Mana vent

As he stored his new gains and snacked on a pear he could barely wait to cash in his two quests, the velvet cushion and new cookware would be coming with him to further furnish his home as he mentally prepared himself for the casserole cooking ahead.

"Perhaps when I get more people over it would be most efficient to have a perpetual stew going. I don't think we will lack the wood resources and given the balance of meat to veg in this world we may need to be frugal"

Thinking about the lean times ahead just made the luxury of tonight all the more anticipated and he hurriedly handed in his quests.

[200 exp]

[Potato x 4]

"Generous sizes too, very nice"

By the time he had finished his cooking it was already dark out, the casserole would need at least a couple of hours and he had finished cleaning up.

He sat out on the porch on his little wooden chest with his newly retrieved velvet cushion and watched the night sky.

"At least there aren't two moons or anything like that here. Maybe I should craft or something but I think I need to just chill."

As he enjoyed the night sky he was watching the direction of the river and boar forest, not wanting to look out over the undead area or the mountains after all.

As he watched he saw small fast moving lights in the distance, they were small enough for him to know they were well past the trees he usually visited for firewood.

"They're torches? It can't be goblins can it?"

He could only see them as moving sparks in the night but he could tell from their colour they were fire. There was one however which seemed brighter than the rest and shone in a white, almost pink shade. They were all gone before he could make any further judgement on them and he was left wondering what else was out there.

"It could be goblins riding wolves? I've seen that in games before and the scouting party had a tamed one"

He looked in the other directions to make sure there were no others to be seen and went inside.

Eating some casserole and leaving a fire burning under the rest to let it stew longer he crawled into bed. It had been a hard day and he was too tired to wait for the perfect meal. It would make for an unconventional but perfect breakfast and he was satisfied just tasting it and knowing it was there for now.

The next morning came with thunder and rain, he was woken by the wind howling under the door and whistling in the chimney, the embers of the fire still glowing and the smell of his breakfast filling the cabin.

"Uh, can I take a day off? System, Transfer energy?"

[541]

"I wish I could figure out the effect the different enemies and food and atmosphere and whatnot had on my energy level but I really don't get it, base recharge rate is definitely the biggest factor though isn't it"

"Hang on, didn't it say? System tell me about the luminous fungi"

He suddenly remembered having these thoughts before and the system telling him something about luminous fungi and the energy. He hadn't even thought about this when he saw the glowing mushrooms before.

"They're valuable enough that the system mentioned them before…"

[The many varieties of luminous fungi are a good indicator of a natural mana vent. They primarily grow underground and only in mana rich environments. Their many uses are primarily focused towards alchemy but they can also be used recreationally to…]

"Right, sure. Do any creatures farm them?"

[The value of these fungi are well known to most races in Eden and even those who are unable to make use of their inherent properties are aware of some connection between them and the high mana areas in the world, even on basic instinct creatures are attracted to such areas]

"Tell me about Mana vents"

[Mana vents are naturally mana rich geysers which flood the surrounding areas with the pure mana from deep within Eden's core, all mana is cyclic in nature and new mana is only naturally produced by converting foreign energy and the life force of living things, Eden maintains itself by constantly absorbing stray mana form the atmosphere and condensing it within the planet, this mana by its very nature is constantly under pressure and active and so breaks out and flows through these vents, this relieves the pressure that would otherwise build up and erupt explosively, making Eden unliveable and thus unable to maintain its mana supply]

"How can humans use this?"

[Items, technology]

"Such as?"

[Unknown]

"Right, sure. Okay, how can I use it to increase my transfer energy?"

[Dimensional Transfer energy passively builds based on the same siphoning principle as Eden itself, the higher the surrounding mana the quicker it will charge, ingesting mana also has a dramatic effect which is increased as your [Wisdom] and [Endurance] attributes increase]

"How could I ingest mana from a mana vent?"

[Inhale]

"Right, are the luminous fungi toxic?"

[Sometimes]

"The green ones I saw?"

[Unknown]

"Okay, can mana vapour be transported?"

[Theoretically, it is a vapour]

"Would the mana be able to seep out of a metal canister, reference gas tanks from Earth?"

[No, but the pressure level is unknown in comparison to [Oxygen], [methane]]

"How come you didn't know what technology we would need to use mana vapour until now?"

[Harvest, not use. Humans cannot use this, you can, exclusively]

"But humans could use it with technology right?"

[Correct]

"Okay I think that's enough, what matters right now is I can make use of those mushrooms and apparently go sit in a cave sucking fumes to achieve enlightenment. Melissa will be happy"

"Oh System, one last thing give me my transfer countdown and current experience level please"

[1.66 days, 254/700]

"Thank you"

Looking at his quests he considered his options, right now he had access to an area he could increase his Transfer energy charge along with the fungi and their strange little care takers, but thinking about the sounds he heard from the Dwarf tomb made him less confident about that.

The other option was to level up to level 8 as he had intended originally and increase his transfer energy base charge.

"It would be a waste to start sitting in a cave now, killing the grey things might get me the exp I need but I doubt it, better to go with the Skebble and river quests, the rewards alone for those will get me to level 8 and I don't have to risk the cave again."

The deciding factor for him being the lights he'd seen the night before.

Resolved again he prepared to leave and then realised how close he was to missing an opportunity.

"Wait! The rain, the water butts will be full, I can finally have a bath!"

The morning's quest started much later than expected as he enjoyed the opportunity and resolved to send some soap over the next chance he got.