His eyes met hers and sparkled with joy when he saw her.
Snap!
The branch cracked and she found herself moving before she could even think. Trying to catch him. They both shouted as they got tangled up. Her face was covered by his long wet hair.
Splash!
“Ugggh…” She groaned.
Her brother was fine. She was fine. But they were wet and that could've ended badly but fortunately the creek was shallow enough that it wasn't hard to stand up and get up out of.
He was shivering but had already started gathering sticks and rocks to start a small fire in the dirt next to the creek. Fortunately mom and dad were probably either sleeping or going to work so they wouldn't see the small smoke trail in the sky if it was visible enough.
What an annoying little brother.
“Why were you even up there?!” She shouted, teeth chattering, she hated the cold and hated getting wet.
He winced. She immediately felt bad and chewed her lip to try and suppress her emotions. “You could've got hurt.” She muttered.
“I was just trying to learn [ Wood Root ]!” He said, next to the firepit with his legs curled up to his chest as he whispered a spell under his breath and set fire to the dry sticks. The warmth on her skin put her at ease, but the fire spell he used made her eyes widen with wonder.
“What's the point of learning an anti-mobility spell when you can just kill something with your fire?” She gestured to the burning fire pit, but she knew the answer, she just wanted to act smart. Fire would damage the materials and meat and the monster would become useless, because the preparation of its meat involves draining it of blood and the meat would be semi-cooked and already ruined to the point of being FUBAR as dad said. An anti-mobility spell was actually a smart choice as long as there was a follow up attack in the form of lethal force.
“Because it's easier and more humane to put a monster to rest when it's immobilized. If I learn [ Wood Root ] I could create roots strong enough to bind most monsters to the earth, plus it's easier to learn than [ Mana Root ] and takes less mana.” He replied.
“True.” She said, “And the flaming monster would still be alive and the potential for it to escape or even cause a large wildfire is too large. It is simpler to use a [ Mana Gun ] than it is to use large scale fire attacks or otherwise.”
He smiled slightly and waited for a few moments. Like he was waiting for her to say something. She raised an eyebrow.
“You had something you wanted to say or ask me, remember.”
“A.” She said and rubbed her temples. “Mana Cultivation. How would you define that?”
“Your body naturally rejects wild mana, or rather, unattuned mana that is outside of the body, but once you learn how to tune it, you have an infinitely renewing source of mana to cultivate your own mana core from.”
“So that's how it works.” She nodded slowly, reiterating her own experience with the skills she had recently gained.
“I'm surprised you're not more interested in how your twelve year old brother actually knows this stuff.”
“Who is to say that you're not making this up and having delusions of grandeur?” She asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
His smile twitched slightly. He was doing his best to hide his impatience.
She just sighed and relented.
“So, how do you know all of this?”
“That nightmare was actually a dream that actually made me have an epiphany about how the entire universe works… and last night while I was trying to sleep, I actually went out of my way to try and test out those methods and they actually worked – I think I put my entire soul into figuring out a way to be useful so I don’t get left behind when you leave home.” She looked into his eyes, slightly veiled by his messy black hair, as bright as the sun but as deep as the void. His smile made it seem like he wasn’t lying but she could never be sure with the fibber that was Lovus.
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“Ah.” So that’s why he was always being an annoying little shit to her and constantly had mood swings whenever the topic came up. She chewed her lip, and felt a twinge of guilt but was mostly annoyed by how clingy of a brother he was. “So you’re saying that you were being a nuisance and driving me away from home because you wanted me to stay?”
His cheeks flushed slightly red, “I realize that my methods were stupid and that was not the way to go about it… but I will now do everything in my power to support you and your dreams – to become a hero.”
It was her turn for her cheeks to flush a deep red. She told nobody about it except her diary. “How do you know what I wrote in my diary?”
“Diary? That’s what you said when we were kids, remember?”
Come to think of it, she did remember that back in the day she had always wanted to become a hero like Blaine, Slayer of the Demon King Arkanath. The memories already made her want to cringe slightly, she remembered being quite the tomboy, and this little bugger remembered that when even she didn’t at first.
