Chapter 67: Mana pt. 1

After a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, buttered toast, and some seared meat that tasted like a cross between fish and beef, Kaius and Porkchop moved to one of the manors sitting rooms. It was a better fit for their purposes, with a tall ceiling and wide open spaces that provided them more than enough space for their mana manipulation practice.

Holding an armful of firewood, Kaius loaded up the hearth. He left it unlit, sitting in such proximity to open flame would almost certainly increase the availability of fire mana, something that would only disrupt his practice of his first skill, Air Manipulation.

He sat cross legged on the plush rug, facing Porkchop who settled down across from him. Devoting more of his attention to True Sight, the world lit up in a wash of colours. He could still see perfectly fine, but a strange double layering of sight revealed the hidden mystic world, covering his surroundings in a mist.

Most of it was an almost eggshell blue, unaspected mana, while the rest was a smattering of the core aspects- air, fire, earth, and water. There were dozens of other shades and tints flickering in his sight, but they were ephemeral. Their fleeting forms too small, too quick, for him to really get their measure. It would have been easy with a manipulation skill, any of them, but until then he had to rely on his sight alone.

“Ready?” Porkchop asked him.

Kaius nodded, and watched as Porkchop’s brows furrowed in focus. One ear quivering as eddies started to swirl through the atmospheric mana. Slowly, all other colours were pushed back as air mana was drawn in. Pooling into a cloud. Over time, Kaius watched the cloud grow as Porkchop started to slowly convert unaspected mana.

Once the cloud of mana had grown to the size of his chest, and had gotten dense enough to stand out amongst the background, Porkchop visibility relaxed. Though Kaius noted that he still looked at the gathered air mana with intensity. He couldn’t imagine it was easy. All manipulation skills could influence mana, but specialised ones such as Crystal Manipulation lost a lot of their flexibility and efficiency when working with other aspects.

“There. Is that enough?” Porkchop asked.

Kaius nodded, grateful for his friend’s help. He absolutely could get the skills he needed by himself, but it would be much much harder. Without a skill, interacting directly with mana was tough, even without having to sift for trace aspects while ignoring all others.

He stuck his hand into the cloud, watching as the creamy blue mana swirled in response to his movement. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that it was shifting as his arm disturbed the air. It wasn’t, mana didn’t exist on a physical level. Instead, it reacted to his natural mana density, shifting out of the way.

Reaching into the centre with his will, he drew on his own internal pool. Circulating a thread of mana down his arm and around his hand, bringing it back to complete a loop with his pool. He focused on the mana in the air, letting faint traces of his own pool diffuse through his skin. Saturating the cloud of air mana with traces of that which he had branded as his own.

If Porkchop wanted to, it would have been simplicity itself for his friend to wipe away the imprinted mana. Instead, Porkchop aided him. Encouraging the air mana to mingle with his own.

He focused, trying to sense the mana that had left his body. He didn’t need much, just to slip his hold over the thin layer of air mana around his hand. A hair’s breadth, at most.

It felt like trying to catch a greased hog. Every time he thought he felt a trace of the foreign mana, it slipped through his fingers. Furrowing his brows, Kaius turned all of his senses towards his task.

There!

The barest whisper of a feather touch graced the palm of his hand. He leapt on the sensation rabidly. Forcing the iota of power to stabilise. His mana pool poured from his palm, burning itself at a prodigious rate to support his desires.

After the first, it grew easier, more and more motes coalescing out of the cloud that Porkchop held steady for him. Once it had accumulated to something the size of a walnut, he bore down on the small collection of mana he had gathered. Holding it in place.

He withdrew his hand from the cloud, a small gleaming orb hovering a few hairs above his palm coming with it.

That was the easy part.

Now he had to stop expending his own mana, while still keeping his grip on the aspect.

Sweat dripped from his brow. With inexorable slowness, Kaius choked off the circulating mana in his arm, the diffusion through his palm stemming.

The orb of air mana in his hand shook, quivering as it threatened to disperse. Kaius grunted, gritting his teeth as he focused on the orb. Commanding it to stay. To obey his will.

For once he thanked his experience with withstanding the call of his legacy skills during skill merging. Without that crucible to forge his will, he knew that he would stand far less chance of being successful.

Finally, the mana emitting from his palm cut out entirely, leaving the aspected ball condensed only through the power of Kaius’s demands.

The system acknowledged his achievement.

**Ding! General Skill Available! Would you like to learn: Air Manipulation (Rare)?**

Kaius gasped, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding. He released his mental grip on the orb in his palm, the mana dispersing like smoke in the wind.

Porkchop still held his own, much larger, cloud in place with a look of concentration on his face. Waiting for him to be ready.

Knowing that holding a foreign aspect would be at best burdensome, Kaius hurriedly accepted his new skill and brought up its description.

Air Manipulation:

Level 1

Rare

Feel the breath of the world.

This skill enables mental control of mana, especially that of the air aspect. Other aspects, and unaspected mana, can be controlled with vastly increased difficulty.

Each level minutely increases control over air aspected mana.

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Each level infinitesimally increases control over mana.

Kaius nodded as he read the skill, quickly dismissing the notification to focus back on the cloud of air mana that hung in the space between him and Porkchop.

“Ready for me to kick your ass?” Kaius said with a cocky grin, his eyes never leaving the cloud.

Porkchop snorted, his own focus remaining steady.

“You wish.”

With his newest skill Kaius could feel the cloud of mana in a way he hadn’t been able to a moment before. It pressed on his mind like a phantom limb. Like he could just reach out…

He grabbed the mana, wrapping his grip around it. Trying to yank it towards himself. The mana resisted his efforts, Porkchop twitching in concentration as he worked to counteract him. Kaius might have had the advantage with the correct manipulation skill, but Porkchop’s Crystal Manipulation was a legacy skill, and higher level to boot.

Kaius grunted, resisting the urge to snatch out at the mana physically as he bent his whole mind to the task. His breath started to come heavier, eyes held wide as he burned a hole in the cloud of air mana with his gaze.