Ha… I guess I should get started on my experiments. The first one should be finding the effects of the poisons on my cells and then create a prototype poison immunityyyyyyyyyyyyy from that. Dang, that was a good stretch. Cain thought while priming the muscles in his arms, lifting them over his head.

He grabbed some mana from the Mana Storage with aid from SRI to make another microscope. Upon realizing how frequent he needed one, Cain considered making it as best as he could so it would last a few years. Previously, whenever Cain made an object from mana that was going to be put in the Mana Trash dimension later, he only focused on its immediate use and perfect functionality throughout this use time. There is no difference in mana cost, but rather, how the multiple parts are assembled as they’re created from mana.

Cain took a few minutes to properly organize his thoughts about microscopes, their parts manufacturing process, their parts, and various other details. He then pulled out a few hundred million mana and forged a microscope above a table magic circle. The finished product landed softly on the table circle that inched closer towards the ground until the eyepiece hovered at Cain’s eye level, thus preventing him arching his back to use it.

He used the rest of the mana he pulled out to make a gas generator and some gasoline to power it. After filling it up, he kicked the generator for good luck then started it and plugged the microscope in. Cain calibrated the microscope while creating glass slides and directing them to another table magic circle on his right. He closed the portal to the Mana Storage and opened one to the Fragile Dimension; the one that contains fragile or volatile pieces such as the poison vials and flashdrives from the ruins.

Cain extracted some of his blood with a freshly created titanium needle. He had always used titanium whenever possible due to his perfect understanding of it, therefore no loss in efficiency when created from mana. This also meant he could create it with the surrounding mana, if he planned to turn it back into mana later, with no loss.

Cain’s blood trickled down onto each of the four prepared slides. He re-enabled his physical enhancement immediately after the slides were prepared, lest he face a fierce lecture from Dresil. Cain slid a slide into the microscope then calibrated it once more. He encased the vials of poison with mana nets and placed them on his right side, under the slides.

Should I make a glass eyedropper? Hm… but idk if these poisons could react to glass, same goes for my mana. Meh, mana is easier so let’s see what happens. Despite his relaxed thinking process, Cain isolated the first poison to be used in the experiment. A semi-sphere of Cain’s mana encased the vial, completely cutting it off from its environment.

Cain’s mana took the cap off the vial, slowly dipping inside to extract a drop of poison. The mana net that entrapped a drop of the poison rose out of the vial and hovered for a minute. Aw... No explosions I guess. Cain dismissed the semi-spherical cage and brought the drop of poison to the microscope.

He introduced the poison to the blood sample, Sample 1, and observed the reaction between the two. The poison fiercely attacked the cells within Sample 1, yet the mana wall around the cell fended it off for a few minutes. The poison eventually won due to the lack of nutrients supplied to the cell weakening its immune system.

I guess that was a fast acting poison then. Crap… what if there’s one that takes a few days to kill in here… Cain realized a potential blunder in his experiment, but dismissed the worry for when he came across it. He realized that the chances the cell would die due to starvation before the poison could kill it would be higher based on the last experiment.

So I already have some poison immunity with the physical and natural enhancement… I guess I can program the mana walls around the cells to turn anything that attacks it into mana, then convert that mana. I still need to find out how to program that last bit though… Cain organized the next steps of the Poison, Virus, and Disease Immunity path while turning Sample 1 into mana and grabbing Sample 2.

Cain took a drop from each vial and observed their interactions with his cells over the next half hour. He had to create two more slides and samples since he only made four at the start. Most of the poisons interacted with the mana wall that reinforced the cell membrane in some way, thus making identifying the poison very simple.

Only one, presumably extremely slow reacting poison, didn’t. Rather, it’d be more appropriate to say that it made contact with the mana walls after trying to devour whatever wasn’t protected by mana. This included the water, proteins, and salt that flowed through the blood. Everytime it made itself stronger, it’d attempt to attack a cell again.

This particular poison, dubbed Parasitic Poison by Cain, intrigued him due to its similarities to a living creature. It also made him realize that his current path of developing Poison, Disease, and Virus Immunity would not protect him from things such as lead poisoning. Where the lead only existed inside the blood, making it denser and harder to pump.

Cain took note of the potential holes within this approach and some possible ways to counteract them. Managing the system macroscopically would work, yet there would be many blind spots within this surveillance. One example is that it wouldn’t be able to detect miniscule concentrations of lead. Even though the lead is hardly present, its existence would still affect the body negatively.

The other solution required a 1:1 relationship between Cain’s mana and his cells, a plan he had thought of earlier. With this relationship, he could network groups of cells into red blood cells, white blood cells, muscle cells, platelets, etc. then group those by their body parts. This would enable a passive macroscopic surveillance and an active deep diagnostic scan.

