Another Cleaning Wave
"Girls, don't call or text me tonight. I'm going to have a very intense skin treatment and I need time." Arthur tossed his long non-existent hair back as he spoke with grace.
"But we don't even do it..." Beatrice and Emily were in sync and spoke at the same time.
Arthur felt his heart ache a little as he curled into a fetal position and threatened to cry. The girls laughed at his performance.
The end of the day soon arrived and Arthur went through standard procedures of watching the two leave in the distance. He did this for simple reasons of potential threat. The most disgusting thing he read in novels was the main character thinking everything was fine, when in fact his girlfriend or lover was in imminent danger, which sometimes ended in tragedy. And Arthur was too lazy to have to solve problems he neglected. That's why it was better not to have any problems!
When he got home, he and Thomas met on the stairs.
"What did you do with her?" Thomas had already noticed that Amanda was gone. His voice doesn't carry much emotion, as usual, but Arthur noticed the slight concern in his eyes.
'He seems to have become attached to her...' Arthur thought as he also spoke: "What do you think I did?"
"When's the bury- Ouch!" Thomas was already sighing when Arthur flicked his forehead.
"I'm not an assassin, boy. She's in Recife on a mission." Arthur soon went upstairs to his room, leaving Thomas alone and rubbing his forehead resentfully.
***
"It's now... Damn, I hate this fucking pain!" Arthur activated the shock mechanism. The electric current passed through his heart now indifferent to the charge. For so many days that he had been in excruciating pain and endless electrical discharges, his heart was far from too weak to have a heart attack.
Electricity, mana and Force flowed through Arthur's body fluidly and smoothly. He was completely used to this circulation, and he only saw the electricity energy disappear when it got close to the mana core, and just a little bit up to that black clump on his right chest.
| Statistics Panel |
[Level: 6] (29000/30000)
[Name: Arthur (???)]
[Race: (???)]
[HP: 4350]
[MP: 1700]
[Karma]
•Good: 350•
•Evil: 1534•
[Statistics]
•Strength: 320•
•Agility: 325•
•Vitality: 435•
•Constitution: 435•
•Intelligence: 340•
•Resilience: 700•
...
His training paid off and he was now incredibly close to leveling up. He still didn't understand why his Strength and Agility stats grew so much. Vitality and Constitution was even understandable, as he subjected himself to constant torture and his body grew stronger. But he already understood that Strength and Agility were mainly involved with the force that his muscles and tendons could exert. So he didn't quite understand, even full of hunches, why they were being strengthened.
...
...
...
Finally, after a few special minutes, his level finally went up.
...
...
...
...
"Aargh!" Arthur groaned in pain before gritting his teeth again. It was here that he discovered that the system wasn't the least bit gentle with the cleaning.
A wave of energy much larger than the previous one exploded in his body, truthfully attacking Arthur's mana core. All the black goo in the path of this energy wave was being reduced to nothing, being expelled through Arthur's organs and veins. His pores opened to expel all those impurities, and he was even vomiting a little. More impurities than before seemed to be coming out of his face, and they were a little smellier.
There were many places that the previous cleanup had failed to reach. Especially was his face and center of his body. Resisting the searing pain, Arthur tried to focus on the energy coursing through his body.
Now he could clearly see what was happening. That energy needed to run through his entire body, expelling all possible impurities with the least effort. Then, it would go back to the mana core and clean its surroundings, plus some mana channels that were connected to it. The seal was apparently at the core that Arthur still couldn't get an inside look at.
So, by cleaning the core first to have more attack power, the seal inside was probably breaking more and more. Along with this break, Arthur's mana core also seemed to be growing more and more, but the amount of mana remained the same.
Along with this cleansing of the mana channels, some remnants of this burst of energy also hit his muscles, bones and organs. It seemed that this energy had a cleansing and fortifying consciousness, so Arthur felt his body getting stronger from it.
After a long time and many impurities expelled, the energy began to calm down and unite with his mana, leaving it purer and whiter. Arthur's mana core looked like a small white crystal ball, a pearl amidst the impurities. There were far fewer around her, with more clean mana channels that Arthur could now feel and use. That feeling was refreshing, like rain in the arid backcountry.
