Du’Andrazzil stepped through the portal into an alpine landscape. It was a bare mountaintop with gorgeous views of the surrounding heavily forested area. But he didn’t waste a glance at the beautiful nature, too preoccupied with his thoughts.

The human had been remarkable. Or rather the blood had been. Clearly, this Daniel had not been a high leveled adventurer… his flesh had been too soft, too easy to pierce. But it had contained a richness of magical energy close to that of an apprentice or even journeyman.

Not that there weren’t plenty of journeyman-like sources out there, but the juxtaposition of low levels and high mana was troubling. If he was right about Daniel being a Randmerian, then they perhaps had finally achieved success in one of their experiments. For many decades there had been rumors about Randmere trying to enable a person to control multiple mana types just like the rankers of old, but none of their experiments had come to fruition, as far as Du’Andrazzil was aware.

Until now.

Perhaps.

There were other explanations… such as an artifact, hidden in the flesh somewhere. Or perhaps a spiritual being, a manifestation of mana somehow bound to Daniel. Or he had been too overwhelmed by the blood-hunger and had imagined the mana…

Going back and forth between the various explanations, trying to refute any one of them without much success, Du’Andrazzil finally stopped walking.

If he was to report to the Panrearch that he had no idea where Daniel was from and how the human had possessed such potent mana, he might as well end his own life right there. While the Panrearch might well forgive Du’Andrazzil for the failed expedition, he would be, without doubt, incensed about his lack of information on this human.

At the very least, he should have cut off a hand or some ears from the corpse to have some divination magic confirm his origin.

Because if Darkalv was going to get into conflict with Randmere, the Panrearch surely would like to know more about their capabilities. If nothing else, it would strengthen the hand of the Gi’Andorath in their struggle against the isolationists of Cor’Maron…

There was no helping it.

Sighing, Du’Andrazzil turned around and began to trek back up the mountain.

----------------------------------------------

My head was killing me. This was possibly the worst headache I had ever had – it was like someone was pounding on my skull with a sledgehammer, while glass shards slowly ripped through my brain tissue.

And I was cold. Or perhaps it was more that there was a weird absence of warmth.

But… I was alive.

Probably.

I wasn’t able to move more than a finger at a time, or twitch a muscle, but I could kind of see and hear. It was all a bit fuzzy, but at least something, and that implied that I was not dead yet.

Which meant I might be able to go after that elf and cut off its fucking head. The thought of running Du’Andrazzil through with my sword actually brought an illusion of warmth to me.

I mean, what the fuck? I still couldn’t believe it. If it had been a goblin, I wouldn’t have been surprised… but an elf? And it wasn’t as if he had attacked me on sight… no, we had talked and then worked together to block the door against the goblins. And then he suddenly spaced out and tried to eat me…

Speaking of, why the heck was I still alive?

I tried raising my arm to touch the incisions at the side of my neck, but I still couldn’t move it by more than an inch or two.

I remembered that I had gotten weaker and weaker with the loss of blood, and whatever toxin the elf had injected into my bloodstream. And then there was the stereotypical dark tunnel, that was quickly narrowing until the light at the end had blinked out. I had drifted around in complete darkness for a moment, desperate for something to anchor myself to. And then I suddenly had noticed the golden mote of mana, floating around, just in front of me, yet entirely out of reach.

I had grasped for it, I had pleaded, I had begged, but nothing had happened.

Eventually, after what might have been hours or perhaps mere minutes, I had accepted my fate and had found inner peace. Looking at the golden mote of mana, I had felt a calmness settle over me, a state of tranquility. Slowly, immersed in this meditative state, I then had begun to make out more details of the intricate inner structure of the mana, of how it created.

And then, suddenly, the golden mote had begun to bloom into a blindingly bright flower of pure golden energy that then had burst into mana of all ten different colors, and silver mana to bind it all.

The explosion had buffeted me around. And then in a storm of blinding agony, the mana had rushed into my body, forcing its way through my empty, bloodless veins and arteries.

The next thing I remembered was when I had come to myself.

Stuck leaning against the door, I activated Mana Vision and began to meditate to investigate what had happened with my body, hoping to find a clue for why I was mostly paralyzed and, even more importantly, why I was still alive.

