CHAPTER 9; MANA

CHAPTER 9;

  MANA

The 'Cradle' was located in a generously carved out portion at the very corners of the family's estate, and to differentiate it from the estate, a gate was put in between them; it was at that gate that parents were no longer allowed to follow their children anymore.

The cradle consisted of only three courses which were arranged in order, the first of which was the 'Grave of weapons' where the children are to pick weapons which would determine their futures as different weapons were exclusive to different fields;

A staff, wand or a wizard's robe meant the path of a mage who used magic.

A sword, spear or a whip [depending on what kind] meant the path of an aura user who mostly became knights.

A sword, gloves or nun-chucks meant the path of a martial artist who used ki, also known as life force.

And a saint's robe, holy staff or artifact meant the path of a shaman, a saint or a spiritualist who used prana to summon holy spirits and strengthen themselves. These were the only paths in which a human could take in this world [as for the power system of other creatures, I'll explain later]

The next was the 'Mana pool' ; a pool of mana which could strengthen the mana source, increase mana tolerance and the mana capacity of whoever was able to take a dive into the pool; the longer you stayed in, the higher the benefits, of course, this meant being completely submerged under high density of mana without being able to breathe while undergoing complete body transformation.

Although the mana pool seemed like a treasure in the eyes of all, the biggest problem with it and the reason why only seven-year-olds are allowed into the cradle in the first place is that for some reason, anyone younger than six years of age and older than seven years would not reap any benefit from the pool whatsoever, even if they were to spend their whole lifetimes submerged in it.

The last trial in the cradle was crossing the barrier; in order to leave the cradle, you needed to open a teleportation portal which would take one straight outside the cradle and to its finishing point, where parents waited for their children, the reason for this was to ascertain that one had gotten a significant enough amount of mana to summon a portal and still not be exhausted.

Now, usually everyone would start with the first trial, but I wasn't going to.

I quickly rushed at the mana pool and evaded the first test; I planned on doing it once I was done in the pool.

As I got to the front of the golden pool, readying myself to take a dive, I noticed a person was already in the pool before me.

"Who is that?", I asked in a hush tone, so as not to attract the attention of those who were still on the first test.

"Wh-who is that?" I quickly asked again in a less stable tone than the last as I got in a bit closer to get a better look at the figure of the person in the water and to my awe, the person wasn't in the water but was rather already knocked out in it, probably from the pain of the body reconstruction.

I quickly jumped in to carry the lifeless body of the person, as I pulled their hand out and noticed that they were very slim, they wore nothing but shorts and a shirt that was torn in the middle from which I could see the scrawny chest of him.

He had shining dark hair; the defining trait of 'Le Noir' and long eyelashes along with many other delicate features. Honestly, if I wasn't as close to his face as I was, I would have thought that it was a girl I was holding in my arms.

I quickly dropped him at the bank off the pool as I examined him once more, although his body reconstruction went excellently well, his mana was weak from passing out in the pool as it required one to be conscious in order to actually feel the efficacy of the mana pool.

I looked away and quickly dove into the water, submerging myself to the deepest part of the pool as I crossed my legs, sat down on the floor of the pool and began to gather some mana, as it slowly started to seep into my skin, with its speed gradually increasing, I couldn't help but notice just how weak it was when compared to pure energy.

MANA- was the power source for every living being on this planet; Orc, Elf, Fairies, humans and animals likewise, used mana and some plants even needed mana to survive. Mana could be found in everything in the planet, from the rain that poured from the skies to even the juices that people drank, but, just because mana could be found everywhere didn't mean that everyone had an endless supply of mana. In order for a person to use mana they needed to build a storage for it in their bodies; for martial artists they called it a [martial body], for aura users it was a [mana core], for spiritualists it was a [mana heart] and for magic users it was called a [Soul of mana].

In terms of feeling, mana felt like an extremely diluted version of the [pure energy] that guardians used, which meant it was a lot less effective than [pure energy] and had a lot of limits to its uses and destructive power.

My mana capacity had reached its maximum in just a few minutes of me being submerged in the pool as my body began reconstruction, my heart started to beat faster and I could feel my bones being crushed and remolded in a matter of seconds, my mana drenched organs were strengthened many times as impurities flooded out of my body in the form of a black liquid; It might have been due to my many experiences with death but, the 'pain' that I felt in that moment it felt a bit….lacking.

Submerged, my body had finally finished reconstruction and I had begun forming my storage for mana but unlike the storage which the humans of this planet used, I decided to create a better form of mana storage which allowed me the access to every form of mana, I decided to turn the entirety of my body into a mana storage, I wanted to turn my brain into a mana brain, my heart into a heart of mana thereby turning my blood into mana, my organs would secrete mana so that everything I ate would turn into mana, I would sweat mana, pass mana out as urine, hell!!! I would shit out mana. In other words, I wanted to become mana!

I stayed underneath the pool for three straight hours until my skin had begun glowing gold and finally, I lost my ability to hold my breath as mana flooded every part of my body, the pain was completely absent as I guided the mana throughout the little crevices in my veins, I led the mana through my veins and my nerves, and when it finally reached my brain, I fainted.

I woke up to find myself beside the river bed probably after being carried out by the [Fallen] with my clothes golden; drenched in the water from the pool, as I began meditation to be sure of the success of my mission.

'It worked'. Kritic began, 'YOU ARE NOW Mana!' he said mockingly as Diablo roared in laughter, 'Hahahahaha'.

On hearing Kritic's voice, I smiled in relief that my journey in this world had finally begun, I had completed my first step in becoming a guardian and defeating the fallen on this world.

I quickly stood up to go back to the first trial when my eyes widened in surprise and my body roared with murderous aura as a voice from behind me called out.

"Who are you?".