An older man dressed in white robes sat behind a table with several books and sheets of paper. The room looked like the typical study a True Mage would have, filled with books and plenty of arcane trinkets.
Right now, the older man was waiting for his client.
This one was going to be a big one.
Yesterday, the Mage had been contacted by a Peak True Mage with an offer.
Someone needed his expertise, but in exchange, he would need to sign a confidentiality contract and undergo another Mind Read.
Something like that was insane, but the Peak True Mage assured him that the payment he would receive would be enough until the Mage either died or reached the High Mage Realm.
The reward was too alluring. So, the Mage agreed.
And, right now, he was about to meet this mysterious client.
A couple of minutes passed.
Eventually, someone knocked on his door.
"Come in," the Mage said with calmness in his voice.
This was just another client. Nothing special.
The door opened, and a black-haired man with a metallic eyepatch stepped in.
The Mage looked at the obvious warrior for a bit.
'Probably one of the True Path Stage warriors,' he thought.
"Please, sit down," the Mage said professionally, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.
The warrior complied and sat down.
"I'm Professor Callen. I dedicated my life to researching how beasts work and how their bodies differ from ours," Callen said.
Callen made a pause here, obviously waiting for the warrior to introduce himself too.
"My name is Shang," Shang said. "People generally know me as Duke Sword."
For the first time, Callen was surprised.
Duke Sword?
THE Duke Sword?
He was someone on the level of the previous Council!
"Hello, Duke Sword," Callen said after calming down. "Now, what do you need?"
"How do beasts store their Mana, and how do they transport it from one place in their body to the other?" Shang asked.
At that moment, a picture floated over from one of the walls and stopped beside Callen.
Shang could see the silhouette of a wolf on it, but there were some additional things inside the wolf's body.
"This," Callen said as he gestured to a blue-colored circle in the wolf's chest, "is the Beast Core. The Beast Core stores all the Mana the beast absorbs."
"As you know, such a core doesn't exist in our bodies. In comparison to beasts, we store our Mana in our minds and all over our bodies. When you are a Mage, you generally use your mind as your Mana Storage, which you could view as just another Beast Core."
"In comparison, warriors store their Mana all over their bodies. This is also one of the leading theories regarding the beasts' superiority in terms of physical power over the normal human body. Of course, when I am talking about the normal human body, I am referring to one that didn't undergo the Bloodline Infusion."
"Warriors do not have a central Mana storage in comparison to beasts. Because of that, every part of your body has to store the Mana individually, making it much harder for the body to store additional Mana."
Shang nodded. "Then how can warriors that have undergone the Bloodline Infusion reach the power of beasts without a central storage?"
"That's a good question, Duke Sword," Callen said with a friendly smile. "The reason for that is training."
"Training?" Shang asked with a raised eyebrow.
Callen nodded. "The Bloodline Infusion has strengthened the individual components of your body, giving them much greater potential to hold Mana. Of course, with only the Bloodline Infusion, you would still be only half as powerful as a beast on your level."
"That's why you have to eat beast hearts and force their Mana into your body. You are essentially strengthening your storage by putting significant strain on it several times. Sound familiar?"
Shang nodded. "Just like training your muscles."
Callen also nodded. "Precisely. You are training your body to hold more Mana. Now, compared to warriors, beasts don't have that problem. All the Mana they consume simply enters their Beast Core, which then refines the Mana."
At that moment, Shang got a thought. "But if we can train our bodies to hold more Mana, couldn't beasts do that as well?"
Callen's smile widened. "They can."
Shang's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "They actually can?"
"Mhm," Callen said with a nod. "We have run several experiments on beasts, and we've realized that we can increase the powers of their bodies even further by making them do specific exercises after eating a meal. We found out that their bodies can actually grow to be double as powerful as they are normally without advancing in level."
"Of course," Callen added, "beasts only follow their instincts, and they never think about training their body to hold more Mana. We needed to use several Spells to force their minds to perform specific tasks to push the Mana into their bodies. No matter how hard we tried to teach them without the Spells, they were just not able to do it."
"So, a beast body has much greater potential than a human body, even if that human has undergone the Bloodline Infusion. The reason for that is the central Mana storage that the beasts have."
"But since neither side can use the other side's advantage, powerful warriors and beasts have equally strong bodies."
Shang nodded. He hadn't come here for a lesson on beasts, but it had definitely paid off.
He had already learned a lot.
Shang gestured to the picture with his head, and Callen continued.
"The blue lines signify the Mana passageways. If a beast enters a fight, its Mana comes out from the Beast Core and gets distributed over the entire body, allowing them to unleash incredible power."
"Sadly, or luckily depending on your viewpoint, the Mana stored inside a beast's Beast Core is slightly different from the Mana stored inside different parts of its body. That means that healing from an injury takes several times longer since the Mana from the beast's Beast Core first needs to be transformed into the kind of Mana they need."
"Because of that, warriors can regenerate from their injuries much faster than beasts. Even normal warriors that haven't undergone the Bloodline Infusion."
Shang nodded as he looked at the picture.
When he saw the Mana pathways, he knew that he had come to the right guy.
SHING!
A couple of sheets of paper appeared in front of Shang, and they lightly landed on the table.
Callen looked at them from a distance, and Shang pushed them forward. "Take a look," Shang said.
Callen took the sheets of paper and analyzed them. "Mana passageways for a True Path Stage warrior. I saw one of those before. I was so entranced by this revelation that I couldn't focus on my work for several days."
"Those are my pathways," Shang said.
Callen nodded. "I thought so. The passageways in this picture are far more complex and numerous than the ones I saw before. I presume the reason why you are here is related to your passageways?" Callen asked.
Shang nodded and pointed at a specific spot that represented the pathways in his right arm.
Shang explained in detail how he would move his arm and how his Mana would move during one of his attacks.
Then, Shang explained how he would move his Mana and arm in a different attack.
However, before Shang could even finish…
"And your Mana passageway started to hurt, correct?" Callen asked.
When Shang heard that, a glimmer appeared in his eye.
