Jen woke up before Sam, and she thought, “I need to expand my multi-focus skill from double focus into triple focus. I need to be able to use part of my mind for mana filtering 100 percent of the time.”

Jen sat still and split her mind between meditation, which was almost second nature to her now, and her new mana purification skill. She found that she could keep these two skills going indefinitely with her speed of mana regeneration. The problem was, she thought her mana regeneration should have been much higher after opening a mana channel, but the filtering of her mana slowed down the regeneration and made her pull harder at the surrounding ambient mana.

She had to draw much more dirty ambient mana to filter out enough clean mana to fully operate her mana system.

Jen thought, “My mana system is much more powerful with the purified mana and clean mana, but even with my new open channel, I am only drawing in about 90% of the mana I drew in before. With Sam’s purification and mana collection rods laying around my body, I can get close to full regeneration going, but I can’t simply tape those on my body.”

After a few hours of simply meditating and mana filtering, Jen split into a third focus to simultaneously use her mana cleaning skill. The meditation was calming; the mana filtering was repetitive and boring, but the mana cleaning required constant focus of her mind to guide her mana through her mana system to scrub and remove corruption deposits.

It was kind of like driving a car, while listening to a very boring book on tape, and also, eating a taco without making a mess. At first, you’re making a mess, but then, as you eat tacos while driving and listening to the book over and over again, you eventually figure out how to eat the taco without making a mess and then eventually, doing all three becomes second nature.

Several hours later Jen was getting mentally tired keeping up her triple focus and took a break. She noticed Sam walking around the house and said, “You are so country; did you really just tie those rods around your chest?”

Sam responded with a grunt. “You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it!”

Jen laughed at him and said, “You just keep telling yourself that, Boomer!”

Sam did feel stupid and didn’t even try to think of a comeback; he just changed the subject. “I feel like I have been taking half breaths all night and morning. I just can’t keep my mana regeneration up without these rods right next to me.”

Jen walked over to Sam and started to inspect his mana channel and told him, “We are going to open another one of your mana channels today. Yesterday, when my mana channel burst open, I shoved all my mana into a spell. Today, if we are able to smash open one of your mana channels, I want you to be ready to take that built up mana and push it into your “mana system cleaning skill” and sweep up all the corruption from the opened channel, and expel it from your system as quickly and completely as possible.”

Sam nodded his head in agreement but said, “Before we start, I was thinking about how surgeons use stents to allow blood to flow through blocked veins, or how plumbers use augers to open clogged pipes.”

Jen slapped herself in the forehead, and said, “Of course! Take a look at the channel I opened yesterday down my arm. As you can see, even after cleaning on it for many hours last night, there is still quite a bit of corruption around the edges. I think it may take me several weeks of regular mana scrubbing to get it completely clean.

“If we simply smashed a small hole right down the middle of your channel, you may have weeks or months of scrubbing the corruption. However, if you could form your mana into the shape of a hole saw, like those used to cut out holes for door knobs, you could just cut a thin circular line around the edges of your mana channel, breaking free one large chunk, and then use your mana cleaning skill to blow that one large chunk out of your system.”

Sam listened to Jen’s idea but had a worried look on his face and said, “Sounds good, but I’m concerned a large chunk of corruption like that may get stuck in the center near my mana pool. It would look like a giant snake of corruption floating around my center. Maybe like a large loose chunk of cholesterol that breaks free, it can cause a stroke or heart attack.”

“Maybe, but I agree with your point. We should take it slow and be careful,” replied Jen.

Sam thought for a second and said, “I’m going to try to form my mana into something like the blades in a garbage disposal. I’ll then spin the saw blades and smash them into the clogged channel like a hammer drill. As the mana blades spin and pound into the corruption, I will reserve some mana to carry off and expel the smaller bits of corruption that break free. I just don’t know if I will be able to generate enough clean mana, to keep it all going at the same time.”

Jen’s eyes widened as Sam finished his thoughts, and she jumped up. “I’ll be right back,” and she ran outside. Only a few minutes later, Jen returned, left the door ajar, opened the windows in the house, and said, “It just hit me! Both of us have been inside filtering the same ambient mana for almost a full day now. The ambient mana in here is horrible. When I walked a little way from our house, it was like I had left a coal plant and was able to get a fresh breath of air. My mana generation outside is still lower because of my filtering, but it’s much better than in here!”

Sam looked a little flustered and said, “Of course! You’re brilliant, Jen! I’m going to need a day, maybe two, before we work on my second mana channel.”

Sam was a little put out. His pure mana was much more powerful, and he had greater control over it, but even with the doors and windows open, his mana regen was terrible. Sam had to constantly slow down his work and wait for his mana pool to fill up, but he refused to let any mana enter his body that was not purified.

