Another Energy?

Maximus waited approximately 20 minutes before the bell rang. He knew it was very likely the delivery person or Serpahina who will be giving him the mana crystals. It couldn't be Evelyn because she had the keys to the home.

When he opened it, as expected, it was a stranger holding up a box to him. The stranger confirmed his idea then gave him the box before leaving. It seemed he was one of Serpahina's men or had been hired by her because standard delivery operations didn't go this way here when he watched them. He had a pretty good idea about this world by now.

Without opening the box, he first went to his bedroom and locked it firmly. Only after he confirmed it twice did he walk over to the windows and similarly locked them before pulling a curtain to completely shield his room.

Fortunately it wasn't a strange situation as William was a young man with frequent urges. Instead of using the bed, he sat on the floor and only then he opened the box. When the packaging was torn apart, it revealed a metal box, verifying the heavy weight it had.

Maximus opened the lid to find six fist sized, blood red colored, mana crystals in the box. Each one of them had different shapes with there being several small red pieces in the box.

On a corner of the box was a small note neatly folded. 'This should be the scripture right?'

He opened the note and read it, it contained the scripture as well as how to use it. Strangely though, it was written in the language of this world and also didn't have any name, unlike the one he had.

The Spectral Augmentation Scripture he had was in some weird language which he found no clue of after searching on the internet of this world, nor did he know of any such language even in his previous world even as a budding archeologist who was supposed to have sufficient knowledge and mastery over languages.

'Is my scripture different?'

He immediately halted his train of thought, there was no use, he wouldn't know anyway. Rather, he tried something else. The note had told him that he needed to have contact with the mana crystal to absorb its power. He didn't touch any of the mana crystals and began reciting the scripture, after all his Spectral Augmentation Scripture worked without any such thing.

Several seconds passed by but nothing happened. 'Sigh, it seems it wouldn't work.'

He then tried reciting his Spectral Augmentation Scripture with the mana crystals in vicinity. Several seconds passed by and he could sense that energy was filling the gene strand of his Reality Manipulation ability, but it was at the usual speed, nothing had sped up.

He opened his eyes and looked at the mana crystals. None of them had a change in their size. 'The note said they'll crumble into powder after all their energy has been sapped away.'

Sighing exasperatedly, he held a mana crystal in his hand and still used the Spectral Augmentation Scripture instead of the one given in note. He wanted to verify everything before following the instructions. Closing his eyes, he began reciting the scripture.... Nothing happened.

The energy in his gene strand was still filling at the usual speed. Finally, he once again looked at the note and began memorizing the scripture. Contrary to his Spectral Augmentation Scripture which emerged as a piece of memory which he could look through anytime, this new scripture came in an external note so he would first need to memorize it so as to not need a note every time he wanted to absorb energy.

Maximus put down the mana crystal and spent the following several minutes memorizing the scripture. There was complete silence in the bedroom except for the soft murmuring of Maximus as he paced around the room. Finally, he put down the note and picked up the mana crystal. Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes and began reciting the nameless scripture in his head.

Suddenly, he felt a suction within him, but it was unlike the one which his Spectral Augmentation Scripture produced. He could feel it, it was somehow different, somehow…more tangible? It was difficult to describe it in words accurately. Since the suction force was qualitatively different from that of Spectral Augmentation Scripture, he wasn't prepared for it either and his vision shifted.

He was now in a wide empty space, exactly similar to the one when he used Spectral Augmentation Scripture but…. He felt it was different… somehow different. He scrutinized the space around him in detail and reached two conclusions.

1. He hadn't realized this before but this space had a reddish hue in its black surroundings, as compared to the faint bluish hue. He definitely wouldn't have realized the Spectral Augmentation Scripture led him to a bluish space if he didn't have anything for comparison or spent several minutes just staring into space.

2. The gene strands weren't glowing anymore. Right, they were simply there, rotating slowly but nothing much. Doesn't that mean they were empty?!

The second point was much more horrifying than the first. Had all his efforts been negated because he used another Scripture? In panic, he exited the space and hastily tried using his abilities.

But… They were working just fine.

With a relieved sigh, he recited the scripture and re-entered the space. Concentrating his focus at the gene strand which he instinctively felt was of Reality Manipulation, he began reciting the scripture. He felt the energy enter his body.

But but but…. It was different! He could feel it! This was an entirely different energy! Far different than the energy which was produced by the Spectral Augmentation Scripture and that by the souls. He just knew, just like one knew the apparent difference of temperature between hot and cold, there was a very distinct feeling in both the energies which he was still too shocked to put into words.

He watched as the energy entered the gene strand and it slowly started glowing, but it abruptly stopped after a few minutes. He had to exit the space and immediately found the reason, as described by the note, the mana crystal had turned into fine powder which was rapidly scattering.

He hurriedly picked up more mana crystals, this time 2 in each hand and the last remaining one on his lap. He was determined to find out what's going on. This new energy could potentially solve some of his questions.