Chapter 173: Mana Gas Station
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 173: Mana Gas Station
Mana.
Currently, if you search the Paradise Gallery, there are a lot of discussions about stats.
It was only natural.
After all, these were users risking their lives to play in a system that was just like a game.
Moreover, they were survivors who had made it through two zombie rushes.
Whether it was by luck or not, they were gradually adapting to this system, and even those who hadn't seriously thought about how to survive in the future were finally starting to ponder it.
Looking at the posts, guides by zombie apocalypse veterans on how to raise stats were getting quite a few upvotes and rising to the top.
Most of them didn't contain any special secret techniques.
It wasn't that the veterans were hiding secrets or intentionally controlling information to stop competitors from growing.
In fact, even when playing Zombie Apocalypse, this had always been a subject of debate, but the mainstream consensus was always the same.
"Consistently. Without rest. Every day until your muscles ache. Do that, and they will go up."
It was just like reality.
What is the principle behind muscle growth?
You push and train your muscles, and they grow through the process of tearing and recovering.
Strength, stamina, and agility were the same.
Use them, and they will increase.
This simple logic of growth was applied in an extremely realistic manner, true to Zombie Apocalypse's pride in its realism.
Of course, in the game, you didn't have to work quite as hard as in reality.
Even though it was VR, users didn't have to move physically; they could just queue up actions, and their characters would move on their own.
Of course, there were some crazy bastards who actually moved their own bodies to do it.
Anyway.
Stats were a crucial factor for surviving in Zombie Apocalypse, something the veterans emphasized over and over again.
Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5.
They said that with every level up, they felt a small but distinct difference.
However, no notable opinions had emerged regarding the mana stat.
—Mana? Hmm... I guess you have to raise it since it increases as you use skills. But is it really that important?
Even someone who considered themselves a Zombie Apocalypse veteran, who had written a thesis-like post on stat training and received tons of upvotes, said this.
Of course, it wasn't that it was bad.
—Of course it's good to have. It's a resource for using modes. But since this stat didn't exist in Zombie Apocalypse... Hmm, in Zom-A, simple "actions" were judged as skills, so there weren't any fantasy RPG-style skills like this. Obviously, having more is always better. But how many people would actually feel its benefits? I've barely seen anyone who even has a mode that uses mana.
Of course it was good to have.
Mana was not a power of this world.
It was the driving force that allowed one to use "skills," which had never existed in Zombie Apocalypse.
Naturally, the more you had and the more you gathered, the better.
But the core of what this person was saying was this:
Everyone is given the same 24 hours a day.
Assuming they allocated their remaining time, excluding sleep, to training stats.
Would it be efficient to split the time spent raising other basic stats—strength, agility, and stamina—to raise mana instead?
It was a question of time efficiency.
And asking how many people could actually do it meant...
Mana only increases when you use skills, so how many people are actually capable of using skills to increase their mana?
It was a valid point, but in Paradise, it didn't apply.
"Holy shit."
In Paradise, there was currently someone who couldn't use skills because they lacked mana.
It wasn't a widespread issue, but even I had briefly lost my mind over the lack of mana before.
Kim Ji-hee was a prime example right now.
Not long ago, she wanted to use a 10-mana skill, and by combining sex and a few other things, I managed to let her use it once. But since that wasn't always feasible, I hadn't officially added the Level 2 Preventive Vaccine to the medical treatment list.
Sex was great to do whenever you wanted, but having sex to boost mana just to earn coins when a patient came in felt a bit cheap.
And I might not always be around.
So I had put it off, but now that I had a mana gas station, I wouldn't have to worry about that at all.
Jeon Ye-sol.
Leaving her as a resident for the time being because she had given me such a huge gift turned out to be an excellent decision.
Of course, this only happened because I, as the Server System Administrator, had added user awakening to the system.
But she was probably the one who returned the investment the fastest and with the highest yield.
An SS-Grade Mode, no less.
Moreover, a mana-related mode would be of immense help to our Paradise, including myself.
