D.G. - Chapter 258 - INTO THE DEPTHS

“Setting aside the horrifying prospect of what you mean by experiments, you can't be serious about us fighting tier sevens,” Olive half-joked, “Those are two tiers above me and y-ahk!” Her complaint was cut short as her mana rebelled, seizing her vocal chords in an iron grip. Not that she needed to complete her thought. They all knew what challenger density was and how dangerous it would be for them to absorb it.

While Olive rubbed her throat, Jiran shook his head, “I didn't say you'd be fighting them. We need to know where they are though. Have to make sure there's no danger of them breaking into a populated zone. Also, anything lower than tier seven might not give me accurate data.”

“Data?” Olive frowned at the unfamiliar word.

“Results,” Mayalyn supplied while approaching the unconscious Mathayes. “What is wrong with him? His emotions are highly conflicted. He does not smell wounded, nor does he appear to be sleeping normally.”

“That’s my fault,” Jiran admitted without a shred of guilt, “He was one of my first tests for Mana Venom.” While he knelt over the man, Jiran shared the full description of the skill through his Party System interface. Both girls fell silent, eyes closed to read the text that appeared inside their eyelids.

Mana Venom: Inject intent-laced mana directly into another entity to administer a variety of effects. Including, but not limited to: Paralysis, rapid cellular degradation, hallucinations, memory loss, death. WARNING: Unknown side effects may occur in subjects below user’s tier

While the girls gasped in shock, Jiran explained, “I went for a non-lethal mixture of memory loss and hallucinations. My intent was for him to view me as the most trustworthy person he could imagine, and he sorta assumed I was the Voice itself,” Jiran stretched out his hand and placed it on Mathayes’s head.

Olive choked out a bubble of hysterical, concerned laughter, then cleared her throat, “T-that must have been an interesting conversation.”

“Interesting. Sure. That’s as good a way to say it as any,” with furrowed brows, Jiran connected with the venom still inside Mathayes. As with all skills, the unwritten portions of the descriptions were the most important. In Mana Venom’s case, there were several key factors he discovered the hard way. For starters, the skill somehow upgraded the Concentration of his mana by a tier, making it both incredibly difficult to control at even the shortest range, and able to affect those stronger than himself.

The range issue he had managed to overcome with the use of masterium—complex, multi-faceted formation-like gems liberated from the parasitized Meersvants. Unfortunately, the last of those gems had been turned directly into mana when Armament transformed his body into a living ice elemental.

As expected, the venom resisted his efforts to reprogram its functionality. After the rote attempt, Jiran created a new glob of Mana Venom. He fed it the intent to devour his old venom, along with a few new effects and then unleashed it upon Mathayes. Thanks to his practice against the Templari and tier ten Burgheist Defiler poison, Jiran’s new venom quickly swept through Mathayes. 

Mana Omnis allowed him to transparently watch the process of his skill both eating and infecting at the same time. In short order, Mathayes’s brain was enveloped in the new venom and he woke up. His eyes snapped open and his body went rigid, though he remained laying on the floor. He looked straight at the ceiling with a glassy, unfocused gaze. 

Jiran snapped his fingers above his face, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Mathayes’s voice was emotionless to the point of sounding mechanical.

Awesome! Wasn’t sure if he would be able to talk through so many restrictions.

“Sit up,” Jiran’s instruction was followed immediately. Mathayes’s torso rose at a ninety degree angle, then he remained motionless, back stiff as a board.

“That is so creepy, Jiran,” Olive’s whisper was accompanied by her jowls stretching down in a cringe.

Jiran waved her off, continuing his experiments, “Do you remember who you are?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember where the underground chamber with the tier seven beasts is?”

“Yes.”

Jiran slid to the side, interposing himself between Mathayes and Mayalyn, “You may move freely at the standard speed of a tier five.” Mathayes didn’t respond in any way, giving Jiran more confidence, “Lead us to the tier seven chamber.”

Without a word, Mathayes’s body rose as if hands gripped him under the arms and pulled him to his feet. He stiffly walked out of the small chamber at an uncomfortable clip for Mayalyn. Jiran scooped her up in his aura, carrying her along behind them as they hurried after.

