Chapter 32: Another Use for Mana Pathways
As morning rolled around and most adventurers had set out, Haris Lagoulis entered the guild training field yet again and was greeted to the sight of around 10 adventurers training, with half of them being injured to some extent. Since his job mainly consisted of testing adventurers and functioning as the guild's bouncer, he was familiar with all of the ones here. On second glance, he realized that there was one person he wasn't too familiar with, as a consequence of her joining recently.
But that was no matter, he had other stuff to do. Since these hours of the day were quite slow, he tended to spend them providing guidance to whoever's training that day. Thanks to her having joined recently, having an absurd amount of mana, leveling like crazy, and an oddly low class, he would've been remiss to have not remembered her name. However, before he could move over to both assist and asses her, he had a couple other people to help first.
The first one was a young dwarven lad who was using a sword and shield, and while those weren't Haris' personal weapon of choice, he still had more than enough experience both using and fighting those weapons to help out the young D+ ranker.
The second was an axe wielding halfling woman in her late thirties whom he had watched over and trained since she became an adventurer 4 years ago, and she was already getting close to being a proper C rank solo adventurer.
Finally, after about an hour, he got around to Sylvia, who he had also been keeping half an eye on. As he got close, he was forced to smile in reminiscence when she turned towards him and initiated the conversation. "I saw you help those other guys, so if that's what want to offer me, then I will gladly accept. Otherwise, feel free to observe as long as you don't get in the way of my training."
Her tone was relatively welcoming, but there was a stern undertone that made her intent perfectly clear, but most importantly, it was not standoffish. "Yer more attentive than I'd given ya credit for, lass. It's indeed as ya said, I wanted to offer some guidance, especially since yer new. If I ain't mistaken, then yer class is Intermediate Spearwoman Trainee, correct?"
"That would've been correct if you had asked yesterday afternoon, but I actually got my Basic Spearmanship up to level 51 in the evening, so I have reached Advanced Trainee." He nodded approvingly at the news. "Not bad, lass. I also overheard something 'bout ya jumping 20 levels in a day. However, do take care not to get overconfident; I've seen not a few promising sprouts leave the world before their time thanks to hubris."
He noticed a small sigh escape her but didn't hold it against her; she had likely been told that more than once in a short span of time. "Understood." "With that said, I noticed yer insanely high MP when I was handed yer card before the test. With that amount of mana at yer disposal, I wondered why yer didn't use more magic in the test."
That question seemed to catch her slightly by surprise, so it took close to a minute of her presumably recalling the battle before giving an answer. "It's probably that I'm still getting used to having this much mana at my disposal. Like many people, I haven't really gone much past level 10 for most of my life, and it's actually quite recently that my level has been jumping up like this. In addition to that, I have for most of my life only used magic on a small scale, so my mana efficiency has been quite bad for most of my life. As such, it's only really been in the recent months that it's even gotten to the point where my mana isn't rapidly drained from even the simpler uses of combat magic."
Harris nodded along to the story seemingly buying into it as it felt believable when matched with the gossip, he'd heard about the elf that got lost in the forest.
"In that case, I figure that yer unaware of what else mana can be used for in combat?" Sylvia titled her head slightly "Most likely." "A'ight, firstly, good job on getting at least three spear skills before reaching Beginner rank. Ya being familiar with manually acquiring skills will be helpful for what I'll teach ya."
"To most non-combatants, Internal Mana Control is a skill that generally isn't especially important, but it's actually critical for anyone who wishes to reach C or B rank and beyond. I assume you know about its sub-skills, so I won't spend time explaining those. The main exception is for Mana Pathway Creation, which is the foundation for skills that enhance the body; Mana Circulation is also required, but that's secondary to the pathway creation."
"Besides simply moving mana around the body more efficiently, the pathways are essential to the magic practices of physical enhancement and imbuement, with the latter being a more advanced practice, so I'll just teach ya 'bout the former for now. Physical enhancement is split into five different subcategories, with each having its own pros and cons."
"The first three are the most commonly used, with the latter two being harder to use properly without harming the user. As such, I will only briefly mention those so that ya kno' to avoid 'em if ya don't have a good teacher. The first of 'em, Heighten Senses, can improve ya perceptive abilities beyond the perception stat. The latter is Cognitive, which allows ya to think faster and clearer as well as remembering better. However, they're both very sensitive, so mistakes could have some nasty consequences."
As Haris spoke about the two dangerous ones, Sylvia could hear on his tone that he was speaking from personal experience, so she made sure to take his warning to heart. "Thank you for the warning; I'll make sure to heed it." With a nod, he moved on. "Good. The first is Muscle Strength, which is the simplest of them. Ya use yer mana supercharge yer muscles to produce feats of strength beyond the norm. This can be anything from a small increase for a period of time to a powerful burst for just a single punch. It's by far the most mana efficient subtype, but it's main downside is that it strains both the muscles and bones, so be careful with prolonged use."
