A few weeks later, Sam ordered from Victor the blacksmith, 20 special, small, thin rods of hardened steel that had been mixed with monster core dust. He planned to use these to create strength, purifying, and mana gathering combination rods. Victor explained that when powerful beasts capable of using mana were killed, they would sometimes drop a “monster core”. These round cores ranged in size from a small marble to that of a man’s fist. The cores were incredibly expensive because of their ability to absorb and store mana.

Unfortunately, Sam ruined 12 of the expensive rods before he was able to get the enchantments to work in sync together, and then he went through another 2 rods tweaking the enchantments for maximum efficiency. He only had six left, three unenchanted rods he was going to use on another experiment, and three enchanted rods that he could sell to the shop for 5 gold each. He didn’t want to tell anyone about these enchantments. He felt the risk of being kidnapped and enslaved by one of the powerful guilds or Noble estates was too high. He was so paranoid; he wasn’t even going to take the chance of telling their friends at the Arc guild. Sam was still constantly second guessing their decision to fix Ranger Vicki’s armor, so with everyone else, he was sticking to the story that he could only repair simple enchantments and make low-powered charms.

“Jen, you ready? I’ve finished the rods.” Sam called out from his workroom.

Jen came running into his workroom and excitedly said, “I’m ready; let’s do it!”

“That’s what she said!”

Jen groaned as she went to lay down on the bed. “Whatever, with your boomer pervert jokes, as long as you have the rods ready.”

“That’s what she said!” cackled Sam. Jen threw her shoe at him.

“You’re no fun sometimes, kid,” Sam said as he placed the enchanted rods around Jen’s body.

“I bet these rods will amp up my mana enough to allow me to reach all the way across the city with my psych power.” Jen said as she adjusted her mind into multi-focus. She then began meditating, circulating, and powering her mana with one mind, while preparing her mind’s second focus. She wanted a single blast of psych power to reach across the city.

A few minutes later while still directing her focus on the mana in her body, Jen said to Sam, “My mana feels like a raging torrent smashing around inside.”

Sam replied, “Focus on your mana, slowly use up or push out your old dirty mana and reach for the purified mana coming from these rods. When it is completely filtered, try to stop letting it escape out of your body.”

Sam tried imagining he could see where the mana was entering Jen. He imagined looking in Jen’s body for her mana like he looked at his muscles and tendons when healing them. He could sense the mana, and his gut told him, if he just kept trying, he would be able to see and inspect her mana.

Several minutes later he received a message for learning the mana inspection skill. Now Sam was able to actually watch as her mana entered the channels in her body and flowed to a pool in the middle of her chest right beneath her sternum.

He noticed the mana was having difficulty being absorbed and it was running into a channel of hers that was clogged, but he realized he needed to focus on the experiment, and said, “Jen, your mana is almost completely pure now.”

With a strained voice she replied, “I know, I can feel it. I’ve stopped letting it escape.”

Just then Sam noticed something strange happening with her clogged channel, but before he could say anything, the mana pushed through the clog and through the channel like a volcano erupting from under the ground. The channel opened, releasing the pressure that the mana was creating insider her.

“I did it!” Jen cheered as she read the stat sheet of a bartender she knew was working on the other side of the city that night. She sat up looking flushed and excited, but said “If I hadn’t been in multi-focus with meditation running, I could have lost control of that spell and injured myself from all that mana I was pumping out. Thankfully, I was able to immediately push all the mana into my ‘sonar ping’, and it worked great!... Ohhhh I just got enough experience points to make it to level 10! Whoa…I just received an unusual gambling quest. I declined it of course, but read it.”

System Message:

The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

==

Gambling Quest: Open your mana channels!

==

Requirements: Open your mana channels!

Within one year, open 12 mana channels – odds of failing 74% Reward of 8 ability points and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 3.

==

Accept: Yes/No

==

They typically quickly read and declined a multitude of stupid gambling quests they received every day, but sometimes the content of the quest contained clues they could use. Jen said to Sam, “Look at the payoff. The quest indirectly confirms there is some significant benefit for opening these channels inside our bodies.”

Sam was excited too, but said, “First, I want you to review the message I auto-forwarded you on mana inspection. Get into double focus with meditation and then think about looking at where the mana enters your body.”

It didn’t take long for her to get the skill with Sam’s guidance and her natural affinity with mana. To Jen’s delight, she believed that as a result of constantly manipulating mana while using her psych skill, she received a mana inspection skill level of 3, which was already higher than Sam’s.

Sam gave Jen a smile and a wink, “Good work, now calm down, focus on your mana flow, and take another look at the mana channel you just opened.”

Jen concentrated on the mana in her body, found the channel that ran down her left arm and then flowed all the way back to her center. Her mana channels made loops from her ‘mana core’ out into her body and back to the core again.

As she focused on guiding mana down the opened channel, she tightly gripped the arms of the chair she was sitting in, as the mana in her newly-opened mana channel caused her to go pale and dizzy, and almost pass out from the pain as the mana passed the area that had been clogged. She was sure this was a result of just blowing it open the way she did.

Jen took a deep breath of air into her lungs and also took a deep pull of mana into her system, but this time she only let a tiny trickle of mana into her new channel. She grabbed Sam’s shirt with a manic look in her eyes, and said, “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS! We can train our bodies to increase our ability points in mana and mana regen! I’ve researched, eavesdropped, and spied on everyone in this city trying to find out how to increase mana and mana regen, and I’ve gotten nothing. The only thing I’ve been able to find out is that in higher Decks, the mana is so much better than on the First Deck, that Deck Dropping is like water-boarding yourself.” I’m forwarding you the system message I just received.

System Message: Your mana regen has been increased by 4.

Jen complained, “It’s so frustrating, the level 1 skills are easy to get, but if you don’t know to look for something, or to even try something, you don’t know what skills you are missing. I literally just gained two skills, the one skill for mana inspection, and another skill for mana manipulation, because just now, when I was inspecting my mana channels, I focused on controlling the flow of mana in my open channel to try and ease the pain.”

Sam responded by nodding and staring at his own core and channel for a few minutes. And then he said, “Yeah, I just got the mana manipulation skill, too.”

Jen looked uncertain as she said, “I know that if anyone learned we knew this much about mana channels, it would likely lead us to being kidnapped and tortured for this knowledge, but I would really like us to think about helping Tamako with her mana channels.”

Sam could tell that Jen was taking a real liking to Tomako and said, “I know she has been helping you train your fighting skills, and I’m not against the idea, but I think we should first wait and see what we learn about opening more mana channels, before discussing it with her.”

Jen knew that Sam was sincere with his answer and said, “Let’s get started on more channels!”