Chapter 9: Bonding

Today is the day I figure out what the Bond is! I declare to myself.

It’s been a few days since my breakthrough with [Astral Projection]. I’ve grown a little bored of the practice and not really getting anywhere. So now I’ll practice something else!

So, where to start? First, what’s a bond? Translating to Runalymo it reads as:

Ysrumo – Ly.

Ys means a connection or Bond of some sort. Could be family, could be friendship. Ru means mana. And Mo is beings, as in a living being, or at least thinking being. Together it means a bond of mana to being. Ly just means beauty.

Quite useful, this language.

So, a bond is what type of mana, elemental or essence, you’re naturally gifted at? Okay, so second is how do I actually use it? And third, what the fuck does beauty even do? It’s not like I’m water bending or throwing fireballs.

I sigh. This is going to take some work.

I stretch out my arm and try to gather the beauty mana in front of me...

Nothing.

Of course, this isn’t going to work.

I put a hand on my chin. Alright, now let’s review what mana is. Well, I don’t really know what mana is, but I do know we generate it. The more mana surrounding us means less leakage, causing us to be poisoned by our own mana, Mana Toxicity. Of course, it could be that we gather mana from our surroundings, and too much would still cause mana toxicity.

In any case, I was trying to use the mana around me, but I have a mana pool that I probably should be drawing from.

Again, I stick out my hand, and this time, try to use the mana within me, pushing it out through my arm and into a sphere in front of my hand.

With amazement, I watch pure mana, not a type I could identify, slowly gather in front of me.

Pure beauty essence?

It’s not Elemental mana, so I can’t see it as different colors—but perhaps if I can study this, if I can figure out how it’s different from elemental mana, I may be able to make another breakthrough in [Sense Mana].

Of course, it isn’t as easy as looking at the differences. Elemental mana was easy because there was so much of it, but the nexus only seems to deal with Elemental mana, not Essence mana, or if it does, there’s not a lot of it.

I need another form of essence to compare it with, but the only other form I know is creativity. Which, coincidentally, is boosted within my body—let’s take a look.

I focus [Sense Mana] inward-looking at the mana within me. There’s definitely a swirling of different mana. Mainly three types, but there are traces of others, the fourth largest amount not being insignificant.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 17!

I ignore the message. The largest quantity of mana is my own unique mana, so let’s focus on the other two. Well, it’s kind of hard to know which one is beauty and the other creativity. If I can somehow see one raise, I should be able to tell. Hang on, I have a glowing ball of beauty essence! If I can somehow take that mana into myself...

I grab the ball of beauty essence and try to absorb it. It’s actually pretty easy. I watch as one type of mana grows more and more as the ball shrinks. Suddenly, as if a veil has been lifted from my [Sense Mana], the two main colors bloom within me, along with the traces of others.

Ting! You have developed a new Bond skill! Beauty Enhancement!

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 2!

Sense Mana: You have opened your mind to one of the energies that fuels this world. You can now sense mana in its raw form.1ˢᵗ Breakthrough: You have sensed an overwhelming pressure of mana, and now you will be able to better sense mana in such quantity and better see slight difference in mana levels.2ⁿᵈ Breakthrough: You have learned to perceive different containers of mana, letting you see the general shapes of mana containing objects around you.3ʳᵈ  Breakthrough: You have learned to see different types of mana, letting you see elemental mana.4ᵗʰ Breakthrough: You have learned how to see mana essences, letting you see the many types of essences.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained levels 18-19!

Okay, that’s a lot to take in. First, now that I can see it, there’s a ton of ambient creativity and beauty essence, less than elemental mana but still a significant amount. There’s still a lot I don’t know about, but this is a start.

Second, a bond skill. The Bond didn’t have any skill slots, so let’s take a look.

Bond- Beauty: Level 2Skill: Beauty Enhancement

A couple of things to note. The skill doesn’t have a level. And second, it’s not a breakthrough. It’s almost as if the Bond is halfway between a skill and a class. Skill breakthroughs work on the skill level, not their own, but my Bond clearly has a “skill,” suggesting a bond is not a simple skill to expand.

