Chapter 261 - 5-5-7-8

After Timothy figured out that the Air Roots were effective, progress was inevitable! He knew that he'd progress even more if he ate the remaining root, but of course this also meant that he had to suffer through hallucinations again, and he wasn't ready to do that just yet. He needed to rest first, perhaps eat as well, otherwise he might just go insane if he sped this process up!

Timothy simply healed the minor brain damage that he had experienced, and then went upstairs, to the main floor, where he met with his friends. Judging from their overall, positive attitude, the alchemical attempts they’ve made were a great success!

“You can’t be this happy about the bug meat,” He joined them, “Did the potions turn out well?”

“Oh, heck yes, Terrence!” Ortana remarked, as she continued celebrating. “I had a flash upgrade an hour ago!”

“So you skipped the pain all together? Now that’s the real shit! Too bad this bug infested, shit of a pomegranate-looking land can’t give us some wine so we can celebrate properly.” He followed along.

Regarding the flash upgrade, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. Her mana pool had been almost full to begin with, because they hadn’t spent too much mana throughout these past couple of weeks, so their pools had plenty of time to fill up. Not to mention, this realm gave them twice the amount of mana per hour, for some reason. In this case, once she drank a whole potion, she got so much mana in her pool, within a mere minute, to the point where it led to a flash upgrade!

Ortana had skipped the painful process of initiating the upgrade manually, and this was worth celebrating, because manual upgrading was one of the most painful, humiliating ways to push through levels. One would have to be naked, in seclusion, and would scream through the entire night because of the pain. It wasn’t an ideal method for advancing mages.

Now, Ortana met with her mana bracket, and it was difficult to work around this fact, but she was happy nonetheless. Based on her success, the rest of the team were then convinced to drink the mana potions as well, a bottle each.

Ortana had managed to make ten of them, each potion weighing about half a litre. She hadn’t wasted too many ingredients on them either, so she’d be able to make a lot more bottles if she chose to do so. She was good with plants, so to say.

Timothy drank a potion. It went down as smoothly as water would, and afterwards, the system was quick to flash a notification in front of his eyes!

[+450,000 mana points!] She beeped.

“That’s some strong shit,” He grunted, as the potion started feeling like a rock at the bottom of his stomach.

A moment later, just as he expected, he experienced a flash upgrade! His friends did as well, so now, they were at the level they had been a few weeks ago, before they had sacrificed a level of their mana quality in order to shapeshift into Sailfish. They were over the moon!

Timothy bounced back to level five of the Adept Arcana realm of mana, and he felt a bit more powerful already. Skendus followed along, and got to the same level.

Gustav went up to level seven in the same realm, crossing his otherwise very powerful friends. He may not be as smart as them, but certain genetic aspects of him being a Fal Goblin, certainly helped him reach a higher level before he met with his mana bracket. He was happy.

Trumping everyone else here was Ortana, who got back to level eight in the Adept Arcana realm of mana! She was the most powerful here when it came to mana quality, and if it wasn’t for the mana bracket, she would’ve even jumped over to the next realm of mana! She may be more eager than anyone else to remove her mana bracket, and she had plenty of reasons to feel that way. The gods might be teasing her after all, or they may be not, because after all, her advantage in mana quality stemmed from the fact that she could summon celestial spears. She wasn’t a normal mage, not to the slightest.

Overall, if Arvena got lucky with her research and figured out how to remove the collective mana brackets that were taunting the team, then they may fly through this realm all together! They’d be adept mages, and it’s very definition, so they were hopeful that Arvena would give them good news once they go in the Phantom World and meet her a few weeks from now.

Anyway, regarding Purpureus Mundi and the spontaneous visit that the team made here, it became more and more apparent that there was little else to do here. Timothy wasn’t any closer to entirely grasping how the flow of time rolled here in Mundi, and this itself limited his activities severely due to the sole fact that he was, in a way, locked in time! There was only so much he could get out of this castle’s limited library as well, and when that fact was paired with a multitude of other reasons, he decided that it was best to avoid touching the topic of ‘time’ all together, at least for now! He didn’t feel competent enough to crack the code.

With that said, he could either work with Ortana, and learn what she had figured out about the craft of alchemy so far, or he could play with the concept of telekinetic abilities a bit more. Either option was good, but it also cited that their time here in Mundi was limited, because after those couple of things, there wouldn’t be anything else for the team to do, or practice. They had to get back to the main universe soon, and tackle the huge task that was waiting for them here!

Timothy didn’t feel like consuming psychedelics again today, so after the team took a series of naps, lasting a few hours each, he put Ortana into work. He wanted to pick up on the joys of normal alchemy, and learn it as best as he could. He had a hunch that it was more interesting than phantom alchemy, and he wanted to see for himself!

“What are we going to do about the dwarves?” She asked, as they made their way to the castle’s basement.

“I don’t trust them as far as I can fucking throw them,” He said, “From what I understand, they have what it takes to have this castle collapse over our heads! Their arsenal shouldn’t be taken lightly, in war, and in peace.”

Timothy said that, but then again, he started becoming philosophical about the matter. Under a certain perspective, he understood that life would be present in this universe, regardless of the timeline it was in, which hinted that life itself was supposed to be present here, always, regardless of the settings! With that considered, it sounded cruel to wipe out a certain species, just because they may be threatening to him, or more attuned to the universe than he was. It was easy to fall into contradictions while toying with this topic, so he didn’t know what to think about it just yet, his fat brain was clogged!

For now, he only hoped that the dwarves remained peaceful. Their behaviour alone might help him avoid many ethical dilemmas that he did not wish to indulge in!