Chapter 246: Hyper Mana

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AN: Got some editing suggestions? Suggest it on the Google Docs here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NcjiRLB5YlhDmUUIpTu_8km50u5fUs5WL_LJ0KT9UBo/edit?usp=sharing

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Kayafe has finally done it! She mastered [Sense Mana]! Now, she just needs to enhance it, but the question is: will she get [Sense Magic] and stay in Alysara’s shadow? Or will she be able to get [Sense Divinity] and tread her own path?

Please, please, give me [Sense Divinity]!

What else can she do? She read Uloron’s notes about [Sense Divinity]; now, she can only roll the dice.

Kayafe focuses on her Legendary point and wills it into her [Sense Mana].

Ting! Sense Mana has evolved to Sense Divinity!

Ting! Sense Divinity has obtained levels 331-603!

Kayafe’s vision instantly becomes much more crisp and clear, to the point where even minute details that had required intense focus can now be seen clearly. Her range and perceptive field grow massively as well, so much so that she thinks she can even see the main storm core now.

She gets more notifications of [Sense Divinity] leveling up as she uses her improved vision to better study mana. She read Alysara’s notes, so she knows the theory, but seeing it herself not only gets her the usage levels but allows her to actually understand the theory in a practical sense.

I can probably get modifying breakthroughs like the one that allows me to adjust my perceptive pressure.

Alysara had to discover these herself, and that took time, but simply knowing they exist means she can try and get them to further boost her perceptive Skill so she can better study this storm.

It’s honestly ridiculous how many breakthroughs there are that are not even related to sensing magic or divinity.

She can’t get them all today but should have all she can by the end of the week.

Just then, Kayafe feels a stronger influence upon the mana she is seeing, blurring her own vision slightly as if the information she receives from the mana is going to someone else.

Ting! Sense Divinity has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 660!

33rd Breakthrough: You've sensed another's perceptive field; this will help you detect when you are being spied upon, or determine the target of others’ attention.

A moment later, Alysara reduces her perceptive pressure to the point where Kayafe can’t feel it anymore.

Seems like she’s helping me out a little.

Either that or Kayafe’s improved vision is interfering with her own. It would be interesting to see what it’s like when Alysara uses her highest perceptive pressure. Would it overpower her own vision so much that she wouldn’t be able to see? Questions for later; for now, she has a lot of work to do.

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I look into the very heart of the storm, perplexed by the strange phenomenon I am seeing, when I get a world message saying that Kayafe has finally mastered [Sense Mana].

I guess some people just need to see things for themselves to fully understand complex physics, or, in this case, mana physics.

It doesn’t take long for Kayafe to spend her enhancing Legendary point, made very obvious by the fact that our vision is fighting for the same information.

I wonder if there’s a way to make our Skills work together? I ponder.

I briefly increase my perception to normal levels in an attempt, but my half-hearted effort fails. We can always work this out later, but the storm has a time limit, so I need to focus my efforts there.

The storm core is accompanied by a flurry of what can only be called super-solid mana snow. A veritable mana blizzard whirling around the core. The MM forces are so strong they even rip apart super-solid mana!

It is still nowhere near powerful enough to make primordial mana, but it’s possible that a strong enough storm might be able to do so. I can’t even begin to imagine a storm so powerful; it would be world-ending.

As for the storm core itself, it is a marvel of what nature can produce. Just like the normal storm cores orbiting it, the mana particles inside it are intensified, but in this case, it’s to a ludicrous degree! The MM force pulls on whatever fabric of reality mana exists on, creating mountainous wrinkles that the mana has to surmount. This, in turn, traps mana particles inside the core, making them intensify each other. The more they do, the more powerful the MM force and, thus, the more energy the mana needs to escape. It’s a feedback loop.

The only problem is that the mana inside is reaching some sort of energy limit; the mana no longer has the means to escape. This means that the storm will only grow more and more powerful as more mana joins the core. This should stop any new mana from coming in since it would have to overcome the same obstacle required to leave, but it’s not. There’s something else happening, and I don’t know what. It doesn’t help that the accretion disk is so powerful that even my vision blurs, so I can’t really tell what’s going on.

