Chapter 201 - Dark Mana

Timothy may have risked his biscuit a lot recently, it was especially stupid for him to explore the deep seas alone, but he did so anyway, despite his massive IQ that may advise him otherwise. He survived the attempts he made, regardless of the odds that were stacked against him, however, after destroying that giant squid, in all his confidence, he decided that he'd rather not leave his bony den for a while.

The den was safe, it was thick, it was secure. So, after filling his belly with about forty pounds of squid meat, he then left its massive carcass behind, and headed for the den.

“No point in dragging that bastard around, I can't lift a twenty-ton squid, nah. Mother nature's gonna have to use it as a heavy, late dinner.” He thought to himself, but at this rate, he was mentioning mother nature so much that she might strike him down at some point.

Anyway, although his words were edgy, he meant well. The Old Sea had an endless amount of hungry creatures, and their collective stomachs were like bottomless pits, so by leaving several tons of food for other creatures to nibble on, he was actually doing hundreds of souls a favor! Sure, he may eventually run into, and kill the same creatures that he had fed this week, but he wasn’t short on good deeds nonetheless!

“Let’s hope the Sea Orcs don't get to it first, they'll tear through that squid in an hour, two max…” He thought.

Anyway, after he got to the den, he saw that his friends were still asleep, so he decided to use the opportunity to buy that expensive ability. He'd rather buy weird upgrades without being watched over, so this peaceful moment was the perfect chance for him to do so!

“System, give me the Master's Will upgrade. It's now or never.” He requested.

[Confirmed,] The system dinged.

Tim expected to get knocked out cold, on the count of how expensive the purchase was, but that was not the case. He was not upgrading the abilities that he already had here, but he was buying a completely new ability, and this had little to no pretext to cause him pain. He was fine.

However, the process wasn't short either. The thing about fully-necromantic abilities was that, it was oftentimes a bad idea to own them, because they affected one's mana, permanently!

Specifically, a portion of his mana was being converted into dark mana! Now the dark mana wasn't invasive, so it only took refuge on five-percent of his mana pool, but it was present nonetheless, and therefore frowned upon!

If Timothy chose to buy more necromantic abilities in the future, then his mana pool would be covered with a greater percentage of darkness! Not only would this strain his actual mana pool, preventing him from using his non-necromantic abilities properly, but this ‘darkness’ would also have a greater influence in his brain, and thus, making him more and more evil, in the most literal sense possible! It was a delicate battle.

Anyway, the process didn't cause him any pain, but as the dark mana settled in, it stole one-hundred-thousand points of blue mana from his mana pool! This was because the conversion process needed live mana points, in order to convert - it couldn't settle in the empty parts of the mana pool.

[Upgrade complete! This purchase cost you 45,000 system points, so now, only 13,000 points remain in your sum.] The system dinged.

“Better than nothing, I guess. I can just go and kill another squid to buy the rest of those powers later on, hehe!” He joked.

Anyway, since the upgrade process took thirty minutes, and yet it was virtually painless, he couldn’t help but notice the weird things that happened within his body. He noticed the dark mana in his pool, and then he asked the system about it.

The system was quick to answer, she explained. [Dark mana has officially entered your mana pool, it occupies roughly five-percent of it.]

“So what… I have two mana pools now?” He followed along.

[No, that would be impossible. You bear two types of mana as of now, and they'll be sharing your pool. Your dark mana, will also be backed by the full power, the full mana quality of your level-six mana pool! Though it's generally frowned upon for black mana to occupy your pool, in your case, it'll be really helpful, it'll aid your plans, because necromantic abilities are a lot less expensive when cast with dark mana! Regarding this matter, your pre-necromantic abilities will also use dark mana from now on, if they're to be casted, not blue mana.] She explained, as thoroughly as she could.

Although this was a lot to take in, Timothy accepted the new conditions gracefully! The concept of dark mana sounded great, especially since it offered the cheaper use of necromantic powers, and asked for little in return! Considering how expensive the pre-necromantic abilities have been so far, mana-wise, being offered a ‘discount’ of sorts, was god sent! So to speak.

The system then gave him an even better, visual example of what to expect. She flashed a couple of point counters in front of him, and the point counters were separated in two tabs.

[Blue Mana = 149,500/2,100,000]

[Dark Mana = 100,000/100,000]

“Jesus! My blue mana has gone ridiculously low...” He complained, however, he was also happy to see that the dark side of his pool was full, as it was one thing less to worry about.

Tim may need a couple of weeks to regenerate his blue mana, he was desperate for it, but at least he was unlikely to spend it as much throughout the following days. His plan to make an army of slaves, solely required dark mana, so he could spare the blue one, as long as he hid in the den, and avoided battles! This was a good deal, but then the system tried to set some boundaries for him, she wanted to show him that dark mana wasn't as easy to regenerate.

[Blue mana regeneration rate = 2,000 points an hour]

[Dark mana regeneration rate = 100 points an hour]

After flashing those point counters, she then explained. [Your mana regeneration is now split, percentage wise. As you use dark mana, take into account that you can only regenerate 2,400 points of dark mana a day, that's it, it's not a lot. It can be problematic if you refuse to limit your daily use of black mana, and in certain calculations, you might even lose a bunch of your slaves after a few weeks, if you don't have enough mana to feed them! Please exercise caution, for your own sake, and for the sake of your plans.]

“Eh, I have a fancy, big brain now. It can't be that hard to calculate my shit, right? Hehe!” He added, enthusiastically.