What I found scared the heck out of me. My whole body was a maelstrom of power, coursing through every vein, artery, nerves, and bone, millions, or perhaps billions of tiny, microscopic strands covering all of my body in an intricate runic pattern that I could not hope to understand, much less emulate. And it wasn’t just black, amber, or silver mana… no, it was all types of mana, with the sole exception of gold mana.

And while I could not hope to understand everything, I did notice a few details that made my head spin with the potential… I saw yellow mana covering nerve ends, perhaps serving as the source for the firing of electric impulses. Red mana was, in low quantities, spread throughout my muscles, and, much more concentrated in the brain, perhaps providing a source of energy, which, due to the lack of blood was not naturally provided for any longer. And the list went on and on. Mana was all over, emulating natural physical functions.

Insufficient to allow me to move around, but enough to keep me alive for the time being.

But I could see some of the mana bleed out, and the process of mana-loss seemed to accelerate.

So it seemed as if yet again I was on a clock.

I needed blood, lots of it.

At least, I might be able to imitate what I had seen in my body with my red mana, so as long as that mana was not depleting like the rest, I possibly could keep moving and thinking, even without any blood.

A weird thought.

Like a freaking zombie. Well, zombies don’t think… so perhaps a Lich.

I had recovered a fair amount of amber mana, somehow, and it wasn’t really used much in keeping me alive, surprising as that was. Perhaps because nothing was really wrong with my body, apart from the absence of blood.

But just maybe I could ‘convince’ the amber mana otherwise.

I visualized blood, replete with water, salt, proteins, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets and then forced with all my willpower the amber mana into this image. At first, nothing happened, but then I could see blood slowly forming. But it was not without cost. The strain of fighting the bucking and resisting amber mana caused the intensity of my headache to spike yet again.

I tried to curse or even just groan, but there was no air in my lungs. I attempted to bite my lips, but the muscles in my cheeks did not have enough energy to do even that. So I simply endured and pushed for more.

It was a race against time.

But slowly, I made progress. A trickle of blood moved through my veins, reducing the strain on my mana to provide all essential bodily functions.

And then I took my first, sweet breath.

The air was rasping through my parched mouth and throat, but it felt heavenly all the same.

Just when the last traces of the foreign mana in my body disappeared, either because it had been consumed or because it had faded into the surrounding, I succeeded in producing the last few ounces of blood that would ensure my survival.

Utterly exhausted, and still suffering from the blinding headache, I leaned against the door, too tired to move.

But I could not afford to just sit around and do nothing. At the very least, I could make sure that I incorporated all the mana. Because I swore to myself that I’d never again be caught with my pants down. From now on, I wouldn’t run off into trouble without mana as a backup.

Not that my mana would have done too much against that damned elf…

But still, it was a matter of principle.

I had to stop making hare-brained decisions. This was a different reality, and while it bore a resemblance to fantasy games I had played in the past, it was not a game. And there were differences. I could kick myself for blindly trusting that elf, just because elves were always the good guys in fantasy books didn’t mean that the same held true for this world. So far, there seemed to be really no good guys, apart from, perhaps, some fellow humans. But after having been tossed down a ravine to die, I was not going to be too trusting even with other people.

I had to force myself to stop getting all worked up about those bad experiences… it was water under the bridge, and I just had to learn my lessons. Slowly I calmed my breathing and assumed a meditative state. By now, it was like night and day to just a few days earlier. Even when stressed, injured, in pain, beaten up… I could start meditating nearly instantaneously. Almost.

Slowly but steadily, I incorporated the loose mana floating around my body into the mana cycle. Just because of the sheer quantity, it took a while, but soon the rotating mana looked a lot more solid than before. Especially the relatively paltry amount of silver and amber mana had swollen to a size comparable, even if not quite equal, to the black mana.

And for some reason, the cycling mana was rotating a bit faster too.

Was that the result of including more mana? But I had not noticed the same effect when I had added black mana before, so it was either something about the balance of the different manas or…

I looked more closely and noticed that the mana had started taking slightly different pathways from before, roughly following some of the major arteries and veins. It was as if… yes, this was about were the maelstrom of mana rushing through my body and blazed a trail. It was as if there were a sort of channel now, that facilitated the faster rotation of the mana.

