89 Mana Essence

"Welcome back. Before anything else, I'm going to present the winners of the hunting challenge that was a part of your excursion."

From his inventory, Mr. Brown brought out a bag and placed it on his podium, filled with what looked like small rocks, but what I assumed to be mana essences.

"Now, although there aren't any prizes for the third or second place groups, I still want to tell you about them."

Taking out a list, he began to tell us the placements, with the 3rd one surprising us all.

"The group which came in 3rd was a group consisting of one person. Peter Harrow, with a kill count of 92 goblins by himself."

*Gasp!*

Every single student other than me couldn't believe their ears. Somehow, that edgelord had managed to go on a complete massacre, all by himself.

As no one else but me knew what his Manual was capable of, it wasn't all weird that they were surprised.

However, Mr. Brown couldn't care less, as he continued with the runner-up of the competition.

"With a total kill count of 205 goblins, Sebastian Crawb and Suzan Eldritch came in 2nd, with 102,5 kills each."

This time, no one was surprised. The fact that they not only had enough endurance to keep fighting for a long time, but also had the power to bring down their enemies fast made the results quite natural.

Now, it was time for the 1st place group of the tournament, and I had a pretty good feeling that I knew which group would take the win.

With a huge smile on his face, our teacher let the room sit in silence for a bit to build suspension.

"The first place group... Which was also a party of two people... Is James Jackson and Bellatrix Rue! With an impressive kill count of 342 monsters, they averaged 171 kills each!"

The room kept its silence, as most didn't know how to react. The illusion that I was some kind of weakling had already begun to disperse after I defeated Mike in a duel.

However, the fact that I somehow grouped up with Bellatrix who had proved herself to not be worth much in terms of combat? I could practically hear Mike gnashing his teeth in frustration.

It was hard not to stand up and take a bow, hearing the inaudible cheers from my classmates.

'Is this what it feels to be a winner?'

Having begun to release some of my reins and show them what I could do, it was hard not to feel a tinge of accomplishment. That being said, not one of them truly knew what my Skills were, they only got to know that I was strong enough to win the competition by a landslide.

"So, Mr. Jackson, please do come forward and grab your prize."

Opening up the bag, it was filled with orange crystals, each one containing what looked like a swirl of energy.

The colors of the essences coincided with what rank the mana inside of them was. White was [F]-rank, green was [E]-rank, orange was [D]-rank, purple was [C]-rank, blue was [B]-rank, and red was [A]-rank.

So far, no one had found an essence of [S]-rank, which was theorized to be a yellow gem, as it made sense if one thought about the pattern of the other essences.

It didn't take long before I stood in front of my teacher, and reached out to grab one of the gems in the bag. However, before I could do so, he had some words of caution.

"Remember, if you feel any sort of discomfort or pain when you try to extract the mana from the essence, stop immediately. Instead, try again while slowing down the absorption. Because mana isn't a part of your body, but your soul, you risk causing permanent damage if you try to force it."

'What did he say?'

My body had turned to stone from hearing what he had to say, forcing me to open my mouth, "How do I know if I have damaged my soul?"

As my mind was currently thinking about how I had forcefully absorbed mana from the dungeon, it was hard not to think about the risks of me having caused serious damage to my soul already.

Thankfully, his answer quickly wiped away my worries, "If you damage your soul, you will either die instantly or become a cripple. In rare cases, you might go insane. So do be careful."

'Holy shit... I thought my heart would explode...'

With a much lighter heart, I could finally resume what I was doing. Reaching out to the essence, I started to get a strange feeling when my finger got close to it.

'What is this?'

As soon as I touched it, a sudden stream of mana automatically entered my body, as the swirl of energy inside of the essence started spinning rapidly.

*Crack!*

Before I knew it, the essence had lost all of its color, and the exterior had a big Crack going through it. Confused, I looked up to see the reaction of my teacher, "Mr. Brown, is this supposed to happen?"

Mr. Brown's mouth was half open as he just stared blankly at the essence devoid of color, unable to utter anything coherent.

"Mr. Brown?"

"Oh! Excuse me, Mr. Jackson. It seems like you have already absorbed all the mana in the essence, judging by how it is now completely emptied out. Good job?"

It wasn't just him who was stupefied, all of my classmates, except Sophie who also had no idea what was happening, had their mouths hanging open.

"Umm... So... Thank you?"

It took a long time until the awkward air had been cleared out, with me still unable to figure out what the big deal was.

=======

"So that's what it was..."

Diving deeper to improve my shallow knowledge of mana essences, I quickly found out why everyone was so surprised.

It turns out, that extracting the energy from an essence was supposed to be quite straining and time-consuming, yet my body had somehow automatically absorbed everything the second I touched it.

"Is this good or bad?"

Though the mana inside the essence was not that much for me who had a mana capacity that already exceeded [D]-rank, I could still feel a somewhat tangible difference after absorbing the essence.

"Should I truly risk drinking the mana from essences like it was water while I am also absorbing mana from dungeons?"

In my head, it had to be a recipe for disaster. Even if I could do one of them without feeling any side effects, I had no idea what would happen if I did both.

As my soul was at stake here, I didn't feel like making a gamble would be a good idea until I had more information.

*Sching! BOOM!*

"Quiet down me! I'm trying to think!"

"Oh, sorry."

The sound of myself demolishing the dummy in the practice room had thrown me off completely, something that might have been for the best anyway.

That would mean I didn't have the chance to tempt myself to do something reckless.

"Guess I should practice with this body as well..."

Using [Materialize], I felt my body turning into ethereal particles before my sight started sinking towards the ground.

It didn't take long until my whole body was lying on the floor, and the strange sensation of becoming something new overtook me. Slithering across the floor, I could feel how awkward it was to move without legs. Yes, the third animal I had understood was a snake, although not a normal one.

It was a kind of snake that didn't exist on Earth, but was instead a native to Tella, called Green Death.

The reason for its name was its incredibly potent venom that it could release through its teeth, a venom that was theorized to be stronger depending on the Mana Capacity of the snake. So, in my head, it felt like a pretty natural choice to increase my combat prowess, as it could paralyze my opponent in a matter of seconds if it couldn't resist the venom.

'But how am I going to land a hit on anyone like this?'

The Green Death had an enormous flaw, one that made it so it could never become an apex predator; It was slow. And with me not having lived my whole life as a snake, though my Agility was high, it was hard to move efficiently.

"Ssss... Guess I'll have to go with plan B."

"Why am I role-playing as a snake?"

"Ssshut up and go back to practissse!"

After having to reprimand myself again, I transformed back into a human, feeling a bit of vertigo at the rapid shift in size.

"Now, let's see if this works." Concentrating on my wrist, I imagined it turning into mist and transforming into the snake that I wanted it to become.

Green scales started to replace the arm of my jacket, and I felt the disposition of my muscles change.

"This is sick!"

Before I knew it, my arm had turned into a green, scaly snake that I could fully control, almost as if it had always been a natural part of my body. Although it was kind of disturbing to see it wriggling in the air, it was also pretty damn cool.

*Ssss!*

Hearing my arm hissing and seeing its tongue licking the air, I couldn't help but envision a pretty crazy future. 'This is getting fun!'