The new skill had made it much easier to seek out the mana motes in the area, he hadn’t expected to get a skill from what he was doing, he also noticed that the skill wasn’t under his class but instead part of his profession. Gaining levels for creating the new skill was also rather unexpected, he hadn’t crafter anything, unless it counted on crafting a new skill using his other skills as base to work off?
He had grown distracted by the notifications for a moment and he knew that he was part way through the bonding so he couldn’t stop, but still, there was a lot he needed to uncover about his profession, he really needed to explore it more than he had so far.
Turning back to the job on hand he slipped back into deep meditation and used the new skill to locate the mana around him, now that he had the skill it was a much easier process, he now just needed to find a way to gain control of the nature mana. Reaching out to the one closest to him, he replicated what he had done with the fire mana last time and used all of his will to effectively battle it into submission. It was much harder to do without the elixir, he just wasn’t able to bring it under his control, it was like it would slip through his fingers every time it got close.
He decided to change tactics after an hour of failure, he instead turned his attention inwards and focused on a sphere of earth he had created earlier, once he had the sphere under control he opened it up and tried to move it out of his body, still connected by a little string of affinity to the main line. The further he moved it away from the main stream of affinity, the harder it became to keep it connected, but once he had moved it past his skin and out of his body he felt a sense of accomplishment.
He had always been able to use his affinity outside of himself, but taking the actual embodiment of it from the stream was much harder, and he assumed, much more dangerous. If anything happened to the connection while he had brought it outside of him he imagined that it would cause a lot of harm to not only the entire thread inside of him but to his affinity as a whole. It was something he wouldn’t have done if he wasn’t desperate and in a reasonably safe area.
He shifted his attention back to the nature mana around him, and used his earth affinity to lead the now open sphere towards one of the motes, using it like a mouth about to greedily consume a meal. When he got close to the nature mana with his sphere he slowly wrapped his affinity around the mote and sealed it in. It didn’t fight back like the fire mana did in the last dungeon, instead it almost resigned itself to what was occurring, bringing the sphere back towards him he knew that the dangerous part was about to start.
When he brought fire mana inside of his body the first time he started to overheat, it felt like he was burning alive from the inside out, but he was unsure what the nature mana would do to him. When it was close enough that it just had to pass through his skin and enter his own mana channels, he hesitated for a moment, not knowing what kind of consequences this would have on his body or if he should take some kind of precaution beforehand, like activating his stone skin. He did rule this out pretty quickly, assuming that having a barrier around his body made of earth would just make it that much harder to bring nature inside of him.
Committing to his actions, Shaun moved the sphere containing the nature mana inside of him. The moment it passed through his skin he felt the change, as soon as the mana made contact with him his body started to change in that localised area, it had caused his skin to turn green and form growths in the area. It didn’t hurt him, which was a surprise, but when he concentrated on the area he knew that on a cellular level his skin had changed.
Before he addressed the change on his body, he moved the sphere into place in his mana channel, ensuring that it wasn’t going to move or wreck any damage inside of him, before he moved his attention back to where he had brought the mana inside of him.
He debated on whether he should try and fix it now or keep going and try something later, but with the amount of mana he knew he would need to bring inside of him covering his body in these growths would kill him before he had a chance to finish the process. He attempted to use his earth affinity to remove what had been done to him, but it didn’t have a positive effect, instead it almost encouraged the growths to spread out and start covering his entire body, so he stopped immediately.
Earth and nature would go hand in hand, plants need the earth to grow. But fire? Maybe I can burn it off? He changed tactics and pulled some of his fire affinity into the area, just a little at first, not wanting to cause further damage like he had with earth, but enough to still see what reaction it would cause. As he touched the fire affinity to the very edge of the area, the growths immediately started to shrink back and his skin lost some of its green hue, but it hurt much more than he expected, it was as if he was killing a part of himself in the process.
He didn’t stop though and pushed through the pain until what was left was a brownish yellow colour, not too dissimilar to if he had tanned for a little too long, but the pain was gone. He investigated his entire body for a while, seeing if any other changes had occurred, and after a while gave himself the all clear to continue. He set out to repeat the process again and again, alternating with the earth and fire spheres. After every time he brought in a mote of nature mana he took the time to burn away the growth that would appear. He had adjusted to the pain pretty well now that he knew what to expect, he didn’t enjoy the feeling, but it was better than ending up dead, or green, or even covered in growths for the rest of his life.
Stolen story; please report.
