Chapter Sixty Five: Maelstrom Ascension Manual…

Greg’s eyes fluttered open to find his teacher seated across from him. Her eyes were closed and a small milky white pearl was pressed up against her temple. One who didn’t know his teacher well would be tempted to think that she was sleeping. Greg, however, could see the look of deep concentration on her face. Given his past life as an earthling, when Greg came across the word manual, he'd expected a book of some kind. Perhaps a thick, ancient-looking tome, perhaps a sheaf of parchments loosely bound together, maybe even a scroll of some kind. What he had gotten instead, was the small white pearl currently in his teacher’s hands.

An attuned memory pearl. That’s what Olivia had called the thing. She’d instructed him to run his mana through it. Once Greg had done so, she’d informed him that the pearl was now attuned to his mana signature. That, without him using his mana as a key, it would be impossible for someone else to access what was inside the pearl. With that out of the way, Greg had naturally asked how he was supposed to use the thing. His familiar had instructed him to do the same thing his teacher was currently doing. Press it to the side of his head, close his eyes, and direct his attention to the pearl.

Greg was completely unprepared for all the sensations and information that flooded his mind the moment he did as instructed. Greg had been expecting some form of written information detailing what the Maelstrom ascension manual was all about. And while there was indeed a written explanation of the ascension manual, Greg was also flooded with memories, impressions, and feelings from the one who had created the method. It was the difference between a 2D drawing and a full 3D rendering of the same image. The memory pearl captured everything about the ascension manual up to and including the way the mana should feel as it courses through one's body.

However, the fact that the pearl flooded him with information, didn’t mean that Greg understood the manual. There were several terms employed that Greg couldn’t make sense of. The ascension manual spoke of connecting nodes, gathering mana in one’s nexuses, creating harmony along one’s flows, and a whole laundry list of other things that Greg couldn’t make heads or tails of. Even with the mana flow itself, just because Greg could feel the way it should flow around his body didn’t mean that he could replicate it. There were many subtleties to the flow that Greg couldn’t track with his limited knowledge of mana manipulation within the body.

Greg had still wanted to at least try and mimic the flow of mana demonstrated in the ascension manual. Olivia, however, had shot that idea down immediately. According to her, practicing a manual that you don’t understand is a surefire way to create hidden problems with your mana circulation. And this is to say nothing of the fact that his mana pathways weren’t even fully formed yet. When Greg had asked what he was supposed to do with the pearl then, his familiar’s response had been simple. “You have a teacher don’t you?” she had posed rhetorically. It had felt a bit anticlimactic to get a reward from the dungeon that he couldn’t even make use of by himself, but in the end, Greg didn’t have that much of an objection to having his teacher help out and so the next day he’d given the memory pearl with the Maelstrom ascension manual over to the healer.

That had been close to seven weeks ago.

Greg looked towards the mouth of the cave trying to gauge the time of day. The blizzard that had already begun when he went under, however, hadn’t yet let up, so it was impossible to tell. Turning his gaze back to the healer, Greg realized just how much he’d been underestimating what it would take, not only to understand but to put into practice what any given ascension manual laid out. When Greg had given the pearl to his teacher and explained that it was the first layer of an ascension manual that he needed her help with, he’d expected that he’d get some feedback from her about it within the hour, perhaps the end of the day latest. As such, one can imagine his shock when the healer said she would need three months to familiarize herself with the ascension manual.

Noting his confusion, the healer seemed amused. “These aren’t instructions on how to boil an egg Roka, If I get something wrong, the consequences may be far-reaching for you. In fact, the only reason I’m asking for three months is because of my tier and the deep understanding of mana and magic that I’ve already gained through the centuries. If you had a fifth-tier mage as your teacher it wouldn’t be odd for them to ask for a year or two. At the third tier, a mage would probably have asked for about five years to go through the manual carefully before they could claim to be competent enough to guide you,” She had informed him.