"The second is Blood and Recovery, which has ya create pathways along yer arteries and veins to power up yer blood. It's a bit mana heavy and a really incorrect execution can make yer blood flow fuck up, especially if ya have an open wound." He quickly drew a knife and pricked his finger, allowing blood to slowly flow out. After a couple seconds, the blood suddenly began to shoot out from his finger like a small fountain, making Sylvia take a step back in surprise, before it stopped as quickly as it had begun. "Gotcha, don't activate with open wounds before proper execution."
"The last is one of the most important skills to master for surviving many battles ahead. Toughness has ya create an interconnected lattice of pathways in what part of the body ya seek to protect. It is usually used in the skin, bones, and vital organs to really toughen up the body. However, it is extremely mana intensive and even hinders mana, including yer own, from passing through the lattice if it ain't moved through a pathway, though even that's slowed down."
After taking a couple seconds to process the load of information she had been given, Sylvia nodded in understanding. "So, unless I've misunderstood something, physical enhancement allows us to use our mana to essentially enhance our other stats, though with some cons, right?" The smile that appeared on Haris' face confirmed her assumption before he had even answered.
"Absolutely, yer quick on the uptake; not everyone realizes the correlation with the stats right when they hear it. For most people, I'd recommend starting out with muscle or blood due to the cheaper mana cost, but in yer case, I'd definitely say to start with toughness. It is by far the best one to help one stay alive if ya run into something too strong for ya. After that you have muscle strength to get out of there immediately."
Sylvia then proceeded to watch the old man pull out a seed from a pocket which immediately sprouted into five branches that grew perpendicularly to each other with his hand as the ground plane. After a little more than palm's width of growth, each branch split into four or five new branches in a similar fashion as the first split. Once two branches touched each other after another palm's width of growth, they merged before splitting into even more perpendicular branches.
This process continued until Haris was standing with a decently sized three-dimensional cubical lattice made of a single plant. "This is just one example of how you could create a lattice while thinking of the branches as yer pathways. No one really knows what the optimal lattice is, but it is certain that some lattice structures are much better than others. However, be aware that some may have make shock absorbent structures whilst others may have made theirs incredibly sturdy or something completely third."
"I will make sure to keep that in the back of my mind, thank you very much. Are there any parts of the body that are particularly good to toughen up?" While she asked, Sylvia was running a mile a minute trying to recall her chemistry classes on molecular structures and what random info on different lattice structures she had picked up throughout her time on the internet.
'What kind of structure was it again that diamonds have? My gut response is a cubical lattice, but my gut also disagrees. But I do think that it had something to do with wither cubes or squares, or at the very least something four-sided. Wait, four-sided? Right, it was that four-sided triangle pyramid dice thing, the tetra something. If I'm not mistaken, there was something with that being the preferred state for atoms with four connection, so a lattice made of that structure does sound reasonable as the hardest material known to man.'
"As for what parts that are good to toughen? It shouldn't come as a surprise that toughening ya bones and vital organ is great, but too many people underestimate the skin. If ya can avoid the enemy piercing yer skin, ya can avoid quite a lot of problems. Any other questions?"
"Actually yes, should I do something specific with regard to the size of the pathways?" She noticed that her question seemed to surprise the elderly man a fair bit. "The size? It's pretty much common sense to have a main delivery that flows through yer body, so as long as that has enough capacity, then there shouldn't be much concern regarding size changing to account for flow capacity, as long as it's connected to that."
Just as she was about to say that that wasn't what she had meant, it appeared as if he read her mind. "Though if ya meant to ask how small the lattice should be in general, then that really depends on where yer making it. A small but many layered lattice is quite common for the skin, while more room is afforded to those inside the body, so they tend to be larger with a smaller layer density. Just be a bit careful about creating a lattice in yer muscles, sensory organs, brain, and bloodstreams, as they could risk interfering with yer later Physical Enhancement subtypes."
"Thank you very much for the guidance. I will begin to construct my own lattice later this evening. If you aren't too busy, would you be willing to spar with me for a bit? I've noticed that the spearmanship skill levels up faster in actual use. Also, if it's not too much trouble, I'd be grateful if you could also point out my mistakes while sparring."
Her request brought forth a satisfied and exited smile from Haris. "I like ya, lass. Ya got a good head on yer shoulders and yer constantly looking to learn and improve. Ya'll go far if you keep this attitude. And since I have practically nothing to do besides lookout for trouble and train adventurers here, then I'll gladly spar with ya." 'Youths like her are what really make this position worth it.'
"A'ight, let's keep this fairly simple. I'll use my staff and ya'll use yer spear. Since the goal is to train yer spearmanship, ya can enhance yer spear but no other mana use. On my hand, I'll keep my skill level at a point where ya can actually learn something but expect to not land a single hit om me. Also, even if ya should hit me, my stats are so much higher than yers that very little would happen."