Also, the Race doesn’t have skill levels. I seem to be working off the assumption that the class will have skill levels—this may not be the case. Precedence has been set.

So, now I can use my Bond, but I still don’t really know what to do with it, nor what my bond skill actually does.

Beauty Enhancement: Increases the amount of beauty essence held within the target for 100 + 10 / level minutes by 50% + 2% / level.

That doesn’t explain a whole lot. What does the essence actually do?!

Checking my mana levels, I used most of my mana on that one enhancement, almost one-thirty points of mana. It might be because I already had a large amount of beauty essence within me. My mana generation being higher than my max mana per hour means I can keep this enhancement running permanently. Actually, scratch that—I absorbed the mana I previously conjured, which cost me one-thirty points, not the cast of the enhancement. I’ll need to test that once I get my mana back.

As I wait for my mana, I begin to theorycraft how to use my Bond in other ways.

Could I shoot a beam of it? Shoot out a beautifying beam? What would that do?

Soon, my mana has recharged, and I cast my bond skill. Fifty-two mana. Seems like it’s one mana per percent of enhancement. Since it lasts, for now, two hours and my mana regen is four hundred, and I gain six and a half mana per minute, but it costs less than one mana per minute. I indeed can have it up permanently, a good way to grind bond levels.

Next, I hold up my hand and focus on gathering mana in front of my palm again, but this time, I shoot out a beam, hitting the wall. To my surprise, a charred spot is burnt into the wall. How do I know it’s burnt? Well, the texture of the wall changed, and I can smell burnt wood.

Mom is going to kill me for that.

Ting! You have developed a new Bond skill! Beauty Beam!

Beauty Beam: Shoot out a deadly beam of beauty essence, containing up to 20 points of mana, that damages anything less beautiful.

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 3!

An ugly killer, huh. But it only works if the target has low beauty essence, and with how much is in this area, it won’t do much damage. Simply put, if the target has more than twenty points of ambient beauty, it won’t do anything. Also, if they have, say, ten points, it might do less damage; the skill descriptor isn’t clear on that.

I don’t continue using [Beauty Beam], as the wall is already damaged enough. And a good thing, too, as mom walks in. It doesn’t take her long to discover the damage. Whelp, let’s just get it over with now.

“S-Sorry,” I say nervously, looking down. Mom just has a look of utter confusion on her face.

“What do you need to be sorry about?”

“I-I was learning my bond.”

There’s a long moment of silence between us.

Perhaps Mom doesn’t believe me; I’m just a one-year-old, after all.

“You’re already learning your bond?” Mom repeats before sighing and mutters, “Rymoma.”

“Just don’t use your Bond without one of us with you, okay? It’s very dangerous.”

I nod meekly, even though I’m going to constantly use my enhancement bond skill. We go to the after-work baths and meet up with dad. Mom tells her what happened, and I hear her sigh. Probably thinking something along the lines of: “Another thing to watch out for.” At this point, I think they just expect that these things are going to happen to or around me.

We go back home for dinner. Then afterward, I’m asked to show off my Bond skill outside, on a target dummy.

“Wait, what even is her Bond? You never told me,” Dad asks.

“Now that you mention it, I nev—” she stops as I fire off a beauty beam at the wooden block. Smoke rises from the wood.

“Light bond?” Mom mutters, but Dad gapes in shock.

“Beauty?! You have a beauty essence Bond, Aly?” Dad exclaims.

“How can you tell?” Mom asks.

“Essence sight, remember?” Dad answers.

I nod to Dad’s question.

“And you can empower yourself with it, right?”

“You know?” I ask with a tilted head.

“The amount of beauty essence within you is higher by a khipla.”

“Khipla?” I’m unfamiliar with those syllables.

“Khi is to add the same number by a specified amount,” then Dad raises two fingers, “and pla is a part of something,” she lowers a finger, “about this much less.”

