There were two guards at the doorway, but they weren't checking people going in. I guess they are more of a passive security than an active one. They were both heavily armed and could probably snap me in two. We passed them and entered the massive tower. There was a short stone-arched pathway before we entered the library proper. When I saw the sheer size of the collection of books that lined the walls with a path spiraling around I think I forgot to breath. There were also three book lined pillars in the center of the building that also had spiraling paths going up them. If I had to describe the library in one word it would be “Colossal”. I don't know how much time had passed but we were kinda standing at the entrance for a while completely enraptured by the massive scale of the library. Eventually Roderick broke the silence.
“Holy shit.” he said, “You see how big it is on the outside, but it doesn't hit you til you see this”
I nodded, and looked around. A library this big has got to have some sort of system in place to aide in the hunt for a specific book or topic. The bottom floor had tables scattered all over the place, take up about half the space left. Many of the desks had dwarves seated at them seated at them with a stack of books in front of them doing research. Directly in front of us, though, was something that resembled a receptionist. There was an ancient looking dwarf seated there in plain looking robes with a gigantic open book in front him and he was writing in it while occasionally placing his wrinkled old finger onto a blue crystal floating next to him. I walked up to him.
"Excuse me, this is our first time here and we could use some help.” I said. The old dwarf looked up from the book and the first thing I noticed was his eyes, the iris was like liquid gold. He looked us up and down several times.
“ My name Thrum and I am the keeper of this collection. It's 10 copper per hour for a desk, books cannot be taken out of the tower.” he began to explain, “There is a sorting crystal at each desk that can be used to locate the books or topics you need. We do not carry skill books, but we do purchase them along with other books you have that we don't already possess. Our prices are fair, and likely the best you will find in all of Hammerdown. Are you here to sell or study?”
I sighed, nothing in life is free after all. I looked over to Morden, “We should probably get our own tables and do our own research then compare notes afterwards. Those desks don't look big enough to accommodate more than 1 or 2 at a time.” He nodded.
“Yeah, that would probably cut our time in half,” He said, “Roderick can come with me and either help me or do his own thing” He looked at Roderick.
“I'll help you out, I doubt I will find anything to help my build out here, but mana is a pretty universal resource so it never hurts to know a bit about it.” Roderick said.
“Alright,” I said, “See you guys in 3 hours.” I paid Thrum for 3 hours of use and he gave me a card with a desk number. It took me a few moments to figure out how the desks were numbered, but once I figured it out I was able to find my desk pretty quickly after that. It was a well worn, dark brown wooden desk with a matching chair. It looked functional and sturdy, but not very decorative. Floating in one of the corners of the desk was a blue crystal like the one Thrum had. I placed my finger on it like I saw Thrum doing before, and a window popped up that looked exactly like a digital database of a library. I typed “Mana Cultivation” into the search bar and hit “Search”
Apparently there are about 500 books in this library on that topic alone. A credit to sheer size of this place I suppose. I refined my search to focus on beginner's guides. There were still 150 results though. Ok, fine, fuck you library. I picked out two books one called, “Mage's compendium of Mana Cultivation- Acolyte edition” and the other “Theoretical Medical Applications of Mana Cultivation.” For shits and giggles I also Picked out a book on generic mana theory called “Rukbar's Mana Research.” As for whether or not any of these are any good I have no idea, there were no notes about the quality of the material in the Sorting Crystal.
Thankfully it did have a detailed description on where the books were located. They were only on the second floor of one of the pillars. All in all, it took about 10 minutes to pick out the books and find them. I sat down at my desk and cracked open “Rukbar's Mana Research” first. I've never read a book that was both interesting and utterly boring before, but this one was. The information regarding mana was both very detailed and brought up some interesting possibilities while at the same time presented in the driest possible way. After an hour of reading I felt a bit more confident about what mana was and how it work at the most basic level. Apparently, blue is not the color of pure mana which I found odd. Almost every game I have ever played used blue for the color of pure mana. According to Rukbar's research it was supposedly black in it's purest form. Not sure I agree with that, but it's something to go on.
Next up were the two books on actual cultivation, they were definitely more fun to read than Rukbar's book. While I was reading through them I was comparing and contrasting the methods between the books. They both pretty much started out the same way saying that before cultivation can begin a mana core must be formed first. The formation of a mana core isn't actually that complicated though. You just have to concentrate enough mana into a single point in the body, usually the brain and one will form when a certain concentration of mana is reached. You have to be in a meditative state to do so, however. From there they begin to differ greatly. The compendium says to continue focusing on the core and build it up as high as you can while forming pathways to allow it to better flow through the brain. Makes sense, the mind is the focal point of spell casters. The medical book was a bit different though, it focused on forming complicated pathways throughout the entire body to spread the mana flow our across the whole body while forming special points in the hands. These points are designed to amplify healing magic focused through the hands.