“But, it’s just the first layer,” Greg had countered. The words were borne out of a genuine surprise on his part. He hadn’t really thought that the first layer of any ascension manual would be that hard to parse out.

A serious look, however, had crossed his teacher’s expression at this. “The number of mages out there that are stuck and can’t progress because either through neglect or lack of better options they weren’t able to set up good foundations is beyond count Roka,” She had said in a tone that relayed she was being deadly serious about this. “Get off on the wrong foot Roka, and you can forget ever reaching the higher tiers,” she had said in a tone that relayed that this wasn’t a matter of opinion but cold fact. Olivia had given him that very same warning back when they were discussing how long it would take for him to set up his foundations. Even before one considered anything else, a stable foundation was the first prerequisite that had to be met if Greg wished to become a formidable mage.

When the healer began studying, it actually led to the first trade between the two of them. Greg had never seen a cat high on catnip, but if he had to guess, it looked a lot like the way the healer had been those first few days. The trade had been for hive scrolls. The hive scrolls, despite their utility, were still tier-two items whereas the beast-cores were tier-three. At the same time, however, after making use of the obsidian earthmover’s core, the remaining cores didn’t offer that much improvement. As such, they traded the five scrolls at a one-to-one exchange. Greg was certain that the healer would have driven a harder bargain at any other time, but back then she’d been so caught up in the excitement of discovering something new that she didn’t even care.

Indeed, it had been a case of casting pearls before swine. To Greg, who didn’t have a lot of magical knowledge, he wasn’t able to see what was remarkable about the ascension manual. On the other hand, when the healer got the scrolls, she immediately tore one. If one makes a single copy of themselves using the scrolls, it can last up to thirty or so days depending on how intense the magic usage is. On the other hand, if you go for the maximum number of copies you can get, which is about ten, they’ll only last about three or so days. And yet, this is exactly what his teacher did.

Immediately, there were ten copies of her standing around her. Given that the scroll was only a tier two item, each of her copies was only limited to the power equivalent to that of a second-tier mage. This, however, was more than sufficient for her purposes. Olivia had passed around empty tomes to each of her copies and a quill. The copies had then sat all around her with a quill to the page. Four among the ten were already writing where as the other six seemed to be waiting on the healer. When he’d later asked about it, the healer had explained that one of her copies was writing down everything exactly as it was communicated in the memory pearl. The second one was writing down what she understood from the ideas within the pearl. The other eight were present to capture all new ideas and inspirations that the ascension manual was generating within her. On more than one occasion, Greg had seen all ten copies of her writing, so it was safe to say that this ascension manual was quite the deep font of inspiration for her.

It didn’t take long for the healer to uncover what was so unique about this ascension manual. According to her, she discovered it on the third day but double-checked her conclusions for another ten days before she revealed it to him. Unlike every other manual that his teacher had ever come across, it seemed that the Maelstrom ascension manual was specifically designed for someone with mana pathways but no central mana core. In other words, it seemed to be perfectly tailored for someone like Greg. As it turns out, this had been one of the major worries that his teacher had been harboring about Greg’s situation. She’d been trying to figure out what the ascension path would look like without a central core and had been coming up empty. This manual, however, put that worry to rest. Not only did it offer the answer to the predicament, but based on the healer’s assessment of it, the manual itself was among the best ones she’d ever come across. Chances are that it had enough layers to take him to the sixth or seventh tier.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Greg was drawn out of his musings by his teacher. The healer’s eyes were now open and the pearl was no longer pressed against her temple. Eventually, the number of new ideas the ascension manual gave her had gone down enough for her to capture them without needing to create several copies of herself.

“How long did it take this time?” Greg asked.

“Two days. It would seem that the less you gain from the beast-core, the less time you are lost in the illusion that it produces,” She answered him then tacked on her assessment.