So khi means multiplication, and pla is half. Khipla means multiply half. In this case, Dad is saying the beauty essence in me has increased by fifty percent, about the bonus my skill gives.

“Kanato, she can’t see your hand—she’s not even looking directly at you.” Mom sighs exasperatedly.

“I think she has a skill to see, Feyan—she hit the target, after all.” To be fair, the target is not even a meter away from my outstretched hand.

“I see,” I say.

“How?!” Mom exclaims.

“Ru-ru.” I don’t know the word for sensing “Ru y?” I gesture around me.

“I think you mean ‘Ruar,’” Dad corrects me, then turns to Mom. “It seems she has an advanced form of my essence sight. Instead of seeing, or sensing a specific type of mana, she senses all mana—still, she seems quite well adapted to it, perhaps too well.”

Dad kneels down to me and picks me up, and embraces me in a snuggling hug.

“My little girl is such a genius! What level is your skill?”

I raise ten fingers, then nine.

“Nineteen?! Already? How many alsha?”

Hold on a minute. I think she asked how many breakthroughs I have, so let me just quickly use my system language’s cheat sheet real quick and...yup.

I raise four fingers.

“Four? And with a more advanced skill,” Dad says with shock, then deprecation.

“Looks like a one-year-old beat you, Kanato,” Mom laughs. “Remind me what your skill is at?”

“Four, not even at the second breakthrough.”

Mom and Dad banter as I question why beauty essence is burning things. The only thing I can think of is that it’s like a laser, or that it just causes “damage.” Now that I think of it, beauty might be an offshoot of the light element. If all essences are more closely related to an element, it might explain the laser-like quality of my bond skill.

This leads me to a new question: can this relationship be observed? I’m going to need to wait for a light storm and use my Bond to fully study this relationship.

Unfortunately, the next light storm is three months away. A long time for a usually monthly event—it’s as if the world doesn’t want me to find out. Still, I made plenty of headway into this and other breakthroughs.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 20!

Only one level, though. I’m elated to see that a sudden flood of light mana washes over the room. And I watch as my suspicions are correct: the beauty essence did indeed get more invigorated. Sadly, no breakthroughs, but I know it isn’t going to be easy. So I conjure more beauty essence, which apparently is just a default Bond ability, no skill required. The spheres of glowing beauty essence float around me like spirits. Sadly, I can’t see the spirits as it's [Spirit Sight] not a [Spirit Sense].

Hang on, actually. Spirits have mana, but I don’t see their mana—all I see are fluctuating mana floating around, clumps of mana. Beauty mana, creativity mana, a few other essences I don’t know all swimming within a turbulent sea of elemental and essence mana. Why does the mana clump around? I have to know. I focus on a large beauty mana clump, not conjured by me, and crack one eye.

Pain immediately surges through my head like a hot poker, but sure enough, there’s a spirit right where the clump of mana is.

I grab my head with a sharp inhale of air and roll around on the ground, groaning.

The pain eventually fades away. So I learned what those clumps are, sadly no free breakthrough.

I spend the rest of the light storm trying to unveil the interactions of the light element and beauty essence. Creativity essence isn’t boosted by the storm, so I know it’s not light related.

I feel like my skill level is not high enough to really see what’s going on, same with a person’s mana. It seems like some breakthroughs are more easily achieved than others. For example, the breakthrough for observing high mana density, I just had to stumble into it, and it was just a given for this place. Differentiating the elements was also pretty easy. Differentiating the essences wasn’t, and I probably couldn’t have if I didn’t have my Bond. It’s like I just ran out of the easy stuff and am now working on the intermediate stuff, but that’s a problem. I rush through my breakthrough without truly understanding the nature of mana. I'm going to need to focus and scrutinize every last detail, every last interaction before I can really get to the better breakthroughs.

I also have to study my Bond. I just scratched the surface of the iceberg in these two things—the potential is so much higher.