Chapter 96: Mana Sense (Patreon)

At breakfast, Mahya said to me quietly, “Cast Privacy, please.” After I did, she continued, “I think we should stay here for a few days. Fusing all the crystals will take time and mana, and we can regenerate on the other side of the gate.”

“You are welcome to stay and use the Gate, but I have no intention of going there.”

“Why?”

“Because on the other side, there are over eight hundred corpses of stinking rats, which must stink even more now that they’re dead. I don’t know about you, but my nose has suffered enough. I still shudder now and then when I remember the stench.”

“Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe we could burn them?”

“It will cause a forest fire. We don’t know what’s close by; maybe there’s a village or a town, and we’ll cause a serious fire.”

“No way. With the number of rats we’ve killed, there’s nothing close there. Even if there were people dozens of kilometers away, they would have destroyed the rats. I promise you, that area is deep in the wilderness.”

“I can create a flame in my palm, but it’s still not a spell. It’s not enough to burn the whole pile of rats.”

“There might be better masks to block odors than the medical masks you have. That will solve the stench problem. We can buy oil, or gas or diesel or something, pour it on the rats and around the area, set the whole thing on fire, and return through the Gate. After a day or two, I’m sure the fire will go out, and we can go in there and take advantage of the mana levels. We might not be sailing to Tibet but traveling by train, but if there is an answer from the Traveler on his way to Earth, we may have to sail immediately. I still need to take care of the engine, and I need to charge all the crystals for the voyage.”

I saw the logic and nodded. “Okay. I hope there are gas masks for sale here.”

“What is a gas mask?”

I opened my phone and showed her pictures and a video of gas masks.

“Why didn’t we buy these before we took care of the rats?”

I rubbed my neck in embarrassment. “Because I didn’t think of that...”

She shook her head in exasperation. “At least you’re thinking about it now.”

“Hey! You said nothing, either. If you’d asked me about a mask to block out the smell, I’d have thought about it.”

She patted me on the back and said in a condescending tone, “It’s okay, don’t stress about it.” At least she winked and smiled after, so I forgave her.

When Alfonsen heard we were going back to the Gate, his response was, “Forget about it. I’d rather swim in the sewers and become poor than go back there. You’re on your own in this project. I’ll sign up for more workshops.”

I asked Rue if he wanted to come, and his response was, “No! Never! Stinky rats! No snakes yum!”

Our party was a collection of spoiled brats!

After searching the internet, I found gas masks for sale. We also bought ten of the biggest jerry cans we could find and drove to a gas station to fill them up.

We went to the Gate, and I put the mask on beforehand—I had no intention of getting even one whiff of the rats.

The rat carcasses were full of worms and flies, and thank you, Guiding Spirits — I smelled nothing. We poured fuel on the bodies and around, and when we were standing near the Gate, I threw a lit match on the fuel, and we crossed back.

We spent the next two days at the lake and even used our E-foils. During the breaks between swimming and surfing, I located the book with the tree that Lis recommended and started reading it. I made little progress because we were too busy enjoying the water, but at least I started. During those two days, I kept my mana sense activated all the time. I understood what the dragon meant when she said “headache.” At first, it was just confusing until I learned to deal with it, but it became a mental burden, then mental stress that developed into a terrible headache. No matter how many times I cast Healing Touch, it didn’t help—the headache wasn’t physical, but felt like it was coming from my Mind power orb.

I dealt with it for two days until I couldn’t take it anymore and took a break.

Mahya and I crossed the Gate again on the morning of the third day. Everything looked burned, and there was a strong smell of soot, which I thought was a vast improvement over the stench before. Some trees survived and had a sooty appearance, but many trees burned. I felt bad about the damage we caused and told Mahya about it. Her response was, "Sometimes a fire is good for the forest. After the fire, the forest grows new and healthy. In this case, it’s definitely good. Those rats contributed nothing to the health of the forest, and I’m sure they’re the reason we didn’t hear or see any birds or insects. They ate everything.“

We went over two kilometers, and saw no living thing, only burned trees. It looks like the fire happened more than a day or two ago; There were no pockets of embers or smoke.

