The Raid Dungeon Pt5

Relatively alone on the platform, I look out over the property wall and come out with a little bit of everything as I say, "I discovered a late-game content and so many people have done similar that in the recent update they early-released the basic forms of that content. Something called cultivation and it's Eastern, but the gist of it is to ascend or transcend mortality with various forms of martial and spiritual abilities."

Hurrying things along without bothering to look at whatever faces my friends were giving me, I bulldoze ahead with, "My cultivation was cordycep specific and has to do with eaten armored enemies, essentially. However, I discovered a classless mana cultivation technique similar to the basic mana training techniques offered to base magic classes. I also discovered circumstances and materials which will enhance and shorten the process. I want the warriors and any mages who opt for it to learn this cultivation technique and practice it under my controlled conditions."

"Benefits," Go states simply.

"The first level in the so-called 'Initial Success' range grants ten MP and each level gives ten more than the last," I explain, covering just the basics for starters. "There are ten levels overall which grant a total of five-fifty MP. In my controlled conditions, there is a chance for different enhancements because of different present mana and but it should not take more than an hour and a half of steady cultivation for each of you to achieve Initial Success."

"What about these enhancements?" Go questions once again for the sake of thoroughness.

"I don't know yet," I reply with a shrug. "They came up after Initial Success and I decided to come report my findings after completed the first stage. It's basically unlocking branches or specialties in a skill tree. I need to continue cultivating to achieve any success in these branches."

"Then you should keep doing it and work out the steps ahead so the rest of us know what we're getting into," Conan points out shamelessly. "I had to switch from a self-unlocked berserker to a magic berserker and write a whole new playbook. This will probably have to go in that playbook, I need time to adjust because I already have two new trainers to see for skills."

"We're done playing on the forums for a while, just focus on Initial Success and let me do the rest," I assure him calmly. "I will naturally continue cultivating while maintaining a sentry position, but I am trying to give you guys the best initial benefits I can. Shut up and accept my favor."

"Well, when you put it that way…" Conan remarks openly, letting his words trail off for the imagination to fill in the blanks.

Stepping in at this point, Merch says, "We'll need another half-hour just to get things in order at the supply stations before we can leave everything to run itself."

Agreeing with Merch, Go says, "I will need at least that long to get everything else set in motions. You saved us some times making the wall and these platforms, but there's still anti-siege towards and general deployment we still need to work out. Give us all another thirty minutes to finish up what we're doing and then we'll learn your meditation."

Half an hour? "Enemy reorganization could be done in thirty minutes," I reply a little stiffly. "The mobs on our side are all over Zekrom's- the lich lord- level and those are just the civilians turned skeleton. Just imagine what the levels and abilities of the demons and enemy undead are. If the closest outpost decided to send troops right this second, it would take less than an hour before we're in combat. I'll let you guys go back to your jobs but just keep the time in mind."

Since there was nothing I could do short of forcing the actual situation, I simply watched most of the others leave while Ivana, Agnes, I Got Skooma, Conansson, and Stonewall stay behind. These were not just the only members of my team who were floating and supporting the different areas but also the members who had the highest deficiencies.

Stonewall was basically a magically crippled race, Ivana had harshly limited melee abilities like Agnes, and the other two newest member either lacked technical skills in magic or actual combat skills. Skooma was originally a dedicated swordsman class that we made into an enchanted variant through self-enchantment and reinforcement magics so he lacked the finer points of magic use. Conan was an eight-year-old who lacked fighting experience and actual skill that I use in place of the game's technical skills.

Nodding my gratitude to the remaining teammates, I simply drop to a seat on the platform and wait for the others to do the same while maintaining a silent air of seriousness. Once everybody was similarly seated in a half-lotus position, I stretch out my awareness to its full reach of over a hundred feet in all directions but down before condensing it tightly about the platform.

Manipulating some wind magic to create a condensed buffer of air around the edges of my awareness, I sustain the soundproofing barrier by breathing in the condensed mana in the air and say, "Use your ability to sense mana and examine our surrounding area. Once you can identify the barrier I am using for privacy, do not say anything but simply turn your attention to the mana in the air.

"In the ambient magic of this so-called dungeon there are high concentrations divine and demonic mana as well as pure mana itself," I go on to explain softly while working to maintain a meditative mindset. "Now that your senses can cover a large area, you can apply your will to it by pressurizing the mana within your perception. Once you can achieve condensing similar to mine, experiment with the mana and find a way to take it in. I, personally, breathe it."

After this simple and slightly vague explanation of the processes I used, I go back to maintaining silence while using my condensed magical awareness to study my friends. As soon as I first mentioned using mana sensing, I could feel a resistance to my own senses that radiated out from their bodies. Similar to my attempt at learning telekinesis earlier, my aura holding down the area made it harder for the others to spread themselves out or interact with surrounding mana.