With those words setting the scene for the sparring, Sylvia quickly found that multiple hours would pass in the blink of an eye. At no point during the spars did she feel overwhelmed in the same way she had back at the examination. Instead, this was much more of Haris calling out parrying and blocking her strikes before calling out her openings and weak points moments before striking out at them.
By the time the spars had concluded, Sylvia found herself sitting on the ground, panting, and thoroughly drenched by sweat. Haris on the other hand seemed to have barely broken a sweat at any point during it all. "Good job lass, ya had improved quite a lot by the last hour, though really working some of the base form into yer body would serve ya well and help with multiple of yer openings."
Sylvia got back up with a small struggle. "Thank you for the guidance. This session has been incredibly helpful, and I agree that I should really get the basic moves down on a practically instinctual level. Thanks to your guidance, I was able to have the level to jump all the way up to 60, with most of the progress happening in the last hour as I got better at closing the openings."
Her mention of her level jumping that much caused Haris' eyebrows to raise ever so slightly. "If this was enough for 9 levels, than ya've really been lacking proper guidance. Just be aware that this fast leveling speed will only last for |Beginner Spearmanship|, and that it will slow down a lot from thereafter. Take me as an example, I haven't found myself to be particularly talented at any weapon, so even my main weapon, an axe, is only nearing |Advanced Axemanship| level 100 after all these years."
"You're this good with a staff, which isn't even your main weapon, and yet even that's still just the Advanced stage?" The honest surprise and awe in Sylvia's outburst made the old halfling smile. "Thank ya for the high praise. But if ya mean to say that this isn't my main weapon, then yer only half right." He shifted his grip on his staff and Sylvia could only watch as the top burst into a light that grew into a bearded axe head.
"Ya see, I prefer a proper axe when dealing with a proper threat, but with my current job, it's far more practical to just carry my staff with me and create the axe when needed." The sight of him just creating an axe head from nothing had made Sylvia drop her jaw completely open. "Ya'll probably be able to do this before your realize; since ya seem to have an affinity for mana. Once ya get to around Intermediate level 50 and yer |External Mana Control| gets to somewhere around 55 or above, then I'll teach ya how to do something similar, if ya haven't figured it out on ya own already by then."
The steadfast look in Sylvia's eyes was all the answer that Haris needed, so he simply nodded and excused himself. "Adventurers have begun to return, so I better get back in the guild building in case I'm needed. Do continue yer training once I'm gone." With those words, he began to leave the training field as Sylvia recalled her conversation from yesterday.
"Actually, I have one last question." Haris stopped up and returned. "Yeah? Fire ahead before they call on me to get back." His tone had become a little annoyed from being called back, reminding her of Mikhail calling him a bit of a character. "So, yesterday when I was fighting some Adult Rock Rats, one of them suddenly became a whole lot tougher to hit, which even damaged my spear. And the day before that, I fought fast wolves who became faster seemingly at will. Would it happen that those instances relate to enhancement?"
Her question being relevant to what he had taught her earlier seemed to soften his frustration. "Yer as spot on as yer can be with yer current knowledge. Unlike us people, creatures can often use some degree of Physical Enhancement, Imbuement, or Transformation inherently, though generally not until they're at least stage 3 or sometimes even later. I won't teach ya about Imbuement yet, but just so yer aware of it in battle, I'll explain it quickly."
"While Physical Enhancement uses pure mana and specific kinds of mana pathways to enhance the physical body in relatively consistent ways that everyone can use, Imbuement is the practice of using elemental mana ya produce to imbue certain aspects of that element into the body: the destructive power of Fire, the toughness of Earth, the speed of Wind, and so on, which is probably what they used. Transformation is by some considered the step after imbuement, though it's an ability rarely seen below B rank, since it is the practice of literally altering the body through the element for a limited amount of time. ya most likely won't have to worry about it for a while, but ya'll know it when you see it."
"Thank you for the explanation. I will make sure to keep it in mind for the future. Sorry for taking up more of your time." Hearing her apology made Haris sigh a little as he looked up at her. "Listen lass, no need to apologize for asking good questions that can literally save yer life. I may come across as harsh, especially when interrupted, but I'll never be mad about someone taking this business seriously. So, if there are no further questions, I will head back inside and just take a half-nap in case someone needs to be bounced." With those words still hanging in the air, he returned to the guild building to the sound of Sylvia thanking him for his time.
After a short water break, Sylvia was already back in the swing of things with a training of footwork, singular moves, and a combo of both. Before long, another couple hours had passed, and her steadfast practice had brought her just a single additional level. When she took another look at her |Spear Enhancement|, she noticed that the full day of use had brought it all the way up to level 50, probably from the constant use and many hits during the spar.
As she was putting away the borrowed practice spear, she heard a familiar youthful voice call out to her. "Yo, Sylvia, what's up? I keep hearing more and more people around the town talk about you." Turning around, she recognized Mikhail who was standing there with a pretty big grin.
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Emilbks
Emilbks Feedback and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, so feel free to say it/comment if you have anything to say
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