How much can a person learn and discover on their own?

I am of the opinion that humans are mentally blind. Allow me to elaborate:

Not to be offensive (though I don’t really care) but humans have very narrow minds. That which exists beyond their previous scope of knowledge and imagination is very hard for them to notice or discover. Those things may seem obvious and very very hard to miss once they are found but the process of finding them may take generations and thousands upon thousands of people to see.

The obvious evades and eludes us, even if it’s always been right in front of our eyes. Sometimes when you notice such things you wonder if your eyes exist for only decorative purposes.

And even when you think you knew something well, all it takes but a single glance, single sentence, a single coincidence for the sudden realization of the bigger picture to kick in and have your previous worldview to come crashing down…

I remember when I was still studying in the university and hadn’t, you know, died, and there was a time when I was studying little introductory bits about the group theory. At that time I might have read a sentence in some special way in the textbook, as it took me a whole week to rebuild my understanding of all arithmetic, mathematics, logic in general and my views on politics so that I didn’t feel that all of my life prior to that hadn’t been a lie…

Ah, it’s nice to be young, isn’t it? It was embarrassing to remember for the younger me, but for me now, it only brings a warm smile and mild feelings of nostalgia.

How long have I been in this new world though? It has been… 3, 4, 6 months? Well, not longer than a year I am certain.

Well, it’s hard to keep track of time in two different universes. First off, time there and time here are built differently. Secondly, the rules of movement of the cosmic bodies may not be the same. For example, while the previous Universe had the Earth circle the Sun, Ralph knows what is going on in this Universe.

All of these things just keep piling up and making me question everything and I suddenly feel very tired and fed up with all of this. Whether the planet am on is circling its star or not has no meaning to the current me anyway, so why should I bother wasting my time on it anyway?

Oh well, whatever. Why did I even start this monologue?

Ah, yes. Originally, I had to chide humanity and show them off as dumb babbling idiots and when you, imaginary listeners in my head, would’ve had enough of it, I would go: “I am not saying it in order to say that I am better than this, I am saying it all to remind myself that I too, am human and am guilty of these flaws...”, which would then transition to me explaining why I had to remind this to myself as I would begin showing off my new small yet important discovery with a jolly mood while suppressing my pride and hubris…

All of that was ruined by the sudden burst of melancholy that had assaulted me out of nowhere like a robber in the middle of the night. Why me, I am innocent…

Sigh. Since I am now too depressed to speak, I will let Ralph narrate the process of discovery…

***

Over the last two weeks, Victor Norman had been working hard.

He forgot about food and rest for the lofty goal he had set for himself, he even forced himself to sleep only 2 hours a day for the sake of achieving this goal!

Was that goal increasing his level so that he could have the opportunity to literally elevate his level of existence? No. While our hero did find the idea incredibly attractive, he wouldn’t cut down on his sleep time for it.

What he was trying to do was much more important to him than what basically amounted to a chance at godhood in his eyes. Yes, his goal was to make a bed at last.

With the mighty powers over the forces of nature itself that he had recently gained, cutting-

***

Alright, I’ll be taking over, thanks.

I know that making a bed may not be as awe-aspiring and interesting as it sounds for most and the seriousness I took to the task may seem bewildering, but I would prefer not having my resolve mocked.

Anyway, while I was making the bed frame, I had to, obviously, use magic. I had to design and create new spells and I had to observe the nature of the wood I was working with too. Polishing it was an especially hard task, as I had no wax or any other sort of polish.

There were many failures and there were many mistakes. I had probably burned enough wood to supply a small town with electricity for a year but it wasn’t work without gains.

For one, I now have a very beautiful bed frame made out of polished wood.

But, more importantly, over the past two weeks I managed to notice something that I had never noticed before as I used magic over and over and over again.

What I have been referring to mana, i.e. the supernatural form of material that exists in the atmosphere and inside my body that I can shape and manipulate with Mana Manipulation to create spells, it follows certain rules when moving.

