Chapter 3 “an insight into control”
It wasn’t a herculean amount of effort otherwise I would have failed to succeed; however, I did manage to do so. And by succeed I mean not just twitching my roots until they filled all the available area around me until I got my next nitrogen fix. Instead I was smart! I spent the next indeterminate amount of time, I couldn’t see the sun so I have no idea how long, tracing that energy flow from my roots trying to understand my third set of veins. Actually that is an excellent way to call the space where the mana flows Mana Veins! Khhmhmm sorry about that, I got a bit excited. Though I did make some excellent progress with my sense mana skill.
[ General Skill: Sense Mana has reached lvl 2-10 | Rewards +9 Mana, +9 Magic, +9 EXP ]
Though this did lead into a very pertinent question. I knew I could absorb mana from the ground as demonstrated by the nitrogen chunk, still drooling by the way, could I pull more mana into me without absorbing soil? And this question has another question associated with it. Can I control mana manually without relying on my tree biology?
Only one way to find out!
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I am not happy to say that while I was able to find where the mana went, it was three small points: one in my proto stalk which will become the heart of my trunk, one where my trunk and tap root meet, and one just before the end of my taproot, I did not manage to control my mana. Something about this lack itched at me. I felt myself growing angry, emotional unlike the distant fog of emotion that had accompanied me since I experienced that void this furor was present. This hatred was a burning in my embryo and a pain in my endosperm. Hammered into my head with an absolute knowledge that a sentient tree unable to control its own mana and growth was inefficient, insufficient, wasteful, and lazy. Even if I create, grow, something useless it will, at least, train skill levels but to waste food? Waste nutrients? Be like those I watched hidden behind the rail of the stairs? I will never be like the people who drove me to turn to full immersion because the sight of people eating makes me vomit.
Staring at my mana flows with such fervor my vision flickered as floaters swam across my field of view. I opened my eyes and I realized that I was using my crappy soul sense awakened from viewing stars with my non-vision from the void. I had completely ignored what the sense mana gave me. The flow of mana stabilized from a wide stream of blue with inconsistent patches like a crappy colored pencil drawing into a crisp blue line. Well not quite crisp. The oddities I saw now were not because of my blurry vision well, not entirely, my vision was still blurry but now it was clear enough to recognise that my natural inner flows of mana was patchy with gaps, trailing edges, a bleeding tail, and, I could barely make this out, inconsistent density.
Staring at it I realized that I could never hope to manipulate mana if I couldn’t even have it flow properly through my natural frameworks. How could I ever expect to create a completely separate, probably complex, magic framework maintained only by my own willpower and effort outside my body to cast a spell if my own flows were so choppy I could barely grow? Because I am an idiot, that’s why.
Well then, let it not be said that I can’t learn from evidence presented before me. The next indeterminable amount of time I spent felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, focusing on making one randomly selected mana flow take a curve just a bit smoother. At first, I tried straining against the mana to pull it in from that outer edge while I felt it in my “hand” pretty easily when I tried to pull it slipped between fingers so thick they make sausages look anorexic. Then I tried pushing and received some results but what if I could do it better? So I adjusted my first hand and used my second to push just before the curve while my first pushed just after. This worked, kinda, the flow after the curve was ever so slightly smoother but this was not what I wanted. The flow of mana inside the curve did not improve in fact the flow inside the curve became even more unruly, despite the fact that less mana trailed out from the outer edge, even more mana bled from the inner edge than what bled from both sides before. I really don’t get it. I am already using both hands, how could I keep the mana following the curve? Both hands? Hands? Why am I using hands? I’m not a human, I'm a tree, as confirmed by my status page. And what are trees the masters of? Creating a dense, interconnected series of tunnels designed to use surface tension and the cross molecule attraction between hydrogen and oxygen to bring water up from depths of hundreds to thousands of meters without any effort other than building the freaking tube! And I’m using hands? I honestly didn’t think I was this bad at recognizing things. Now that I think about it using hands would probably require 4 to 5 for each curve just to get things to flow properly let alone the gaps, tail, and density. Why would I think I could use the thousands if not millions of hands just to smooth all the curves without altering anything else when just trying to visualize a third hand causes the other two to flicker and let mana through? Why would I expect myself to be able to manipulate an energy I previously didn’t even know existed with the skill, ease, and fine control of a grandmaster who has been practicing since they were a baby?
And how could I know they were practicing since they were a baby? The hereditary bonus from my parent tree gave me a bonus to water and plant based skills plus a resistance to salt which seems pretty obvious given that their species name is an Oceanic Sycamore. So that gives reason to believe that a magic based tree could give a bonus to, well, magic. There is also the fact that it is a hereditary bonus which denotes my parent as a tier 3 which means the system is not unique to me. Since the system is not unique to me I should also assume that the system is not unique to trees, especially because many trees require animals to distribute their seeds. So with several not especially, bold assumptions I can conclude it is likely that every other living thing can also have the system. If every living thing has the ability to level up and gain stats/skills and there are skills relating to mana, the fantastical energy of the stories, that allows absurd things like dragons or Yggdrasil to exist it should also be assumed that sentient beings can have the system. Given that hereditary bonuses exist it would make sense for someone who has power to try to give the best bonuses to their children as possible and if you have a magic bonus and your spouse has a magic bonus that child would have a monstrous growth boost, especially if the parents train them since the child can understand. What’s even more terrifying is that if monsters exist, get this bonus, and actually care to train their children a race as fragile as the basic humanity from my original universe would at best be an endangered species, or they would have a super civilization of monstrous individuals able to level mountains with a glance.
Anyways, point is I’m not human and I shouldn’t expect anything human or human adjacent to see me as anything other than a bag of experience or a regenerating source of, eventually!!, high level wood. And even then in a universe with mana I should expect my human knowledge to be faulty, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely useless like my knowledge of how surface tension and hydrogen bonds work could allow me to ensure the flows of my mana for example. Which it did quite well actually forming a tube that followed the center of the curve exactly gave me only one item to focus on and it fixed not only the interior and exterior corner dispersal it also limited the outward radiation that occurred throughout all portions of the mana flow!
My rambling internal monologue was interrupted by a notification that had my eyes shining like a child’s.
[ General Skill: Mana Control has gained lvl 1-20 | Rewards +20 Mana, +20 Magic, + 20 EXP ]
[ General Skill: Sense Mana has gained lvl 11-20 | Rewards +10 Mana, +10 Magic, +10 EXP ]
You are doing experience different from the original. In there she got the same amount om experience as the skill level and not just one for each level. If you want to do it differently that is up to you, just know that it is different and be aware of the consequences of such.
Thank you for telling me I keep referencing the stat sheets from later chapters to see what the stats given were and just matching that. I'll fix it now!
@Doglia5 it was not my intention to change the EXP growth!
Thank you for the chapter