Naturally I picked the one book almost tailor fight for Morden. I'll be passing this along to Morden later. It wasn't a waste of time for me though, a side-effect of these pathways seems to be increased physical abilities and improved self healing while circulating mana. The design of the points for healing could probably be modified for offensive purposes too. With all the books finished, I still have about an hour before my time is up. I looked around and everyone was focused on their own studies. I shifted to a comfortable sitting position and closed my eyes. Might as well give the formation process a try while I have the materials at hand. Besides, I have an idea about how to get the purest mana possible to form my core.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I followed the meditation method that both books recommended to use and soon enough I was looking down at my own body surrounded by a bright blue mist. Sweet, cultivation is a mini-game! I focused on the mist and found I could move it pretty easily. I formed a small vortex in front of me and created a ball of the mana mist approximately the size of a basketball. I then began condensing the ball to make the mana denser and denser. In a few minutes I had a black ball about the size of a tennis ball. Still though, I kept pressing it together to make it smaller and smaller. My theory is pretty silly if you think about it. In the real world a chemically diluted form of silver is blue, and it's black when oxidized. So I believe the color of pure mana is silver. Makes more sense than black in my opinion, and I hope the developers and I are on the same wavelength here. Sure enough when the ball was condensed to the size of a marble it looked a lot like liquid silver. I then took that ball and moved it into the center of my creepily transparent body. I was greeted by a series of windows.
You have created a Mana core: Low-Quality Pure Core
Your mana has increased by 100
You have gained the skill: Meditation lvl 1
I ended the meditation and open my eyes. A massive grin spread across my face. I love being right, it's such a wonderful feeling. I checked the HUD clock and it was about time to meet back up with Morden and Roderick. I took the books back to there shelves and headed to the exit, still grinning. Morden and Roderick were already there.
“From that shit-eating grin you have I guess you found something good.” Roderick said.
“Hell yeah I did,” I said, “I found out that my build idea is plausible and something good for Morden.”
“What IS your build plan Duran?” Roderick asked. I gave him a massive grin before responding.
“Tell you later,” I said,” but first I found something that Morden needs to hear about.
I went on to explain everything I read about mana cultivation and went into explicit detail regarding the mana points that could be used to amplify healing magic through the hands. Morden was listening very closely at that part. When I was done he started going over everything he and Roderick were able to find. It turns out that everyone knows pure mana is silver and the book I picked up was basically out of date garbage. I couldn't help but face palm when heard that. The rest was just different designs for mana pathways. It seems like everyone has their own opinions on which is best and what to focus on.
“I kinda wanna start building my pathways and try and solo one of the Rockeaters.” I said as we exited the library, “want to watch me die a horrible death?”
We all shared a laugh at that, but they agreed. Morden was also eager to get started since he now knew that forming the core increases your mana pool. We worked our way back to the Rockeater tunnel and I sat down outside and went into the meditative state. The first step in forming the pathways is to gather mana so I followed the same method as before to created the silver marble. I then used that mana to form 3 pathways that went in a helix pattern out the bottom of my core and drew them down towards my heart. There I drew out a pattern that caused the mana to flow into the heart itself. I barely had enough mana in the marble to do it, but it was complete. My plan is to use my brain as the storage for my mana, but then use the heart to pump it throughout the body. It's not as thorough as building the complex pathways in the medical book, but sometimes simple is better, and if it's not, then I can alter it later. I didn't have to time to experiment with my idea for the offensive mana points though. Probably for the best though, trying too much at once would probably fuck me over in the long term.
I ended my meditation and stood up. I then began to circulate my mana as described in the books. I instantly felt energized and lighter on my feet. There was no window this time, but that's probably because the pathways aren't complete yet. Morden was still lost in meditation, but Roderick looked bored standing there waiting for us.
“Hey Roderick,” I said, “Let's get stupid!”
I ran into the tunnel, I could hear Roderick laughing and following me. I charged ahead towards one of the Rockeaters not in combat with another player. There was no rock throwing, or intricate plan. I just rammed into it's side as hard as I could. Surprisingly the beast was thrown several feet away with cracks in it's sscales. It did not flip over though. It roared and did it's rolling charge aimed straight for me. This time I didn't dodge, I planted my feet firmly and got into a low stance. As soon as it got in range I thrust forward with both palms and got a grip on the spinning creature. Instead of trying to completely stop the Rockeater I used my low stance as leverage and flipped it over my head into the wall in a pseudo suplex. I turned and saw it sprawled out, clearly stunned from the impact. Instead of rushing in to beat it to death I instead walked over to it and waited for the stun to end.
When it did, the Rockeater got to it's feet and snarled at me. Apparently it was smart enough realize it was being toyed with. I lunged forward and started throwing heavy punches into it as often as I could while dodging, sometimes successfully, out of the way of it's teeth and claws. It's stone like scales were strong and I had yet to actually deal anymore damage to it outside of the initial charge. I used the knowledge gained about mana to activate my racial ability for the first time. My skin turned grey as it hardened into stone. This wouldn't last long, but it might be enough to break those scales. I ducked as the creature used my momentary distraction as a chance to attack. With my new defense buff and the boost of energy I was getting from the Mana circulation I went all in on offense. I stopped dodging and just laid into the Rockeater. It's scales cracked and shattered under my stone reinforced fists. What was an even fight between dwarf and beast became a one-sided beat down and the Rockeater's defenses crumbled and it's claws and teeth could no longer dig in deep enough for a serious wound. It gave one last desperate attempt as it lunged for my throat. Unfortunately for the Rockeater, all it met was an upper-cut that slammed it jaws shut. I felt a sickening crunch as it's jaw shattered from the impact. I ignored the experience windows as I stood there over the dead Rockeater. My skin turned back to normal and I looked over to Roderick covered in cuts with only 20% of my HP left.
“THAT was a blast!” I said half-laughing