It can’t be quantum tunneling since that would allow mana to escape, and as far as I know, mana doesn’t do quantum shenanigans.

It seems like mana is transforming into some new type that has a higher threshold for energy, but why is the mana inside not transforming to leave?

Now that I think about it, didn’t Kayafe cast a spell with a similar type of mana? I never got the chance to ask her about it. In any case, the conditions to enter the storm core must be different than to leave.

For now, I should try to understand this new mana and then work out why it isn’t in the core. By working backwards from the mana to the condition that makes it, I may be able to figure this phenomenon out.

This new mana has a much higher threshold for energy, allowing it to enter the storm’s core, which returns it to normal mana. But that doesn’t explain what it is, so what are its other properties?

I focus my full perception on the accretion disk and crank my perceptive pressure to its maximum. The blurriness becomes clearer, at least enough to see that this type of mana is more in line with essence mana, just way more powerful.

So it’s an essence but more powerful than elements…

It seems like it’s a hyperexpression of an essence, storm essence, to be exact. It’s almost as if someone cranked the identity of ‘storm’ up to fifteen. I never thought about it, but do essences have a lower threshold for energy? They’re typically less powerful than elements, but that might be just the expression of their identity, or perhaps they must be weaker to be stable.

Zooming out a little more, I watch the elements and essences in the accretion disk gain more and more intensity, mana’s version of energy, until they reach the same levels as the mana inside the core and transform into storm hyper essence.

Both essences and elements reach the same amount of intensity so that rules out essences having different thresholds for intensity.

This might mean there is a hyper version of elemental mana, but this gets me no closer to understanding this new type of mana.

I pace in front of the Mana Arc, wracking my brain. I need to figure this out, to understand this new type of mana. I haven't felt this perplexed about mana in a long time, and I feel like it will result in a new wave of discoveries; new mana types always do that. However, in order to actually get a breakthrough, I have to really understand what I am seeing; it’s just that this goes further beyond what I am used to. Even with primordial mana—though I may not have known what to call it—fundamentally, I knew I was looking at a more basic form of mana. It seems like this is the exact opposite, a much more advanced type of mana. It’s usually easier to understand a more basic form of something than an advanced one, the exception being matter below the molecular scale.

Let’s just ask Kayafe; maybe she knows about it. She did cast a spell using this type of mana, after all.

“Kayafe?”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“What was that type of mana you used against the Elementals a few days ago?”

“I don’t know; it’s beyond my abilities to see. It comes from my Ultimate Class, and I can’t replicate it with my [Manipulate Magic], or at least I don’t know how to. Why do you ask?”

So Kayafe doesn’t know either.

“I see the same type of mana, but of a different essence around the main storm core.”

“What?!”

After a few seconds, I feel Kayafe’s perceptive field sweep over mine at the storm’s core, and I lower my pressure to let her get as clear a look as her Skill will allow.

“Hrmm! it’s too blurry!” Kayafe growls.

“You need to increase your perceptive pressure; even I had trouble seeing it.”

“I don’t have that breakthrough yet,” Kayafe complains, looking slightly dejected. “Setting that aside for a moment, don’t you think your storm containment will be torn apart? The core is ripping apart even super-solid mana.”

“Hmm, maybe. I have magic blocking the MM force from passing through the barrel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will stop the MM force from entering the barrel structure itself. If it does, even by the tiniest amount, it will erode the barrel. That said, I’m not too worried. Even if we can’t create a perfect structure, as long as we have a containment that can last for a few days, we can repair it as needed.”

We’re going to need to test the containment barrel to really figure out how to proceed. If it works, then great; no further action needed, or just daily repairs. If not, then there isn’t much else we can do without crafting a magical item specifically for this task, which is hard to do since magic may try to rebel. I could use a ritual, but I don’t want to risk another Saintess’s Anguish situation.

