Experiment (2)
Experiment (2)
I focused and channeled my mana.
It surged out in bursts. As if it had been waiting, the mana spilled from my core and raced through my circuits at blinding speed.
Mana rippled over my body.
The intensity was at least twice as vivid and forceful as before.
The effect of the Lake of Mana was proving very sweet indeed.
The trip to China itself had, in some respects, gone to complete shit, but considering the Proof of Protection and the other gains, the haul alone was fairly decent.
Amidst all that, I manipulated my mana with a peculiar expression.
'The color changed.'
Before, my mana had been close to a sky-blue shade. Now it was different.
White.
As if to color-coordinate with my hair, my mana had also dyed itself white.
The feeling was odd, but not unpleasant.
The color change was a side effect.
What truly mattered was the purity of my mana.
Once, by bathing in the Lake of Mana. Once, when my body shrank after being beaten by the Two-Headed Poison Dragon.
My mana had undergone two transformations.
To call them transformations was a bit off—they were increases in purity.
But the scale was enormous.
Even before, my mana had been exceptionally clear and clean, yet compared to now, it almost seemed like murky water.
Thinking back, when I first entered the Lake of Mana, my mana had felt slightly off. Maybe that was the precursor to the color change.
'...It's all white. Is this what getting gray hairs feels like?'
Anyway, a good thing was a good thing.
My mana purity had become extraordinary.
Curious, I cast a spell.
- Fwoosh!
A fireball ignited above my finger.
'Oh... what the.'
My mouth fell open for a moment.
An ordinary fireball was fist-sized at best, but this one was as big as my entire body. I compressed it, pressing and pressing until it shrank to the size of a fist.
The size decreased and the density rose. The intensity grew even more formidable.
I flicked my finger. Fwoop— The fireball trailed a red tail and struck the ground a short distance away.
- BOOOOM—!
'Whoa...'
A fierce gale swept out.
Just before it slammed into me, the Sky Wing Feather spread wide and blocked the wind.
Uprooted grass scattered through the air.
The wind died down. The Sky Wing Feather returned to its place, and I observed the impact zone of the fireball.
It was a mess.
A pit large enough to bury dozens of me had formed, flames crackling inside it.
The grass around the impact point had been ripped out in patches, exposing the brown earth beneath.
'Ohhh...'
The destructive power was incredible. Fireball was a lowest-grade spell, yet in terms of sheer force, it was casually slapping the face of most mid-tier magic.
'If I refine the spell formula here and get corrections from the Authority of Space on top of that...?'
It would be even more formidable. A rosy future flashed before my eyes.
I could fire dozens of fireballs per second. I could mix in other types too, like elemental bullets or mana bullets.
I had no real worries about mana supply. With Mana Affinity, I could comfortably draw in ambient mana.
If I raised my magic skills further, I would become even more formidable.
'I'll invest in magic this semester after all.'
The potential of magic shone bright. Honestly, I had been too fixated on physical ability and combat techniques before.
For the sake of balance, investing in magic was the right move.
In the second semester, I also planned to try equipment crafting... and I wanted to dip into necromancy through Taesan at least once.
I had observed a great deal of necromancy information in China. Considering the source, it felt like shit, but information was meant to be carefully processed and used.
Once I became a bit more proficient in necromancy, there was one particular undead I wanted to raise.
It was a byproduct I'd been putting off deciding on a use for. Now that things had turned out this way, I might as well use it myself.
If my skills were too lacking to turn it into an undead... well, I could just use it as equipment-crafting material.
'... I've got a lot on my plate.'
I would quietly get through the second semester.
In the first semester, honestly, I had been too weak for how much I stuck my neck out.
Of course, I would still intervene in incidents that would blow up if I didn't jump in and flip them over right away...
I let out a heavy sigh and expanded my unique ability.
Unique Ability: Taesan.
The unique ability of the Taesan Family, one of the Three Great Families.
Before, I had only observed information about Taesan in an unmanifested state, but in China, I had gathered a fair amount of data from Lee Ji-yeon's manifestation of Taesan.
'Homogenization, Taesan.'
I imitated the observed information and applied it to myself.
Supported by Mana Affinity, the transformation proceeded from the smallest manipulable units of mana, gradually swapping out components like replacing parts.
The process was smoother than before. After visiting the Lake of Mana, manipulating mana had become significantly easier.
- Rumble...
My senses expanded.
Along with a sense of oneness as if connected to the earth beneath me, my awareness extended as though the ground itself had become my hands.
It was a strange sensation, as if the earth were resting in my palm.
'...Hoo...'
The ripple of mana stilled. After briefly adapting to the sensation, I quietly checked my body's condition.
No abnormalities. No sign of my internal organs turning to mush, no hint of my circuits bursting into a rampage.
I had worried that recklessly drawing on Three Ends might cause problems, but fortunately, there were no such indications.
