In one of my earlier experiments, I popped a few mana spheres at the same time. To my surprise, some of them got refilled instantly.

I moved a few batches of mana spheres and repeated the test.

I spent a few hours moving the mana spheres. I wish there was a better way to do that. Waiting for the ink to disappear before making the next movement is frustrating and drawing things to pop all the spheres at the same time is even more frustrating.

But it was worth it.

I noticed a pattern. The mana spheres that got instantly refilled formed the shape of a T. Could it be that the mana touches some object, then bounces back and refills the mana spheres?

 

For clarity, I'll call this ability "Scan", the mana spheres it used "MP", and the mana spheres after they are popped "empty mana spheres".

Now that I have several times the MP I had before I can test my theory.

I want to know if mana spheres bounce back when they hit something.

To test this out I use two mana spheres. The first one's empty and the second one is full.

I move the first one to the back of the first page and the empty one to the front of the second page, positioned accurately to face each other.

I then pop the first mana sphere and observe what happens to the second one.

The full mana sphere becomes empty the empty one becomes full.

I then pop the second mana sphere and the opposite happens.

I then pop the spheres alternatively for a few times before I am convinced.

 

The mana is transferred between the spheres when I pop them.

The mana really gets shot in the direction the page is facing.

I can transfer the mana between the spheres as many times as I want. 

 

Now I need to find which things make the mana bounce back.

I have only four things to test:

The pages, the heart of mana, the full mana spheres, and the ink walls.

 

I move a few full mana spheres to the back of the first page

 

Do the pages reflect mana?

 

If they do when I pop a mana sphere it should bounce on the page and then go back where it started. The mana sphere should become full again.

I pop a mana sphere and it doesn't become full again.

Pages do not reflect mana

 

Do they absorb it?

I move an empty mana sphere to the front of the third page and position it to face a full mana sphere on the back of the first page.

Two things can happen:

If mana gets absorbed by pages the mana sphere on the third page should remain empty.

It mana passes thought pages the empty sphere should become full.

 

I pop the sphere on the first page. The result is:

mana passes through pages.

I kind of expected that because when I used Scan, mana must have passed through my cover.

 

I make more experiments and I discover that the heart of mana, the full mana spheres, and the ink walls all reflect mana.

 

Now I want to make one last test. I want to see what mana is made of.

I can only see things on my pages and I can't see inside hearts of manas, walls or mana spheres.

I saw the mana for an instant when it passed through the page in the experiments.

But an instant is not enough to study it.

I have to make mana stay on the page. 

But mana can only travel in the direction the page is facing.

 

Can I shoot the mana against a mana sphere in a particular position to make its trajectory change ?

There is a simpler way: ink slopes.

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If I regulate the pressure when drawing I can draw an "ink slope" instead of an "ink wall"

If I make the angle of the slope 45° the mana will move on the page and I can finally see it.

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After a few seconds everithing is ready.

3

2

1

Pop

 

It was only for one moment, but it was beautiful. I never saw anything like it. I saw this bright sphere of light with a few dark moving spots. It was much more vivid than the mana sphere. So pure. You could feel the black dots moving. You could feel they were alive.

If we could see the primordial microorganisms in the sea when life was born on earth it would look like that sphere of light. No, that sphere of life.

The full name of my heart of mana is Heart of mana (life) [lowest] 

Could the word life refer to this?

 

I repeated the experience a few more times. Every time I did, it left me more amazed. Even if I didn't know where I was, I couldn't see, hear or sense anything from outside I felt like I was not alone.

It made me think that even if sometimes we feel alone we are always surrounded by countless forms of life that we can't see and we can't even imagine how they look like.

That is both reassuring and scary at the same time, how strange.

One thing I am certain of is that I wouldn't want to mess with them. I wouldn't want to break the equilibrium.

 

After being shot, the spheres of life hit the slope, then an ink wall I placed before, bounced back, hit the ramp again and returned to the mana sphere. It was a full cycle. 

Since they moved very fast I could only see their afterimages in the places where they changed direction and a blurry line in the rest of the way.

I needed to slow them down.

 

How can I do that?

If I want to I can change the composition of my ink so that it takes a few seconds to dry. Since the ink walls reflected the life spheres maybe undried ink can slow them down?

Let's try!

 

I couldn't be more wrong. But you know what, I like it when I am wrong!

I shot one life sphere. The ink did not slow it down. It absorbed it instead.

The ink then slowly changed color and became almost while.

Ooh, I exclaimed in excitement. The ink looked alive.

 

I wanted to see if I could move the ink like I could move the mana spheres.

I wanted to move it to the left so I was drawing a line starting from the right.

My pen never reached the ink. Because the ink moved on its own.

I couldn't believe it. I thought right and the ink moved right. I thought left and it moved left.

It could move in any direction as soon as I gave it the command in my mind. 

But even more interestingly. If I gave it the command "move a mana sphere to the second page" it would do it.

If I had this "living ink" before I wouldn't have needed to spend hours moving the mana spheres in preparation to Scan.

Now I can finally look around!

 

Wow, it's this late. I got sidetracked.

I mean I'm glad I did because I discovered a few interesting things but I was really curious about what that object was.

Maybe next time... See you then...