Back in the basement, Jeff had just started working on Gabriella’s channels. Since she had awakened her bloodline, Gabriella’s body had been slowly trying to create channels to accommodate both her new green mana and origin mana. This process is rough and creates deformed channels with very slow processing capabilities. Without Jeff’s assistance, her channels would take years to slowly reach perfection.
Jeff’s bloodline allows him to introduce his mana and help guide the creation process. It also begins to heal and reform the channels already created for maximum efficiency. A few minutes after he had begun, Jeff began to speak. “Her channels aren’t nearly as extensive as others. Her body was having a hard time adjusting to both types of mana, so I have many channels to repair, but I should be done in a day or two. Her core is going to be a challenge but should be able to be fully functional once completed.”
As he was talking, I felt a very strong pull of mana. It felt like it was coming from everywhere. Mia looked at me with a concerned look. I could tell that she felt it too.
“Sim, what’s going on?” I asked.
“There is a massive amount of mana being used, but I cannot pinpoint the location. This is utilizing approximately 5% of the excess mana that made it past the shield.”
This made me immediately blurt out in shock, “Are we gonna run out before the shield fails?”
“No, this will still leave enough to complete all goals before shield failure, but someone or something else has the ability to use massive amounts of mana. You need to figure out what is happening. If I repurpose any processing power, the system will not be ready in time.”
“Is it possible to create a small funnel of mana from the core, or would that collapse the shield entirely?”
“Unfortunately, with the current pressure exerted on the shield, any attempt at draining mana would cause a catastrophic failure.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it then,” I told her as both Mia and I started walking up the stairs.
As soon as I got up the stairs, Sim informed me of some new developments.
“Mike, we have just had multiple reports coming in from all over the world. There are mana beasts wreaking havoc. I am dispatching all 132 remaining hero candidates, but I’m afraid there may be more areas affected than people to deal with them. We have already received 68 reports, and they are coming in constantly.”
I began to contemplate the ramifications of allowing them to all run wild. “Damn it…” I was getting really frustrated until I had a thought. “Mia, how did you project yourself into all of the tornados downstairs at once?”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s a good idea,” she said.
I looked at her, confusion clouding my face.
She laughed while she continued, “Don't forget that we’ve completed our bond. I can feel the intent behind what you were trying to ask. Here.” She walked up to me and grabbed my cheeks with both hands. She placed her forehead on mine, kissed me, and then told me to concentrate.
As she pushed her mana up through her central node, I suddenly understood every part of her multiplication skill. This skill would allow me to create up to 50 copies of myself. She was only able to do 5 at a time, but as soon as I understood the mechanics of it, I was able to max out its possibilities and now had the divine version. I could possibly push it past 50 copies, but splitting my consciousness into any more than that might make them lose some of their problem-solving abilities. Physically, I could do quite a bit more, but I would rather they be able to think properly than just become weapons.
As she pulled her head away and smiled, my eyes exploded with the knowledge and understanding of how to solve the issue. I immediately started the process. As I funneled mana through my core, it began to push out the peach mana required for the skill. A second version of myself popped into existence. I didn’t even have to say anything, and it teleported away. This went on for the next 5 minutes.
“I know I can get faster and create more than one at a time, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the process,” I told Mia.
She leaned in and whispered, “Well, you better learn to meditate without falling asleep then.” She just laughed and teleported away, leaving a gust of wind that hit me directly in the face when she disappeared.
I sat there dumbfounded for a second. “Did she just talk crap right before leaving?” I said out loud, not really talking to anyone. Sim felt this was the right time to chime in. “I like her,” she said.
“Sim,” I asked, “are you starting to feel more emotions?”
“I’m not sure. I’m understanding the concept more and more, and I believe the desire to act in certain scenarios can be considered emotional, but I am still not aware of exactly how to react when these thoughts, or as you might say, feelings come into my thought patterns.”
“Just keep it up. We’ll make you a real boy eventually!”
“Why do you call me a female if now you are attempting to make me a male?”
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“Okay, never mind. You have a long way to go before you understand humor.”
…..
For the next couple of months, throughout the entire world, every single hero candidate was called to action. I had to deploy duplicates of myself on many occasions and learned how to adapt their memories into my own. When they came back and I reabsorbed them, their memories were added to mine as if I was the one who had gone. It was a very weird sensation. Melding two different events for the exact same timeframe took a few tries to get right.
The news was constantly covering all the monster attacks. Almost every major city was attacked by one monstrous beast or another. Many alterations of animals came in small forms but in insanely high numbers. In Paris, the rats gained wings and the ability to chew through metal. They didn’t attack people, but they did manage to devour almost all the food in the entire city. Relief packs were sent from other nations, only to be eaten before they could be passed along to the populace. People had resorted to killing the rats for food. It was either that or starve. Reports of people getting sick came after that. Sim told us that it was more than likely due to mana exposure from the meat. We developed a way to give them mana channels without actually letting them process mana. This stopped anyone from dying but didn’t give them the ability to develop powers yet. Well, as far as we knew.