What had changed was the property of my mana... and a strangely calming sensation.
There was no heated, emotionally surging feeling like with Calamity Flame.
There was no cold, numbing sensation of dying emotions like with Azure Sea.
It fell somewhere in between, I suppose.
Put nicely, it was a proper balance. Put bluntly, it felt like growing indifferent, as if nothing really mattered.
'Was the side effect of Taesan an emotional middle path...? I can't quite get a read on it yet.'
To be honest, even calling it a side effect for Taesan felt ambiguous.
Since the middle path was its defining trait, it didn't have the kind of extreme runaway tendencies that Calamity Flame or Azure Sea did.
If anything, its ability to maintain appropriate calm in combat situations was a benefit.
Of course, even Taesan, if you ignored the side effects and spammed it mindlessly, was a terrifying ability that would turn your body hard as stone and return you to the soil...
The unique abilities of the Three Great Families demanded side-effect management equal to their performance.
I exhaled deeply and manipulated the earth.
Rumble... The ground right in front of me bulged upward. A mound of soil more than ten times my size surged up in an instant. It was mixed with small rocks as well.
'...Like this?'
I applied manipulation once more.
The soil writhed, then rounded into a mass. Five protrusions jutted out.
A hand made of earth.
'Rock, paper, cloth.'
Crunch... All the fingers folded, then only some extended. Then all of them stretched out and waved gently side to side, like a greeting.
'It's working properly.'
There was no lag.
Earth Domination—the basic ability of Taesan. With more mana invested, I could manipulate a wider range and even generate soil and rock.
'Body Enhancement is applied too.'
I pulled a rock from underground and gripped it in my palm. As I squeezed, the rock crumpled powerlessly, like tofu.
Manifesting Taesan significantly boosted basic physical ability.
The enhancement of physical ability. That was an overlap with Calamity Flame.
There were differences.
Calamity Flame's body enhancement had higher instantaneous amplification, while Taesan's amplification in endurance—durability and stamina—was higher and more sustained.
In other words, Calamity Flame excelled at short, hard strikes, while Taesan excelled in prolonged contests of strength.
In an actual long fight, Taesan had the advantage.
Compared to Azure Sea, Azure Sea's water energy could be directed outward for healing others as well as oneself, but with Taesan, directing it outward required training.
On the other hand, the earth and stone manipulated through Taesan were harder than Azure Sea's ice. In terms of defense, Taesan was on a higher tier than Azure Sea.
'Hmm...'
Earth Domination and Body Enhancement. Both confirmed.
One thing remained.
In truth, this was the main objective.
I drew in a deep breath and became conscious of a new sensation.
'......'
Senses channeled into the earth. Within the oneness, as if the ground were my limbs, I felt an abundance of vitality.
Countless mounds of soil—and within them, burrowing bugs and grains of sand, rocks, grass and their roots. Trees and plants growing sparsely in the distance.
Small or large, they all held vitality, as if proving they were alive.
The recognition and manipulation of vitality. From this derived self-restoration and the operation of necromancy.
Of course, the vitality each possessed varied.
Right now, a leaf withering away in the distance held little vitality. Like a spring running dry, its vitality was draining toward nothing, heading for death.
'Shit...'
It was the same for me.
My heart plummeted. My body heat, fairly warm moments ago, dropped straight to the bottom in an instant. The wind against my cold skin felt sharp.
The earth brimmed with abundant vitality. Yet I, slumped on top of it... was lacking anything you could call vitality.
The contrast was profoundly chilling.
Proportionally, I was roughly on par with the leaf I had judged to be nearly dead. Just before the bottom showed.
What if the bottom showed?
What would happen if the bottom were fully exposed and my vitality ran dry?
'Death.'
The answer came easily. Just as I had predicted the leaf's end, I could see the end of my own life.
The Curse of Short Life.
I was afraid. Most of that fear came from the unknown—not knowing when I would keel over and die.
The darkness had lifted, and the unknown had become perceived.
Death was becoming visible.
'I'm not dying.'
I clenched my teeth.
I roused my senses. I prodded at the vitality of the earth I had perceived.
It was a strange sensation.
Unfamiliar, as if a new organ had sprouted on my body.
'It's similar to mana. I can manipulate it.'
But it wasn't impossible.
The approach was similar to when I first began learning mana. I extended my dominance and seized the earth's vitality.
It was hard to manipulate. The mass was too enormous to handle right away. I broke off only a small portion.
The burden lessened. I drew the vitality up as if grabbing it by the hair and pulling.
I guided it into my body.
Like an empty vessel, I was slowly filled with vitality, bit by bit.
Just before I unleashed Three Ends on the Two-Headed Poison Dragon, I had recognized my lack of vitality.
Immediately after, I sustained severe damage and lost consciousness, and when I came to, I had already become younger.