Something had happened that neither he nor his teacher had anticipated after Greg gained an increased affinity for the earth element from the obsidian earthmover’s beast-core. If the healer hadn’t been so meticulous with her work, they would have completely missed it until it was too late. His teacher, however, had been monitoring the development of his mana pathways from the very first day that Greg began using the sigil, so it had only taken five days for her to notice it. And that was the fact that the rate of development of his mana pathways had picked up speed. According to their initial assessment, he was supposed to enter the first tier early in the spring. At this new pace, he would have entered the first tier a week or two before the end of winter.

It would seem that an increased affinity led to an equivalent increase in the pace of one forming their mana pathways. This had completely thrown off the schedule they had come up with. They had planned to have Greg use a beast core every twenty or so days to increase his affinity. Now, however, every time he used a beast-core to increase his affinity, the day he would become a first-tier mage was brought forward. Given the fact that they still weren’t sure he would be able to increase his affinity after he had crossed into the first tier, this meant that they had to cut the gap between the use of beast-cores in half.

Now, every ten or so days, Greg had been making use of a beast-core to increase his affinity. Greg had been tempted to start with the cores that drew him in the most. His teacher, however, had advised that he take the opposite approach and begin with the cores that drew him in the least and progress from there. According to her, slow and steady progress would lead to a more stable foundation as opposed to sharp increases in power that large modifications to his mana pathways promised. Despite his desires, Greg had chosen to go with the healer’s advice.

Outside of the deep respect he had for his teacher, there was also the fact that the more soul battles he was exposed to, the more he tempered his soul. After getting the aftereffects of his dungeon dives reduced because of an increase in soul strength, Greg was more than happy to see that trend continue. This led to a bit of a disagreement between him and his teacher. Greg had wanted to tackle the next beast-core without the aid of the soul-reinforcing formation she had carved around the sigil. That way, his soul would bear the burden of the illusion and grow stronger as a result. With a safe room in his mind carved out by a deity-level being, Greg wasn’t afraid that a tier-three beast-core would harm him.

It had taken a lot of convincing, but eventually, his teacher had given in and allowed him to do it. This, however, was on the condition that if anything went wrong then all future beast-core assimilations would be done with the aid of the soul-reinforcing sigil. Unable to move her from this, Greg had been forced to agree to it. Luckily for him, thus far, he had managed to come out of all the assimilation sessions without coming to any harm. His teacher’s instruction to go slow but steady with the beast-cores instead of going straight for the one with the biggest draw turned out to be great advice. Outside of giving him a chance to engage in various soul battles, Greg gained two more benefits that he hadn’t even considered when he began.

The first was a deepening of his connection to the earth. Before his connection was a passive thing that usually faded into the background unless Greg actively paid attention to it. The more the types of creatures whose life and experiences connecting to the earth he assimilated, however, the more that sense grew. Before, it did little more than tell him that there was earth under him. The more it developed, however, the more information this sense picked from the earth under and around him. So far, Greg had yet to refine this sense or learn how to control it, as such what he got out of it was usually a mix of useful and random information that sometimes didn’t make any sense. For example, in one moment, the connection would make him aware of the fact that some animal had burrowed a hole a few feet under the ground he was stepping on. At other times, it would tell him that the soil composition was wrong. How it was wrong or what Greg was supposed to do about it, he couldn’t as yet puzzle out.

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The second and more exciting benefit that Greg obtained was a growing list of innate spells. Preoccupied with the desire that the best cores evoked within him, Greg hadn’t even paused to consider all the innate spells that each of the beast-cores could confer to him. Not every single beast core gave one and not every single ability given was that useful. However, given that these were abilities that he didn’t have before, Greg wasn’t exactly complaining. After making use of six beast-cores so far, Greg had gained four innate abilities. From the obsidian earthmover, Greg had gotten the earth step, as he had dubbed it. The next ability he’d gotten was from a rock lizard that looked a lot like a gecko, except it was the size of a small truck. From it, Greg had gotten a camouflage ability, except it wasn’t of the chameleon kind. The beast, usually found in rocky areas, can turn its scales into any kind of stone based on the rocks around it. It can also stay still for days on end which is how it fools its prey into thinking that it’s just another boulder. While Greg didn’t have scales, he could turn his skin to stone in much the same way the lizard did with its scales. Like the lizard, this transformation was only good for camouflage. Skin turned to stone sounded like a formidable defense, until one considered the fact that human skin was only a few milliliters thick, if that. Even a mundane human with a decent enough punch could punch right through such a flimsy defense.