Mathayes stopped only a few feet into the tunnel. Turning to the side, he tapped at a specific brick in the wall. Jiran saw the flare in his manapool but it was such a tiny thread of mana he didn’t stop it. A tightly wound cord of elemental fire, ice and metal was Channeled through his finger and into the brick. It shot through the stone and then several meters into seemingly solid bedrock before finding a cleverly hidden formation. Since the formation was so small and devoid of mana, Jiran hadn’t noticed it with his aura, nor Mana Omnis.

It rumbled to life now, repurposing the specifically coded elemental energy into several new threads that it spit out in multiple directions. Each new thread connected with more formations, and the process repeated until the wall melted before their eyes, reshaping into a new tunnel that led off into the distance.

“Fascinating. What an intricate set of formations. Who made them?” Jiran’s question went unanswered as Mathayes sped down the new dark passage.

Only two commands at a time. Got it.

They followed, Jiran being more active with his aura’s overwhelming senses to spot additional hidden formations. Mayalyn’s ears and nose twitched as she peered around him to continue observing the man. She gasped and her brows rose as if remembering something important, “You turned him into a zoombye!” Thankfully, Jiran’s aura allowed him to ‘see’ her adorable expression in exacting detail.

She’s way too cute.

He chuckled, realizing he would rather experience death again than correct her pronunciation. Easily picking up on his feelings in the tight hallway, her large eyes expanded and the irises contracted into slits. Her tail lashed back and forth, a low, predatory growl escaping her throat. Both Jiran and Olive straightened, hairs on their arms instinctively prickling from the animalistic sound.

“Mayalyn!” Olive hissed, pure panic taking over as she refused to look anywhere other than Mathayes’s back.

Mayalyn immediately calmed herself, relaxing into Jiran’s aura, “Sorry. I am unused to such close quarters with both of you at once. Also, it is my last week. The most difficult time. I will try harder.”

Olive sighed deeply, nervously glancing at Jiran but he admirably kept his cool. He wasn’t used to being so close to both of them either and the tension was palpable, though in the best way possible. In a rare display of magnanimity, Jiran kept his mouth shut, withholding the several comments that came to mind, each with the capacity to make their innocent princess turn a thousand shades redder.

They traveled in silence for a time, giving him a chance to consider what he planned to do when they arrived. In the last battle, he nearly died from the bargheist’s poison. To save himself, Jiran was forced to take a gamble and upgrade Mana Confluence to Mana Transcendence. As usual, the description of the skill left much to be desired.

Mana Transcendence: Allows for the manipulation of mana. Removes mana potentiality limiters.

So far, there were no noticeable differences between the old skill and new. He could still freely control the flow of his mana in and out of his body; the latter a feat unheard of by any of the unevolved races Jiran had so far encountered. Additionally, he could reduce the Concentration of his mana, or increase it to his current cap of fifty-four. The actual process of controlling mana, at least for Jiran, was similar to willing a puddle of invisible, immaterial liquid to move, and it actually obeying the command.

Mana itself was a ticky devil to understand. As far as Jiran knew, it could only be created by sapient creatures and beasts, as he had yet to observe it anywhere else in nature. It was an artificial substance born from a mixture of density and intent, capable of moving through any matter less Concentrated than itself. Despite not being alive in the classical sense, mana held an innate level of intelligence. Not only could it easily interpret the desires of its wielders, creating almost anything imaginable, it also obfuscated attempts to examine it on a microscopic scale.

Density was no easier to understand. It also eluded direct observation, while coming in several variants. Ambient density was the kind most people were familiar with. Its origins were a mystery, and it shared many similarities with mana while being entirely different. It couldn’t be directly manipulated without first coming into contact with existing mana. Even then, it could only be moved around, or drawn into the body via breathing and eating. Once there, it existed only to be converted into either mana or Growth. As Growth, density empowered the body, increasing mass along with the attributes which governed the physical form.

Their tunnel opened into a vast chamber with dozens of other connecting tunnels. As Mathayes chose one that sloped steeply downhill, Jiran closed one eye to review his current attributes.

