Chapter 87: Storming

The daily grind. Wake up, go to work, go home and kill time, only to repeat the next day. I worked all week only to live for the weekend; I filled my free time with surface-level entertainment that left my soul hollow and unfulfilled. Day in and day out, year after year. Getting angry at politics as if my voice could change anything, letting the world manipulate me as a cog in their plans for control. A wasted life, an unfulfilled life, looking back, I see the hours of time I put into the mediums of entertainment and realize how much none of that mattered. If only I could have a second chance, I would do things differently; I wouldn't waste time on unfulfilling and pacifying entertainment.

I wake up, a cold shiver going down my spine at the images of my memories flashing through my mind: random scenes of mediocrity, along with a deep feeling of regret and unfulfilledness.

That life is gone; that's not me anymore. I tell myself. This is my second chance, and I'm not letting it go to waste.

My body aches, and my skin feels grimy. I put my hand on my swelling chest and let out a small sigh. I started puberty late, and now it's hitting me hard, as if to make up for lost time.

It has been four months since the war started, and it seems our enemies have perfected their sabotaging methods. Our warships have continually been destroyed, but the worst thing is that they have someone who can hide their mana signature. After the third time, I made sure to cover all the airship sites with my perception, which extends over a kilometer in radius, and I never even saw the culprit when they returned.

Some fires have been started in the village, the sabotage attempts made worse by being done on days with firestorms, using the increased fire mana to their advantage. I had to use my [Mana Manipulation] to aid the fire control teams.

I get out of bed, still feeling tired, and head to the morning baths, cursing my body’s overactive growth and musing that the frequent baths are probably the only reason I don't have acne problems.

Esofy managed to unlock a second Class, grown from her [Battle Movements] skill. The class gained her several movement-related skills, including a short-range teleportation and an anti-entrapment skill. Despite her Class being low level, it's leveling as if it is in the mid-two hundreds, meaning that all Classes will level up at the same rate, but having a second Class is still very beneficial for the extra skills.

Chyzu, too, managed to grow another class, hers being a Bond Class based on a Bond skill she acquired recently, [Water Clone]. Following my example and tutelage, Chyzu has gained [Twin Minds] and is now working on [Acting], her loss in the tournament probably influencing her decision.

Yafel and Yafe got their first Race evolution: Water Child Runalymo, A Major-tier Race heavily aligned to the water element.

As I settle into the bath, I look back on my months of training. I have finally gotten most of the levels and breakthroughs I can, so now all I have left to do is truly master the skills and go far beyond what the levels would normally suggest I am capable of.

Ting! Acting has obtained levels 95-99!

Ting! Persistent State has met requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 70!

7th Breakthrough: You've held focus on multiple states at the same time; this will help you maintain focus on multiple states of focus.

Ting! Persistent State has obtained levels 62-78!

I am now able to hold three states of focus with one mind. I constantly keep [Sense Mana] and [Sense Soul] active; the third I change depending on what I am doing.

Ting! Musician has met requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 120!

12th Breakthrough: You've managed to use music to communicate ideas and emotions; this will help you overcome language barriers.

Ting! Musician has obtained levels 116-130!

It really helps to have a musical genius like Chofel to teach me. Even now, she is thinking of ways to get more breakthroughs in this skill. On some nights, we brainstorm together, but that usually turns into just chatting or musical sessions.

Ting! Graceful Movements has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 110!

10th Breakthrough: You've used your quick and graceful movements to escape physical restraints; this will help you escape capture attempts.

11th Breakthrough: You've used a burst of beauty essence to break free of entrapment spells; this will help you escape dangerous situations.

Ting! Graceful Movements has obtained levels 98-120!

Esofy and I really worked hard to get here, and eventually, our efforts lead us to not only gain the breakthroughs but also teach them to others.

It feels good to have three of my general skills capped, [Tailoring], [Musician], and [Graceful Movements]. I want more capped, but it requires fighting mind mages, and for that, someone either needs to become one, or I need to go into the dungeon, which is now in enemy territory.

Ting! Mana Manipulation has obtained levels 398-444!

I haven’t gotten any new breakthroughs in [Mana Manipulation], instead focusing on maxing out the levels for now. My Kyhosa is strongly tied to my [Mana Manipulation], and the only other times a magical item of mine with a skill was improved were either a significant achievement, like saving a village from a superstorm, or capping a skill, like my eye wraps. This means that if I cap my [Mana Manipulation] at four hundred fifty, there is a strong chance of my Kyhosa improving. It will be a huge power boost for me if it does, and if it doesn't then there's always level five hundred.

On the plus side, Kayafe once said that I should be able to make mana storms at my [Mana Manipulation] level by now. My Kyhosa is also strongly tied to storms; perhaps I should get that one first before capping? I'll think about it. There is also one more thing I can almost do with my [Mana Manipulation], and that makes a mana-starved area. Level four hundred fifty seems to be what I need to be at to make it happen. So, do I get another breakthrough for the level boost? With my knowledge gained from [Sense Mana], I'll have a minimum of four knowledge levels immediately gained, take another week to train the active levels, and boom, I can get my thirtieth breakthrough in [Sense Mana].

