Chapter 5: Preparing the Fountation (1/2)

The creation of a Mana Pools needs a source that contains part of the mana of some entity. The most common use was using herbs to restore mana and was the easiest to be controlled to create a Mana Pool as their mana was meant to be one with the least resistance.

Other sources would be the blood of creatures, as their mana would be more potent in their blood.

One example would be Dragons. As different kinds have different benefits and difficulties to use. The blood from a red one would be easier to be used since they aren't much on the use of magic. In contrast, the Blue Ones, famous for tinkering with Magic, would be harder for their blood to be used. Of course, since the blood's power came from a being of immense power, it would be a formidable challenge in both cases.

Lastly, of course, there are more Natural, or for some, Divine sources. There are multiple gods, one for pretty much everything, and some share their power through something representing them.

Some say that every fire of great forges has the power of the God Of Crafting, for example, and some of them were having the ability to produce items considered divine. But this kind of power was hard-earned but easily taken away if you were considered losing your way or wasting the power the God or Goddess who gave it could take it back.

And now Shingi was ready to encounter something like that.

The moon was a typical full moon, but Shingi noticed a detail that few would pay attention to. There was a very slight blue sheen to the moon.

'So we are at that place, and the festival seems to get close.'[Shingi]

The place he was talking about was called Carda, and it was more like a relatively large village. Even if did have one of the King's castles, the castle belonged to the previous King. The current one, who was his son, had moved to another one a little time after becoming the King.

Carda wasn't a famous place for players cause it was far from the tower and was surrounded by low-level monsters, and was far from any of the beginner's towns. It had an open market that Players could use to make a temporary store, but since it wasn't such a busy place, not many decided to use it.

But one of the stories of Carda that made it different than other places was an event that happened every 20 years. And that was the blue moon festival.

The blue moon festival was an event unique to Carda. Still, it wasn't an event that players were crazy waiting for because they weren't taking any benefit out of it. During the festival, which lasted for three days, the moon, as long as you were in Carda or its forest area around it, would be blue. There were rumors that it had something to do with the Moon Goddess giving her blessing to the land. Still, there was no quest for it, nor was any benefit given to any player last time the festival happened.

The event has happened a few times for people to be able to be sure that this was most likely just a lore thing and not having an actual blessing that they could use.

But Shingi knew that the case wasn't entirely like that. Indeed, this event wasn't actually to help the players by giving them new tools or powers. It was a way to show Gods' interaction with the world, but the way done could benefit Shingi.

The Moon Goddess was putting her blessing to the land through the light that the moon was producing. That meant that the moon was containing part of her power or, more specifically, her mana. Still, it was in such a small amount that it was considered useless but not for Shingi.

He could use even that small amount to at least finish his Mana Pool.

The description given to him by Varan, the elven gentleman that he was focusing on creating with his VISUALIZATION, was to consider the Mana Pool as an inner tree and the fruits of its parts of the mana that he could use.

So he could use some other source to prepare the ground for the 'tree' to grow and finish the growth with the moon's energy. That way, he would possibly create a special Mana Pool one with a Goddess's power even if it was a small part of it, which hopefully would make things easy to handle. But even if that plan didn't succeed, he could try something else. As long as the Mana Pool wasn't past a point, changing the source was a possibility.

'Seeing as the moon started getting slightly blue already, I probably have a day or two at most until the festival. That will be close.' [Shingi]

Estimating by how fast his stats restored, he could move at two days or more barely.

Even if creating a Mana Pool is also a mental kind of training and no movement would be needed in any other case, he wouldn't have a problem. But since he needed to have access to the moon's blessed light, his body has to be in an open space for the light to reach him. And he probably has to be naked to absorb as much of the moonlight as possible, and asking his sister to help him do something like that was out of the question.

Before that happens, he should have finished the Mana Pool's foundations before the festival begins. He wasn't sure if three nights would be enough to finish his special Mana Pool.

But instead of focusing on the foundation, he did something else. He focused on restoring his body.

After increasing his INT to 12, his mind was easier to notice changes in his body and start feeling the energy that seemed to be one restoring his stats.

Even if he wasn't sure what kind of energy it was or how it got there, he was confident that, at least for now, its existence was benefiting him, but it wasn't enough. So he focused on that energy.

In the beginning, it felt alien to him. Still, the more he was examining it, the more familiar he became with it but not be entirely sure what it was, but he found a way to help it.

He tried a few experiments to see if he could interact with it. He found that it was something empowered by mana but not his since it was pretty much non-existent. It seemed that it already contained an amount of mana of which was empowering it and making it able to consume the negative energy that was weakening Shingi.

'This should be created by the cure that they used on me. Probably that is what wakes me after it ate enough to restore my first points. But in the way it goes, it is way too slow, and it will only get slower as it is losing mana and can't recharge itself. So I should help it at that.” [Shingi]

If he found about it when he first woke up, he couldn't do anything to make things faster. Still, since then, even if it wasn't a very long time, just a few hours, a significant difference exists.

His INT stat.

Now that his INT stat was 12, he could create a Mana Pool cause his mind was only with that much INT able to manipulate mana of external sources. Most people used it to create their Mana Pool, as casting a spell without one would be impossible. With that low INT, it wouldn't be possible to control enough mana without storing it, even for the weakest spells. Storing mana at the body other than in a Mana Pool was close to poisoning yourself.

Shingi wasn't going to store the mana in himself but 'feed' the strange energy with it. Of course, this could be dangerous for him if the energy doesn't 'eat' the mana or be too slow to do it, as this would possibly lead to poisoning Shingi. Still, he was willing to take the chance.

And so, with a plan in his mind, he made sure to understand how much mana had the energy lost as it most likely wouldn't be able to pass that or the limit most likely wasn't far away from that. It took two hours to understand its mana's current consumption and make a quite good estimation of the limit.

Of course, at that time, it was late at night, and his sister was sleeping next to him. Still, as a side effect of his curse, he didn't need any sleep for now.

So he started focusing on the mana in his surroundings and tried to attract it to him. Fortunately, he seemed to be close to a river, so water mana existed and some of the moonlight and few trees and flowers and emitted some mana that he could use for this. Of course, since there were multiple sources, he couldn't use them to create the Mana Pool. But feeding his 'hungry helper' was most likely fine unless it had a taste for specific mana. Still, Shingi didn't think it would be the case as something of that low power would most likely not being picky.

Mana traveled in his body, and as it arrived next to the strange energy as it was consumed right away.

'That was faster than I thought it would be, but the benefit is lower than I thought.'[Shingi]

Even if it consumed the mana that got on it, the restored mana was way less than the one it consumed.