STRENGTH: 541 (Maximum physical output)

AGILITY: 541 (Speed, grace, and visual tracking)

ENDURANCE: 541 (Maximum anaerobic strain before body failure)

DURABILITY: 541 (Fortitude of the body and mind)

WISDOM: 541 (Control of mana and skills. Speed of mana flow)

INTELLIGENCE: 541 (Fluidity and speed of thought. Memory retention)

Usually, a tier five like Jiran would start with 160 in each attribute, then reach 320 once Growth was capped. Since his Growth was still sitting at near zero, he had a long way to go to reach his maximum of 1080. Typically, Growth was accrued over a long period of time by eating equal or higher-tiered meat, then allowing the consumed density to gradually integrate with the body. 

Jiran’s usual method to shortcut the time restriction was consuming challenger density. This of course came with several deadly drawbacks. Not only would it start a countdown to a one-way ticket into a life and death arena, challenger density came in the form of an instant, euphoric, and highly addicting injection.

While dangerous, there were multiple benefits to the arenas, and Jiran had no plans to skip one this tier either. However, he was in no hurry to rush off to another near-death scenario without first gaining a solid grasp of his current skills. While it was possible he could muddle through until his Growth maxed out the normal way, the recent revelation about his curse dragging him into constant danger had him doubting that plan.

He needed to quickly raise his Growth without challenger density, and that meant absorbing massive quantities of ambient density. He’d run a few quick tests while waiting for Olive earlier, just enough to realize that he had no idea what he was doing.

The first was pulling the density in the air to his skin and holding it there with a blanket of mana. Since his Remalonian Constitution allowed his skin to absorb density, it seemed like a decent start. After collecting and absorbing all the ambient density within the range he could easily manipulate mana, he received all of .001% Growth. 

The terrible conversion ratio made perfect sense. Ambient density wasn’t compressed, meaning it had to be compacted to match his current Concentration before being absorbed. This was exactly the reason people preferred to eat beasts their tier or higher.

MANA: 150

CONCENTRATION: 54

While scratching his chin at the problem, Jiran stumbled upon possibly the most brilliant idea of his life. Everyone knew that the body naturally converted density to mana. It was a process few understood, and one of Jiran’s first discoveries upon gaining memories of a past life.

He used to have to form a chemical connection (via emotions) with the density in his body to form mana. As a Remalon, his mana was free-flowing and always directly connected to his brain. The lightest thought could attach any portion of his mana to the density around or in him, instantly converting it to more mana. Since Armament was an endless devourer of mana, and his instincts constantly screamed at him to fill that never-ending hole, he had yet to fully focus on his Growth.

Which all led back to Mana Transcendence, and the universally accepted principle that density converted into mana, and not the other way around. But why should such a one way concept hinder a skill that literally stated it removed the limits of mana?

The answer was simple: it shouldn’t, and it didn’t.

The moment Jiran had the idea, he pulled a filament of mana free from his body and imposed his will upon it. And just like that, the first sentiently created density was formed. 

Mana Transcendence: +6

During his shock at the huge gain in his new skill's levels, he lost control of the newly created density. As it was no longer mana, it had no reason to obey his commands and began to disperse into the air. A bubble of mana trapped it, bringing it back into position.

Disappointingly, the quantity created was nowhere near what it should have been considering how much mana he sacrificed. Jiran wasn’t flustered by such a minor setback. His ignorance of both mana and density were vast, and on Madra, knowledge equaled power. When he grew powerful enough for gaze to see density in all its glory, he was positive his conversion ratio would receive a massive bump. What was important was that he had been successful at all, opening a whole universe of possibilities in the process.

Far in the distance, a steady glow banished the darkness. Unable to understand what he was looking at from so far, Elemental Castigation formed a gently-curved surface of elemental light. It hovered in the air before them, magnifying their view. 

The marble and stone tunnel ended abruptly, widening into a massive cavern. The light came from a forest of gargantuan, glowing mushrooms. Around them, the shadows of stalking beasts could be seen through a thick fog. At tier seven, their priceless bodies were packed to bursting with delicious density.

They would be the perfect subjects to further his budding knowledge.