His third ability was from a strange quadruped that looked a lot like a gargoyle. Large bat ears, a pair of prominent, ashen-colored horns rising from its forehead, and a long prehensile tail that it can control just as easily as any of its other four limbs. The only thing missing was a pair of leathery bat-like wings to complete the ensemble. These beasts have a peculiar way of fighting. When faced with a threat, they will sink their hands into the ground and ‘pull out’ an earthen javelin which they will then lob at whatever the perceived threat is. Given that they can live in troops of fifty or more, a perceived threat can easily find themselves pinned with more than a hundred earthen javelins in short order. It isn’t that the beasts keep a cache of earthen javelins handy just below the ground. Instead, they have the ability to harden any type of earth they touch into the shape they want, which often, for the admittedly unintelligent beings, is a javelin. Unfortunately for Greg, he didn’t get to create instant javelins out of dirt. Instead, he only got the first half of the ability. So long as he concentrated on it, Greg could turn any earthen material harder by a factor of two or three times what it previously was.

The last one and the one that Greg was most excited about was a creature that looked a lot like a crab, though it didn’t live anywhere near the ocean. The thing was born a creature of flesh and blood. Over the course of its lifetime, however, it would consciously turn its flesh into some kind of Green crystal that was damn near unbreakable. The most peculiar part of it was that even after it was fully turned into crystal, the creature didn’t die. Given that he’d already encountered a deity-level being, Greg suspected that a being made entirely of crystal wouldn’t be the last peculiar being he encountered. From this being, Greg had gained the ability to turn parts of himself into that same crystal. Greg had been very careful in testing out this ability, not willing to permanently turn any part of himself into crystal.

He had started with his nails, not really expecting it to work seeing as nails were supposed to be dead. To his pleasant surprise, his nails had turned to crystal without any issue. He could even get the crystal nails to elongate and narrow into sharp points turning them into dangerous claws. And from the grooves left behind when he scratched at a wooden surface, they were just as strong as the crystal the beast made. Unfortunately for Greg, he also painfully learned that unless he reinforced the flesh into which the nail was embedded he would just rip the thing off, which is what he almost did. The experimentation, however, led to the discovery that his ability to change parts of himself into crystal was nowhere near as advanced as that of the actual creature.

For starters, when Greg finally got brave enough to try it on his actual flesh, he quickly learned that it wouldn’t be as easy as he’d expected. For one, it required a sustained infusion of mana to keep the transformation going. As soon as he stopped supplying mana to the transformed parts, it would quickly turn back to normal flesh. Secondly, and unsurprisingly, the more of his flesh that he turned to crystal, the more of his mana was consumed. At present, Greg could maintain the transformation of two fingers into crystal indefinitely. Beyond this, the rate at which he naturally generated mana was outpaced by the rate at which the transformation consumed mana. The most that Greg had managed was to turn his fists into crystal before the consumption got to be too much. And even that transformation, Greg could only maintain for thirty or so seconds before they turned back to normal fists.

“Anything new?” The healer’s voice brought Greg back to the present.

This time Greg had been given the beast-core of a creature that had to be this world’s equivalent of a porcupine. Unlike the ones from his former life, these ones could shoot their quills with enough force for them to punch through thick bark and sink almost six inches into the trunks of the trees around where they lived. There was no doubt in Greg that if aimed at a human, the things would go clean through!

“It’s a bit too soon to tell,” Greg replied with a smile. Not all of the innate spells that he'd gained had been apparent immediately. Some had taken days for Greg to discover. If he’d picked up something new from this latest beast-core assimilation, it wasn’t immediately obvious.

