Mana (3)

"As much as I want to experiment with mana, I think it's better if we leave it for tomorrow. It's getting dark and none of us have a night vision ability."

Danny wanted to experiment with his mana, but he knew that fighting zombies would be a lot harder with it being dark out.

Johnathan nodded in agreement. No matter how excited they were, being outside in the dark was dangerous. Especially when man-eating monsters could be hiding every corner they turn. "We always have tomorrow," Ivan said, agreeing with Danny.

"Ivan, eat the bigger crystal now. I'm curious what'll happen."

Johnathan said, remembering the crystal Ivan has. With it being bigger and being from what the three called a level 2 zombie, he thought it should give a good boost in strength.

"Oh yeah, I have one. Sure wait a minute," Ivan exclaimed, forgetting he had a crystal.

Ivan got up and walked to the clothes he had on. Reaching into his pockets, he took out a round magenta-colored crystal.

Walking back to the others and taking a seat, the others got a closer look. It came out of a zombie, but the crystal really was beautiful.

'How strong will he get if he eats this?' Johnathan wondered, looking at the crystal.

After letting them look at the crystal for a couple more seconds, Ivan started moving the crystal towards his mouth.

A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead as his hand moved closer. 'Shit, how bad is this gonna hurt.' Ivan couldn't help but worry. Especially with the terrible experiences that came when he ate the crystal.

'Fuck it.'

Ivan then dropped the crystal in his mouth and swallowed it. Immediately after swallowing it, the crystal dissolved and the energy that came from it moved throughout his body.

A second after eating it, Ivan dropped to the ground with his eyes widening. His hands went to his chest. Ivan started clawing away at and hitting himself.

"Arghhhhh"

The pain was too much to handle. As he screamed, saliva went everywhere, and his tears fell to the floor.

The three boys watched as Ivan went through an immense amount of pain. By his reaction, Johnathan and Danny could tell this crystal was way worse than the first.

'Shit, ' Johnathan cursed.

Johnathan seeing how painful eating the crystal was definitely made him scared of eating it. However, he also knew that without eating it, his strength wouldn't increase a lot. 'No pain, no gain, ' Johnathan thought with a wary smile.

After a couple more minutes of what Ivan could only describe as torture, the pain finally stopped. Even with his increased pain resistance, eating the second crystal was no joke.

"What increased?"

Johnathan asked seeing that Ivan finally stopped screaming in pain. But the effects of eating the crystal were still apparent.

"Give me a minute," Ivan said, trying to catch his breath.

Taking a minute or two to calm down, Ivan sat back up from his previous position. Taking a deep breath, Ivan started explaining the change.

"I only got a small increase in mana. I can maybe shoot five more bolts of lightning than before. But what changed the most is the strength of my lightning. I haven't tried it out yet, but I can feel it. It's a lot hotter? I can't really explain. Other than that, I got a pretty good physical boost"

Taking a second to digest the information, Johnathan wondered why he went through so much pain for something that seemed like nothing.

"Anything else?"

"Not that I know of," Ivan answered Danny.

After talking a few more minutes about the changes, Johnathan brought up something about his black mana core.

"Do you guys think black means something? Or am I just being... you know."

Ivan shrugged. He didn't have any ideas as to what it could mean. 'It's probably nothing, ' he thought, turning his head towards Danny who had his hand massaging his temples, trying to remember something.

"Oh. How about we try what they do in those cultivation novels? Maybe our cores are filled with impurities? Something along those lines."

Finally remembering, Danny explained.

"Hmm, you're right! Plus, even if it doesn't work, there's no harm in trying," Ivan said.

"Yeah, but how do we even do it?" Asked Johnathan.

"I don't know. Let's just try meditating. It works in the novels."

Following Danny's instructions, the two got in a cross-legged position and started meditating. Five minutes into meditating, Johnathan sighed. It didn't work.

"Not working."

The other two opened their eyes and nodded. Just meditating did nothing for them. Then something clicked in their minds. Why were they just meditating and not absorbing mana? "How can we be so dumb," Johnathan said with a sigh.

"Haha, for real. We really just closed our eyes and hoped for the best," Ivan said with a chuckle.

"Let's meditate again but this time while absorbing mana."

Once again, everyone closed their eyes and started meditating. However, this time, they absorbed mana. Johnathan felt the mana in the air immediately get sucked towards his core. But the speed at which he was absorbing the mana was quite slow.

'Absorb the mana. Then what. Hmm, maybe I should do what a washing machine does.'

Johnathan then did what he normally saw a washing machine do. He rotated the mana in his core in a circular motion, along with the mana that he absorbed from the air. Johnathan kept doing this, and slowly he lost track of time.

An unknown amount of time later, Johnathan opened his eyes. With a smile, he clenched his fists in victory. His core was a lighter shade of black. It wasn't too noticeable, but it was lighter. 'Worked. It really worked' thought Johnathan.

At first, he wanted to give up. He was impatient and after a couple of minutes of doing it; he saw no progress. But he had a gut feeling that it would work. It was like a force compelled him to keep at it.

He looked around to see the other two still meditating and Ash sleeping. The room was dark, the only source of light being a candle in the middle of them. He got up and walked towards the area he had his phone.

When he saw the time, he gasped. It was around seven when they got home. It was around eight-thirty or nine when they started meditating.

The time he saw on his phone was two. 'Two in the morning. What the fuck' Johnathan cursed in his mind.

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AN: Hope it was clear how he got rid of some impurities in his mana core. If you guys have questions, ask away.