Chapter 157: Continued study

The next day is filled with making more experimental inscriptions, testing how Runascript interacts with their structure. I can influence it a little by making it more effective at drawing in certain mana types, but all mana is still drawn in, which makes me question how useful Runascript is.

I try other languages, such as Lunascript and even English, and that's when the trick became evident. English is a weird language with filler words that mean very little, whereas in the Runalymo and Lunaley language – let's shorten it to Runalyse or maybe Runaspeak – each letter has its own meaning. This difference let me figure out that it's not the lettering or the words, but rather the meaning of the language that influences the inscriptions.

Having filler words is not efficient, so English is generally not great; while Runaspeak is by no means perfect, it’s definitely better. The issues with it are simply that some common things are hard to describe, like flower petals, which take a lot more words than English's two. The problem with both languages is that they are spoken, so they are limited to only the possible sounds we can make. To make a very good language for inscriptions, a new language will have to be made without these limitations.

Unfortunately, I don't have months or years to invent an inscription language from scratch, but maybe in the future, I will; for now, I will settle with Runascript and drawings to convey meanings.

Bored of my inscription experiments, I eventually move on to super-solid mana study. I make several samples, some that are highly crystallized and some not, keeping detailed notes on my observations of their properties. After spending hours working with my samples, I continue to compress them.

Super-solid mana has five stable stages, corresponding to the ‘layers’ of the MM forces keeping the structure organized, and so far I've only experimented with the first, so when something odd happens, I am not surprised.

The element-defining particles aren't resisting compression as much as the MM particles, since they don't have the same repulsion forces keeping them apart. Instead, the elementary particles form a ball, surrounded by a shell of MM particles.

The elementary particles bounce around in these balls, and the balls are forming their own structures with each other. It's an odd behavior… but matter and energy tend to act weirdly under such extreme conditions.

There is a lot of potential research to do in this second stage; for instance, the elementary particles work with the charges I discovered when weaving vitality. I wonder what will happen if I turn them into vitality, or any other form of element? Can Iform structures inside the shell of MM particles and if yes, what will it do?

Pure academic curiosity has me making several samples already, and playing with dozens of structures within the MM shells and with the mana balls themselves; however, I stay away from weaving super-solid mana, I don't need another breakthrough to master right now.

I'd love to take my time and study this second stage of super-solid mana further, but I don't have the time; I need to press on, pun intended.

The more pressure I put on my samples, the more the MM particle shells contract and thicken as the ball gets smaller. Whatever structure the elementary particles had is destroyed and squeezed together, with no room between them. The balls of mana also get closer to each other.

It occurs to me that this is like a second stage of mana particles, except different: there are collections of MM and elementary particles, and these collections are also forming their own structures. I wonder what I can do with mana like this? How would a spell compressed to this degree act? Is there any use to it other than making super-hard materials? So many things to explore with no time to experiment.

However, I have reached the new limit of my capabilities, even with the levels I have been gaining.

Ting! Manipulate mana has obtained levels 503-504!

Ting! Sense Magic has obtained levels 779-780!

I need to somehow cast a liquified spell at a mastery level… how the hell am I going to do that? I need this level to be able to reach the fourth stage of super-solid mana and learn more; I have a feeling that reaching the fifth stage will count as mastery, but if not, I can always make something while also getting the mastery level for vitality weaving.

Hmm, if I go by the knowledge levels, then I should know everything I need to know to get the mastery level, so what am I doing wrong? The answer is pretty simple, according to [Inquisitive Perfection], anyway: I know a lot, but I have only cast liquid spells a few times. I am utterly lacking in practice.

I spend the next few days practicing my spells and learning how to best control my liquid fairies. The biggest challenge is that every time the fairies flap their wings, droplets of mana are thrown off; I need to stabilize them, but how? I would like to figure it out myself, but I don't have time.

I need to ask Kayafe, I fly over to the Temple and ask her for advice.

"That was one of the harder ones." she says. "I didn't use summons, but any spell launched will leave behind droplets, and you end up wasting mana that doesn't go toward killing your foe. You need something that will pull it together and keep its form, but you can't rely on making a film of super-solid mana. That does work, but doesn't count toward the breakthrough mastery level."

"So you increased the MM force so much that the liquid mana can't escape?" I ask after a few moments of thought, to which Kayafe hums her affirmation.

