Chapter 23: Growth (2)
Kang Min-hyuk processed his first red Mana Stone very carefully.
He then began to test the Stone. He found that most of the tests he did resembled the quality he would usually expect from a blue Stone, not a red one.
He was pleased.
Min-Hyuk wanted to try further experiments with the Stone but decided he needed a Mana Room. If the Mana in the Stone was as powerful as the textbook said, it was…
Min-Hyuk did not want to take any risks.
In a Mana Room, there would be fewer potential dangers of the Stone reacting to something else in the lab.
The next day, Min-Hyuk bought a luxury home near the Academy.
Min-Hyuk had been looking for a new place to live since he left the Guardian Gate for good anyway; this home had the added bonus of being close to campus and had an underground bunker. Min-Hyuk planned to use the bunker as a secret Mana Room.
As soon as the sale was final and Min-Hyuk could make it his own, he conducted an experiment inside the bunker that he did not feel was wise to conduct in the lab earlier.
He flipped open the textbook to a particular passage. It was called “How to make a Mana Room.”
The directions seemed pretty doable…
It said: “To make a Mana Room, you need a small room dedicated to only this purpose. You will want to draw a Magic Circle on the floor—to amplify the power of your Mana. It also serves as a barrier to stop the Mana from escaping the Room and leak outside. When you have finished drawing the Circle, you will need to place a Mana Stone at the point of the Circle’s star. Your Mana room’s power is dependent on the power of the Mana Stone your place at this point, so find a good one. The output of your Mana within the Mana Room is typically divided into five stages.”
Min-Hyuk got to work. He used his Mana Laser to draw a Circle on the floor. It was easier than he thought!
After drawing the same shape over and over and over again, Min-Hyuk found the task to be less intimidating than it sounded. He had been practicing drawing the Circle he had seen in the Mana Room in Klinssman’s world—he did not want to forget any details. After about half an hour had passed, he was finished. He gently placed the red Mana Stone he had processed at the point of the Circle’s star, and the rock slowly began to give off a soft glow.
He did it!
But he had more work to do. In Klinssman’s world, there were stages to help encourage stability within your Mana Room. Klinssman had laid out three steps—the first was to prevent variables.
Min-Hyuk stepped into the center of the Circle and focused. The Mana began to flow into the Circle, just like it had in Klinssman’s world.
The Circle vibrated.
‘Wow!’
Min-Hyuk had done everything the same way he had done before, but this result was totally different!
Suddenly, Min-Hyuk felt a tremendous pressure on his whole body.
“I can’t breathe!” he gasped.
‘Just focus,’ he thought, calming himself a little. ‘Okay, now think…How embarrassing. Step one is for safety.’
He would have to keep trying.
***
‘Maybe I did something wrong…but what?’
Min-Hyuk looked to the textbook for an answer.
It said: “Principles of the Mana Room: When a Magic Circle is activated, the energy present in the Mana Stone at the point of the Circle’s hexagonal, or 6-pointed star, spreads throughout the Circle first, and then the Room. During this process, the Mana creates a vacuum, absorbing Mana from sources around it to fill the space. Combining different sources of Mana creates tremendous power, but it can also be very dangerous. If you absorb the Mana, allowing it to flow through you as part of the Circle, you can strengthen the Magic. But if you succumb to the pressure, the Mana will not flow smoothly and return to where it came from because that is the easier path. There are some possible side effects to note, including vomiting, or in more severe cases, destruction of the Circle.”
Min-Hyuk had read about a safety technique called output.
Depending on the user’s level of experience, you could set a Magic Circle’s output level to match. Since this was a new experiment in a new Mana Room with a newly processed red Mana Stone in a different world, Min-Hyuk had set the output to one. But it was still so different from what he had experienced in Klinssman’s world.
The pressure here was incredible; it almost seemed like it was twice as much pressure as he had experienced in Klinssman’s world, even though the Circle’s output was three times higher!
According to what Min-Hyuk had learned from Klinssman, a weaker pressure would have been expected on a weaker output level. But exceptions happened…
‘It must react differently because of the difference between our two worlds…’
Although the two worlds were parallel, Klinssman’s world had 2000 years on Min-Hyuk’s, and civilization had developed differently in both places…
That had to be the problem.
“Mana in Nature” refers to Mana released from trees, the land, the sky, and other parts of nature. Min-Hyuk’s world had not discovered how to use this Mana yet…
This was potentially good. In Klinssman’s world, Mana of Nature had been used for nearly 2000 years, and over time, civilization’s use of the Mana grew more quickly than the natural Mana was produced. This led to a depletion of Mana in Nature, and Klinssman referred to it as a social issue regarding the depletion of natural resources.