In Moscow, most of the predator wildlife had become hyper-aggressive, killing for sport instead of just food. The wolves had grown to 6 feet tall while standing on all fours. A retractable spike had also grown up through the spine, allowing the wolves to stab their prey like a scorpion would with its stinger. The bears were already very outnumbered. With only about 20 or so in the region, their alteration was very mild compared to the others. They gained the ability to grow and shrink along with sharper claws and teeth. They could dig into the ground at extremely fast speeds but were nearly wiped out by a herd of deer. The deer had their biology altered so much from the mana released in their habitat that they had grown fangs and stomach acid to be able to process meat as the new apex predator. On top of the new classification, they also grew a singular horn through the center of their head. They were able to shoot this horn like some kind of unicorn bone launcher. The most disturbing part was that the horn could magically regrow in less than 2 seconds and was ready to be re-fired. The news had picked up a cell phone video of the first appearance. A young girl, maybe 12 years old, was excited to pet what she thought was a unicorn. She was ultimately skewered with the horn and eaten by the herd. It was a very gruesome sight, but the news station chose not to blur anything out due to the new nature of the world. It became a viral video warning the rest of the world to watch out for other mutations.
Peaches was nearing her next evolution. She had not had any further run-ins with the bird, but she had been sent to over 30 locations with liquid mana. After absorbing mana pool after mana pool, she was exhausted. Sizes ranging from small backyard buckets worth up to entire ponds full, she was bursting at the seams with mana. Sim recommended that she continue to absorb everything we could find as long as she could before she activated evolution. This was to be her second to last evolution. She would be able to evolve into her legendary form, one step below divine. This evolution might put her out of commission for months. After speaking with Jeff and him confirming that he could not help like he did with bloodlines, we wanted her to hold off as long as possible.
Gabriella was instrumental in rebuilding the habitats after Peaches absorbed the mana. She was able to not only revert most vegetation alterations back to their original forms but in the areas where humans had destroyed the forests to kill as many beasts as possible, she could almost instantaneously regrow everything. I felt bad for Gabriella. She had awoken into a nightmare scenario. As soon as Jeff had finished helping her with her core and mana channels, she was thrown directly into the rebuilding effort. She had only been home 4 times in the past few months.
Mia had taught me to link with each bloodline. This allowed me to understand all their abilities and traits and activate those same parts of my bloodline. I could now help with mana channels as well. Understanding the full process was eye-opening. Jeff was quite literally hijacking their systems and altering them for optimal performance. I was still not an expert, but no one really was this early. With my new understanding of how each particular bloodline worked, my core had changed. Each time I utilized a new bloodline ability, the mana produced in my core switched to producing that particular type. The only one I was still lacking data on was the white. Cookie had not been seen or heard from since she had first awoken. We suspected she was responsible for the large mana usage but still had no confirmation on exactly what she had done. There were reports of areas of the environment that were being altered, but nothing had been checked due to the chaos around the world.
I had learned from Sim that when Mia had utilized our bond and sent out the tendrils of mana, many people now had active bloodlines with new abilities. The variations were extreme. Some gained minor abilities to alter weather patterns, and some gained varying weather powers. One man gained an ability to create tornados, while another gained lightning powers, able to alter the charge between electrons. In extreme cases, a few people had gained the ability to create soul bonds with animals, altering the animals' mental faculties enough for coherent thought. We were unsure if any of them had reached full sapience, but that was a minor concern at the moment.
Sim was progressing faster than predicted on the system. She had found a way to increase her production of dungeon cores and sub-cores, so she had just finished their production and placements. This was months ahead of the time frame planned, so she was able to redirect her processing into the system itself. This would allow her to finish ahead of the collapse by a few months. She was diligently looking for more ways to increase the completion to allow for early integration. The mutations of the wildlife had necessitated an early activation, and we were doing all we could to achieve full integration as soon as possible.
After months of sending out every hero candidate possible, there was finally a request that I chose to handle myself. Not one of my doppelgängers, but I went myself, and I went alone. A small island town in the Atlantic Ocean called Tristan Da Cunha had just activated their obelisk. Apparently, one of their fishing vessels had gone out days prior, and only one woman returned. She was floating on a piece of the broken hull and spouting off what they thought had to be nonsense. She spoke of a beast so massive and so ridiculous that no one believed her. When she had started running to the obelisk to try and get help, the few people that were at the beach saw a storm forming in the distance. It looked like it had tentacles flailing around from inside the clouds. This prompted a mass exodus utilizing every means of escape. When Sim informed me of the situation, I knew I wanted to handle this myself.