Mimic Awakening

On one of the cruising floating islands over the ocean, Azrael, together with Zyren and Dareon, is in a certain chamber in the castle. At Zyren’s lead, the pair of undead guides Azrael to the room where Mr. Zachary keeps his things.

The room is filled with unusual and strange objects neatly arranged on tables and shelves that Azrael has never seen before. Some of these articles are emitting some kind of an aura, such as an ominous dagger and a shining crystal ball.

Azrael concludes that each of these items is invaluable and should not be touched. He feels like he enters Pandora’s box.

"Is it really okay to meddle with his personal stuff?"

"Don’t fret," Dareon responds to Azrael’s concerns. "All the things here are free to use. Mr. Zachary said that himself."

"According to him," Zyren says. "These items are apparently some interesting things the lorekeepers collected throughout the world from different eras."

"I see. So he’s not the only lorekeeper?"

"He said that there have been multiple lorekeepers throughout history, but he did not specify if there were more than one of them at the same time."

"Perhaps it’s a title that can be passed on."

"Given how old these articles are, that might be the case."

Azrael turns his body to face one of the shelves. He observes the items and quickly notices that these things seem to have a wide spectrum when it comes to design and technology.

"Some of these items look ancient while some are too advanced for the aesthetic of this world. Lorekeepers must have existed in this world for a very long time."

From what he learned from Zyren, Zachary does not seem to age for hundreds of years despite the fact that he physically looks and appears like a human being. Awakened or not, humans cannot live that long without altering their bodies.

Humans tend to live up to a hundred years old. It is possible since a year here is shorter than on Earth. For that reason, a person needs to reach the age of twenty for them to be recognized as an adult, or around sixteen years old on Earth, where they are still a minor.

On paper, Azrael is twenty-three years old. But if he were to calculate his age to that of Earth’s, he would just enter the age of nineteen. Thankfully though, Alina is older than him, so he does not have to worry about the nonexistent FBI in this world.

Since learning that, Azrael has been making sure that he only takes lovers above twenty-one years old. Even though those authorities do not exist in this world, Azrael still holds his morals from his previous life.

"So Azrael has over 33 million magia points. Not too far from my initial estimation."

Hearing Dareon’s voice from behind, Azrael turns his back around and finds Dareon holding a familiar item in front of the left eye socket of his skull. He has removed his helmet since entering this room.

"No way. Isn’t that just like the scouter thing of that certain series?"

Azrael cannot believe his eyes. What Dareon is wearing looks kind of similar to a device in a certain anime that is used to measure an individual’s power level. The one that made a character yell "over 8000!" upon analyzing the protagonist’s strength.

It appears similarly to what he remembers. The device Dareon holds has a blue transparent lens and a thick metallic temple instead of an earpiece. It is more like half of sunglasses than the actual thing.

If that device was used to measure mana, then Azrael has no doubt that it is basically a scouter of that anime.

"Scouter? I don’t know what you are talking about," Dareon says. "This is something called an ’appraising glass.’ I have no idea how this works, but the magical technology in it allows the user to measure mana numerically. It is like the superior and more accurate version of mana detection."

So better than my mana imaging, Azrael says to himself. "Does it actually measure mana? Let me try it."

"Here you go."

Dareon then hands the appraising glass to Azrael before he puts it over his left eye. There is a crosshair at the center of the lens, so Azrael aims it on Dareon.

After waiting for a few seconds, numbers suddenly appear on the blue lens, and it rapidly rises from zero to six digits. Ultimately, the number stops rising up, and the lens has assessed Dareon’s maximum mana capacity.

[1,967,056]

"Almost two million? So this is just your maximum mana capacity, yes?"

"That’s right. It would be about two and a half million if I equipped my sword," Dareon replies. "According to Mr. Zachary, mana is defined by magia points. But that is not the only factor to assess the strength of a person."

Upon seeing Dareon’s mana, Azrael is kind of impressed by the fact that the amount of mana a person possesses can be translated to digits.