I asked her, "Doesn't that seem odd to you? No signs of smoke or embers. A fire doesn't just die down like that.”

“Don’t forget the time skips. It could be five days or even more.”

“Right. I forgot.”

She patted me on the back but said nothing. We continued walking, and after another kilometer or a kilometer and a half, we came to an area with holes in the ground and saw several burned rat corpses. We put on the gas masks and surgical gloves.

Mahya opened the head of the nearest rat and took out a crystal. She held it up to show me, “We better collect all the crystals.”

“I hate that part,” I complained.

“Me too, but it’s worth it.”

“I know, I know. I'm just griping.”

She laughed, and we started collecting the crystals from the rats’ bodies. After we collected the crystals from all the bodies, Mahya came up to me and asked, “I’m sure there are more inside their burrows, but I don’t feel like digging to get them out. Any idea what we can do?”

“Let me try something.”

This time, instead of the surrounding area, I attempted to direct my mana sense into the ground. Although it was vague, I could sense what was happening underground. It seemed to me that I felt something, which I suspected was a rat; yes, it was a rat. It actually worked when I sent a command to store it. I dropped it next to Mahya and told her, "I’ll continue searching for more."

Step by step, I advanced as my mana sense scanned and probed the underground. Before, I thought it was a headache; I was wrong. This time I got a headache, which was the mother of all headaches. It felt as if hammers were pounding on my brain and hot knives were being inserted into my head through my ears and eyes. Despite needing to stop and recover a few times due to the pain, I continued. Not because I wanted the crystals; we had enough, but because this was an amazing and useful tool that I needed to master. Lis was right; if you don’t push yourself to the max, you don’t get the maximum benefit.

It took me hours to go over the entire area with the burrows, and I don’t know how many rats I collected, but it was a lot. All this time, I had tears of pain running down my face. Several times, Mahya suggested I stop, but I insisted on continuing. I learned from my channels. If I hadn’t dealt with the itching and pressure, I wouldn’t have gotten my channels to the state they were in today. I had to get through it and come out the other side victorious.

As it got dark, I noticed that my sense was penetrating much deeper than before, and I was getting a much clearer picture of what was going on below. It took me a while to notice this because the improvement was every time in centimeters, but enough centimeters turned into meters, and my acuity also improved.

I said to Mahya, “Enough for one day. Let’s take out my house, rest, and continue tomorrow.”

“You don’t want to go back? The time skip could be bad.”

“Rue and Alfonsen know we might stay a few days and won’t worry, and Alfonsen promised to feed Rue and disconnect him from the TV now and then to take a walk outside.”

I cast Clean on myself and Mahya, situated my house, and made dinner.

Mahya placed all of our old crystals inside the charging station and suggested, “You’d better leave your house outside the whole time we’re here. Your core can absorb a lot of mana here.”

“Good idea.”

The next day I went over the area I had already checked and found rat bodies deeper underground. I kept walking until I reached the center of the network of burrows, and I felt a sizeable space. I sent my senses in as deep as I could and felt something big and piles of sticks; bones? I closed my eyes, concentrated, and moved my senses back and forth over the entire space like a scan. Yes, there was a very large rat corpse, at least five times the size of the others, many small rat corpses, and piles of bones scattered all over the cave. I concentrated even more, pushed with my intention, and stored some piles. I kept pushing harder and harder with my intent, expanding my mana sense and storing more and more piles, but still not the gigantic rat. I gave one last powerful push, even yelling, “Ha!” And I stored it.

For a moment, it felt like something broke in my head, and then I felt the amazing wave I already recognized. There was a significant spiritual expansion within me, followed by a massive wave of mental relief. Although the headache didn’t go away, I experienced a significant decrease in its intensity. I checked my mana: 8400/9900. An increase of 600 points. Hooray!

I returned to Mahya and took out the giant rat and all the piles I had collected. She looked at what I took out, looked up at me, looked down at the piles again, looked at me, and said, “You know you’re scary sometimes?”

“Me? Scary? Why?”

“Because you do things that other people don’t even know where to start.”

I rubbed my neck, looked down, and asked in a quiet voice, “Are you afraid of me?”

