46 – Personal growth

A word of power, and the ritual came alive at once. But Melina’s attention was not on the ritual itself, even though the display was impressive, because a much more pressing issue had imposed itself at the forefront of her mind, momentarily sending her in a state of panic.

Suddenly the air felt empty. It was as if someone had removed all oxygen from it, and even breathing was like breathing nothing at all. All smells were gone, all thickness and substance disappeared. It was thin, imperceptible. Melina gasped for air, heaving, and forcing her lungs to draw deep breaths that did nothing to make the sensation of drowning go away. It didn’t make any sense, she knew that her body forged by the Tiers should be able to survive a long time without breathing, yet it felt as if the very lifeblood of her existence on this plane was missing.

Looking around, the world was no longer the vibrant tapestry of life and interconnectedness it once was. It was like a badly drawn doodle, thick lines filled with splotches of color instead of thin, delicate and elegant contours filled with radiance. It was the shadow of a projection, nothing more.

Then, it all came rushing back in. From the edges of the bubble of lesser reality, a rush of fresh mana, vibrant and sweet, literal fresh air inundated the vacuum that had come to be. It filled it in a matter of moments, thick and nourishing, the foundation of life itself.

For a moment, she realized, she had witnessed the fading and fragile existence of a world without mana. It had lasted barely a moment, but such a disgrace had touched her deeply, and her soul wanted to weep at the loss a world without mana did not even know it suffered. Her own cultivation stirred, the foundation upon which she had built her Tiers of power shaken to the core. Mana was not just a tool, perhaps. Perhaps it was a fundamental thing about the universe, without which life itself was utterly different. A medium that pervaded everything and everywhere, fundamental and life-giving.

Ishrin later explained the ritual to her. What he told her confirmed her theories: he had sucked in a lot of mana from the surrounding environment, and a bubble of several meters in diameter had been rendered utterly devoid of mana. For a moment, only he and she retained any mana—for draining a person of their mana meant killing them. Not that killing a Tier 6 would be an easy feat even for Ishrin, and certainly not one he could achieve accidentally with a simple ritual.

More unfortunate fate befell the grass and shrubbery and even the lone tree that had been so unfortunate as to be caught in the radius of the drainage. Without mana, the very life essence of the vegetation had shriveled and dried to sustain their existence, and the weaker plants had succumbed in seconds. Their attempts at staving off their demise too pathetic to even buy them the couple of seconds that they needed to survive before the mana returned. The grass lay dead and yellow, dry and barely a husk of what it once was, a circle of death centered around the still sitting Ishrin. The epicenter of it all.

The voice of the world had spoken while Melina was still in a daze. Ishrin had heard it, grimacing as if he had swallowed a bitter and nasty fruit. The reasons for his grimace were his own, but Melina could advance hypotheses of her own, and she did—it would be a long time before Ishrin vanished from the forefront of her thought like the unhealthy obsession he had become.

The voice had said this:

Ritual successful. Albadazur Singularity of Collection: all magic in a radius of 10 meters has been gathered inside the containment field.

And to her, that had been the end of it. By then, she was gasping for air and struggling to come to terms with what she had seen, the revelation unlocking a new path forward for her cultivation which would take several more days for her to really come to terms with.

To Ishrin, it was barely the beginning. Right at the cusp of a moment, in the span of time between one instant and the next, as the ritual drew the magic towards him he felt that the universe was truly boundless. He could sense it, out of sight because he was too weak to see it, but evident to his keen eyes that had already glimpsed it once in the past: the Dirac Sea. The foundation of the universe, the true well of energy that was the fathomless ocean upon which reality was but a thin slick of oil, ever expanding, ever thinner. In that moment, devoid of mana, the oil was so thin he could almost see below—if only his eyes were strong enough to make sense of it. Having seen it already, he knew what to expect, and the loss did not weigh on his mind. He knew it only to be a temporary one.