It actually took almost two weeks, but Sam had finally outfitted their shop and home with enchanted mana filtering and gathering rods. Sam wanted to put more mana gathering rods around their building, but more rods might have caused a literal breeze of mana, possibly bringing unwanted attention. The purifiers released all the clean mana into their home, but unfortunately, for those around them, all the dirty mana was vented straight up into the air like a smokestack. Some of the pure mana leaked into the shop area of their building, but the customers believed the jolt they received from the pure mana was simply the relaxing feeling from Sam’s mini AC units.

***System Message*** Mana Regen increased by 2X while in mana dense and purified area.

Jen looked at Sam when he finally finished modifying the building and said, “I’m glad you’re finally done. You spent a shit-ton of money on all those materials. We are going to have to build up our savings again after all this.”

That said, Jen did stretch and just let the mana flow into her and purred. “This pure mana is glorious though! Not to mention the doubling of our mana regen while in the house!”

Sam replied, “Once we get back into a rhythm, we can make tons of gold selling the mana filtering and purification rods to the System Shop. Also, I couldn’t have gotten it all done this quick without you taking care of the business and getting all the supplies; you’re the best.”

Jen inwardly smiled at the compliment but said, “Enough procrastinating. Let’s get that mana channel of yours opened.”

Over the last few days, Sam and Jen had discussed exactly how they were planning to open his mana channel. They also discovered that Jen could push her mana into Sam if his mana pool was low as a result of his mana regen not keeping up. They had done this several times to allow Sam to work on some of the more complex enchantments for venting the corrupted mana out the roof.

Sam lay on the cot in his workroom, and Jen said to him, “Just like we talked about, use multi-focus and get your meditation going and your mana manipulation going. You’re going to be constantly using your mana to run your mana manipulation spell. I’m placing all the mana gathering rods around your body to help your mana regen, which should keep your pool full. If it doesn’t, I’ll pump mana into your system.”

Jen watched as Sam started filling his mana system to bursting and then he swirled his mana into a claw-like tunneling blade that he started to run down one of the largest clogged mana channels they identified. It was really like a plumbing snake used to clean out plumbing lines. As he spun the claw and drove it down his channel, the corruption was ground off the walls of his mana channels and the blockage was smashed and ground, Sam would bring in the mana he was holding in reserve, and use that mana to sweep up the corruption and expel it out of his body.

Sam had been grinding through his mana channel for almost three hours. They didn’t want to just blow his mana channel through and have the corruption spread all through his mana system. Jen had spent many hours over the last couple of weeks trying to clean up the corruption from her blown open channel, and she still estimated it would take her another week to get it all cleaned out.

Jen spoke softly and encouragingly. “You’re doing great; you’re almost to the end of your arm where the channel should loop back into your center like mine does. Keep it up, just a little bit longer.”

Sam gritted his teeth with strain and concentration, but still hissed out, “That’s what she said.”

Jen wanted to slap him but smiled inwardly. She could see that he was getting a little tired, but his meditation skill kept him in a focused trance, and he had not let up on the grinding, hammering, or cleaning for even a second.

Jen saw when his channel eventually broke through, and she calmly said, “It’s broken through. Take your mana and chase down all the corruption that just broke apart into your core.”

Sam’s mana was chasing down so much corruption and expelling it, that his pool started running low. Jen then said, “I’m placing my hands on you like we discussed. Don’t be surprised; I’m pushing my mana into your system.”

As Sam spent the next hour cleaning up the corruption, Jen inspected his center and his original channel to see if there were any changes. When he was finally done, she said, “Your channels look pretty good, but there is still some corruption around the edges of the channel you broke through. How do you feel?”

Sam sniffed at his own stench and said, “I’m pretty tired, but with meditation, I didn’t have too hard a time keeping focused. I was able to get most of the corruption out, but it stuck like glue if it hit any of the corruption that was already on the walls of my other mana channel, then it wouldn’t budge easily.”

***System Message*** Mana regen increased by 4 points

Jen was pleased with these results and said, “That’s great, because my other mana channels are noticeably harder to clean since I didn’t immediately expel the corruption right away. We should both clean all the corruption off our opened mana channels and mana walls before going further. That way when we unclog our remaining mana channels, the corruption will have fewer places to stick. Anyways, it’s been a long night and you stink. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Sam wrinkled his nose as he went to take a shower. He was tired, but with the house purifying the mana and having another open channel, he felt much more in touch with the mana around him, and he thought to himself, “Slow is fast, fast is Slow. We’re picking up momentum. I will get you back Kelly!”