"Finally- End soon, damn it!"
Just when he thought it was all over, that little energy left over from the explosion seems to have gone into an absolute frenzy.
It could be observed that many mana channels connected in the Mana Core were coming from the impurity clump in Arthur's chest. And it was also notable that all the channels, without exception, of the impurity clump were directly connected to the core. There were nine thick channels that came out of this.
The frenzied energy passed through the mana core and invaded in anger by the impurities of a channel. This one appeared to be the smallest compared to the other eight. But if it were compared to the normal mana channels throughout Arthur's body, he would be among the greatest.
The impurities in this channel began to be forced out, passing through the core, which in turn expelled them, leaving the white mana untouched and spotless.
All along this channel, the energy expelled the impurities and left it dry and empty. Even as he tried to move his mana into that channel, Arthur realized that it didn't rise and remained accommodated in his core, regardless of how much Force he moved.
But soon the answers to his questions would arrive.
Once the entire channel was cleared, the last remnants of that energy fearlessly advanced into the black clump of impurities. Like a soldier unafraid of death, it clashed in an attempt of mutual destruction. Arthur almost heard him shouting a certain word in Japanese...
The efforts seem to be worth it, as a large quantity of these impurities from the clump were expelled through the empty channel. Normally these impurities wouldn't come out on their own, and now it was no exception. Arthur still couldn't see what was pushing it out, but he felt that there was some powerful energy doing the job.
One more wave of impurities came out of his pores, as a powerful red energy gathered in his mana core. This red energy seemed to contain powerful strength and indomitable will.
This new energy seemed to be absorbing Arthur's pure mana, and getting stronger and stronger without his control. It looked like an untamed horse on a flat lawn, a ravenous wolf in a saddle with a pack of weak sheep.
"Be quiet, you shit!"
With a shout from Arthur, he used his mighty Force to suppress this red energy. One would normally be full of panic in such a situation, afraid of dying from an unknown energy. But Arthur was already angry from all this pain and didn't have the patience to panic. And he also had a motto: "If it's in my body, then it's mine!"
The red energy seemed to have felt threatened by Arthur's Force and wanted to fight back. It stopped absorbing pure mana and focused on the attack.
It was at this moment that Arthur noticed that this energy had no consciousness, and was instinctively attacking its rightful owner. He figured this must be because it was isolated from his body for so long, causing there to be no proximity.
In this way, using his Will, Arthur began to subdue this new red energy and push it back where it came from. This process took some time and his line of defense was right on the edge between the mana channel it came from and the mana core.
When he was sure of full control, Arthur freed up some space between his newly formed mana wall, letting a trickle of that red energy enter the core.
That thread of energy looked like a fish thrown into a pure sea. He swam freely, wanting to feed on it all alone. But as it had no conscience and only basic instincts, it didn't understand that was alone in this, and not with the support of all the rest of the others little friends.
"Let's see if I can..."
As someone who urgently needed power, Arthur would be as greedy as possible if given the chance. In the same way that red energy could consume his mana, so could the same thing happen in reverse as well.
What happened before was simply an oversight by Arthur, with a threat he didn't know about. It was like throwing a pack of sharks into a huge school of delicious fish. It would be hard to resist. But if there was only one shark, the fish could bite it to death.
And that's exactly what Arthur did. He guided the mana that was in his core to attack the red energy thread, causing it to lose whatever instinct it had and to be absorbed. This process took about 10 minutes and required constant meditation and concentration from Arthur.
But still, like a Buddhist monk, Arthur sat in the lotus position, just because he really wanted to. His surroundings were full of dirt and stench, and he now looked like those poetic tales: A flower in the dung.
Although that's not the way to use that saying...
When he realized that he could assimilate that energy, and his pure mana had even gotten stronger, a smile appeared on Arthur's face.
"It's feast time!"
___
Author Note: If there are any grammatical errors, please let me know so I can fix them. As you may know, I am Brazilian and my native language is Portuguese. That way, I have to translate the chapter and sometimes some words slip out and get wrong. So, thanks in advance for your help! :)
And sorry if there was a lot of repetition of words in this chapter, there are no others in the English language to replace...
Good Reading!