CH8: They Have Pangea; I Have My Secrets And Cheats 

***

CH8: They Have Pangea; I Have My Secrets And Cheats

I was really excited about the Mana Vein that I found.

I may have never met my parents, but the gift they left behind for me was enough for me to love them as much as I loved Asta.

This gift was a timely one.

I walked into the cavern.

I was roughing but I believed it was about the size of a football pitch (100m X 70m). The ceiling was probably 15m high.

I didn't even notice I was walking downwards when I was moving through the labyrinth.

I looked around.

There was a thin white fog in the cave. It wasn't that thick, at least it didn't impair my vision.

I saw the familiar mana stones embedded in the walls, lighting up the cave. There was a lake at the end of the cave, occupying a third of it.

There was a cube, bigger than me, levitating at the end of the cave. I guess it was 2m high.

I couldn't help recalling what I knew about Mana Veins when I saw this levitating cube.

-

A Mana Vein was a point underground were mana gathered. They are usually underground caves with large concentration of mana.

Over time, the mana takes physical form.

First, it appears as a thick, slightly white vapour. Then, the vapour condenses into liquid. Eventually, the liquid will solidify into mana stones in the walls of the cave.

Depending on the location of the Vein, the concentration of the mana reaching it and, most importantly, Luck, the Vein may form something called a Vein Core.

As long as the Vein Core exists, the Vein will continue to gather mana in the cave and replenish whatever is lost.

The more energy the Vein collects, the higher the Vein Core will evolve.

The Vein Core starts off as a 1m radius sphere, then it becomes a 2m cube.

Then again, under favourable conditions, the Vein Core undergoes a metamorphosis and becomes a Mana Womb.

The Mana Womb finally births a Mana Soul.

A Mana Soul was the apex controller of mana in the world; no human nor beast could ever come close.

The breath of a Mana Soul was thick gaseous mana. Its secretions were liquid mana. Finally, its egestions were mana stones.

Anywhere a Mana Soul stayed, would automatically begin producing this concentrated mana forms.

A fully mature Mana Soul was a terrifying apex creature. No being would dare offend it.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the number of Mana Souls recorded were no more than 15 in all of history.

This meant the cube levitating above the mana pool was a Cube-stage Vein Core.

I was really excited.

I had no intention to mine or monetise the cave.

Let's not mention how unwise and unsafe that was, I just didn't need to.

I inherited enough wealth from my parents and Asta to cater for my needs as long as I spent frugally. There were also a lot of mana stones of different sizes to use for my Herbology.

I wasn't rich but I wasn't poor either.

I didn't need money right now.

In that sense, I was grateful to Loki for the family I was born into.

Anyway, I didn't need the mine as a source of wealth. What I needed it for was to train my body.

I knew from experience that my body's healing factor is dependant on the available mana.

I had been worried that the mana stones left behind wouldn't last long if I used them for both 'training' and Herbology, but now, that concern was gone.

This mine was a perfect training area for me!

I could train here without worries of injuries.

The good part was, I didn't need to worry about using up mana stones or anything like that.

The Cube Vein Core should be able to replenish more mana than I could use.

Well, at least that's what I thought.

**

More than a year passed since Asta died.

I was over fourteen years old. I only had about half a year to go before my fifteenth birthday and second awakening.

I was satisfied with my preparation.

Body... Mind... Environment.

These were my areas of preparation.

*

Body.

I pretty much spent the nights in the cavern of the Mana Vein.

I moved my training facility into the cave. The space was large enough for my use.

Not only did I not have to worry about crippling myself, the cave also acted as a good hiding spot for all the training I was doing.

Two birds and all that.

'If you don't want others to hurt you, you must first hurt yourself.'

This was the philosophy of the Martial school of the old man I lived with while I was working in a country in the East of my past life.

I embodied this philosophy and then some.

I could completely heal any injuries within moments if I wanted while I was in the cave. So, I went all out.

I trained my body till every bone was broken, every muscle and tendon was torn; only to have them rebuilt by mana.

Every time this rebirth happened, I noticed my body becoming a little stronger.

