Chapter 8: Manifestation

*Ash's Body*

 A small toddler stretched as it woke up, Ash turned onto his stomach and slowly stood up. It was a baby with black and dark purple strands of hair that were not long at all, but you couldn't see the skin on its scalp. Ash's eyes were of two different colors, his right eye took a glowing white look while the left was a deep red with a dark purple lining to the outside. It was a very exotic look that completely matched the dark blue hair of his mother and the Dark purple hair of his father; both have deep hazel eyes. Ash toddled over to a nearby pillow, plopping down onto it as she circulated her mana. It felt much much slower than when she was in her subconscious. "That's strange, there's a blockage in this body's mana system and there are these weird veiny looking things that slowly let mana flow" said Grimoire. 

 As Ash continued to circulate mana, a weird black substance oozed out of her body. It took a full hour of her doing this before her mana flowed very smoothly without any friction. Once it was done, Ash knocked out, Grimoire took control of the body and felt an extreme feeling of drowsiness. Fighting this feeling, Grimoire noticed the intense odor of the substance and manipulated mana to take on Ash's white flames that evaporated the substance, noticing that his body wasn't hurt in any way, Grimoire brought it down to being because it was their mana, noticing that mana had a will. Curious, Grim noticed a book that read 'Intro to Mana'. Using their mana, she scanned the book and learned some very interesting things.

'Mana is the life essence of all living beings. It resides within the soul that is found within the body's core. This is referred to as the dantian. Mana is circulated through meridians, the meridians are veins that allow mana to flow and be released through your pores. In order to train your mana it requires you to enter your subconscious which is in your soul. Once you have accomplished this, you can enter your Mana Pool, idling in there while it increases the natural growth of your mana pool, it also allows you to regenerate your mana at a faster rate. You as well can sense mana within your surroundings and pull them in to absorb them, this increases the rate you increase mana capacity but also depends on the mana density in the area. Places with more danger have much more mana density due to the presence of monsters. Mana Control is the most basic and needed skill for manipulating mana. Normally this skill is gained with enough practice of letting mana flow through your body efficiently, clearing your meridians. Once mana is brought out of your body, you form an orb of mana manifestation, which allows you to more efficiently bring mana out of your body. Manipulating your mana to become more dense makes the orb of mana density, making mana based and imbued attacks or magic much more powerful or effective. This is normally done with Mana Coating, where mana is coated around an object or a weapon manifestation. Weapon Manifestation is where mana takes a neutral form and takes a shape, once this is done mana imbuement follows, coating the construct with an affinity. 

 These were the most important things that Grim comprehended from the book, most of the information he had realized during his practice. Deciding that that was enough studying, Grim wobbled back to the pillow of his crib and went to sleep. Both Ash and Grim did not realize that their older brother was watching as all of this happened. 

*Aarons POV*

 I was just reading a book about breaking through to a higher realm when I noticed Ash started acting strange. She stood up and cleansed her meridians, something I only achieved recently. Shocked at this I continued observing, sitting in the corner of the room and just sensing her mana. After an hour when she fully cleansed her body, she started moving around and extended her mana sensing to a book that I forgot to put back. Coincidently, it was a beginner's book, most likely meaning that Ash's luck was above average, and maybe explaining why she could train in mana when she was yet to be born. 

 When I first sensed this, I asked my mother about it and she had no clue and couldn't sense anything. I also realized that it was because of Ash and his affinity that we were able to survive, the strange thing though was that the attribute he showed was a destructive white flame, while back then it was an ominous miasma. While having two attributes wasn't that rare, I'm just curious about why she has two strong attributes. As normally people with multiple attributes would have auxiliary attributes, such as buff or healing abilities. Noticing that Ash was done, he waddled back to his pillow and knocked out, I walked over and tucked her in. Determined to not lose to my younger sister, I continued my study and circulated my mana, which is pretty advanced and Ash most likely hasn't realized that this was possible

MC: Ashfall Revera

Age: 1

Stats: Vitality: 1 Mana: 15,000

Strength: F 15 Endurance: F 6 Agility: F 3 Core: F 28

Charisma: 12 Wisdom: 5 Luck: 12 Will: 1 Fate: 0

Abilities: White Flames(Very destructive and consumes a lot of mana, cool ash affect)

Affinity: Ashen Flames

Skills: Basic Mana Control, Initial Affinity Imbuement, ?Familiar Resonance?, Initial Mana Manifestation, Initial Mana Density, Initial weapon manifestation, Initial mana coating, 

???Familiar???: Grimoire(Gained from birth) 

Mana: 19,000

Familiar Abilities: Corruption(Shadow alignment; Changes the nature of mana to be more chaotic, with higher mastery can even give mana a will)

Second Mana Pool(Has its own separate mana pool, normally Familiars must rely on an outside mana source or a bonded being)

Affinity: Empowerment

Skills: Intermediate Mana Control, Intermediate Mana Manifestation ?Familiar Resonance?, Intermediate Mana Density, Intermediate mana buff magic, Intermediate weapon manifestation, Intermediate mana coating, Intermediate Affinity Imbuement