Implode ~ 28!

You have benefited greatly from training under a Grandmaster!

Mana Manipulation has reached Student IX!

“You are already a Journeyman in Coalescence? You got there before you did so with Mana Manipulation?” For some reason, this seemed to intrigue the Dwarf greatly. “That is backward from nearly anyone else I have ever had the pleasure of discussing this skill with. Typically, that means you would have been using a large amount of power and not overly concerning yourself with its efficiency or functionality. Seeing what you have built… that does make sense. How have you been progressing since reaching that tier?”

“Not at all,” Joe told her straightforwardly, if somewhat sheepishly. “I can't seem to find anything that the skill counts as training with it, either.”

“A common complaint. Also, it is the answer to some of the issues that I have seen with your skills.” The Grandmaster reached out and tapped him on the forehead, right in the center of the golden eye tattoo. “Remember how I mentioned that your recent spell was ‘loud’? How do you think you could make it less so?”

“That would be… Mana Manipulation, would it not? Keeping it contained within the pathways that the spell is supposed to be using, and not allowing overflow?” Joe felt that this was the correct answer, even though it seemed like she was trying to get him to say that it was coalescence. He just could not fathom how it would fit.

“It is, in part.” Power swirled up from her hands, and he could see that she was directly altering the ambient mana to create a small illusion. “Imagine that the power flowing within you is like a river, and every time you are using a spell, it is equated to a flood.”

The illusion sent its water splashing over the boundaries and onto dry land, destroying tiny homes and drowning several people that had been within them. He could practically hear their screams as they were sucked underwater. “Do you need to make it so dark?”

“There are always consequences for failing to use power correctly.” There was unmistakable steel in Snow’s tone, so Joe decided to stop complaining and just listen. “You will also remember it better this way.”

New objects appeared in the illusion, large barriers that rose up along the riverbanks. Before he could start to question her, the Grandmaster continued to narrate softly. “Mana Manipulation can guide what is there, to a point. It can direct mana, it can keep mana within the channels as best as possible… but what happens when the flood is no longer contained within the scope it once was? In our example, that means a spell that has increased a tier in power.”

“It floods again? It goes right over the barriers that used to contain it?” Joe had an idea of where she was going with this, but he wanted to know instead of simply guessing.

“Indeed it does.” The image shifted to demonstrate the principle, and once more, tiny houses—these ones more grand than the first—were washed away. “This is where the two skills work in tandem. The river needs guidance, but it does not always need to be a straight path.”

In response to her commentary, the flat river lifted into the air, and the image became much more three-dimensional. The river, once a simple stream, was being guided in a new direction. Instead of a straight line, it coiled like a spring. The water surged just as powerfully as before, but no matter how much it tried to overflow and wash away the homes, it simply did not have the ability to escape the banks anymore. “This is not a perfect example, as water does not act in this way without incredible pressure or magic to guide it. Take the lesson; ignore the rest. When we look at the river from the perspective of the people living next to it, all they see is a trickle of water moving past. They do not see the lake's worth of water that is confined within every single step of the waterway.”

Joe's eyes were shining, but the lesson that he had learned was not exactly what she had been trying to teach him. “Do you mean to tell me… Coalescence isn’t just about crushing and compressing? If I start to purposefully shape the mana within me, will that work?”

“Well, doing so within your core-”

“I don't have a core, I have free-floating mana.” Joe rubbed his hands together and turned his attention to the energy flowing inside of him. “Yes… I think that’ll work perfectly.”

His internal mana structures had been a concern for him ever since he had broken away from the standard usage of an internal core for holding his power. Rather, it suffused him like a gas, constantly being refreshed by the ambient mana and filling him up like a water bottle. He had assumed, apparently incorrectly, that in order for his coalescence skill to reach higher ranks, he would need to convince his body to act more like an air compressor. Simply force the air molecules closer together, and bam! More air per square inch—though of course, this was mana.

But now, with the information he had just gleaned from the Grandmaster, he realized that perhaps he could give his mana some structure. He would just need to make sure that he did so in a way that continued to feel ‘free’ to him. “Start small, advance from there.”

He was not expecting huge increases in the skill. Not only did he not have someone actively teaching it to him, but it was already at the Journeyman rank. All increases from here on out would require a huge amount of time, and he needed to ensure that the power flowing through him was ideally arranged, head to toe, through every molecule in his body.

Thinking about his actual body gave him an idea of how to shape his mana. “Human bodies are used to double helixes, right? It's literally in our DNA…”

Using his Mana Manipulation to grab the smallest possible unit of mana within him, he attempted to twist them into threads and wind them together. Didn't work; at least, it did not stay the way that he wanted it to. As soon as his attention was off of it, all of the work was undone, unraveling in an instant. “Okay, that makes sense. Even DNA contains a ladder structure, but I don't think that would work for my ‘free’ influenced mana.”