I recalled that young martial artist were made to strike hard objects over and over again until micro-fractures appeared in their bones. When these micro-fractures healed, that bone would be stronger than before.

The moment I was sure this was what was happening to me, I doubled down on my training.

Anyone who saw what I was doing would quake in fear. They'll label me a masochist... a mad man.

But so what? I didn't care.

I was presented this great gift in the form of the Mana Vein. I wouldn't let a little temporary pain stop me from taking the best advantage of it.

That said, I was glad my training regimen was hidden from people down here. I didn't need anyone seeing what I was doing. Saved me the time of giving needless explanations.

I won't lie, what I experienced wasn't easy.

I barely kept going. I wasn't sure if I would've been able to continue if someone saw me and made me stop.

However, down in the cave, with only myself as company, I felt the threat of the time limit and the potentially dangerous future ahead of that, pushing me to get stronger.

I needed to get stronger to survive my first mission. I needed to be strong to survive in this world where everyone other than me had a Pangea.

I self-mutilated myself so that no one would be strong enough to do that to me in the future.

I broke every bone in my body so that the world wouldn't break me.

I tore every muscle... every tendon, so that my enemies wouldn't have the power to tear away what was mine in this life.

I rebuilt myself so that I was strong enough to build a life better than my past life.

I suffered to become stronger so that I would stand at the Apex of the world!

By the end of the long year after Asta's death, six months to my Fifteenth birthday, I had become many times as strong as I was in my previous life.

This wasn't just in my physical attribute, but in my combat ability as well.

I didn't just train monotonously within the cave. Every night, I would go into town incognito and pick fights with the local thugs and lowlifes.

They weren't like the kids who I manhandled with my eyes closed back in basic school.

These thugs had unlocked their Pangea.

Sure, they may be trash, but even they gave me a run for my money.

At the beginning, I had my arse handed to me. Fortunately, I always planned my escape before acting.

I saw first-hand the difference between having and not having a Pangea.

These thugs had no combat sense whatsoever. Any thug in my past life could hold their own against any of these guys. However, it became a different matter entirely when Pangea came into play.

Those damned things were cheats I tell you!

With it, a damned thug who wasted his life away was able to defeat a Martial Master who spent his whole life training.

I got a taste of what I was up against.

But over time, I began to learn to adapt.

Eventually, I won my first fight.

Once I won my first fight and gained the belief that I could do it, I never looked back.

I still lost fights after this but I gained a slow but steady experience on how to face people with Pangea.

Right now, none of those trash thugs could fight against me, only there superiors with strong Pangea could face me.

I had no intention of fighting them yet though.

I was biding my time.

Anyway, I can consider my 'Body' preparation completed for now. I couldn't make any significant improvement in the time I had left.

*

Mind.

I never stopped going to the Library to increase my knowledge of the world, even as I trained my body.

I only knew and spoke to a few number of people in town.

I spent a lot of time in the Library that I naturally became friends with the Librarian and her daughter.

The Librarian's daughter was four years younger than me.

She went through her first awakening around the time I finished basic school and became a regular at the library.

The girl had an impressive 72% MAC% when she awakened and I helped her reached 100% MAC% in the next three months.

I may not be able to improve my MAC%, it didn't mean I didn't do my best to learn about it.

'Know your enemies and you shall win a thousand battles'.

I would be facing Pangea user so I needed to know how their abilities worked.

MAC% was dependant on the individual's body's acceptance to mana. In that case, it was pretty easy to improve it.

The bodies of humans in this world contained mana. Whenever they did a strenuous activity, the mana in their bodies would be used up and later replenished when they rest.

I figured that exhausting and replenishing the mana in one's body repeatedly should improve the body's acceptance to mana.

Or if you look at it from another perspective, it should lower the body's resistance to mana.

I noticed from watching the kids back at basic school that it seemed like the kids' bodies were repelling mana.

I guessed this was why someone came up with the meditation method that's ubiquitous right now.

The body repels mana, but not uniformly. There was a bit of tolerance for the mana of the same kind as the one found in the body.

