Chapter 28: Mana
Nox was so tired when morning finally came, he could barely keep his eyes open. He had found some abandoned, mostly collapsed building to crash in for a bit, but rest hadn’t really happened.
He had spent the entire night following that blinking map marker for the princess, and despite his best efforts, he still hadn’t found her. The damn marker kept shifting, or the paths were blocked by rubble, and it was seriously starting to piss him off.
He leaned his head back against a surprisingly stable piece of wall and let his eyes drift closed, just for a few minutes. Sleep claimed him quickly, dragging him into a dream he didn’t want.
He was back in his old school, before the monsters, before the system. The same faces, the same taunts. He saw Mark, saw his other classmates. The dream shifted, the question hanging heavy in the air: if none of this new world stuff had ever happened, would he eventually have gone through with it? Would he have killed them?
He woke up with a jolt, his body shaking. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.
’Dammit,’ he thought, pressing a hand to his chest where his heart was pounding. ’Guess my body still remembers all that bullying.’
He let out a long sigh and pulled up his stats. His health was almost full, that regeneration skill doing its job. The wound in his stomach was just a dull ache now, mostly healed.
This was probably the best chance he was going to get to try and awaken his mana. He had that ’Lesser Mana Weaving’ skill, and the description said his channels were sealed but that the skill allowed interaction with ambient mana. It seemed like the logical place to start.
Just as he was about to try and figure out how to actually do it, a familiar, overly enthusiastic text box from Auraelia popped into his vision.
[Auraelia, Goddess of Resilient Sparks (Private Chat)] Morning Nox! ✨ Are you thinking about unsealing your mana channels? That’s a big step! It can be super rewarding, but also... really, really dangerous if you’re not careful! Some people experience intense discomfort! Please be super cautious! 💖🥺
Before he could even process her warning properly, another chat notification appeared, this one in the main, public feed from a god he hadn’t seen before.