His teacher’s gaze moved to the clear glass orb that she usually kept attached to his head with a spell whenever he made use of the beast-cores. His mana pathways were reflected within the orb allowing the healer to monitor and keep track of their development. Something she did meticulously. “Just one more,” She offered a judgment after a while of studying the orb. “Your mana pathways are almost complete. You’ll probably only be able to squeeze in one more beast-core before you cross into the first tier,” She informed him.

Greg could only smile as excitement and anticipation built up within him. While he’d been able to make some use of the mana within him, it had always been severely limited so that he didn’t inadvertently cause some damage to his underdeveloped mana pathways or overly affect their development. Once he became a first-tier mage, he’d be able to explore his limits with no fear of doing himself irreparable damage. “And what will you want for that last core?” Greg asked. He had just used up the last beast core he had and would need to get another from his teacher. Greg could still remember the final core that his teacher had introduced as a means of testing her theory after he had assimilated the obsidian earthmover’s beast-core. That was the core he wanted to make use of before rising to the first tier.

As his teacher, it wouldn’t have been outlandish for him to expect her to be willing to offer the beast-core without requiring a trade. He, however, wasn’t willing to be a leech, least of all when it came to his teacher. Greg was certain that there were several things in the magic shop that she could benefit from. By making this exchange into a trade, he would be offering her a chance to ask for something she needed, ensuring they both benefitted from it.

A wry smile crossed the healer’s lips at his words. “It won’t be enough,” She said sounding a bit disappointed.

A brow arched on Greg’s face. “You are yet to quote a price. How can you be so certain I won't be able to meet it?” He asked.

“You misunderstand me,” His teacher answered shaking her head. “You are not the one who falls short in this trade, I am,” she said, eliciting even more confusion from Greg. With a sigh, her gaze dropped to the memory pearl she still held in her hands. “I cannot even begin to understand the depths of knowledge that the mind that came up with this ascension manual possesses. Just going over the first layer has left me with more ideas, and inspirations than I know what to do with. And vain as it may sound, to one with a mind such as mine, that is no small feat. It had overturned a lot of the things I held to be unshakable principles in magic and opened my eyes to new vistas that I never would have gotten to by myself,” She said.

Greg could see it in the healer’s eyes that none of her words were meant as flattery, she meant it in much the same way one would when saying that the sky is blue. She’d just spoken fact and no more. Greg couldn’t help but glance at the pearl in his teacher’s hands. Though they both had to pretend like they didn’t know her, Greg couldn’t help but wonder if it was Olivia’s true self who had put it together. She, after all, was in the perfect position to do so. She was the one who had perfected the sigil for his teacher, and so she must have known that it would produce a mage without a mana core. Given that she was something akin to immortal and the fact that her lifespan was measured in millennia, she probably had a wealth of magical knowledge and understanding that not even his teacher could hold a candle to. Who would be in a better position than her to come up with such a manual?

The mind that Greg encountered every time he sunk into the memory pearl felt masculine, but if even the avatar she left behind could morph into him, Greg doubted that it would be little more than child’s play for her original to hide her tracks that way. The only hole to his theory that Greg couldn’t find an answer to was the complete apathy to his fate that he’d seen in the primordial’s eyes back when the deity-level being showed him their first encounter. To Olivia’s true self, Greg was a curiosity and nothing more. Whether Greg made it or not, the primordial didn’t really care. Would she really go out of her way to come up with such a remarkable ascension manual for him in particular?

“Unfortunately for me, along with the heights that it has shown me, it has also shown me my limits,” His teacher continued. “The absence of a core in you makes it impossible for you to use those manuals that have a mana core as part of its circulation. Using an ascension manual not suited to you is like taking poisoned water in order to sate your thirst. You’ll be drastically shortening your path as a mage. To make it to the fourth-tier mage with an ascension manual not suited to you is nothing short of a miracle. Not that I was worried. I believed myself capable of developing a new ascension manual that both you, I, and everyone I will use the sigil to awaken could use to rise through the tiers. It would have been a challenge but I believed myself up to the task.”

