Can't breakthrough

Maximus took a deep breath and once again began reciting the nameless scripture. He reappeared in the familiar space and watched as the unfamiliar energy from mana crystals flowed toward the gene strand of Reality Manipulation. He kept reciting the nameless scripture for about half an hour, wondering why it was so slow, or was the energy in mana crystals simply that high? When he felt no more energy flowing in, he stopped.

He exited the unfamiliar space and immediately felt the change in his ability, but it wasn't THAT apparent yet. 'Maybe I haven't crossed the 'realm' yet? Isn't that what they call the power levels?'

He stopped his thinking and experimented with his ability, yep, no significant change. He was close though, he could feel it.

'Should I ask for more mana crystals? Maybe I can make a breakthrough then. Nope, I was already shameless enough to ask for it for no reason from Seraphina. Plus it would be suspicious if I asked for more, like, what was I doing with it? Hmm, I can make up some reason, not like I should share every moment of my life. It could also be that I am draining the stocks she had been painstakingly saving, I would feel guilty if that were the case. Maybe I can ask Adrian and Isabelle? Hmm, alright. Let's see if I can borrow some more.'

Immediately after, he asked Adrian if he could lend him some mana crystals to which he agreed. But before he could lie down on his bed to get some moment of respite, his phone rang, it was Seraphina.

'What could she be calling for now?'

He picked it up nonetheless and heard her voice before he could say anything,

"What do you need so many mana crystals for?"

'She knew about it that quick? Do they have a common storage? Or does she have some mechanism at Adrian's side too? Or—'

"Adrian told me, if you were wondering how I knew." His thoughts were cut off as she answered, and continued, "Are you attempting to reach the next 'realm'? Next 'level'? There is a reason I put forward the possibility about there being higher levels of power, and this was one of them.

"Isabelle should feel it too, but maybe she is ignoring it subconsciously. Anyway, if you're indeed trying for that, I don't suggest you do that. You'll only end up wasting your resources, which in this case are the mana crystals."

Maximus was confused, his Spectral Augmentation Scripture very smoothly enabled him to go to the next stage. Could it be that this nameless scripture couldn't? He asked anyway, eager to know if that was the case.

"Why?"

"Simply because the Scripture you have is incomplete. We got it through a transaction we had with the Gardeners. It doesn't enable us to go to a higher level. I suspect it's a bait they've openly dangled in front of us to have us join their organization."

So it was indeed the situation he had thought of. He was just thinking of what to do further when she continued,

"You know, when your gene strand is full, you can use the excess mana crystals you have to increase the level of your physique. But beware, we don't do it because it's incredibly painful. It tests the very limits of your tenacity.

Only Adrian does it, because well, he is the only one without an ability you know, he needs to catch up. Don't tell him I told you that though. Just crush the mana crystal with a hammer or something, keep doing it until you have them like red sugar, mix it in hot water and drink it. Then concentrate on the part you want to enhance and recite the scripture. Alright I got work to do. Bye."

Looking at the phone screen, he raised his eyebrows and silently mouthed thank you. Seraphina had really helped him a lot there, if he had kept trying to increase his realm needlessly he would've no doubt wasted a lot of energy of mana crystals. Can I call it mana? Sounds appropriate.

The delivery took around forty minutes, repeating the previous procedure, he opened the box in the end and found it to only have 3 proper big ones and a little more rubble than the one Seraphina had given. 'Seraphina gave me a lot more mana crystals than this guy.'

He took out all the rubble of both the boxes and gathered it on top of his floor, on top of which he sat and repeated the previous procedure after holding the 3 mana crystals in his hands.

Just after feeling full, he still decided to give it a small try and indeed felt like no more change was taking place. 'She was right.'

He then exited the space, not interested in wasting more mana. For the following ten minutes, he grinded the mana crystals into small particles, taking help of his Reality Manipulation to lessen the hardness of the crystals or else it would've been harder. But while he was doing that, he discovered another important factor of his ability.

The change only lasted for five minutes, any change he had made to the object would revert to their original properties over time unless he had stored the property it had, in which case the change would be slow but still happen. Nothing would happen to the stored property though.

For example, if he took the 'sharpness' of a knife and applied it to a spoon, over the course of five minutes, both of their properties would revert back to original. But if he extracted the 'sharpness' of the knife and stored it, the stored sharpness would retain the same intensity or edge but the knife from which it was extracted would slowly gain its sharpness back but at a much slower pace, Maximus hadn't calculated that yet. It was certainly more than an hour.

He looked at the small granules of mana crystals and began preparing to level up his body. Seraphina did indeed say it would be painful but he had to try it out nonetheless. For the time being though, he did indeed have a lot of conjectures regarding the energies in his mind.