This was why kids were told to focus only on the mana of the same colour as the mana in their bodies.

In that case, the best way to improve MAC% was to lower the body's resistance or increase its tolerance.

Pretty much everyone in my previous world knew if you repeatedly introduce something to the body, good or bad, the body would build a tolerance to that thing and lower its resistance against it.

Since I had a good test subject around, I decided to test this simple hypothesis.

I ingratiated myself with the mother-daughter pair. Then, using that familiarity, I played different physically demanding kids games with the girl.

I always made the girl meditate immediately were done playing.

I was right! She made noticeable progress every time.

So much so that her mother noticed.

At first, the woman thought her daughter was a genius and asked me not to disturb her daughter any longer so that she could develop her fullest potential.

It was a polite way of saying, 'I don't want my daughter to be trash like you'.

I didn't mind.

I wasn't going to take a child seriously.

The mother wasn't half my mental age so why should I take her words seriously. Especially not when I knew she would be back to beg me.

I just continued reading my books and minding my business.

For the next two weeks, the girl's progress slowed down to a halt.

The change was so drastic that even a blind man would notice, not to mention a concerned mother.

She began to wonder if her daughter's progress had something to do with me.

It helped that the little girl also thought I was doing something which was helping her. She threw tantrums to her mother that her 'friends' were leaving her behind.

She wanted her mother to allow her to meet me so that I could help her catch up to her friends.

The woman was still unwilling, but she decided to bend for her daughter.

She came to me and apologised.

She asked me to teach her how to help train her daughter.

I almost laughed out loud. She thought I was just a child and an apology was enough to steal the 'special training technique' from me.

Amused, I told her that she just had to play with the girl before she began meditating.

I added in some nonsense like her mental state was important during meditation.

It wasn't wrong but it wasn't true either.

At that moment, I was curious. After getting the knowledge, would she give me the cold shoulder?

Interestingly, she didn't.

She gave me a thirty percent discount on library fees.

I was impressed by her shrewd mind.

Anyway, things progressed the way I expected.

Even though she played with her daughter, making the little lass happy, the girl's MAC% didn't improve.

The mother had no choice but to come back to me.

This time, she came to meet me at home. She didn't appeal to me directly.

She appealed to Asta (God bless her soul).

Asta convinced me to help them.

I insisted that playing with the girl was all I did but they didn't believe me.

Knowing my love of reading, the Librarian offered to waive my library fees if I could show her how I help her daughter.

Unconsciously, I smiled and said in my mind,

"Check!"

I agreed immediately.

I spent the day playing with the girl until she was dead tired, so much so she wanted to sleep. I made sure the mother didn't know this was the main point.

I had seen when the librarian was playing with her daughter. The girl was happy and had a genuine happy smile on her face.

I intentionally took our play further. I tickled the girl from time to time, causing her to laugh a lot.

I made sure she laughed many times before I finally made her begin her meditation. At the end of the session, the improvement rate was back to the previous high.

The librarian was stunned.

All she saw was two children playing happily before the smaller one started meditating.

She saw that I didn't do anything else aside what I told her previously.

Then she begged me to help her daughter everyday when I came to the library. In exchange, she wouldn't only waive my library fees, she would also give me access to ALL the books in the library.

I could see in her eyes that she thought the reason her daughter improved with me, when it didn't with her, was because her daughter enjoyed playing more with me than with her.

I could see she was a little pained but she cared more about her daughter's future than her own feelings.

She was a mother I could respect.

So, I agreed.

I saw the mother and daughter off that day.

I watched their backs as they left.

"Checkmate!"

Although I had to use a child, I didn't feel too bad since it was a win-win for all parties.

The library fees might be cheap, however, they'd rack up to a small fortune if I wanted to read all the books in the library. Plus, I won't have access to all the books until I was older.

I didn't have the time to waste, nor did I want to burden Asta.

This was why I did all this, aside testing my hypothesis.

Like that, I gained the friendship of the Librarian's family and access to the knowledge locked within the walls of her library.

Thus, this was how I got the cheat for my 'Mind' preparation.

(To be continued...)

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