I never really thought about it, but how can I make mana move with my will? It doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Why can I shape it? Why can I manipulate its state? It would be more realistic if I had to use some kinds of tools to do it, but all I use is my will and a skill granted to me by the System.

And, while saying “System gave me the ability, so it works” could resolve this line of questioning, I now have a better idea of what is really going on.

It all began when I was trying to create two spells simultaneously.

Both of them were of the same element. When creating spells I usually manipulate the elemental mana in locations close to myself, and that time was no exception.

Think of it like this: there were two lumps of mana of the same attribute but in different states that were in close proximity to each other. Let’s call the states of both lumps as state A and state B for the first and the second lumps respectively.

It just so happened that mana in state B caused the mana in state A to, kind of, steer away from it. Not only that, but it was steering away as if it was being gently pushed by a big hand.

When I first saw it, I was not very shocked. I had seen this kind of phenomenon countless times already. But at that time, I was quite bored so played with the two lumps (played with two lumps… Hm, I will use the word “group” from now on instead of “lump”).

So, I played with the two groups of mana. I let go of the first group and had only the second group chase it at first, but, over time, the first group began to fall apart so I subconsciously began holding it together with my skills.

It should be said that after I gained the skill Arcane Collector, my way of handling mana changed on a fundamental level. I now did it more efficiently than before and my efficiency grew with the size of my “collection” which consisted of the skills and knowledge I possessed.

Arcane Collector allowed me to apply my knowledge and experience to optimize my skills in handling magic without me having to even think about how to do it – it is an amazing skill, but I digress.

So, after I held the first group with my skills, I was surprised to notice that I didn’t use Mana Manipulation – I mean I used it, but it wasn’t on the group, it was on a new, smaller group of mana near it instead.

After observing it for a while, it was time for shock and excitement to kick in as I now had understood the implications behind it: if I could better understand how this worked, my ability to manipulate mana would rocket through the roof!

I took a day off from building the bed and dedicated it to studying the phenomenon.

It took me only an hour of experimenting to notice something even better than the previous observations. I had found the key to understanding the basics behind the skill Mana Manipulation.

Speaking from a biological point of view, humans are likely not built to have the ability to manipulate mana. I am not a biologist, nor is my knowledge concerning evolution very extensive so I may be wrong, but I don’t think Mother Nature would be bored enough to install the hardware necessary to do magic in the human body.

Then what could enable them to have such an ability? Well, the System.

But how would it work? Well, some humans have affinities for certain elements and they can naturally have the potential to manipulate mana.

That potential could translate to ability with the acquisition of skills and the ratio of effort : effect would grow smaller after the increase in stats.

But how exactly would that work, I asked myself. I then remembered how Ralph told me how having mana in one’s body changes one’s state of health. Then I remembered how small insects like mosquitoes and moths tend to stay away from me because I have mana in my body and I thought “Hey, this isn’t normal for all humans, right?”

“Right”, was Ralph’s answer, so I now had a lead to my question’s answer.

I observed how mana moved in my body and I remembered the process of my acquisition of skills Internal Mana Manipulation and Mana Manipulation.

While I acquired Mana Manipulation as a consequence of having acquired Mana Insight (how it changed me is not something I even can begin to understand yet), I could vaguely remembered the way Ralph taught me Internal Mana Manipulation.

At that time I joked that I was a protagonist of an eastern fantasy genre novel because of all the magical pathways, internal vortexes and breathing exercises I had to go through, but after I thought about this more carefully… I actually began understanding what it all was for.

I had the trusty gecko corpse on hand (It wouldn’t rot no matter how long I waited, what a lovely thing) and I knew that the gecko was a magical creature originally-

“Magical creatures and creatures with man in their bodies aren’t the same, actually. Call creatures with mana in their bodies Mana creatures for the sake of correctness”

“Okay. What are magical creatures?”