“But now that I know you have a diary… I am quite curious.” He said and stroked his chin thoughtfully, his smile turned impish.
“Don’t you dare.” She grimaced, there were things in that diary that should not see the light of day, and she dare not think of any one of them specifically, lest the organization steal her thoughts.
“Anyway… back to that thing you were talking about at the bathroom.” He threw her a bone with the topic change and she was infinitely thankful for it, but right now, she was shivering so much that she got up and sat next to Lovus who was surprisingly warm. “For now… let’s just dry off and we’ll head to my spot in a little bit, it’s a ways out and I’d rather not die in the woods of hypothermia.”
“Smart.” He said, they chatted idly and Lovus threw more wood on while they were drying off.
***
POV: Lovus Eternius
He lied about the diary, he read the entire thing. Every excruciating detail was thoroughly memorized. This was after her death, he suspected foul play but only found the contents of her diary which he never let see the light of day. It was one of the few favors he had done her in his past. He burned it before anyone else had the chance to even think about it.
Now she was sitting with her back to a tree as he sat between her legs while she picked small twigs out of his hair from climbing around like a monkey. “Twerp. If you keep your hair long you’re gonna have to find a person to do this for you in the future, but try not to make any girls cry… or boys if you end up swinging that way.” She said calmly and patted his back, pushing him forward slightly.
That was all he needed to get up and extend a hand to her to help her up. He opened his mouth to speak but she held a hand up to shut him up. “We should be dry enough now.” She said and pointed into the woods with her thumb. “This way.”
She was already running off into the forest and he saw no other option but to follow her. He spent the next five minutes sprinting after her but also agonizing about the romances of his past life and if he should invest more into his relationships than into cultivation. He had left them all behind in favor of the solitude of Ascension. A poor trade off now that he thought back at what Ascension had actually gotten him.
They came to a natural clearing devoid of trees, a meadow filled with blue flowers and a pond in the center of it. Glowing with bight blue light. Lovus knew what this was. One of the rarest naturally occurring resources on the planet. A liquid mana vein.
“If you stick your face in here and open your eyes, you will get a skill called [ Mana Sight ]. It let's you see the mana of other creatures and people and more easily determine their strength.” She explained to him point at what was effectively a puddle of mana so dense that it was a physical liquid.
“You put your face in the mana?” He asked, mouth agape.
“Yeah why do you think I stopped wearing makeup?”
“Well. As long as you don't dip your legs in it we could probably use this source to cultivate our power and actually become heroes…”
“I dipped my toes in it before.”
“I think I’ll just cultivate somewhere else.” He said, a trace of disgust evident in his voice. Even if it was self renewing and seemed powerful enough to cleanse bodily impurities. He started walking back towards the creek.
“OK wait! I was lying. I didn't…” She averted her eyes, wearing a smile that tried to hide an obvious lie. “Can you at least teach me the skills you're talking about? I promise I'll write home for the year I leave you behind for.”
He paused for a long moment for dramatic flair and effect.
“...Sure, I’ll teach you what I learned last night.”
He sat down at the edge of the pool and crossed his legs. She took the same pose right next to him. He started by explaining what a mana core was, it was effectively one's soul that existed in an extradimensional space not unlike the spacial magics that ancient sages used to hide their infinitely massive lairs in a cave somewhere. Or the treasury of the Royal Capital in the Empire of Valence. The lands they inhabited.
For starters the [ Mana Core ] was an enigmatic thing that was representative of an individual's soul in the Materia Severum. The dimension from which all mana bled out of. The common name was “The Void.”
The first step to gain access to all of the functionality of a Mana Core was cleansing the Mana Network of the body that allowed an individual to cast magic or use mana to alter the universe around them with destructive or protective and reparative magics. Even alchemy relied on the awakening of a Mana Core.
The next step was building a strong Foundation. Strengthening the body using mana itself, the networks became denser and denser until the comprised the entire body. A weak foundation would lead to cracks if not outright and total destruction.
After that was the Mana Core, but he saved that discussion for later.
She raised her hand, “How does this help me learn the skills you're supposed to be teaching me?”
