Ch.19 Numbers Game

Looking at the running soldiers Malpetios quickly ordered his slimes to kill as many as possible, sadly the slime population was heavily damaged by the mages, the metal slimes got most of the kills while the others could only entangle their feet killing a few by the stampede. Now that all the soldiers left he attempted to collect the mages to see if they had anything useful, the process was extremely difficult slowly turning them into dots of light, trying the same with the soldiers gave the same result wondering why, he felt movement, surprised he took a look.

In the Maze, the six soldiers were running from the smoke behind each other, to Malpetios's surprise they made it to room nine. With no better idea he just decided to ignore them for now, he started to send mana to the fire emergency he left just in case. Small sticks about the size of an arm glowed in soft blue light, the fires seemingly avoiding their area, suddenly fill to the brim in Water Elemental mana the sticks glowed blindingly, the fire quickly started to die out in the presence of so much elemental water. Their mission completed they exploded into a shower of water their material not able to accommodate such amounts of elemental mana.

Malpetios had experimented with filling materials with Elemental Mana and found some discrepancies, for example, a stick required 10 mana or 30 earth mana or 20 water, now however it will take 10 nature. These differences made me realize that you can use different elements to create the same thing as long as it's related in some way, you can't however make water out of fire even if you dump all your elemental mana. With this in mind, I started to realize that you can overstuff something to the limits of its material, such as filling a stick with nature, water, or earth making it explode the balance of elements not holding its intended form any longer.

This process made me think I could create some unique materials bordering the limits of its elemental structure, so my fire extinguishers were born.

(Riptide Stick): A normal wooden stick overflowing with Elemental Water.

CP: 00/10 (Crafting Points)

Elemental Affinity Damage (Element) 0/3

Elemental Resistance (Water) 999/10

Elemental Conductivity (Element) 0/1

In conclusion, x100 is the very limit of materials to keep their form, pass the threshold breaks the item to its dominant element. Further experiments on affinity and conductivity exploded on me as soon as I added anything past x2 or if I tried to add both not allowing me to have more than one type of overcapacity. This end result shows that I can upgrade over the limit for defense, offense, or conductivity but not all of them.

While I was thinking about mana conductivity I thought about how it would work on a normal human and my own, what are the differences? Why can I swallow all of the mana to the point they can't absorb any and try to destroy me. The system saw that as a question and answered.

[Mana Conductivity]: Both the percentage of mana that can be retained in the body and the determining factor for mana absorption. Out of 100 Elemental Mana, a normal human can absorb 10, 50 Elemental Mana can be Converted to one Mana, total Mana can not exceed over the percent of conductivity divided by your total Elemental Mana pool. Can't absorb Elemental Mana in the presence of a higher conductivity percentage. Mana can be used universally for any Elemental spell or skill at a 1:1 ratio.

10%: Can absorb lower level, Elemental Mana.

30%: Can absorb Mana directly from the environment and middle-level Elemental Mana.

60%: Can directly absorb Mana from others even if tainted by their life auras by death, can absorb mana from lifeless objects and not just food. Can absorb high Elemental Mana.

100%: Can absorb Mana and Elemental Mana of any potency, can convert Mana to Elemental Mana at a rate of 1 for 50.

Looking at the pop up I finally had an idea of how the world works. This explains how the world managed to survive, its creatures feeding on the Elemental Mana the world can't use converting it into Mana and Mana can be used as a replacement for any spells or martial arts as a 1:1 replacement. Like this no matter how much Mana has been wasted for spells or skills, not of their affinity it will cost more Elemental Mana in the end forming a cycle.

It all started to make sense and I could see why the planet was desperate, the world creates mana from its core and uses it to grow but its growth creates Elemental Mana something the world can't use. The unusable Elemental Mana poisons the world preventing it from growing and it can't supply mana to its creatures weakening them, only making enough to maintain itself.

With this understanding I can see why the world creates Mana Cores or their Intellectual counterparts Dungeon Cores, to purify itself and continued growing. The Sapient races seem unable or unwilling to let the Cores do their mission most likely from differences of race and conflict, after all, who wants to be powerless and have no choice but to bent to the races with 30% or more conductivity, the masses would not sit and allow themselves to be oppress and fight with the Elemental Mana the world produces, overwhelming the gifted with numbers forming a balanced of power.

My mission and the needs of the people are in conflict, those on top of the world are more willing to fight and devour each other's mana or worse the World's last hope Dungeon Cores that have grown of suitable sizes.

sigh.... what a mess, before I can do anything I need to grow strong enough so the commoners don't dare throw their army at me, when that's over I'll show them that even with no Elemental Mana we Dungeons can supply all the power they need be it by equipment or unique consumables like my Prismatic Ivy fruits. The biggest problem will be finding a way to make them all 30% conductivity if I can achieve this everyone should be happy... right?