“Not anybody you are going to meet soon. I am a magical creature technically. Among species Vampires are fine examples of magical creatures. The explanation is too long though, so just don’t pay it too much attention”

“Got it”

I remembered that the gecko was a Mana creature because I was very intimately familiar with it after the hundreds of hours I had spent in the simulation with it back then.

I examined its corpse to the best of my ability and found that it had the pathways to channel man in itself too.

I then caught a wolf. I knew that a wolf wasn’t a Mana creature because it had been on my menu for about as long as I had been in the new Universe.

I examined the wolf to the best of my ability. I found that it also had magical pathways, but they were small, weak and not very suited for channeling mana.

I examined myself, the gecko’s corpse and a dozen wolved I caught to the best of my ability, which took three days. Here’s what I found:

In terms of quality of magical pathways:

Gecko’s corpse could only channel one attribute of mana a time, the quantities were large and the speed was fast. The pathways (they seemed to not have an actual physical form but with Mana Insight and Mana Perception I could make them out) were quite sturdy (don’t allow mana to leak out) but also very rigid and hard to bend.

My pathways are more slender in comparison to the gecko’s. They can carry less mana but the speed is very fast. They are not as sturdy: it takes about 1.8 the amount of MP to make mana leak out from the gecko’s pathways than from mine. Of course it only is about the groups of pathways I had tested it on. They are quite malleable. I don’t know if it’s because I am alive or that they belong to me that my pathways bend in and out of their trajectories easier than it is with the gecko’s. They also can carry many types of attributes at the same time.

Wolves’ pathways are fragile, rigid and they break. When neither my nor gecko’s pathways just stop working when I push too much mana through them or bend them out of shape too much (If they did, Ralph would warn me as I had told him to stop me just in case something went wrong during experiments), wolves’ pathways break and mana leaks out chaotically all over the place.

I had also found several interesting things about how pathways worked and created three spells, but that can come later.

In terms of vortexes:

Vortexes… How should I put it… It’s like… if pathways were roads, then vortexes would be crossroads and intersections. But different.

Vortexes are very complicated. I tried to study them in-depth, but Ralph warned me 6 times when I experimented on myself and 14 times when I experimented on the gecko’s corpse.

Once, I was a bit too slow and I “prickled” one of my vortexes. I then had a nosebleed, passed out for two hours and had a period of weakness for several hours afterwards. Thankfully, I was fine after that was over.

I was also a bit slow with the gecko’s corpse once and I seem to have broken some pathways leading to that vortex in the corpse…

Anyways, what I found wasn’t as exciting but here are my findings:

The gecko: The corpse is too large and too hard, so I couldn’t dissect it properly, so I can only guess that its vortex has a cross-sectional area that is about the size of a fingernail on average, there are at least three of them, as with the pathways, I can only channel one attribute of mana in a vortex, but the difference is that I can only channel the earth-attribute man inside… that’s all.

Me: I have 12 vortexes located all over my body. They seem to be spaced quite randomly and each vortex varies in size. I have two primary vortexes: they are the biggest and have the most pathways leading in and out of them. Each is the size of a third of my fist when filled with mana and the size of my thumb when in passive mode. They are the easiest to control too. The other 9 vortexes are twice as small and they aren’t nearly as flexible (don’t expand or shrink too much when channeled with mana) It’s hard to control them too, at least for the current me. All vortexes can have mana of all attributes I could get my hands on channeled in and out of them. For now, that is all.

Wolves: They don’t seem to have any vortexes. The pathways are randomly placed and directed and it’s all a mess… I would try to somehow fix it but I didn’t have enough time to get distracted. Maybe I could do something in the future.

Well, that’s it for vortexes. I wish I had more Mana creature specimens to work with. I hope the dungeon will provide me with them. The previous undead were more like machines based on living things rather than actual creatures, so they won’t do.

Anyway! Based on my observations I have compiled a set of rules and a theory on how mana manipulation (as an action) and Mana Manipulation (as a skill) work. Well, that can come later. I’ll continue working on the bed in the meantime...