Is it really a hard choice to make? I am so close I can almost taste it. Not to mention, through my training, my [Sense Mana] is at level two hundred ninety-nine; I am actually one level away from capping the skill. Only my thirteenth breakthrough needs the level, and for that, I need to sense a large number of magical items at once. There is my Kyhosa, not sure if the set counts as one or three, same with my sisters' Kyhosa; I'll say it counts as one each for now. Then there's my hair ornament, eye wraps, and Diadem. That is five magic items. There are an additional four Minor-tier magical items in the village, all of them Kyhosa.

Myrou's statues aren't magical in nature, not even enchanted; they work more like my clones. So there are nine magical items within my perception range. Now that I think about it, I hold almost half of the village’s magic items, which feels... unfair? Or perhaps it’s my complete focus on training? Thinking about it more deeply for a moment, I’ve done more than many people twice my age, so maybe it’s just that I’ve had the opportunity to make more?

After my bath, I go to Chyzu and Esofys’ Combat Academy, which is funded by the elders. I spar with the other students and help capture some low-level Domrs for the lowest leveled students to fight.

After the after-work baths, Esofy requests for me to teach her [Sense Mana] to help her get more levels and breakthroughs. She's been asking me to teach her for the whole month now.

"I still can't wrap my head around it." Esofy shakes her head with a sigh. The fifteenth breakthrough about how monster materials work seems to be a tough subject for her.

"As I said, It's not like an enchantment, more like a Class. It's a magical effect, not a mana-based one"

"I know! But I just don't know how it happens!" Esofy says frustratedly.

"It's magic; the 'how' is mostly irrelevant. Certain conditions are met and magic happens, just like how certain achievements impact your Class evolutions."

"I know!" Esofy says through her teeth. "But how does skin, or whatever else, achieve anything?!"

"Perhaps we should take a break," Chyzu says. I nod in agreement.

"I can try to make a small mana storm for you to study instead; I should be able to make one now," I say.

"Well, I can use a level in sensing a more extreme storm, something like the superstorm would be ideal, but I understand if you don't want to, or can't, do that yet." Esofy leans back in her chair and lets out a sigh to drain her frustrations.

Making a superstorm? Well, I should be able to easily make a nexus core. From what I know now, they occur where the pressure of mana has squeezed mana to fuse but not enough to fully liquefy; this forms a solid core, or a cloud of dust-sized bits of solid nexus mana. The most important thing is that the nexus mana isn't fully balanced, so the MM fields fight against each other, which causes a large MM force pull on the mana around it. Not to mention the huge fluctuations of the MM force easily has a pull and release effect, which makes things worse in terms of making spell-like effects. It's one thing to grab and hold onto the mana; it's another to grab, swing it around and release it.

"I should be able to make one," I say, nodding to myself.

I focus on the area around me; the mana is already heavily skewed to water, beauty, and battle essence from our mana leakage. I pull on all the mana in the room and then squeeze it down until the mana starts fusing. I continue to compress more and more mana until there is a cloud of nexus mana in front of me. It's small, about the size of Esofy's fist, and although its effects are weak for now, I can already see it affecting nearby mana.

I slowly increase the pressure, noting how close the nexus mana is to becoming liquid mana. With a sudden chill,  I realize that the superstorm would have had to have enough mana to form a large ball of liquid mana in the center of it to cause effects on the scale that it had.

Already the nexus core I have in front of me has way more mana than the ones I had accidentally produced when fighting against the storm. Those only had a couple of tens of thousand of points of mana, this one in front of me now has at least twice that.

"Got the action level," Esofy says.

"Me too, you can stop now," Chyzu says as a gust of wind blows past us from a weak wind spell effect caused by my miniature storm. I disperse the nexus core, and the mana immediately settles.

Ting! Mana Manipulation has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 450!

45th Breakthrough: You have created mana weather; this will help you unleash devastation on a large scale.

Ting! Mana Manipulation has obtained levels 445-450!

Six levels, that mean all five knowledge levels, and the first use action level. I also noticed how the mana I manipulated was boosted by my Kyhosa's effect, the bonus it grants to elemental spells. It makes sense, I was manipulating elemental mana, but this also means that my storms will be unnaturally strong.

That wasn't everything I noticed, either: [Manipulate Mana] is faintly glowing now, a sign that an enhancement opportunity is within reach. Do I dare do it, though? No, it's a cursed skill; enhancing it will likely have the same effect as making it a Class skill. I can wait for it to be purified before enhancing it. With my skill at level five hundred, I can't blame myself for not training it in a situation where it could have saved someone's life.

Now I just need to train this skill's action levels for the next couple of days, and then I can finally get thirty breakthroughs in [Sense Mana].