He just let out a deep and elongated sigh. “I’m going to meditate now. Join hands with me.” He said exasperatedly. She hesitated, so he just grabbed her hand and held it. “Move closer.”
She silently shimmied closer until their knees touched. Then he set their clasped hands on their knees. He closed his eyes and attuned his mana to hers, for him, attuning his mana was like instinct that didn't even require a skill–
“WA! What's this?! The system just gave me a skill… Mana Attunement Level One!” She shouted and knocked him out of his focus. He opened his eyes and the system gave him the same skill: [ Mana Attunement Lv. 1 ] as if waiting for the most dramatic moment to give it to him. Perfectly on brand but utterly needless and overly flamboyant… perfectly on brand.
He'd think it three times but he didn't want to give the system the satisfaction.
“Shut up, close your eyes and focus or I'm not helping you.”
Her gleeful laughter at learning a new skill turned into giddy snickering as she bit her top lip to suppress it. Once it eventually subsided he spoke up. “Okay, you're going to get two skills at some point. Try not to get too excited by the first one.”
He was also trying to suppress his contentedness with being able to spend time with his sister once again, his entire family in general but his sister was the one relationship he regretted the most because their last words had been the hateful ones at the end of an argument. He'd never found peace and despite being here with her again in a past he never got to experience, he doubted he ever would. Perhaps he'd be self-serving again, to make rights where he had wronged certain people who would end up rivals rather than friends.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. The thoughts dissipated and he was at peace for the moment. He reached out with his mana and connected his with Ranna's. Her mana initially recoiled, but she suddenly realized what he was doing and hers reached out hesitantly.
He exhaled again and made a point of just grabbing her mana and connecting it with his. Their senses locked together, intermingled and he could now see the mana flowing throughout the world even through the dark lids of her eyes. He mischievously inspected her eyes before controlling the mana and expanding the mana capillaries in his eyes to gain [ Mana Sight ]. Their hearts were now racing as their senses collided and meshed together, once she calmed down and realized what he was doing she gripped his hand tighter, annoyance flashed through their mind as the system's voice announced that Lovus acquired the [ Mana Sight ] skill.
His mirth suppressed the emotion and then he moved on to guiding their connected mana to the pool ahead of them. Extremely fine and thin lines, lest the mana overwhelm their networks and they both spontaneously combust in a thermomana explosion as their bodies inflated to five times their size in an instant. They – most likely because of her influence – felt nervous immediately.
The strands of mana touched the pool and Lovus guided them through the familiar cool touch of the void. He slowly attuned the mana as it traveled towards them and Ranna followed his example, she did her best but even with newfound knowledge downloaded into her brain it was turning out to be excruciatingly taxing on her.
The pain flared and he was casually pushing it into the back of his mind to focus. His main goal wasn't to get her the two skills, those were already achieved it was to cleanse both of their mana networks of impurity to make increasing their strength a lot easier.
Pain throbbed through his arms and Ranna grabbed his hand tighter. She felt like something was wrong, but he didn't let the thoughts run rampant. He wished he could teach her how to ignore the body’s warning signals but she, like many fledgling practitioners of mana cultivation would simply have to endure having stagnant and rotten mana forcibly flushed out of her body. She struggled and was shaking with agony, but she pressed on, at his urging.
Finally their mana network was cleansed by the purity of mana straight from a breach in the void and he could let them cultivate freely without having to worry any longer.
After what felt like a few more moments of cultivating, he felt her consciousness flicker and he immediately stopped the process for her sake.
They were absolutely drenched with sweat and sitting in a pool of black liquid that was clinging to their bodies. She let out pained groans and fell over, clutching her arms. The sky was pitch black and he had no idea where they were, he only had the light of mana in the world to guide him, and even if he had only lacked this sight for a day, the world was once again beautiful in colors that he recognized.
He picked his sister up and carried her from the black ick which rolled off their purified bodies with ease. Her skin was burning up and it was obvious she had a fever. He followed the path they took to get here, and was already hating the lecture his mother and father were undoubtedly going to give them when they eventually got home.