The diagnostic scan would be able to scan by body part, cell grouping (blood, liver, etc.), cell type, or individual cell scans. Cain concluded this to be the best method, yet also the most expensive since there are trillions of cells in the human body. This fact brought forth another problem to Cain’s mind: The limit of mana that can be stored within the human body.

—Dms: Cain and Bob— (101ms)

Cain: Is there a limit to how much mana can be stored in the human body?

Bob: Indeed.

Bob: Usually this limit is around 5 million mana, but can differ greatly with genetics and age.

Cain: Dang… what’s my situation then?

Bob: I’m not entirely sure as I’ve been too busy to take a decent look.

Bob: Although it looks like your body has been modified through your summon to contain roughly a billion mana before you would approach your limit.

Bob: Rex and I can increase this limit over time once you approach it though.

Cain: That’s good. Is there any limit to that?

Bob: At some point you would need the other spirit kings’ help to upgrade your body.

Bob: Although beings that approach 1 billion mana are rare, since they usually ascend to godhood before then.

Cain: Meh, being a god seems boring. Especially with all the potential bureaucratic work you mentioned they’d have to do.

Bob: Chances are some gods will contact you once you’re able to use a few hundred mana and show no signs of ascending.

Cain: Oh? Anything I need to be aware of?

Bob: Not much, they would probably be curious about your ascension.

Bob: After you refuse to, they may impose restrictions on you, such as not to interfere too much with worldly affairs or something similar.

Bob: Some gods or goddesses can increase your limit of mana within your body though.

Cain: Makes sense, there wouldn’t be many beings with that much mana who would stay on this plane, maybe even none.

Cain: So you’re saying make a deal with the mana limit of my body in mind?

Bob: I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Cain: :hehe:

Bob: :hehe:

Cain: What’s ascension like? And matters pertaining to demi-gods and such.

Bob: I’m afraid I cannot reveal that information.

Bob: Do you remember the natural laws that require an information exchange of equal value between gods and spirit kings?

Cain: Yep.

Bob: The information you want is one of the few of such universal scale that it cannot be revealed to those who are not at that point, even with greater information exchange.

Cain: Hmm… is that to prevent everything from becoming a demi-god?

Bob: Indeed. The more one knows about the goal they’re trying to achieve, the easier it becomes.

Cain: Indeed.

Cain: Is there any limit to the amount of mana the gods and spirit kings can increase the limit on body to?

Bob: Around 1 trillion mana, you will need a higher god to continue it.

Bob: Although I wouldn’t be surprised if you found out replicated how they increased your limit and did it for yourself up to, and maybe past that, limit.

Cain: :hehe:

Bob: :hehe:

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

Alright, with that sorted I just need to add “Artificial Increasement of Mana Limit” to the study later and then run some tests on the prototypes. Cain lined up the next set of experiments focused around PD&V Immunity. He created more slides and deposited some drops of his blood onto them. He loaded them into the microscope and prepared a drop of random poison on the side.

Cain programmed the cells inside the slide to turn anything that attacked it into mana. A few minutes passed while Cain configured the program so it’d stop turning its fellow cells into mana whenever they bumped into each other. He ended up having to dispose of the slide and copying the updated program to a new one due to the contaminated sample.

This process repeated itself thrice, by which the program finally had friendly-fire off. Cain replaced the slide and sample to be safe, copying the perfected program onto Sample 5. He introduced the poison to the sample and observed the program in action.

The program cross-referenced the “attacking” object with stored particles and cells, then converted it into mana if it was deemed “hostile.” This distinct identification process rendered slow acting poisons useless since they were always converted into mana upon their first bump/attack.

Cain noticed this program would mostly solve his worry about lead poisoning and similar effects, yet the problem of requiring the 1:1 ratio remained. Even within the sample, 1 unit of mana was spent storing “friendlies,” storing the program, and enacting the program.

Cain spent Samples 6-10 reducing the mana cost per cell. He managed to reduce to a negligible amount of mana, roughly 1 millionth of a unit, by only storing the function names and their triggers on the cell.

Once a function was triggered, it’d request the details from a magic circle where the details of each function were held, then enact said function. It deleted unnecessary data later, essentially making the magic circles on the cell dispensers and the magic circle that stored the details the bag that held the items. The functions were the items.

Although this method allowed Cain to program every cell within his body with only a few million mana, it also had some drawbacks. Firstly, his brain calculated everything. Cain couldn’t find a way to put a processor within the Cell Circles, which left the miniscule calculations up to Cain’s brain to process.

By itself, the burden was negligible. With a few trillion cells and several million running it at once, it was overwhelming. At least that’s what Cain assumed. He wasn’t willing to risk ending up in a coma due to overloading his brain.