I completely erased any thought of predating Jeon Ye-sol.
A young child.
With no guardian, Jeon Ye-sol was the easiest type of person to manage in a faction.
Because her physical abilities were low, she needed protection, and since she wasn't old enough to think and make decisions on her own, there was no risk of her betraying me and going elsewhere.
If I just fed her well and treated her kindly, she would view me as her guardian and faithfully carry out whatever tasks she was given.
The Frailty debuff? That wasn't a problem at all.
Only mana.
As long as Jeon Ye-sol specialized in mana and acted as a mana gas station, she would become a walking resident worth multiple people, giving me absolutely no reason to predate her.
To achieve this, I first invested Normal Mode Points.
[Mana Affinity (SS)(10★)][Normal +100%]
[Mana Infusion (SS)(10★)][Normal +100%]
Although Mana Affinity didn't seem much different from when it was Level 10 before the reorganization, there were slight buffs in the numerical values.
It made sense, considering that reaching Level 10 after the reorganization to SS-Grade meant more points had been invested compared to the previous Level 10.
The Mana Infusion mode was simply broken as fuck.
It was already broken based on SS-Grade Level 10 alone, but adding the Normal Mode 100% effect made it utterly ridiculous.
Of course, it wouldn't be quite that extreme when Jeon Ye-sol used it.
Still, she could give her mana to others with 100% efficiency.
And that mana would be added directly, stacking beyond the target's mana limit, allowing them to use as much as they wanted.
This was the core of Mana Infusion.
For example, if Kim Ji-hee's mana was 6, and Jeon Ye-sol infused 8 mana into her, even if Kim Ji-hee hadn't used her own 6 mana and was at her limit, she wouldn't be blocked from receiving more. Instead of being capped, she would store the extra 8 separately on top of her 6, allowing her to use a total of 14.
This meant Kim Ji-hee could use her desired 10-mana skill whenever she wanted.
Furthermore, since Jeon Ye-sol had a 25% chance to transfer mana without consuming any of her own, it was always most efficient to transfer her full mana whenever she did it.
Since she was essentially a pure mana battery with no skills of her own to use anyway, there was zero risk.
If the 25% chance triggered when she transferred her full mana, she could just do it again.
And if that 25% triggered yet again, you'd get a fucking ridiculous situation where mana was constantly being duplicated.
Of course, how much mana could be stored was something that still needed to be tested.
It probably wouldn't stay stored forever if left unused.
Above all, the reason this Mana Infusion was so broken was because of the last option.
The 5% chance.
If this chance—which was originally 1%—triggered, the person who received the mana infusion would have their mana consumption reduced by 50% for a whopping 180 seconds.
For me, that would translate to a 10% chance for mana consumption to drop to zero for 360 seconds.
What I was most curious about was this:
Could I use it on myself?
"...As if that would work."
I tried using it right away, but of course, it didn't work.
If it actually worked, it would literally be a mana-generating pregnancy sex and birth out of nothing.
Well, just thinking about it, it was too broken to actually work.
Setting aside zero mana consumption, if there was a 5% chance that mana wouldn't be consumed, doing it just a few times would cause mana to increase endlessly.
"From now on, you're a mana gas station. Got it?"
"Yeees."
"You know Auntie Ji-hee, right? When she calls, just go and infuse her with mana."
"She's not an auntie. She's a big sister."
"If there's a 17-year age gap, she's an auntie. Anyway, I get it, so off you go. Let me know if you need anything."
"Am I useful now?"
She asked, looking up at me with wide, sparkling eyes.
Anxiety and desperation were mixed in those young eyes.
A chuckle escaped me as I recalled her sitting alone at the edge of Dong Seoul Terminal, eating in fear that her food would be stolen.
Even a young child lived their own fierce life in the zombie apocalypse.
"Yeah. You're one of the top five most useful people in Paradise right now, so play all you want and just do your job well, kiddo."
I ruffled the kid's hair and sent her on her way.
Seeing her bright expression, it seemed I didn't need to worry.