Deciding not to overthink it, he simply grabbed a third chunk of mana and produced a braid instead of winding it. When he let it go, it stayed in place. At first, he thought he had discovered the solution, but then a notice popped up.

15 mana reserved for ‘mana braid’.

“Drat. That was supposed to bind it together, not make it impossible to use.” Just before he undid the process and started over, he was startled as a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he found the Grandmaster nose-to-nose with him.

“What did you just do?”

“I am trying to generate a pattern that my mana will accept, but all I succeeded in doing was putting the mana to the side in a reserved state.” Joe pointed at his chest. “I was just about to let it go-”

“Wait. I think you are onto something.” Once more, she lifted a hand and created an illusion in the air. “Describe to me exactly how you made it.”

It was extremely simple to explain, so she made a model of it without difficulty. Then, inspecting it, she pointed out a few glaring issues. “Of course this is considered unusable as it stands. Once it is contained in a braid like this, it has no more input and nowhere to output. If you instead used it like this, I think it would function.”

In her image, the tiny braid turned into a huge weave that expanded until it shaped a man. An instant later, it zoomed out slightly and Joe was looking at himself from the outside. The Grandmaster was mumbling under her breath, and markings appeared in the air around him, mathematical equations that were created and destroyed in the blink of an eye. “I think I've got it. This is a doozy. I don't think you will be able to accomplish this in an area like Alfheim. In order for you to use this style of pattern, you will need to practically give up the use of mana until it is functionally complete.”

“Sounds like I'm going to go ahead and give up on making that in favor of something else, then,” Joe informed her smoothly, “There has to be something that will allow me to retain access to my power while simultaneously increasing the skill.”

“Hold on… this may look simple because I demonstrated it so rapidly, but remember that I am a Grandmaster.” Snow tapped on the image, and it *clinked* as though she were tapping on glass. He had no idea how she had solidified an energy source, but he kind of wanted that ability for himself. “If you were able to complete this, it would catapult both your Coalescence and Mana Manipulation into the Master Ranks.”

Silence reigned for a long moment as Joe wrestled with how willing he was to give up his power, even for a short time. The end benefit sounded good, but what would he need to do to reach it? “How long would it take to put this in place, do you think?”

She tapped at her mustache, thinking through her answer. “You will not lose access to all of your mana at once, only what is reserved. Until you reach a certain point, you will simply have an incrementally smaller pool to draw upon. The first step would be creating a weave just like this at skin level. Upon completion of that initial layer, any mana in your system would be trapped within, unable to escape. I believe that you would still be able to pull ambient mana in, but you would simply have no way to access it. Pressure would build up, and eventually it would kill you-”

“I'm liking this less and less. How about-”

“I haven't finished,” the Grandmaster chastised him, her flashing eyes leaving no doubt that another interruption would be the end of the conversation entirely. “As soon as you've finished the external weave, you would be racing a time limit to complete the inner one. You would not need to worry about ambient influences anymore, and you would have gained plenty of experience in creating the first layer. Everything after that would only move exponentially faster, until you saved yourself from yourself.”

Snow’s face broke into a wide smile, “By my estimates, if you managed to bring your Mana Manipulation to the Expert rank before you fully closed yourself off, you would be able to complete the rest of the weave within three months. You would be cutting it close… but I think you could do it. The rewards… would be amazing.”

“All of this from a braid?” He wouldn't lie, he was intrigued by what she was describing. “It's a simple structure…”

“Profoundly simple,” she concurred as the pattern was imprinted into a piece of enchantment paper; carved there by her incredibly precise manipulation. “Here, I made it into a guide book that you can study. If you choose to follow this path, know that I will someday wish to analyze the results.”

Joe stared in amazement at the book that had been handed to him so casually, its cover shining with power that seemed to be barely contained.

Grandmaster Snow’s Guide to Mastery of Mana. (Legendary). This is a skill book designed specifically for Joe the Excommunicated as a reward for not attempting to lay claim to various artifacts and historical relics stored within the Sage’s Summit. While it is not a soul-bound item, no one else may make use of this particular set of instructions. Don't lose it!

“If this is a gift, it is… way too much.” Joe looked up from the tome, forced to tear his eyes from the cover. “I have no idea when I'm going to be able to use this, or when it will be safe to do so.”

“So save it for later.” She waved away his thanks dismissively. “Rent a room in a hotel on a higher world where no one knows you, and lock yourself away until you can make the time to complete it. In the meantime, at least practice with it. It's going to do you no good trying to jump straight into a final product. You will need to weave, tear apart, and weave again, until it is so instinctual that you can do it at even the smallest level within you.”

“It'll be good training for my skills… even if I never use it the way you intend.” Joe sent the book into his codpiece, thanked the Grandmaster, and turned back to his study of rituals as she shrugged, winked, and withdrew to rejoin the historians and various members of her city who were trying to catalog what items ought to leave their history and step into the present age.