Perhaps I could speed it up even more…

I split my awareness to various parts of the cycle, a trick that I still struggled mightily with, and then began to push and prod and pull. At first, the mana reacted quite sluggishly, but soon, I could see a further uptick in rotation speed. Not much else happened, and I wondered if this even had any impact. Somewhat annoyed, I checked my stats sheet.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 7

Title:

Mental Bastion; First Initiate; Army of One; Against the Mighty II; Transformer

Strength:

6.25

Intuitive Reasoning:

15

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

7

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

0

70

70 [+60]

Speed:

5

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

0

125

125 [+70]

Dexterity:

6

Perception:

14

Amber

0

60

81 [+60]

Endurance:

7

Spatial Awareness:

21

Red

10

*

*

Vitality:

6 [-1]

Willpower:

21

Purple

11

0

0

Available characteristic points: 26 [+22]

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 13 [+1]

Twilight Vision

Level 1

Minor Healing

Level 9 [+1]

Shadow Skin

Level 4

Shadow Sense

Level 1

Midnight Skin

Level 1

Partial Incorporeality

Level 2

Available spell points: 22 [+22]

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 8

Mental Fortitude

Level 12

Multitasking

Level 4 [+1]

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 8

Meditation

Level 6 [+2]

External Mana Manipulation

Level 2

Enhanced Mana Recovery

Level 2 [+1]

Sword Fighting

Level 10

Available skill points: 10 [+10]

Level 7!

Finally!

So, let’s see. Obviously, no gold mana any longer, but silver mana was at 70, amber at 81 and black at a whopping 125. The lowest was 70, which nicely corresponded to a level of 7, indicating that, possibly, I’d gain a level every ten mana in my lowest score… unless it was way more intricate than that.

The only question mark was about the red mana. I had a core in that as well, after all… but perhaps that did not count against the level requirement if it was not cycling.

Lots of speculation, but it kind of fitted the observable facts.

Only then my eyes wandered down the list, and I saw the massive increase in characteristic points. Twelve fucking points beyond the ten given by the dungeon rewards!

If only I wasn’t in such a sad state… I’d love to bump my stats right away. But without food, I was worried that I might kill myself. Actually, I wondered what would happen if I put those points into vitality… would I eat up my body to create vitality, so it would end up being a zero-sum-process? My suspicion was that mana did add something so it probably wasn’t quite a one-for-one. But I’d rather burn some fat reserves or blood sugar than my actual muscles… so bumping up my stats had to wait.

Plus, I was back to where I had started from, back to square one, and I already knew how quickly I should be able to raise my stats with proper food and rest.

I was about to close the stats window when my eyes drifted lower and I noticed the spell points I had gained.

Sweet!

Just like when I had formed my first mana cycle, I had gained spell points as well as characteristic points. That was going to be huge, especially when the various spells would inevitably start to plateau.

Now was any of that due to me accelerating the mana cycle? I had no idea. After all, I had no comparison point. This was the first I had leveled up, so it was all new territory. When I had gained my first level, I had received five points for each, so arguably, getting only two points per additional level felt like a letdown. But then again, quite possibly there was a bonus from achieving that first rank, or perhaps a reward for becoming an initiate… whatever that was supposed to represent.

Would I level up to a master at some point? How many levels would that take? Would that give me different bonuses?

Too many questions… I simply didn’t know shit so far.

Sighing, I turned back to my mana cycle and began to incorporate the red mana into my cycle. For a moment, I hesitated, because there was a good chance that it would drop me down in levels again, but in the end, I decided to go for it, because for now the stats points were useless to me anyway, and I’d rather get my hands on some sweet red mana to burn my way out of a tight spot.

Because I was tired of not having any offensive mana capabilities. And who doesn’t want to burn stuff…?

It took a bit, but in the end, the red mana drifted along with the rest of the mana, beautifully woven into the existing mana cycle.

And luckily, it did not change my level. Which was excellent news for the future, if I ever managed to pick up further cores. I would have hated the idea of having some type of Jojo effect with my physical and mental characteristics, where picking up a new core would make my suddenly real weak and stupid, only to, later on, regain the points to be spent yet again.

Either way, time to get my ass off the ground.