Chapter 6 “exhaustion”

My new skill proved most interesting. Sure at first it only gave me the shape of what I pushed my mana into but from pushing my mana into thousands of little dirt blobs I learned that each little dirt blob is made from dirt! Or rather that the internal structure is not crystalline. So there are no little rocks in my dirt blobs. That means they're the best for making mud pies!

[ General Skill: Mana Appraisal has gained lvl 2-25 Rewards +24 Wisdom, +24 Magic, +324 EXP ]

For making mud pies……….

What has my life come to?

Let’s ignore that for now and return to my external manipulation practice. I got sidetracked by trying to figure out an appraisal method. Now let’s get back to those beautiful sparkly arcs!

The first arc was as thick and vibrant as the one that sparked my mana vision. The second I put effort into making it smoother and all round less inconsistent as my first two arcs but despite that it was much dimmer and less vibrant. It also left me gasping for breath. My tiny little stomata pulse open and close. 

[ General Skill: Mana Sense has gained lvl 71-75 Rewards +5 Mana, +5 Magic, +365 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Control Mana has gained lvl 71-75 Rewards +5 Mana, +5 Magic, +365 EXP ] 

Cool! Let’s try again, this time I’ll make it as smooth and vibrant as possible! A thin web of blue with bright stars sprinkled across as it flows like a sash in the wind around me!

The resulting arc was beautiful like a tapestry of stars and the nothingness in between. Despite my lacking ability to make the space between truly black my stars did pop like a water drop. The fading bluescale of my vision lent itself to the idea that this sash was an artist's last look at the stars before their old heart failed.

The joy of the sun alighting upon my leaves was what roused me from my fitful nightmares. The resulting clarity lended credence to the thought that followed. Had I not been so unable to get over my trauma my tree body would’ve allowed a sleep more restful than any I achieved as a human.

I sighed and the subconscious, but intentional, twitch of my stomata forced my leaves to stop shaking.

Praise the sun! Its exultant rays shone upon me and brought planty bliss. For the glorious glucose flowed into my veins from my leaves and was delivered into my roots with loving care of a mother stroking the back of her babe. As my roots swelled and my growth expounded I realized that my rapid growth through mana had left a subtle need in my roots.

This led into a revelation that had me shuddering in fear. What I thought was limitless power, the ability to grow without sunlight or glucose stores using mana, left a fatal flaw. I had to use mana in order to sustain my roots. From that I could reasonably assume that removing the mana from those roots would kill them or at minimum be bad. And I have to assume that it is mana removal because I ran out of free floating mana within my body, which caused me to fall unconscious and resulted in my nightmares, but I must not have run out of total mana because my manacellerators and my roots didn’t come undone so running out must not be the same as pulling the mana out of it.

So I need a method to regenerate my mana as fast as possible. I got slightly more mana by expanding my root system but I believe that that is just because I now have more surface area. So I need a method that I can constantly run in the background that will increase my mana regeneration. I also need a way to stop myself from falling asleep again.

Before I do any of that I should do a once over and make sure that there are no lingering effects of my nightmare. especially if it caused my stomata to writhe what would it do to my roots or worse my trunk? My inspection revealed that my water roots have been absorbing too much. This was a simple fix but it could have been deadly if I just left it. A closer look at my roots revealed that the ends and hairlike cilia moved into suboptimal positions and away from where I wanted them to grow. It was, again, a simple fix. Flow the mana the direction you want it to grow and after a short amount of time the roots and cilia fix themselves.

The mana expenditure was tiring however and made me sleepy. The urge to sleep even with the sun shining upon my leaves was terrifying. If I sleep again the dream won’t stop with the banging downstairs. This time it could reach completion. I cycled my stomata in a way reminiscent of my old breathing exercises. The only thing that really stuck through my years of counseling.

My leaves were unable to sustain the ten in ten out like my lungs used to so I had to find another cycle. Working down each of my leaves took too long and I only had 5. I couldn't cycle and fill all of them within the ten seconds which broke the cycle, thereby invalidating the meditation, at least in my mind. So manually manipulating each stomata, while effective at calming me, wasn’t efficient enough time wise to actually meditate.

So instead of going from stomata to stomata I went leaf to leaf. This was effective even though I only had 5 leaves. I could intentionally move slow enough to fill the whole ten seconds each cycle.

[ General Skill: Meditate has gained lvl 1-5 Rewards +5 Mana, +5 Growth, +15 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Regeneration has gained lvl 11-20 Rewards +100 Health, +100 Fortitude, +155 EXP ]

I’ll go leaf to leaf and when I grow too large I’ll go branch to branch and if my plan to be like a mangrove works out I’ll go tree to tree and if I can ever grow that large and that long forest to forest. And if I can shift my consciousness along the mangrove network like a dryad or forest god I will never have to feel that horrendous being again.

Now to see what effect that has.

I am less tired. And my mana regeneration jumped from 1 mana every 5 minutes to 1 mana every 4 minutes. It increased my regeneration speed by 80% It also increased the rate at which my stamina regenerated by a small amount. Now I can practice my external control longer!

The sun was sending its last purple rays beyond the horizon as I meditated the final time that day. Using 2/3rds of my mana then meditating to recover and repeating over and over again led to massive gains to my control and not just the skill! I went from barely able to make a sphere with pits, scars, irregularities, and a distinct oval blob on one side. To a nigh perfect sphere accurate, at least to my eyes, to 3.14 the first three digits of pi! Of course there were still some spots where I was lacking but I decided to move on to other shapes after that. Pyramids, cubes, die faces, a snake, and basically any whole shape that could be made by forming the base and then smoothing or compressing away mana. 

It was only when the moon rose that I was finally able to split my attention enough to create two separate “strings” which I then wove and unwove from basic cords and knots. After I progressed far enough I thought I could manage a challenge. Paracord.

I started by taking three “strings” and braided them into a single thread. This would be my “kern”, the center of my cord. This is what provides stiffness, strength, and flexibility. Then around that I used 12 “strings” that were woven instead of braided to create a sheath that prevents the kern from being damaged. I continued this process until I had 6 feet of length. When I had what I wanted I began to weave it into the knots I had practiced before while preventing the mana from blending into a single string.

After I achieved all of my one cord knots, I used my newfound control to create another paracord and began on my multi cord knots. 

[ General Skill: Mana Sense has gained lvl 76-80 Rewards +5 Mana, +5 Magic, +390 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Control Mana has gained lvl 76-87 Rewards +12 Mana, +12 Magic, +978 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Weaving has gained lvl 1-12 Rewards +12 Artistry, + 12 Growth, +78 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Meditation has gained lvl 6-25 Rewards +20 Mana, +20 Growth, +310 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Decoding has gained lvl 51-58 Rewards +16 Intelligence, +8 Wisdom, +436 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Calculations has gained lvl 1-10 Rewards +20 Intelligence, +55 EXP ]

[ General Skill: Exhaustion Resistance has gained lvl 1-20 Rewards +20 Growth, +210 EXP ]