Bloody Mary and the Magical Revolution

Considering Progress (Mana 7)

Time spent studying the introductory tome to mana passed quickly for Mary; this did not surprise her, as stored deep within her mind are the memories of a dedicated and capable university student.

A student who had aspired to not only enter but also excel in one of the most difficult and competitive fields of study on modern Earth.

A student who had managed to enter one of the most prestigious and privileged universities on Earth, while coming from a relatively poor background.

Mary thought about how hard her current studies were, especially about mana in a magical world, and felt glad that the basic things she was learning about mana were not as complicated as modern medicine and genetics, which had been the focus of her past life.

The experience she inherited in learning was more than capable of helping her quickly pursue her current goal: recreating the most useful learning tools that Alexander was familiar with.

Alexander had long known the value of a strictly followed schedule; he had also known the benefits of hypermodern learning techniques and sophisticated tools.

Although all the tools that he had taken for granted are now beyond Mary's grasp, she can still use some of the more primitive learning techniques from Alexander’s earliest days.

It was trivial to dedicate herself to a properly regimented, though simple, schedule.

Given her focus on creating an ambient mana rune, it is also straightforward to verify the details of what she was learning.

While her progress in learning from the texts that her mother had left her was frustratingly locked behind Sylvia's merely respectable reading speed, her progress in understanding and implementing that knowledge was far more reliant on the experience of her previous life.

Mary sighed in relief as she considered the result of a week's worth of dedicated effort; yesterday Sylvia had finally finished reading to Mary the last chapter of the introduction to mana.

Her sigh took on a slightly pained tone as Mary remembered Sylvia's anger at what followed; unlike usual, where Sylvia left Mary alone to digest what had been taught to her, yesterday her maid had chosen to stay to see what Mary did with the knowledge.

What the maid saw caused her anger.

Much of the information that Mary had learned was entirely new to her, with Alexander having lived in a world where the existence of mana and magic was either nonexistent or hidden. She knows that, at her current pace, it would usually take several years of proper effort to fully confirm to her satisfaction even the introductory knowledge that she now has access to.

If Mary were to investigate and confirm everything that the book had told her, then it could even take decades, as much of the information was about particular magical phenomena and mana ecologies from around the world.

Most of those phenomena were absent from Midgard.

A decade to properly digest a simple introduction was far too long for Mary, and even a handful of years for the most important aspects was an utterly unacceptable timeframe.

The situation would only worsen because Sylvia had already brought two additional introductory texts that were equally important and awaiting Mary's attention to start reading.

Perhaps even worse, considering the desperate situation that Mary is currently in, all three of these books are merely introductory texts; her enemies, whoever they were, will have had decades to study even more advanced works than what she is now working on.

They would have had proper magic teachers—individuals who were knowledgeable about and had studied magical theory; unfortunately, Sylvia was not one of them.

Mary grimaced at that thought.

For all that, her mother had apparently gathered as many such guild-created introductions as possible and compiled them into something more comprehensive.

The fact remains that the book that she had finished yesterday was ultimately a basic primer, something to provide a foundation, albeit a comprehensive one, for newcomers who are only just starting to learn proper magical theory to build upon.

Worse yet, according to Sylvia, the guilds deliberately restrict knowledge, making it truly unclear which information has been omitted, censored, or only discussed in more advanced and restricted texts.

How many secrets concerning mana and magic do the guilds refuse to release to the public or lower-level guild members?

‘Which means that I need to claw back as many of the advantages that Alexander enjoyed as humanly possible.’

Mary confirms to herself again.

Since she had been born into this world, Mary had been regretting the absence of Alexander's cyberware; their advantages as well as his ability to use virtual reality to augment his learning were magnificent multipliers for learning speed and comprehension.

Mary allows herself to smile, although she still has mixed feelings as she remembers the tool that is supposed to make her future experiments in recreating some of those advantages possible and ultimately enable her bid for freedom.

It was the result of a week of dedicated study and effort.

Mary had consistently exhausted herself, attempting to create ever more efficient and powerful ambient mana runes, hoping to improve the spell that would grow her reserves, all with the intent of finally breaching the next level of power as quickly as possible.

This was something that she had succeeded in; each day she would create a slightly more efficient, more powerful ambient mana rune, slowly increasing the rate in which her mana reserves would grow.

Mary thought of her newest and most important rune with appreciation; her studying had at first allowed her to breach the next tier of level, marking her first foray into more efficient spellcasting.

Her first, second-tier level rune, which, as it turned out, was called the 'beginner tier', had vastly improved the efficiency of her mana regeneration spell, the spell that Mary was instead using as a mana reserve expansion spell.

This improvement in efficiency allowed her to keep the spell permanently active, even during her sleep, which, based on her experience as Alexander, proved to be surprisingly simple once she tried it.