From that, I surmised that the reason my body had grown younger was a shortage of vitality.
A body should normally be teeming with vitality, but I lacked the vitality to sustain it. Because of that, my body shrank to match the insufficient vitality.
It might have been conjecture, but I judged the likelihood as high.
And so I had devised a plan to recharge my vitality through Taesan.
'Ngh...'
It didn't come easily.
The vitality rebounded as if rejecting an incompatible connection.
Watching the vitality resolutely bounce away, I realized this would never be simple.
I let out a heavy sigh and moved the vitality again.
'...I'm not going to die.'
I crumpled up my defiance and roused it. I forcibly inflated my deeply dejected emotions.
'I'm not dying.'
Even back then... back when I'd been holed up alone in my room without a single connection to anyone, I wouldn't have died quietly. And now, I was even less willing.
I wanted to live with the people who cared about me.
I absolutely could not die like this. I wanted to enjoy a happy life for a long, long time.
I set my will upright to push back the fear.
I layered focus upon focus and manipulated the vitality.
* * *
Atra left the Central Administration Building and headed for the training yard, her heart heavy.
An old-fashioned training yard without any special training equipment.
A place where she always met Lee Ha-yul alone to conduct training... Atra had grown somewhat attached to it.
Someone else was already waiting there.
It was Liana, who had arrived after finishing the Ipchun Class's morning assembly and handling other tasks.
"A shell... it's not just a simple metaphor, is it? What could it mean?"
Having been told about the conversation with the Vice Headmaster, Liana furrowed her brow and crossed her arms beneath her chest.
It was an action that clearly showed she was deep in thought.
As a result, her already substantial chest was emphasized.
"......"
Atra, who had relayed the story, shut her mouth and glared at those substantial mounds.
It wasn't that the gesture was unusual. It was a common posture that Atra herself occasionally did unconsciously.
But for some reason, it irritated her.
A few days ago... ever since seeing Lee Ha-yul suddenly bury himself in Liana's arms when people had gathered at his dormitory, those dairy-cow-like mounds had annoyed her.
Come to think of it, her mood had been strange since then. The sight of a bunch of colorful women gathered in her student's quarters had not been a pleasant one.
But the situation was too serious to nitpick over things like that—or those mounds.
Atra continued speaking.
"...The Vice Headmaster said he didn't know the exact circumstances either. He couldn't confirm it as the truth, but he's not the kind of person who'd spout lies."
"Hm... if even the Vice Headmaster doesn't know, who would know the truth? The Headmaster? The Association Presidents? No one's seen them for decades... are those people even still alive?"
"Given that the Headmaster's blessing is still maintained, he's likely alive, and the Association Presidents probably are too. But even if they are alive, finding them seems difficult, and if they're dead, we certainly can't ask them for answers."
"And if we ask Cadet Lee Ha-yul himself... he might have a seizure like last time."
Liana and Atra's mouths closed.
It was a problem of the utmost complexity.
"Looking after one kid is so hard..."
At Liana's lament, Atra nodded before she even realized it.
He was an endlessly lovable child, but he also caused so much trouble that her heart could barely keep up.
"...!"
Atra's head whipped around. Liana, having received a belated report from her spirits, also turned her head.
A presence was approaching from the distance.
It was Lee Ha-yul's familiar presence.
"Hmm...?"
But something was different.
Lee Ha-yul's presence had always been extremely faint.
That tendency had grown worse over time, to the point that in his younger state, even Atra and Liana struggled to detect him.
His presence was so faint it felt like a single puff of wind could snuff it out—enough to make the adults worry.
That presence had changed slightly.
If one had to call it something, it was a change for the better. The feeble presence had swelled somewhat.
Atra and Liana felt an odd emotion. How to describe it.
It was like watching a child, skin and bones from never eating properly, suddenly devour food like a starving ghost and fill out, plump and healthy.
Either way, it wasn't a bad feeling.
Soon, Lee Ha-yul came into view.
- Sniff...
"...!?"
Lee Ha-yul appeared, clearly looking dejected.
For some reason, he was approaching while wrapped in wind and floating through the air, and his speed was fairly quick—he was there in no time.
Thanks to that, his gloomy face was fully visible.
Their hearts dropped.
What had happened to that troublemaking Golden Child now?
Startled, they both extended their arms and stepped forward.
It was an instinctive move to soothe him by pulling him into their embrace.
- Thud
"Ah?"
"Huh?"
They were blocked. They had collided with something midway. The recoil pushed them back a few steps.
Atra turned her head. She saw Liana blinking her green eyes.
Liana also turned her head. She saw Atra blinking her golden eyes.
They were both in similarly awkward stances.
Arms spread, stepping forward, postures meant to embrace something. But postures that had been pushed back after colliding with something...
"......"
"......"
A strange atmosphere settled between them.