“Shouldn’t we test it now?” Kayafe asks, sounding a little worried.

“It’s too late for that. If what we have now doesn’t work, we’ll need weeks or even months to make something that can. Besides, if we can suspend the storm core in the middle of the barrel, then we can use spatial alteration enchantments to make the inside large enough that the barrel can’t be eroded. And if that doesn’t work, then we shove it into the Mana Arc; it should be able to store half of it, if not all of it.”

Kayafe sighs. “I suppose you're right, plus we can always put it in the Dungeon. The Dungeon Core might prefer we do that, actually.”

“We’ll have to evacuate everyone from the Dungeon if it comes to that.”

Even after asking Kayafe, who can use hyper mana, I am still no closer to understanding what it is; I can only hope that I figure it out soon.

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Post Chapter POV:

Autumn teleports back home to the City of Flowers as soon as she can. She welcomes the sweet smell of blooming Alf flowers hanging from vines that drape from branching homes.

Autumn pulls out the transformation stake in her chest and returns to her true form before leaving the privacy of her tree home. Then descends the wooden stairs and steps onto the soft and depleted elf soil outside. Not a single blade of unsightly grass taints the sacred soil. Leaves dropped from the canopy above have been swept to the sides of marked pathways, but Autumn can’t get nostalgic now; she needs to report back to the council.

Running to a large, multi-tree complex, she navigates the fused branches until she reaches her destination.

“Autumn? You’re not due back for another three months; I take it that this has to do with the recent battle between the Humans and those despicable Dwarves?” a male Elf with orange leaves and blue, stone-like eyes asks.

“There’s that, but it wasn’t the main reason. The Runalymo are helping the Humans.”

“The world message about Kayafe, yes, we know.”

“It’s not about the Cursed Prophet, Orchid. There’s another, far more dangerous threat!”

Orchid holds his hand to stop her and closes his three eyes in thought.

“Is it Alysara? She’s the only other Runalymo we know of.”

Autumn nods.

“I managed to spy her status. She’s an Heirloom Progenitor! Worse, she somehow managed to get both her enhanced Skills, which are close to level one thousand, in her Race! Surely you know what this means!” Autumn says, speaking a bit more frantically than she intended.

Orchid freezes, processing what she’s told him.

“If she bears offspring, then we’ll have a new race to contend with, one far more powerful than us.”

“And that’s not all! She has a strong title, is blessed by two spirit gods, and isn’t even Legendary tier! She’s already this strong and isn’t even Legendary!”

“Calm down.” Orchid holds his hand up again. “We need to arrange a meeting with the council and present all your information to them. Implant your memories into a memory stone while they’re still fresh. Once we have all the relevant information, then we can have the Order of Nightblossom deal with Alysara. You have done well to bring this information to us, and rest assured that we will not let this threat bloom.”

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A few hours later, Autumn is led into the council room.

There is a large statue of their progenitor father, Verdant. She kneels on the ground and bows her head before the statue.

“Father Verdant, may your wisdom guide us today,” Autumn prays.

Once she is done, she stands up and faces the council members. They are the leaders of the intelligence branch and serve under one of the Cardinals.

“Present the memory stone,” a brown-leafed council member commands. Her three yellow eyes glint in the artificial light of glow crystals.

Autumn gracefully sets the stone in front of the council, and one by one, they hold it up to their third eye before passing it along. After that, the council is quiet for several anxious moments.

“Please wait outside while we discuss this information,” a green-leafed, amethyst-eyed council member orders.

Autumn obeys, and after about an hour, she is called back in.

“You have a new mission. Keep an eye on Alysara as best you can and learn how the Runalymo and Humans are working together.”

“As you command.” Autumn clasps her hands together in respect.

However, as she leaves the room, she can’t help but feel that the council is ignoring the threat that she poses. Why keep watch on her instead of killing her? Perhaps that will be the plan, but they want to know why she is helping the Humans. Whatever the case, it’s not her place to question it; she just needs to have faith that they know Verdant’s wisdom more than her.