Previously with her mana reserve expansion spell, she had been keeping it active for a few hours at a time, the same hours that were being used to read more of the introductory book.

She would then recuperate her mana with a mana-rich meal from Sylvia before either briefly meditating to finish filling her reserve or continuing if it were already full.

Each of these study sessions would individually provide benefits comparable to those of a mana-rich meal, which Sylvia had assured Mary was already exceptional because of the maids' high power.

As such, with the first version of her reserve expansion spell, Mary was at an estimate merely doubling the growth of her mana reserves per day.

Her performance improved tremendously when she finally gained the beginner-tier spell on the second day.

That improved rune completely removed any mana wastage, as her reserves were no longer being drained by keeping the spell active, and all of that wasted mana, be it from the growth spell itself or from her meals, was instead going to increasing her reserves instead of regenerating lost mana.

Mary bitterly reflected on an oversight she had missed and Sylvia had overlooked.

As such, it was only from the second day onwards that Mary had been gaining the growth in reserves of nearly two normal unassisted weeks, every day since that first jump in rune level.

Something which had only escalated as she further improved her ambient mana rune in both power and efficiency.

‘I have really become a cultivator. The speed of improvements only escalates.’

Mary remarked to herself, amused, her attention turning back to the appearance of her newest rune.

It had surprised her at first, when she had looked at what was now an older rune of the beginner level; the lines that comprised it were noticeably thicker, yes, but the rune itself had become significantly smaller.

When asked, Sylvia explained that the level of a rune indicates its efficiency in mana usage, which causes the rune to physically shrink as the amount of mana used for unnecessary purposes decreases.

In contrast, an increase in power without an increase in level causes the rune to grow larger due to the excess mana available.

Yesterday, Mary had finally managed to breach not only the second tier of power, which she now knows is called the lesser tier, but also the third tier of level for her mana-focused runes, the foundation tier.

Initially, Mary interpreted the increase in power for her runes as evidence that her mana reserves were growing at an almost impossible pace; this interpretation was, in fact, supported by Sylvia, who had some understanding of the often-absurd nature of otherworlders and was also amazed by the speed of Mary's growth.

But, while Sylvia had praised the growth of her mana reserves, she had also pointed out that the only reason that Mary had managed to breach the very lowest part of the lesser power scale was because of her persistent and dangerous effort to control her current reserves.

Sylvia had told Mary that while her reserves were indeed outstanding and more suited to someone approaching adolescence than a newborn baby, it was only due to the complete control that Mary had forcibly obtained over those reserves that had allowed her to reach the second tier of power for her runes.

Her headlong rush into creating the rune caused Mary to have mixed feelings, specifically about the consequences of her actions.

Her maid, Sylvia, had scolded her viciously over what she considered extremely foolish behaviour, painstakingly explaining that, while an adult could safely exhaust their mana reserves without consequence, a newborn baby could damage their physical growth and even their souls by doing so.

Mary explained that her soul, as an otherworlder, was already matured and would be unharmed by such a thing, and she also mentioned that her newest ambient mana rune would be the cornerstone for making future plans possible.

Neither of these things dissuaded Sylvia from angrily scolding her.

Sylvia had perhaps rightly pointed out that, as an otherworlder, Mary's soul is not yet adapted to using magic, and no matter how well suited otherworlders tend to be for massive mana reserves, Mary's body is nonetheless that of an infant and, as such, very vulnerable.

Mary had reluctantly agreed with Sylvia, promising that she would avoid exhausting her reserves in the future if possible, but she had refused to make any promises about using her newest rune.

Turning her attention away from the past, Mary focuses her thoughts on the rune that she had brought into being.

Due to its level being a tier above its power, it was still smaller than her very first runes, but the throughput of mana flowing towards it was far beyond any of her previous ambient runes.

Mary had briefly attempted to stack multiple ambient mana, hoping to vastly increase the speed of her growth, but while stacking runes, two runes into a single spell did indeed double the amount of mana throughput, it also doubled the amount of wastage.

Stacking multiple runes had also increased the spell complexity exponentially, and Mary had proved incapable of focusing on learning while keeping even a mere double-rune spell active.

However, the throughput she observed from this single rune, with the immense amount of mana flowing towards it, according to Sylvia, whose senses remain far greater than Mary's, should be equivalent to half a dozen of her previous ambient mana runes stacked together.

This rune, Mary was certain, would secure her future from slavery.

Not only would its power vastly increase the speed in which her mana reserves will be growing in the weeks to come, but it would be, like her previous runes, self-sufficient and thus capable of being permanently active.

But unlike the least power tier runes of before, this one would have enough energy to spare that it could be used to create permanent passive spells with additional effects.

Yes, Mary is certain that this rune is exactly what she needed for her plans to work.

‘With this rune I can finally start to create the mental spells that I need to run permanently.’