Mana Devourer/HHS - Book 2, Ch. 4

Markus couldn’t remember the last time he’d genuinely tried to do push ups. He almost expected to do ten and then feel his arms start shaking, but it seemed he’d underestimated just how much raw improvement his body had been through in all the time he’d spent both dumping stat points and fighting for his life over and over.

Fifty push ups would’ve went like a breeze if it wasn’t for the lingering pain in his left forearm. He was pretty certain he could’ve done a hundred or more if that injury wasn’t holding him back, and just to mentally prove his point, he put his left arm behind his back and switched to one-handed, changing his posture.

He’d only been able to do one or two of these even in his best shape before. Now he could pump thirty and felt like he could’ve kept going. 

The burn was definitely there. He wasn’t superhuman without his mana bolstering him, even if he was incredibly fit compared to how he’d been only a month or two ago.

He was still considering where his new stat points should go. He had a bunch of them, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he should do with them. When every option looked potentially massive, there was a big concern around missing out on something else better, that or making a big mistake by overcommitting on a stat he’d managed to overvalue.

He thought about it as he ran laps of the cell-block. A couple of guards gave him funny looks once he’d passed them for the second or third time, but Markus wasn’t paying attention to that, nor the cavalcade of strange and monstrous creatures he passed as he ran through the arena’s dungeons.

His mind was too caught up in stats to care. 

703 free points, 210 regular. That’s what he had to spend, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do with them.

Well, first of all, the obvious: free points could be used to bolster Arcana, Constitution, or Agility. For a long time, Markus had been prioritising Constitution for free point expenditure, as it most reliably kept him alive, but now he was beginning to wonder if Arcana was a better choice.

On the one hand, when he’d raised Arcana to 100, it’d had a lot of benefits. It’d taught him [Adaptive Resistance], [Mana Control], which allowed him to generate more mana of a certain type, and even had given him something called [Magical Affinity] which seemed like a passive that bolstered Markus’ magical growth in general. Not to mention, multiple of his magic-based skills had shot up when he’d raised Arcana to 100.

However, Markus now knew that breakpoints existed for every stat at 100, and while Arcana’s advancement had been fairly flashy, he wasn’t sure his new Arcana-based skills with their fancy titles had been that much more useful than his [Dash] skill, or something equally mundane.

Markus also knew that for Cyrus, at least, no major breakpoint had existed for him between 100 and 1000 in any of the physical stats. Cyrus apparently couldn’t speak for Spirit or Arcana, and while Markus suspected that it was possible the breakpoints of magical stats deviated from physical ones, he had absolutely no basis to back that up.

Maybe he could read more about system stuff in a book somewhere. He’d have to find out when he checked out Sun City’s library.

Markus did, after all, want to make informed decisions. Knowing that the effects of his stats were essentially amplifiers made him feel a tad better about not spending straight away. If he was repeatedly levelling right now, he might be missing out on some extra free points from Spirit, but as far as he could tell, he wasn’t missing out on anything right now that was going to impact some moderate physical exercise.

Which, speaking of which, felt kinda great. He’d expected running to be really boring, but he hadn’t realised quite how much excess energy he had pent up in his system until he got outside for a run. Markus supposed he’d gotten used to running around having to do shit all the time now, to the point that being stock still and just waiting to get better felt more maddening than being in pain or danger.

Speaking of which, it’d been half an hour and his calves were beginning to burn. He was pretty sure that meant it was working.

Markus took a two minute break and then kept going. He was lightly panting at this point, but he keep and would keep running for a good while. He hadn’t even made a bit of headroom in what he wanted to do with his mountain of points, after all.

It wasn’t just that, either. He had all this money to spend now. This book of writs he could utilise. Hell, he even had multiple precious metals that could be forged into something. Maybe he could upgrade his weapon somehow?

Honestly, Markus felt as if he needed a secretary to handle all of his system decisions and manage his inventory. Maybe he could hire Lexi with one of those writ things. Or maybe Rika?

Speaking of Rika… where was she these days? Markus felt as if he hadn’t seen her once since he’d recovered. 

He felt like he needed to touch base with her. Seeing him go through what he did must’ve been stressful on her. Here’s hoping she was okay…

Alright, focus. What do you need to do to get stronger and put yourself in a good spot right now? What’s a good order to do it all in?

Maybe Markus needed to make decisions. Sure, he might’ve wanted to wait until he had more information on everything, but each aspect of his progression that he tried to consider just made him reconsider another. He had paths to decide on, cores to potentially slot, points to use, an illness to beat, another fight to prepare for, and a shitty contract to get out of, and that was even before considering that Serena might pop up at some point and start giving him quests.

If he kept putting off all of this in the hopes of some random enlightenment, he’d just end up running in circles.

