/Author's Note

ElPsyKongroo28 here, Longer chapter this time.

P.S. I don't hate foxes.

Please comment on the chapter or rate the series

And as always, enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 4:

During the years before his fifteenth birthday Alric spent his time preparing himself for the journey to the surface. The only way to leave the great mana cave was to scale the near vertical wall on the northern side of the cave and enter into an offshoot cave that sloped upward. In order to do this a mana titan had to have a great amount of proficiency in their body strengthening magic. So in order to leave the cave Alric spent the majority of his time training his power.

The body strengthening magic of the mana titans, while instinctual, is not an easy thing to master. There are a few different aspects that need to be trained in order to master this magic.

The first aspect that must be trained is the ability to manipulate the flow of mana through the body.

First in order to circulate mana an organism must first absorb it from its surroundings.

For the majority of life this mana is absorbed through consumption and follows the food chain.

First the mana emitted from the planet’s core is absorbed into the crust of the planet, eventually making its way up to the soil on the surface.

From there it is absorbed by the plants that grow there alongside the other nutrients in the soil.

Then it is consumed by herbivores which are, in turn, consumed by predators.

Depending on the environment and the animals in question the amount of mana absorbed is different.

However because of the mana titans unique level of control over mana a secondary method of acquiring mana became possible.

Generally speaking this second method was nowhere near as efficient as absorbing mana from food but the mana titans are able to absorb ambient mana from the air.

This ability became stronger as a result of the training of using the flow of mana.

Alric began his training with this manipulation of mana.

He would start every day by gathering mana rich plants and hunting mana rich animals inside the branch caves.

After eating these sources of mana he would retreat to a small branch cave unknown to both animal and titan and begin his training.

---Alric’s POV—

I thought back over the events of yesterday.

About the recollection of the vast amount of information that was stored in my head.

About how I had originally come from another universe.

About my unique ability.

And about my new life goal.

“It’s time to start my training. I’ll start by examining what this mana exactly is.” I mumbled to myself.

I closed my eyes and began to shut out my main 5 senses, focusing solely on my ability to sense molecular interactions.

I could sense the silicates in the rock beneath me that comprised the surface of the cave. I could sense the water and carbon compounds that composed my body. I could sense the various gasses that made up the air I was breathing in and out.

However there was something different. Something buzzing in the background filled with energy. But I could not sense it.

“It must be the mana that I am looking for. It’s most likely a very small particle and will take more concentration for me to observe it.” I thought to myself

I narrowed the focus of my ability to the air surrounding me and increased my level of concentration.

Soon I was able to sense something I had never sensed before. It was similar to other types of matter but there was nothing else like it.

Mana turned out to be a type of sub-atomic particle.

Like a neutrino, mana had no mass. However it had high energy.

When these particles received even a little more energy they would begin to effect the matter around them.

The basic function of mana, or magic, is nothing more than the imparting or deprivation of energy.

The thing that made magic special from other physics is that it could impart or deprive energy from anything, be it matter or physical laws themselves.

If you wanted heat matter with magic it would impart energy in order to make it vibrate faster. Conversely if you wanted to cool something it would deprive energy slowing the vibration.

Magic could also be used to affect usually intangible things such as electromagnetic radiation, or light.

Finally magic could be used to affect physical laws. For example magic could be used to counteract or strengthen gravity.

For living beings magic was limited by the scope of their understanding. The more complicated the magic process the harder it was to perform.

The simplest class of magic is the movement of mana through the body, otherwise known as flow.

Flow is simply the transfer of mana from one cell to another.

When someone first learns to manipulate flow they are extremely slow and only are able to move a small amount of mana at a time.

However the more they use flow the faster they will be able to use it and the more mana they will be able to transfer. This works much like water flowing over rocks crates groves in them.

After discerning the nature of mana I started by training my flow.

I spent day after day with my senses other that my particle sense turned off just moving the mana about my body and observing the flow.

Because I was able to sense the mana circulating I was able to make adjustments that an ordinary person could not and I quickly increased my proficiency in flow.

Once I had reached a satisfactory level of flow I began the next phase of my training, my body strengthening magic.

Body strengthening magic is basically an advanced version of flow.

It consists of moving mana between cells just like flow. However, while doing so the magic would also move the cells of the body imparting extra strength.

Technically speaking, the mechanism behind body strengthening is extraordinarily simple. Just pushing and pulling. As such it would be classified as a class 1 magic.

Class one magic is simply the pushing or pulling of something with the use of magic.

However, because body strengthening works on the cellular level it is really the simultaneous use of a massive amount of class 1 magic and as such it has been labeled as a unique class magic.

Due to the complexity of this magic only the mana titans, who could use it instinctually, and great masters of magic could use it.

Instead most people just used class 1 magic directly onto whatever they were trying to move.