He didn’t know how long had passed, but eventually he had filled every single sphere with nature mana, not stopping until he felt overstuffed and his mana channels felt like they could burst if he moved the wrong way. He knew what came next, condensing all of the mana into a stream, adding another thread to join along with the other two, he hadn’t considered how he was going to do this, as this time around his existing affinities already had their channels through his body and all he would need to do was release the nature mana and pull the existing affinity back into its original shape.
Turning his attention towards the full structure of his channels he would have to release all of the nature attuned mana and then get it moving in the same direction as the other two and then start condensing it into its own stream. But what if I got it all moving first?
It was an interesting idea, he could move the spheres along his channel before opening them up, already jump starting the process before he even started releasing the mana, he thought it was something he could do, the risk though was keeping it all moving while he opened the floodgates to the nature mana, not letting it touch as it would result in opposing forces battling it out in his body.
Giving his idea a solid chance of working he took full control of all of his affinities and got them moving in the way he wanted, once he decided that they were at a good speed, not as fast as what they would usually be at, but fast enough that he should be able to keep everything moving in a good rhythm, he let the first mana mote free.
It didn’t go well, it bounced off of both affinity like a ping pong ball, leaving him feeling like he had been punched in the gut every time they hit each other. It took a minute before he got the one mote under control and by that point he felt like he had been mauled by the lion again. It was a disaster, something he didn’t want to do again but had to if he wanted to finish the process.
He released a second mote, the damage done to him just as bad as the first, but he continued going. When he got to the tenth mote he couldn’t help but vomit, and what came out of his mouth was nothing but blood. It was a bad sign, he had really screwed this one up but he couldn’t stop, it was too late to go back now that he had filled himself up with all of this mana and started releasing it, so he just kept going.
At some point he ended up lying on the ground, curled in a ball due to the amount of pain he was experiencing, he was shaking uncontrollably, his body riddled with internal wounds and a pool of blood around him. He had progressed from vomiting blood to having it leak from his eyes, ears and nose, he looked and felt like shit, but he didn’t stop.
He had committed to doing this and refused not to finish the job, eventually he had gotten to the point where he had released all of the nature mana and it was moving uncontrolled through his body, Shaun was barely conscious at this point, and now at the final step of the process he didn’t know if he had the strength to finish it.
He kept going though, focusing what was left of his willpower on the uncontrollable stream of nature and attempting to condense it down, he didn’t get anywhere with this process until he started exerting his earth and fire mana on it, trying to bully nature into obedience. Slowly, so very slowly, did it condense down and when finally he didn’t have anything left to give the mana snapped into place, forming the third thread through his mana channels.
Shaun instantly jerked upright with a gasp, feeling a flush of warmth, like sunlight flowing through him, healing his insides of all of their damage, bit by bit he felt his strength return, the healing aspect of nature coming to rescue him now that he had bonded to it.
*Affinity Detected: Nature*
*Nature (Affinity): The multiverse is made up of many elements but Nature is the one most nurtured by healers and druid types alike. Through your connection of life and growth you will be able to use nature's power that is inside of you to heal from wounds and encourage the living world around you. You are part of nature’s design, set to make the world around you flourish and grow. +10 Vit, +10 Soul, +5% Vit, +10% Soul*
So the nature affinity is truly healing me from the inside out? The affinity was better than expected, if he knew he would be able to heal himself with this affinity, bonding it would have been much higher on his list of things to do in the dungeon. It also explained why this affinity gave him boosts in vitality rather than any of the other stats. It was odd considering that Earth and Fire gave him willpower but he was happy for the change.
*Title upgraded: Elemental Prodigy to Elemental Master*
*Elemental Master: Having successfully bound three elements as an Affinity you have done what only the peak members of the Multiverse are capable of. Title upgradable. +15 to all stats, +15% to all stats*
He had almost forgotten about this title being upgradable, doing a comparison to the last title, it had changed names and now said three instead of two, he also got an extra 5 in each stat as well as another 5% increase. If it continued this way, every time he added a new affinity he would get an extra 5 in each.
While coming to a stand, he thought about the reasons why is heritage had detailed the race of beings being completed wiped out, if they were able to self heal as well as focus on damage through the elements, it would mean that they were at the top of the food chain, there was no way they couldn’t be. He could see others being jealous of such power, to a point that killing them all would be the only way to get out form beneath them, but the cost in lives must have been huge, fighting beings that had so many affinities would be suicide if fought one on one, the only way to do it would be with sheer numbers.
When he got a chance, at some point in the future, he was going to have to ask someone these questions, or better yet, find a library or something where he could do his own research. Checking how long the bonding had taken another day had fully passed, meaning 2 full days had passed since entering. Not bad, now time to finish this dungeon off and move on to the next.