…well, he was literally running in circles right now, but that was more than besides the point.

A hundred more points in Spirit seemed like a safe bet. He’d technically be increasing his mana generation in the process, but with how his generation was cut by two thirds right now, plus the extremely potent Essence Stones he now had, Markus doubted he needed to worry about overcapping on mana again any time soon.

So, a hundred of his regular points were shot straight into Spirit, raising the stat to 400. 

[Mana Control III has evolved to Mana Control IV.]

[Empower 7 >> 8. Path Available.]

Besides those benefits, his mana capacity seemed to have raised by about 3000. 

Also, he felt really fucking diizzy all of a sudden. Just as soon as Markus had finished reading the set of notifications that had popped up in front of him, he ungraciously hit the floor, his entire world spinning out of focus.

He thought he heard some worker laugh at his fall, but it was just as likely that no one had even noticed. The dungeon was in complete bustle and chaos as always, and he just wasn’t famous enough down here to stick out quite yet.

He was glad for that. Markus imagined most of the dungeon workers didn’t actually watch the arena fights, so regardless of him potentially having a reputation in Sun City, down here, he was just a regular bozo who’d managed to fall over.

He still felt dizzy as he shakily rose to his feet. He tried to take off into another jog, but that wasn’t happening. All he wanted to do for the next couple of minutes was hurl.

The feeling eventually faded, but it worried him all the same. 

Was this another effect of his Toxicosis? Was dumping stats the equivalent of trying to use a spell or skill?

It hadn’t hurt much, at least. Maybe it was only non-physical stats that would do that to him. Just to test it, he tried putting a single point into Con. 

No negative effects. He immediately threw in another nine because the asymmetry was bothering him. Still, no new bout of dizziness came.

Yeah, it seemed increasing something linked to his mana caused him to feel those same effects. Incidentally, increasing his Con did have a slight benefit regarding his mana capacity, but the effects were so negligible that they didn’t seem to trigger his illness.

Well, whatever. At least he’d managed to increase his Spirit and hadn’t died in the process, or something. 

Markus eyed up his Constitution stat as he walked his way back to his room.

It was at 320 right now, and that was with no Overcharge to speak of. In theory, he could dump 690 points and raise his Con to 1000. That was even higher than Cyrus’.

That being said, as he’d recently learned, having his Con at 1000 wouldn’t necessarily make him automatically more durable than Cyrus. That man trained constantly and was likely near the peak of understanding of his body and mind, at least for his current power level. His martial instincts were incredibly honed, too. Markus imagined Cyrus got far more benefit out of his stats than Markus would if he magically attained the same numbers.

That was why physical training was important. It was the same reason he was going to start devoting more time to practicing with his mana, too, even if it might hurt.

Markus couldn’t run any more right now—he felt too dizzy. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t sit down in his cell and practice casting some more.

But this time, he wasn’t going to do it in such a gung ho manner. He’d use different parts of his body, practicing mild to moderate intensities. He needed to get in touch with himself. Get his body used to handling mana again and get his brain used to the pain. Abusing himself to get the results he wanted wasn’t the answer, and was more likely to break something than to make him stronger.

So Markus began trying to cycle his mana, even when it pained him to do so, trying to single out different types of mana within his body and push them through one after the other.

His innate ability to identify and grab at the different mana types within himself was still certainly there. The difficulty came in piloting it after. Some sections of his body were easier to traverse. Others felt incredibly blocked, and the task of cycling his mana through them felt more akin to sucking tar through a paper straw than anything he’d been remotely used to in the past.

Needless to say, he wasn’t having an incredibly jolly time. But this was work. He didn’t show up and sit down to have fun. He’d expected a challenge and he’d expected pain. But Markus could handle pain.

Hell, at this point he’d been molded by it.

If this was all that he had to deal with in order to get past his illness, then good luck, Toxicosis. Only a matter of time until you’re thoroughly irrelevant.

Markus tried to allow his thoughts to shift as he worked. It was difficult, at first, but after a time, he began to realise he was entering a kind of manual [Meditation]. 

He hadn’t meant to employ the skill, it simply seemed to have happened on its own after he’d managed to find a consistent enough rhythm with the pain that he could pull his mind away from it. 

It helped that Ember had come out of her crystal to greet him at some point during his session. After feeding her the leftovers from his steak and giving her a few pets, she’d curled up near him and relaxed. He idly brushed her fur with his fingers as he worked, envisioning her tufted hair as slime kind of allegory for his current situation whenever he felt a snag.

The process of cycling his mana was kind of like brushing hair. Things might seem consistent for a time, and then you happened across a massive horrible knot that tugged against your scalp and hurt like a bitch to brush out.