But in Min-Hyuk’s world…
The Warriors did not use Mana at all. And the Wizards here did not know how to use it.
So, it had been mostly left alone.
In Min-Hyuk’s world, Mana from natural sources took the form of an injection that had been extracted from a blue Mana Stone. It was artificial and had to be created in a lab.
Therefore, the Mana in Nature in Min-Hyuk’s world was largely untouched.
This started to make some sense to Min-Hyuk. In a world full of Mana in Nature, of course, the pressure would be stronger when you concentrated that raw Mana in a small Room.
Min-Hyuk needed more information, but the textbook only had instructions for what to do. It did not include how to handle an accident.
Min-Hyuk was a little dizzy from his efforts.
He remembered a tradition from the Guardian Gate. Although Warriors do not use magic, Mana can still provide strength if injected into the body. The first time Mana is injected is viewed as a rite of passage, where you must learn to control the Mana’s flow and strengthen yourself. It wasn’t easy to do this, and injected Mana was not always easy to control. Min-Hyuk had been taught a method of controlling overpowering Mana called ‘Mana Spirit Method’. But ever since Min-Hyuk left the Gate, his Mana had come from himself instead of being injected. And he had immediately felt it stabilized and flowing more easily. He hadn’t needed to use this method anymore. But what about if he tried it now…?
Slowly, the pressure in the Room grew a little more tolerable.
“Suck it!” Min-Hyuk gasped.
He could breathe more easily now. Who would have thought his training in the Guardian Gate as a Warrior would be the key here in a Mana Room?
He began to wonder about the Mana Spirit Method.
‘If I could move this Mana where I pleased, wouldn’t it be possible to do more with my Magic?’
It was only a thought, but he was convinced it was true.
He concentrated, and the Circle shook violently.
The Circle was wide open beneath Min-Hyuk. Mana from the Circle was flowing like waves around Min-Hyuk. He could feel the impurities in the Mana around him flow through the Circle and become purified when they entered the air.
The Mana around him continued to flow in this way for some time.
Eventually, it began to fade, and the Circle returned to a soft glow.
Min-Hyuk opened his eyes.
‘How long have I been here?’ he wondered.
He felt a sharp pain go through his body as a Second Circle carved its place around his heart.
‘This is Second Circle Magic,’ he thought, as he calmly released the Mana around him and fell to his knees in exhaustion.
***
He felt absurd.
Second Circle Magic.
In Klinssman’s world, this achievement would be trivial—indicating a pretty low level of skill—but here…
Here, reaching Second Circle Magic took at least a few years of training. Min-Hyuk had still been training for mere months.
Maybe he had dreamed it…
He concentrated and felt the now familiar outline of the First Circle that had formed around his heart. He closed his eyes and concentrated some more. Yes. It was there—a Second Circle, just outside the First!
He had done it.
The Mana Room had worked faster than he could have hoped. One of the reasons the Wizards in Klinssman’s world were able to advance so quickly was because of Mana Rooms, which helped focus and distill their Magic faster.
Min-Hyuk reflected on what he had just experienced. He had thought that creating a Mana Room here would result in a weaker Room than the one he had experienced in Klinssman’s world—especially when that was a level three Room, and this one was just a level one. But the opposite had been true! He had nearly been swept away by the powerful storm of energy he had just created.
‘If this is stage one, how strong is stage five…?’ he wondered.
It was overwhelming. For the time being, Min-Hyuk decided he should give himself a break from the Mana Room.
Min-Hyuk looked down at his chest. He could see the rings around his heart. They looked different than other Wizards’ Circles…
They seemed darker and wider. They seemed to indicate that they were more powerful.
He was probably more powerful than other Second Circle Wizards here, and he thought he could increase his strength even more by using knowledge from Mana Fairy Tales.
He thought a moment about how others might react to his new skills’ level…
People were already jealous…now; he thought people might be angry.
He had proven that he deserved a place in the Department of Magic, even though he was admitted only because of his connections to his rich and famous father. He won the Magic Academic Contest. And now he had one year to study…
He planned to start from the bottom and master the basics…but now…
He had already jumped ahead into Second Circle Magic instead.
For the moment, Min-Hyuk was thrilled with his impossible progress.
Alone in his bunker, he could not hide his joy.