She hugged me, “Never! Besides, when I say you’re scary, I don’t mean you’re dangerous. Just sometimes it’s intimidating to be in the company of someone so talented.”

I hugged her back, feeling relieved.

“I want to do another scan of all the burrows, and then I’ll help you get all the crystals out.”

“It’s okay, you’re doing enough.”

I went over the entire area of ​​the burrows again. This time, it was much easier, and it felt like I had developed laser vision. It wasn’t a real vision. I didn’t “see” what was happening inside the burrows, but I felt everything and could build an accurate mental picture of their entire layout and everything there. I located more piles of bones and also many mana crystals—this time, the increased mana of the crystals “pinged” my senses, and I collected them all.

By the time I finished the last sweep of the burrows it was already dark, so I cleaned up Mahya and myself again, made dinner, and we spent a quiet evening at home.

There were still rats outside that she didn’t have time to process, so the next morning, I helped her process them all. In total, this operation yielded another three hundred and forty-nine small crystals from the rats, two hundred and eleven crystals I found scattered in the burrows or bone piles, and one tennis ball-sized crystal from the gigantic rat.

After examining the crystals at the charging station, Mahya exclaimed with joy, “All the crystals are fully charged. I like the mana levels here; it’s such a refreshing change.”

We began to fuse the small crystals into larger ones. I discovered that Mahya could merge a maximum of two, and it required effort. I could take a handful, hold them in a closed hand, pour mana into them, and combine them into a large crystal. It required 2,500-3,000 each time, but we progressed much faster than we thought possible.

After two days, we finished fusing all the crystals, and placed them in the charging station in my house.

“We’d better leave your house outside to give the dungeon core a chance to draw mana from the surroundings and recharge the crystals. In the meantime, let’s take a walk around the forest and see if there’s anything else interesting here.

I activated the house’s defenses just to be safe—just the protective force field, not the attack — and we went to check out the forest. According to the Map, we were on a small island with no cities or towns, and the Gate was right in the center. It took us five days to explore the entire island, and we found some interesting things.

At the southern end of the island, there were immense trees that resembled palm trees, with delicious purple fruits. Luckily, Mahya had the ability [Jump] because the trees were very tall with spiky bark. It took us a whole day to pick all the fruits, or rather, it took Mahya a whole day to pick all the fruits, and I cheered her from below.

On the opposite side of the Gate from where we walked, we discovered shorter trees, ranging from four to five meters in height, with sturdy and dense trunks. Mahya loved the quality of the trees, and because she picked all the fruits, I cut down the trees. It also took a whole day, and every so often, I thanked the Guiding Spirits for the Heal Muscles spell.

The sand on the beach was white-pink and very fine, and Mahya said it was excellent for glass making. We took a “walk” on the beach, and with each step, stored a large amount of sand.

 Now that my mana sense was active all the time, I discovered all kinds of things: in several areas of the island that were not affected by the fire; I located very mana-rich plants, and I picked them all for Alfonsen. I didn’t know what he could use and what he couldn’t use, so I collected everything. It took another day and a half.

During our tour of the island, we came across a stream, and when we looked in the water, we saw glittering. Upon careful examination, Mahya confidently identified it as gold.

“You think we should linger and sift it?”

“We don’t have to sift anything, just touch the gold and store it.”

When she was right, she was right.

We advanced along the stream and found its source; it was a natural spring bubbling out of the ground. I sent my mana sense deep into the earth following the water and felt a large accumulation of gold flakes. After storing the entire accumulation, I continued to search. While I found a few more clusters, the initial one was the largest.

On our sixth day on the island, Mahya informed me she had charged all the crystals, not only at the charging station but also in my spell room and at all the locations in the house. I inspected the dungeon core, and it seemed bigger. Before, it was about three and a half centimeters—now four centimeters.

We stored all the crystals intended for the boat; I stored my house, and we returned to Earth.

When we were on the other side, I said to Mahya, “I feel like an accomplished looter,” and she burst out laughing.

“One day, you’ll create the perfect looting spell, I’m sure of it. For now, the loot we got is good enough.”