Then the moment passed. The magic had been gathered inside his core, but it was not yet his to call his own. He would have to digest it, to slowly and carefully refine it and add it to his core proper, filtering it out of the containment field that had drawn upon the Dirac Sea for power before it dissipated. He would have to be quick, as quick as he could safely do it. If the field dissipated before he was done, the damage the unattuned energy would cause would probably kill him. Or at least cripple him beyond the ability of his rituals to restore him.

That was why he grimaced, really. Once again, he had taken a step forward in a path he loathed to take, and for once his dual nature of who he had been before reincarnating, and who he was now, was in agreement. Neither side liked what he was doing, but it had to be done, and so he had done it.

Over the course of the next few days, he would either step into the middle realms of Tier 3 with more power than he had ever thought possible, or he would die. Already, even at the bare bones bottom of the Tier, he was powerful enough to be called an anomaly by some, an abomination by others, and a dire threat by those who really understood what having his kind of power meant.

He could not let Syrma take a look at his core, or he wouldn’t be walking away from that encounter alive.

Lisette arrived a few hours later, and found Ishrin sitting cross legged at the center of a circle of dead grass and Melina contemplating the universe on a boulder. At least, she looked like she was contemplating the universe, but Lisette knew very well about her difficulties at understanding people, and therefore considered her interpretations to be provisional—until further actions or outside information either confirmed them or proved them wrong. She was happy to say that lately, she had been proven wrong less often than usual, and the trend seemed to be stable with no signs of remission. She liked that. Perhaps she was stumbling upon the key to understanding people? She needed more data.

Not that she would ever ask Melina, not after the fox-girl proved to her just how fallible she was. Lisette used to think that Melina knew these kinds of things very well, that they were somehow second nature to her—like they were second nature to ‘normal’ people, although in a lesser way compared to her. Now, Lisette understood finally that it was not the case. People simply trusted their fallible guts, and it was her who had the edge, not having a gut at all for these things and instead using her brain. Yes, this did mean that she had to stumble awkwardly until she managed to compile a comprehensive enough set of social rules that would allow her not to look stupid. Yes, it did mean that she needed to put in ten times the effort. But it also meant that, in the long run, she would always improve while the others would be stuck to their faulty gut feelings and instinctive knowledges.

She would have the upper end, eventually. She had come to treat social situations the same way she treated life and death battles: training grounds to test her mettle. And to improve.

Seeing that the party was distracted, she activated the self-cleaning feature of her now-repaired armor and waited until it was done before she roused the others, taking a moment to appreciate just how handy it really was. She wouldn’t have done so if not for her meticulous observation of social norms, and she patted herself on the back when she saw that—pleasantly—neither Ishrin nor Melina shied away from her as she approached. She remembered how different it had been in other situations, before she had realized that she should care about her smell and appearance before approaching someone’s personal space.

Plus—and once again Lisette surprised herself with her own level of introspection—she loved her armor. She loved how tight it was, so tight it almost dug into her skin to the point it was painful but without ever being painful. She loved how protected it made her feel. She loved how deep black it was, so dark that light seemed to disappear when it touched it, except for a sleek and stylish sheen in some places where the leather had been polished to be shiny and smooth. She loved the gems, red and black embossed in the grooves of the leather. And she loved how powerful it made her feel whenever she wore it.

She loved that it had been Ishrin who had given it to her. Her first ever gift from a person she admired and respected deeply.

“I have returned.” She said.

“Nice!” Ishrin exclaimed, getting up and greeting her. She felt a pleasant sensation at seeing his smile.

She gave them the gold from the quest bounty, plus the gold for the materials they had decided not to keep for themselves. Then, Ishrin hummed.

“Everything went smoothly, I surmise.”

“It did. However, I also met a man outside the guild. He identified himself as Goddard, and said that he is your friend. I recall killing him in the past, but he did look different this time.”

Ishrin made a face. “You didn’t try to kill him, did you?”