Just imagine that times fifty. That’s what this shit was like. Also, he needed to get a brush for this dog. Preferably one that wouldn’t set on fire.

It was getting easier and easier to cope with as time went on. Markus was almost sure he was making some headroom with his mana when he realised he was managing to think over his potential Path selections even as he continued to cycle a small section of Life Mana around his body, playing Pain Pinball as he went.

His main consideration right now was the fact that he only had two available Path slots remaining, and that meant that between Empower and Manifest, Markus would max out his Path options if he selected a Path in both of them, and that would mean that once other skills like Mana Control or Divine Sorcery reached level 5, he wouldn’t be able to gain Paths in those, either.

…wait. Divine Sorcery?

What the hell was that?

He’d been looking over his stat list as he’d thought the matter over, considering any skill or passive that he might see awakening to a Path any time soon, and there, at level 2, Divine Sorcery currently sat.

Had he gained it during his fight with Randall’s monster, back when he was hopped up on all of that Divine Mana?

[Divine Sorcery II: You are able to convert any other mana type into D-Grade Divine Mana at a cost of 100 D-Grade mana of any other element to 10 D-Grade Divine Mana, with a twenty minute transfer time per hundred mana converted. You are able to bolster any of your existing skills/spells with Divine Mana by expending half of the activation cost again in Divine Mana of the same grade. Rate of transfer is governed by Arcana. Speed of transfer is governed by Spirit. Cost and effectiveness of bolstering skills/spells is governed by Arcana.]

See, it was things like this that made a motherfucker wanna bump Arcana again. Seriously, it was getting tempting now.

Markus held off a little longer. Knowing this existed made him wanna jam points like an addict putting it all on black, but he needed to slow down. 

What he’d managed to figure out just from reading this and checking his status screen was that he wasn’t willing to fill all four Path slots yet. Not until this new skill and Mana Control both hit level 5 and he could see all of his Path options.

Still, he should narrow down which he’d take between Empower and Manifest now. He wasn’t going to be able to read between six options in the middle of his next sudden fight. As lovely as it’d be if the next ogre or dragon paused and let him look through his menus for a few minutes, somehow that part didn’t translate over smoothly from games Markus had played back home and seemed to actually not be a feature here.

So… Empower or Manifest.

Markus was pretty sure he knew where he was leaning already. It was a moot point until he’d managed to get some use out of either ability again though.

In a bind, Markus would lock in the Renew path for Empower if he was still struggling with mana generation, and if things progressed smoothly and he was able to practice his Manifest skill more, he would likely take the Duration path.

Renew was a 30% mana refund on any mana poured into Empower’s cast, plus 1% per hundred Spirit. That meant just over a third refunded right now, but the Path seemingly had no cap. At 7100 Spirit, assuming he ever reached that number, Markus could theoretically gain mana from using Empower. 

That said, Empower wasn’t that expensive of a spell, and 7100 Spirit was miles away right now, from what Markus could reasonably tell. Yes, this Path would be very useful if Markus’ mana generation continued to be slashed by 66%, but Markus had already increased his mana capacity by 50% since gaining his Toxicosis.

Theoretically, if he could once again double his total mana from here, he could get his generation levels back to the same state as they were pre-illness, even if he somehow didn’t find a way to beat it.

Honestly, the more he thought about it, the more he was talking his way out of Renew. He’d only take it if he literally had to. Honestly, Markus was pretty sure he’d just gotten excited at the prospect of an ‘abusable’ ability, more than anything remotely logical.

His Mana Manipulation evolution was going to have to wait, too. He desperately wanted to advance his Devour ability, the Consumption evolution for Devour and Essence Drain didn’t just sound incredibly practical for his fighting style, it sounded fucking cool.

But he needed to make sure he could still actually use those abilities, first. No use instalocking that shit if he was just gonna wind up completely unable to even use it. At that point, he’d have been better off taking Connection and using it to figure out his situation better.

Still, just because Markus was willing to sacrifice long-term gains in the future to get himself out of an otherwise impossible situation didn’t mean he was willing to do it unless the situation looked downright impossible. He was still a gamer at heart, after all, and he hadn’t gotten to the level of power he was at now without taking a couple of greedy options.

Eh, fuck it. Enough of this calm meditation shit. His body still hurt and his mind still ached, but he wasn’t full of dizzy anymore. He could get up and walk around if he wanted.

He gave Ember a few more pets and then made to stand. Push ups and sit ups weren’t gonna scratch the itch right now. He needed to test his combat abilities and see where he currently stood. Realistically, he could be shoved in a fight whenever, and he didn’t want to have to figure all of that out on the fly once again. 

So, time to wake Cyrus up. He was more than overdue another sparring session.