"Liquid mana is pretty good at overwhelming the MM force, but a body of liquid mana acts as a single particle," Kayafe explains. "There's a type of surface tension, albeit weak, and this comes from the MM force that tries to keep it together, even if it's not very good at it."

"So massively increasing the force increases the surface tension of the liquid mana," I conclude.

It should have been obvious to me, and no doubt I would have been able to come to this conclusion myself if given the time, but there's another thing I want to ask.

"I may not be able to make the MM force strong enough. What about using the elementary particle charge to help keep it together?" I ask.

"Elementary particle charge?" Kayafe asks in turn.

Whoops, I never explained how I managed to weave vitality. Kayafe may know it through other means, but not the modern term I use.

"I see," Kayafe hums after I explain my concepts. "It took me years to figure that out: one day, I was observing a natural phenomenon, and the idea suddenly appeared in my head 'What will happen if I make anti-vitality?' I tried it out, and after several experiments, I got vitality weaving."

"I guess my past life knowledge helped me there," I admit. Granted, I did not know if vitality had a charge, and even then it's not quite the same thing I know, so calling it a 'charge' may not be accurate.

I go back home after chatting and get to work on my mastery level; I conjure another liquifairy and crank up its MM force as much as I can. The amount of wasted mana dramatically decreases, but there's still some. With selective use of [Manipulate Mana], I begin to increase the charge on roughly half of the elemental particles to further increase the spell's stability… until eventually the leakage is completely stopped.

Ting! Manipulate Mana has obtained level 505!

Just five more levels, I tell myself.

With less than two weeks left and three more breakthroughs to accomplish, as well as making all of the inscription ink and maybe some more study into inscription lettering, I may not have time to do all that I set out to do. Something has got to be cut, or left as the last thing to focus on. First off, the ink needs to be done: without it, the inscription won't work, and that will greatly weaken the ritual.

The biggest problem is the sheer amount of ink I need; the outer part of the inscription needs to be three kilometers in diameter, the inner part nine hundred meters, and that’s not counting the center.

There's no way that making a three-kilometer-diameter circle of wood flooring is going to happen, so we'll be making a small pipe system, held up by supports and filled with the ink. The pipe is only as wide as my pinky, and I, thankfully, don't have to be the one to make it; there are numerous people who can shape metal.

Still, I need to make a swimming pool of inscription ink, and I am running out of time. I also need to focus on my breakthroughs, but that means I can't have all my minds dedicated to this task, and I'll be rationing mana between training and making ink.

Maybe I can strike two birds with one stone… I need to master turning mana back into reserved mana, so maybe I should make the ink out of reserved mana; that way, I can just focus on vitality weaving and super-solid mana.

I still need more levels to reach the fourth super-solid stage, so I have to master vitality weaving first.

I start with transforming the mana in the air into vitality and weaving that into a short skirt dress made for ease of movement when in battle. I add depictions of battle, warriors sparring and fighting monsters. Next, I add steel essence super-solid plates for armoring, and greaves lined with soft vitality silk on the inside. Long vitality gloves protected with armor cover the arms, and an open-face helmet with decorative vitality strings protects the head. The skirt is plated with armor, and lastly, all the armoring is decorated with battle essence engravings.

The armor fits the ‘light to medium’ range. Good for mobility, travel, and skirmishes, but for more dedicated combat, wars, and tough monsters, heavier armor would be more desirable.

I weave a large bowtie, loop it around the waist and make a few other adornments. Next are enchantments: I've never used vitality spells or enchantments, so this will be a first, but now that I know how to make mana structures with vitality, it should be possible.

My first enchantment fails to stick, and it is fortunate that it did; if normal enchanting is a breakthrough, then vitality enchanting probably is too, and I don’t want any more. I instead opt for speed enhancements in the armoring, taking care to perfectly incorporate the enchantments without destroying them. I add several more enchantments and details and finish my work.

Sacrificial Lifethread Battledress(Enchanted)Made by one of the greatest weavers in the world, this dress will sacrifice itself to keep the wearer alive. The threads of this battledress will fray and disappear as it replenishes its wearer's vitality and enhances their speed and agility by 350% so long as it is worn.

Ting! Manipulate mana has obtained level 506!

First try? I am surprised that I actually got the mastery level on the first try, but this is my specialty, so maybe I should give myself more credit?

In any case, I still have two more breakthroughs to master and a ton of ink to make; this is starting to look doable.