B2 Chapter 5: Come and Go

[Year 22 Month 0: Two Months Later]

[Blessed: 3746 – 4 + 5]

[Marked: 2500 – 1 + 1]

The waves of sleepiness faded after I took a week’s nap. That didn’t mean any progress wasn’t made during said time, as Codex and Metis had immediately begun scaling the Purification mana production. The sooner we could produce large amounts of it, the quicker I could return to my previous facilities and get people above ground.

Once I woke, we tested the [Purification] skill, and it worked a little differently than I expected, likely due to my skill synergies with [Auric Channels]. The purification mana would act like an additive to the pathways and infiltrate the ambient mana ever so slightly. I imagined it as adding an immune system to the world’s energies, which would protect it from corruption and resist the living miasma’s consumption.

I was a tiny bit concerned about manipulating the ambient mana on a fundamental level, but the system notification relieved some of the concern. So far, the system had yet to lie, and since it said, “purify surroundings and convert them into the natural environment,” I would trust it.

Surprisingly, Fal’el could help with this, as the dwarves hadn’t discovered separating mana into different types, and thus, there were no limitations on his abilities, other than the runic side of things. Although the Engariens were definitely advanced and skilled enough to create it, they didn’t have the modern knowledge that made it a reasonable step of progression. It would also be considerably more complex, only using runes to manipulate the mana. Fortunately, in my case, the solution didn’t require magic other than [Animate] combined with my natural mana channeling abilities.

Considering that the ambient energies of the world flowed from high concentration to low concentration, excluding a few exceptions, it meant that I could pack a tremendous amount of mana into a tube, and add a deep cobalt ‘filter’ inside of it, creating a concentration gradient that would also separate the mana into several types, most importantly, the purifying kind.

Although it was a simple process, it still took up a ton of space to produce the necessary amounts. The conversion process wasn’t a hundred percent efficient, and made other versions of mana that I had yet to find any purpose for, although that was on the list of priorities; unfortunately, it led to a great deal of space being needed to ‘cleanse’ a livable area out, and I had to retrofit one of the reclaimed rooms into a huge mana separation room. Which was a fancy way of saying it was filled with canisters made of deep cobalt.

It made quite a few people irritated to once again see their living space shrink, but once I let them know it was necessary to reclaim the surface, pretty much all complaints ceased.

All of this took about a month to pull off, partially due to a lack of manpower and partially because it took several attempts for the local craftsmen to not shatter the thin wafers needed to make the containers. Fal’el carried production, his skills enabling him to create dozens more than the other smiths.

The entire setup produced enough to reclaim about twenty square kilometers from the miasma that had stuck around. Just enough for what I wanted to do, and with the help of some skills, enough farming to make enough food to eat. However, we would need to reintroduce the biological nutrients back to the soil with the help of farmers and our resident chloromancer, Vezin, who was quickly becoming an integral part of the recovery.

First things first, though, I needed to get the purification mana made. Using [Animate] on the tubes, I could control their mana precisely, allowing me to pump in the raw mana to produce their components. Then, by separating those and essentially ‘venting’ the unusable parts, I could extract the purification type, ready to be used.

Letting the system startup was the longest part of the process, as the higher the mana gradient, the faster it would produce the purifying energy and the more land I could cover. Even a one percent increase in concentration would mean a much higher amount of mana dispersion.

Once I had accumulated enough of the specialized mana, I activated my new skill. Instantly, the ambient mana began to shift, especially around my main body. Several months ago, I had moved the Obelisks that populated where Runehold used to stand where my central body was. In the past, having separate cities was an acceptable situation, but at this point? It was wasteful.

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The next city would be my seat of power. I wanted something that could weather any storm, if it was another Invasion boss, an army with the intent to destroy, or even a deity itself, so be it.

***

“Are you sure it’s safe, Gol?” Astrid asked, worry creasing her brow, “If you’re wrong…” She trailed off, her next words already known. Everyone dies.