Chapter 10: a magical corpse

I tried to make a small incision on top of the skull and I only needed a slight push to break its skin that had previously stopped earth spikes, speaking for its sharpness. I removed the hide from the skull without cutting it from the rest of the hide because I might have use for the hide itself. The skull was now bare and the first thing that I noticed was that its teeth were a pure carnivore so it got that from the jaguar. For now I decided to name the beast a baguar, rather unoriginal but it was easier than calling it beast or monster. The rest of the skull was reminiscent of a jaguar but with small difference here and there, it had tusks for one and its snout was a bit more bulky than a normal jaguar. Its jaws were impressive and while the teeth were that of a jaguar, it looked to be a bit wider. Getting bitten by this thing would probably be a death sentence. Proceeding to cut it open I saw the brain and a strange brownish orb. I activated my Mana sight and saw that it contained a lot of earth Mana, it was probably the source of its magical capabilities. What was surprising was that the entire body of the baguar emanated earth Mana but the Mana I absorbed from it was pure, was I putting it through some sort of filter? Worth looking into later but first I stored the orb in a pot I had ready.

The brain itself also emanated some kind of energy that gave me the feeling of calmness, was Mana saturation enough to turn normal organs into something magical? It could very well be, the hide was also as tough as rocks after all, could be that the Mana type determined the way it would grow and the amount of Mana the amount of growth, it’d make sense. I cast some magic on the brain to preserve it and put it in another pot I had ready, all of these pots were for storing the various organs so I could study them later. Apart from the Mana I wasn’t a neurosurgeon so I couldn’t see anything different with it, all of my biological knowledge came from high school and a short study in my spare time afterwards. The skull itself did emanate a faint bit of Mana but it was negligible, I’d still keep it in store for now because maybe I could make some tools out of it, I didn’t know the properties of these bones after all.

Moving on with the torso, I made an incision just on top of its spine so I could sort of peel the hide off and see the organs. They fell out and it created a mess of blood and guts. Luckily everything fell on the hide so while it did create a mess, the organs were still intact. I still had my Mana sight active and saw that all of the organs had Mana infused in them, why did Mana bind itself to the organs specifically and not the bones? It’d take more research including a live specimen and I was curious if there was such a thing with humans, I didn’t see much on my own body though, could be a result of the elementless Mana. The lungs were filled with water but that was easy to solve with some magic, just use some words that allow you to manipulate water and pull it out. I cut off the lungs and saw that the Mana that infused them seemed to simply give them a way to breathe in less oxygen dense environments but that helps nothing against partial drowning, it might even be a disadvantage. The liver was next and while I didn’t get a specific feeling from it, thinking logically about it, it more than likely simply improved its function and made it harder for poison to affect it. There were a whole lot of different organs and most of them seemed to have effects that related to the properties of earth which was interesting since at first I didn’t know that different Mana types seemed to relate to certain personality traits. I harvested the other organs and labelled them by carving the names of the organs on the pot they were in. I also made sure to use magic to preserve them all since every single organ seemed to have some inherent trait which could be used for maybe alchemy? Using different organs for alchemy made sense, especially with all of the different traits they had. So far the way I think I can use alchemy is by taking an organ as the primary ingredient for the potions, then using herbs to ‘aim’ the potions effect more, like using the liver and combining it with herbs with healing effects to create a potion that would cure poisons. This was all still theorising but I think I am on the right track for now. I could also try to look into healing potions since those could be very useful but that’s for later.

For now I would give all of these pots a good spot in my storage shack and I was going to investigate the heart and the orb a bit closer since they seemed to warrant that. The heart was interesting because I could not make out what the effect was and it seemed to contain equal amounts of earth Mana and non-elemental Mana. For now I’d call it arcane Mana since that seemed fitting. This arcane Mana didn’t work as it did within my own body since it was far too little to cast spells from. Perhaps it was used as a connection between the brain and the earth Mana in the body? No that could not be because there was no other arcana Mana in the body to be found so it wouldn’t connect anything. I intended to study the orb to see if I could shed some light on this.

The orb itself was very interesting and seemed to be the physical manifestation of Mana which was interesting since so far Mana seemed to be a thing that could manipulate reality at will as long as you shaped it in that form. That previous theory still seemed to have some merit but there had to be more to it since if that was the case, there was no real reason for it to also be a physical thing. Could it be that Mana was more so an energy source and less so a way? That would make sense considering we could already dream before having Mana, it’s just that now those dreams can be made reality. If this is the case it makes sense for it to also simply be an energy that can be used for more things. This Mana orb is quite interesting since it seems to be where the baguar drew all its energy from as opposed to the entirety of the body as I do. Could it be that the heart functions as a sort of focus for that energy? That could be but that begs the question, is it the same with a human? Would they be incapable of using Mana without the heart or was that just a thing of innate Mana. I myself wasn’t born with great quantities of Mana and got this way through training so it could be that this causes my mind to be more adapt at shaping Mana through intent than through sheer force of will with the heart acting as focus for that will. I did have to think about every aspect of the Mana I was about to cast. Following this line of thinking, could it be that the speedster I encountered in the village is closer to the baguar when it comes to using its Mana than to me? It didn’t use any spells but I don’t have the corpse so I can’t reach too many conclusions, it’d be useful if I had the body but there is no way to get it or another one since I don’t think I can take someone on his level in a remotely fair fight. Are there any other types of casters? This would have to be investigated further but for now I did learn a fair bit

I noted down my hypothesises and wanted to research further but then I saw that it was already getting dark outside so I did my daily Mana training and went to bed. I didn’t fully sleep however and kept my mind awake so I could do a bit more thinking.

For alchemy I would need some equipment and I don’t even know if it actually exists so that is currently not going to happen. Apart from that I had a couple of tests I wanted to do tomorrow. The first one was to see exactly how my magic works. I was quite interested about this one because I have been enjoying casting and researching but I feel my current magic is inefficient due to its long casting time and I don’t actually know how efficient I cast my magic. The second experiment would be to see if I could somehow drain Mana from the Mana core I had just like I could drain Mana from the beast. If I could, I could probably become a decent bit more powerful which I was very much interested in because the previous fight against the baguar taught me that I am only one bad decision away from death. The last experiment I wanted to do if the previous one failed is if I could cast spells through the core. This would serve as a useful way to defend myself and to find out more about how magic works.