Cultivating Mana

Twilight radiance stains a pile of blue stones in Jack's leather bag with a beautiful red luster. After confirming that no one is around, he begins his journey toward awakening with a radiant smile.

'Fortunately, I have a lot of mana stones.' Jack put both of his hands in the leather bag and took as much mana stone as he could carry.

'This much should be enough, right?' Jack logic says that the more he carries, the easier it will become to feel the mana inside it.

After sitting cross-legged and put his hands in front of his stomach, he closed his eyes. In a meditative state, Jack slowly fills his lungs with air, then emptying them. Fills his lungs with air again, then vacates them until he achieves serenity. Then, he started to focus all his attention on the stones in his hands.

The first minute passed without anything happened. But when the second minute was about to end, a tingling sensation started to overrun the palms area as if hundreds of ants crawled on its surface.

Jack gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to scratch it. But the feeling kept intensified with the passing second, forcing cold sweat to form all over his body.

After a full minute, his hand started to shake because the itch suddenly turned into a numbing sensation of countless minor pieces of electricity. Jack couldn't hold it anymore, so he opened his eyes and threw all the mana stones back into the bag.

"Phew… let's take it easy and start over."

After wiping the cold sweat off his forehead, Jack fixed his lotus position and returned to a meditated state. Only this time, he just used one mana stone. The numbing sensation came back but wasn't as intense as before.

Five minutes later, the feeling slowly turned from numbing to warm like morning sunlight.

Not long after that, he could feel a similar warmth wriggling inside his stomach area.

"Wow… Is this my Mana Central?"

Unlike the one inside the mana stone, Jack has a little bit of control of the mana inside his Mana Central.

In the beginning, it feels a little strange, as if he was trying to move his chest muscle like a bodybuilder. But as he kept playing with it, the sensation turned into something akin to having an additional limb that could move as he wishes, even feel a touch.

"That was easy! Thirty minutes haven't even passed since I started to feel the dormant mana in the Mana Stone. But look at me, I'm already moving my mana like a finger.

"Hehehe… turn out I am a true genius at mana cultivation. A process that took another person a minimum of two months to master only took me about half an hour.

"Hmm… Should I just become a wizard? I have high intelligence stats, and a wizard didn't have to fight face to face with an enemy, which is very safe."

Jack pondered about it for a little while and decided to weigh its boon and bane again later. The most important thing right now is to attain the state of 'Awakened'.

Jack crossed his leg before focusing all of his attention on the perfect round Mana Central that pulsated mildly like a heartbeat. After observing the inner area for a little while, he could find two pathways located in the bottom, just like the book says.

As he forcefully moves his mana through those pathways, a warm sensation gradually flows to his legs before going up toward his hands before converging in his head and moving toward the heart.

When the mana touched Jack's heart, he could feel a shock that reverberated both his body and soul. The pain is quite tormenting yet intoxicating at the same time as if wild but tranquil energy surging inside his heart.

After a while, the mana started flowing throughout his body via the bloodstream. Little by little, a warm feeling spreads until he can feel a thin layer of soft silk cloaking his body.

At the same time, his body feels energized, overflowing with power. Jack wants to break the wooden table in front of him with his bare hand. But when he realizes that it would cost him some money and inconvenience, he throws that idea out of the library.

"Amazing! This is the power I've always dreamed of since my childhood days."

Jack couldn't hide the exhilaration feeling, make his face split in two by his own lips. When his concentration is disturbed, the mana surrounding his body gradually dissipates, returning to the Mana Central.

Jack was forced to repeat the process once again.

When trying it for the third time, the Mana Centrals pulsating continuously and maintaining the Awakened state active even when Jack didn't pay attention to the process anymore.

'True Awakened state, acquired!'

"Great! The next step is to learn about magic circles. But I think I should put it off for tomorrow. Huff..."

Jack exhaled a lot of air, filling his consciousness with relief. With sweat covering his entire body, he felt an urgent need to take a bath.

Cultivating mana eats up his physical and mental strength at the same time. Even the food that he ate beforehand already falls to the bottom of his digestive system. His belly screamed for food.

So Jack packs up his things, returning the book he borrowed to its original location before exiting the library.

The ethereal glow of the eternal blue moon lightens the entire library with its radiant, makes the already wondrous building look more magnificently beautiful. Its blue light pierced the multicolored window before gracefully illuminating its inner space, creating a state that made it possible to read the strange and complicated Terrenian letter without an additional source of light.

Parting with such a sight filled Jack's heart with regret. But on the other hand, he wanted to check the apartment that Tarud had lent him before the night became too old.

So with a promise to return, Jack walked toward the north. To a place where the adventurer made a rest between their missions.