However, learning to expand their senses under such conditions would bear better fruits. Resisting my own higher mana cultivation with their basic abilities could train those abilities to a level closer to my own before they ever start the control and condensing process. With some actual Luck, it may even increase the efficiency of their meditations.

I had only done an hour of studying the other night but I felt like I had grasped the starting point of these practices.

After only a few minutes of expanding themselves, mostly toward the nearest side of the platform, everybody had managed to spread their own auras and confine their own chunk of the condensed mana. Slowly but surely, as if taking inspiration from their awareness of each other, they each began further condensing the mana that I had pulled in.

The largest aura among them had come from the biggest body, Stonewall, but even then after condensing his personal portion of mana field his aura only stretched out for a few feet around his body. However, I still commended my friends for grasping the essence of my mana training technique.

Releasing the air barrier, I start cycling mana in the effort to expand my awareness to several times the size of the platform and entrap more mana. Condensing this back down, I say, "Again." Following my simple order, the others expand their perceptions once again to reach even further than before and concentrate more mana.

Repeating this process multiple times, the mana field concentrated around the platform soon became so dense that the area had a vague haze of mist or fog visible to the naked eye. Nodding my head in appreciation for this effect, I wonder at what the visuals in the back yard of the cathedral had been like while Zekrom was condensing mana.

Bringing out a missing piece by taking out the large pieces of broken rock, I feel an even purer and denser mana permeate the area from these rocks and mix seamlessly into the surroundings. "Good, you guys have grasped the control aspect of my raining technique," I inform this small group of friends, distracting them so that they release their confinements. "Now, go out to the pond in the graveyard, Zekrom will condense the area for you so all you guys have to focus on is taking it in."

"Wait, we're not going to do it here?" Ivana asks suddenly, giving me a confused and slightly concerned look. Pointing to the air overhead, she says\, "What about all this that we just did?"

"This is the absolute minimum requirement for my own cultivation," I lie shamelessly. "I am letting you guys use the ground zero for divine mana while I simply use this byproduct extract and a single… source node. I will use this area for myself. Don't worry, though, when I teach the others how to cultivate this technique I will also make them refine the area for me before they join you."

Ivana and Stonewall quietly grumbled about the time they spent while getting up but the others simply shrugged it off and followed them away. Left alone to actually cultivate, I deeply and even breathe in the condensed mana field while further contracting my aura.

After only a few breaths, the space as big as the platform itself from the ground up contracted down to only a few yards out from my body in a large box of shimmery white energy visible to the naked eye. Almost breathing directly from the rocks on the ground at my feet, I study the sensation of the mana entering my body as I breathe in hundreds of MP at once.

There was not much difference from before besides the heavier concentration of mana I had managed to induce, the mana itself was still like frigid electricity as it entered and spread out through my body further and further with every breath. Now, though, the sensation of it taking place was so much stronger that I could follow it.

Starting from my lungs and soaking into my heart, the mana would Assimilate with my crystallized blood and begin spreading out deeper and deeper through my organs and bones, muscles and skin, even the hair of my arms that stood on end as if charged with static were being used as vessels to store this energy.

After a few hundred breaths I finally receive a notification that I had achieved the first level of Mana Assimilation and my overall MP had increased by one hundred. However, after stopping to open the skill's tree I find that Chaos Fiend and Demigod had not made nearly the same progress. The Demigod orb was filling up to around one third of its potential with gold light while the CF orb only had about a fifth of dark purple energy.

The sudden clearing of somebody's throat drew my attention away from my brief study and t the steps of the platform where the rest of my team was waiting. "Ah, sorry," I say quickly and apologetically, waving them over. "Take a seat like me and relax. You'll be here for a minute."

Teaching- or inspiring, rather- the rest of my friends about how to use my mana training technique only took around ten minutes, but this time was a little different. Their first step was to confine the high-pressured box around me so that I could expand my even greater perception to capture more ambient mana. Once new mana was in hand, I went back to the previous teaching methods until everyone was breathing to sustain the mana fueled use of their auras.

Before long, the confined platform was all but blocked from view behind a curtain of concentrated wild mana. Inside, the mana was so dense that I could feel it weighing down on me. By the time I had sent the others away, my little box was one mass of light so dense that I could barely expand my chest to breathe.

Around now was the time when the second wave of movements would be completing as the traveling companies of demons and undead reach their destinations. In my opinion, they were probably still in the planning phase and preparing to set several plays in motion. It would still take time for them to decide on what to do and how before going into action.

With this in mind, I maintained an enforced calm and concentrated only on my breathing. As seconds ticked by into minutes, I gradually became at ease in the densely confined space as my body naturally adapted to the intense pressure. Before long, I had achieved yet another breakthrough worth two hundred mana but still had not made any progress in the skill branches.

Feeling only slightly at a loss for what to do about these branches, I focus on the main branch of my mana training with reassuring thoughts that the side branches will catch up in their own time.

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