Even though Dareon’s mana is higher than the archdragon’s, Azrael has no clear idea how far apart they are. Determined to know the answers, Azrael opens his Dimension Storage and takes out an archdragon’s magic core from it. That is one of the remaining archdragon magic cores Azrael has in possession.

Throughout the time, Azrael has extracted more than a hundred magic cores from archdragons. He has consumed between eighteen of them, completely drained dozens to materialize permanent water to create the lake, used a few to maintain the floating island’s barriers and gravity, and stored the remaining in his subspace.

Since the dungeon stops spawning archdragons anymore, Azrael has to be wise on how to use these purple crystals. He still regrets why we wasted so much to create the lake. He will only consume some of them if he really needs more power.

"A purple magic core?" Zyren blurts. "Given its size, I assume that it came from an archdragon."

When the purple magic core is placed on his right hand, Azrael stares at it and waits for a few seconds to have a reading on the magic core.

[1,500,000]

"Exactly a million and a half? Now that’s strange."

Skeptical of the odd results, Azrael takes out another archdragon magic core and scans it. The same as before, the appraisal glass analyzes the magic core to have the same value.

[1,500,000]

"Still one and a half million.

"It is said that dungeon monsters have a fixed amount of mana upon spawning," Zyren states. "But that does not mean they cannot grow stronger any longer. Dungeon monsters still require eating and need to hunt other monsters for food. But dungeon bosses are a different story."

Azrael compares it to the mobs of some games. Each mob has its own base stats upon spawning, and depending on the game, mobs can have their own leveling system that makes them stronger later.

"Since bosses do not leave their chambers, they might be immune to hunger; hence, there is no need to hunt and grow."

"That’s correct," Zyren concurs with Azrael’s statement. "The dungeon god built dungeon bosses to be like that."

I didn’t expect Vordoth to be a dungeon master.

Since he is facing Zyren, Azrael aims the appraisal glass on the undead mage while he is at it. Once the numbers stop climbing up any further, Zyren’s magia points have been unveiled before his eyes.

[2,741,764]

"You have 2.7 million magia points, Zyren. That’s almost twice the archdragon."

"That is actually not my real value. If I unequipped this staff, you will see it."

Suddenly, a portion of Zyren’s power leaves his body and transfers to the wooden staff he is holding. Azrael takes a look at each of them to measure their individual magia points.

[2,216,982]

[524,782]

"The staff has over five hundred thousand magia points? That is quite a powerful weapon you got there, Zyren. Likewise, you got over two million mana in you."

"I am grateful for your words. Though I am constantly burning less than a percent of my mana for every shadowturn to make these bones move as well as voice my thoughts."

"I see. I also use mana every time I transform."

The difference between Azrael and the elder liches is that Azrael does not burn any mana to maintain his form thanks to his awakened ability. Although he constantly burns mana to permanently activate his radar, the mana recovery covers the cost.

Speaking of mana, Azrael has yet to assess his own. But he does not know how he could do that.

"Can I look in the mirror to see mine?"

"I didn’t think it would work like that." Zyren turns the idea down. "The appraiser needs to be directly aimed at the target individual to start assessing. If you like, I can measure you."

"Please do, Zyren."

After that, Azrael hands the appraisal glass to Zyren. When Zyren puts it on his eye socket, it starts measuring Azrael’s mana.

"Your mana is so large that it will take a while to complete the analysis."

The numbers on the lens continue to rise until it reaches the ten-million mark. Around a minute later, the scanning has been completed, and Azrael’s power level has been measured.

"You have exactly [33,864,129] mana or magia points, Azrael. I think this is the largest number I have seen through this lens."

"Over thirty-three million, you say?" Twitching the corner of his lips, Azrael is taken aback by that number even though Dareon has repeatedly said that. "That’s over twenty times the archdragon’s mana. And Dareon was able to pull off a decent fight with me?"