Many people don’t see why body strengthening would be useful because of this. They would reason that “why would you need to make yourself stronger to lift a boulder when you can just lift a boulder with magic?”

The advantage of body strengthening is that it uses a lot less magic.

If you were to lift a boulder with magic all the mana you used to do so would leave your body but with body strengthening the majority of the mana simply stays inside the body and can be utilized again.

In order to practice this I began by lifting rocks, running long distances, and other various physical exercises while my strengthening was active.

As both my flow and strengthening improved I became able to shatter boulders with my bare hands and run at high speeds.

Eventually I realized that even though I was able to do these things here, in the mana rich caves, I may not be able to do them in the outside world where mana was scarcer.

So I began to hone my body without strengthening as much as I could and also began increasing the amount of mana I could store in my body.

As a couple of years went by I became stronger and stronger in all aspects of my training.

Soon enough I had become one of the strongest members of my race.

I would assist with clearing cave-ins and hunt the armored herbivores that lived in the caves.

But the truth was I had not yet had a chance to put my strength to the test.

That chance came one day when I was hunting in an unexplored cave.

My first run in with a predator.

That day I was hunting for armored hares. A fellow member of the village had told me that he had caught one in the area a few days ago.

The meat from an armored hare was exceptionally delicious and contained a high mana density so it was seen as a luxury food.

Because they travel in small groups I knew that there must be more out there so I decided to go looking for them.

Generally the other villagers stayed away from unknown areas and because of this nobody had caught the other hares.

I carefully walked down the cave path until I heard some faint scraping and munching noises.

I immediately knew it was the hares because they liked to eat the roots of plants.

I continued as cautiously as I could because armored hares are easily scared and will escape by leaping in random directions.

I creep around the corner and select my target, a hare that is eating away from the rest of the group.

I ready my dagger made from the fang of a mana wolf and turn on my body strengthening.

I leap towards the hare using my full power. Before the hare knows it the dagger is protruding from the side of its body and it breathes its last.

The rest of the hares quickly flee but I got what I came for.

I pull out the dagger and prepare to put away the carcass when suddenly I feel a great impact on my shoulder.

A fraction of a second after the impact, before I could even react, I heard a loud crackling noise and smelled burning flesh.

I was thrown into the cave wall but I quickly got up knowing that I am being attacked.

When I saw what had attacked me my mood turned grim.

It was a fox with midnight blue fur and bright golden eyes.

This creature was a Volt Fox or as nicknamed by the people of my village, the hunter’s peril.

The Volt fox is a solitary creature that mostly hunts small prey.

If you were to run into one normally it would just pass you by ignoring you.

However, the volt fox had a particular behavior where it would lock-on to its prey and kill it or die trying.

Because of this if a hunter were to kill prey that the volt fox had locked on to it would become enraged like a middle schooler playing call of duty and attack the person or creature that killed it instead.

I knew that there was no way to get away. Now that it had its sights on me it wouldn’t back down.

I quickly remembered the specifics about the volt foxes.

They were very fast like many predators in the cave, they had small very sharp claws that they would puncture their enemies with and worst of all once they punctured the opponent they would release a powerful electric discharge charring the surrounding skin and possibly stopping the heart.

“It’s defiantly a lot faster than me, even with my body strengthening. But, I am a lot stronger. If I can just manage to hit it I can win.”

Suddenly the volt fox pounced.

With a speed that made it difficult to follow, even for a mana titan, the fox leapt toward me.

I quickly activated my strengthening and attempted to stab the fox with the knife as it flew through the air but I was too slow.

The fox landed on my arm digging its claws into my skin and let loose its signature electricity frying my arm.

The pain made me drop the knife and leap back.

The damage from the shock was not too bad but I had lost my only weapon.

I was quickly forced on the defensive.

I put all my efforts into dodging the fox as it leapt.

At first I sustained some more minor wounds and eventually I became used to the movements of the fox and continued to doge it.

However by the time I had seen through the fox’s movements I was pretty battered, all the minor wounds had piled up and I was in a lot of pain.

I need to finish this and fast or else I’m done for.

I started increasing the body strengthen in my arm alone to the absolute limit and observed the fox.

I looked at the tensing of his muscles and the direction of his gaze.

I’ll put everything I have into this one strike and just maybe I’ll survive.

The fox jumped and I swung my arm in a chop as hard as I could.

Time seemed to slow down.

The fox flew at me with outstretched claws and eyes that seemed to stare into my soul and say “this is the end for you.”

My arm swung through the air as the fox approached and the blow landed on the spine of the fox.

For a fraction of a second I swear I saw the look in the eyes of the fox change to that of accepting defeat.

And then the blow, with all my strength, passed through the center of the fox’s body separating it into two pieces.

As the halves of the fox fell to the ground I collapsed as well, the toll of the battle had reached me.

With the last of my mana I applied my body strengthening and forced myself to shamble back to the village.

I collapsed at the gate and everything faded to black.