“This manual showed me the true depths of my hubris and soundly disabused me of that notion! After seeing what it would take to come up with such a manual, I can’t see how I would have been able to come up with something even close to workable,” She admitted. Greg’s lips pressed together as it clicked in his mind what his teacher was saying. And true enough, she voiced it. “In short, Roka, outside of this manual, I don’t have an ascension manual that would suit me, let alone those I aim to recruit to my side. So, no Roka, a simple beast core would not be enough to trade for an ascension manual like this one,” She finally explained her words.

“Without you to guide me, that is little more than a fancy pearl in my hands. That you agreed to teach me is already payment enough,” Greg spoke calmly, feeling no pinch at giving up something that was apparently so valuable. They may have been teacher and student, but the relationship between them was nothing so formal. If he could help her out of such a serious bind simply by sharing the manual, it didn’t even occur to him to refuse.

A smile crossed his teacher's face and Greg could tell that she appreciated the gesture. Still, he could see the objection in her eyes even before she voiced it. “Even if I was shameless enough to accept that offer, Roka, it would only apply to me. And as you well know, I plan to create a force using this sigil, a force that will need an ascension manual if they are to be of any use to me. And that is to say nothing of the contract between us. I can’t take anything from you without offering something of equal value in exchange,” she said.

“You do remember that at present I only have the first layer of this manual, right?” Greg was quick to remind her. “I can’t in good faith trade with you for something that I’m yet to obtain,” He went on to add. Greg suspected that if he somehow got another perfect rating in the dungeon, he would get more layers of the manual. There were, however, several unknowns even with that guess. Were all dungeons capable of giving new layers to the manual or were they specific to certain dungeons? Would a second perfect rating from the same dungeon offer more than one layer of the manual? Would higher layers of the manual require more difficult dungeons? And so on. It was such that, Greg himself wasn’t sure when or how he would get more manuals. Which made it impossible for him to promise any to his teacher.

A smile crossed his teacher’s face. “That’s okay, somehow, I suspect that you will gain more layers with time,” she said knowingly. Greg knew that she thought that this was somehow a gift from the primordial and that he would gain more as he advanced. And given his own uncertainty, Greg couldn’t even deny this. “However, if it eases your mind, we can agree to trade for this first layer for now. Any new layer you gain in the future will be traded for then,” She offered. Greg didn’t see any issues with this and so he nodded in acceptance. “Okay then. What would you want for the first layer?” she posed.

“Greg was silent for a while trying to think of something that wouldn’t be too hard for the healer to give while still not making it too obvious what he had done. All of a sudden, an impish smile slowly crept onto his lips. A part of him tried to get him to reconsider, but that part was quickly shouted down by all the other parts. “Five cycles,” Greg stated, doing his best to keep a straight face and his voice steady. A brow arched on the healer's face, curiosity clear to be seen there. She however didn’t interrupt him. “For the next five cycles, I can kiss you whenever I want,” He said unable to keep himself from grinning like an idiot.

From the way her brows rose in genuine surprise, Greg could clearly see that of all the offers she’d been expecting this one hadn’t even featured on the list. “Kisses?” She uttered the word as if it tasted strange on her tongue, still unable to make sense of this request. “Are you sure that that’s the bargain you want to make for this ascension manual? “ She posed, somehow both amused and serious at the same time.

Greg was so tempted to keep his mouth shut and not say anything. It would have been oh so rewarding to do so, but in the end, he knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. If she was going to make this trade, Greg wanted her to do so knowingly. So he revealed the fine print that she had naturally overlooked. “I haven’t specified where I’ll be kissing,” Greg said unable to keep the devilish smile off his face. “I’m also not limited in how long I can kiss,” he added impishly, not hiding the way his eyes roamed over her body. “Not to mention, I see no reason why I can’t move where I kiss around,” He added with a shrug, the lascivious gleam in his eyes clear to be seen as he regarded his teacher…