Chapter 263: Mana Solidification Limit
There was another reason he believed Origin Energy could potentially be broken down into Faith, Aura, and Mana. A lot of Ascendants constantly leaked their energy whenever they fought or used their abilities, so the air around them should theoretically contain Origin Energy, Aura, Mana, and Faith.
However, the air only contained Origin Energy.
Alex had already learned that Origin Energy could become attuned to different energies, which suggested that Mana, Aura, and Faith might simply be different components of the same fundamental energy. The different types of energy released by Ascendants could eventually fuse back into Origin Energy after entering the environment.
If that theory was correct, then Origin Energy could potentially be converted into whatever type of energy an Ascendant needed. For a Mage like Alex, that could mean having a way to continuously recover Mana as long as he had access to enough Origin Energy.
Of course, this was still only a theory.
Lastly, there was the Blood Vessel Vitalization Spell, which would reinforce his blood vessels and allow him to circulate his blood faster without damaging them.
Honestly, this didn’t sound like a huge advantage compared to the other options. However, Alex believed that after evolving this spell once or perhaps several times, it could eventually allow him to create something like a Mana Blood Vessel Spell.
Instead of circulating blood through those vessels, he would be able to circulate mana through them. That would be a significant advantage, especially because mana had a limit to how much it could be compressed before it began to solidify.
Inside his body, Alex had to make sure his mana didn’t reach that [Mana Solidification Limit]. If it did, the mana would become solid, and having something resembling a stone inside his body would be extremely dangerous.
Because of that, the amount of compressed mana he could circulate through his body while keeping it in an intangible state was limited. This also affected his spellcasting speed, because the amount of mana he could gather and release from his body at once was restricted.
If the [Mana Solidification Limit] of his mana were higher, Alex could compress more mana before releasing it. This would allow him to cast his spells faster and potentially release much greater amounts of mana in a single attack.
Creating Mana blood vessels would provide another solution. If he had separate vessels specifically designed to carry mana, then he would have empty space inside his body where highly compressed mana could be stored and circulated without interfering with his ordinary blood vessels.
Even if the mana became solid inside those vessels, it wouldn’t necessarily clog anything important and kill him. Later, Alex could try to evolve the spell further and make it similar to his Mana Heart, allowing mana to remain intangible even when compressed to an extremely high degree.
All five spells were useful in their own ways, and Alex wanted all of them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take them all, so he started eliminating them one by one.
The first spell he removed was Blood Circulation Spell. It was useful, but faster circulation wasn’t something Alex desperately needed when he could simply pour more mana into each blood cell and improve its performance directly.
If his blood cells could carry more energy and function more efficiently, there was less reason to spend an evolution on manually controlling their circulation. Strengthening the blood itself would provide a more useful improvement for him.
The second spell to go was Blood Oxygenation Spell. The only reason Alex had liked this spell was because it could potentially serve as a foundation for learning something like [Mana Breathing Spell].
However, Blood Oxygenation Spell would mainly teach him how to absorb more air and how to infuse more oxygen into each blood cell. Both of those were things Alex believed he could eventually learn himself, so he didn’t need to waste this evolution option on them.
Moreover, the main difficulty of creating a Mana Breathing Spell was figuring out how to break Origin Energy into Aura, Mana, and Faith. Alex currently had no idea how to do that, and the Blood Oxygenation Spell would not teach him that, so choosing it would not help much.
The third spell to go was Blood Vessel Vitalization Spell. Alex still liked this spell because after evolving it once or several times, it might eventually give him a Mana Blood Vessel Spell or something similar.
However, there were several problems with this idea. First, Alex could learn Blood Vessel Vitalization Spell himself, and he could even start trying to learn the concept of creating Mana blood vessels directly because the basic principle wasn’t particularly complicated.
Second, he had no idea how many evolutions it would take before the spell became something capable of creating Mana blood vessels. If it took too long, then choosing this spell wouldn’t be worth it, especially when he could work toward the same goal himself.
The biggest problem, however, was that there wasn’t enough space inside his body for Mana blood vessels. Alex would have to somehow create new pathways through his body, which would essentially mean drilling holes through his own flesh and organs, and attempting something like that would most likely kill him.
That was why he hadn’t tried creating Mana blood vessels despite knowing how useful they would be. He needed his body to naturally provide the necessary space before he could safely create them.
Alex had a feeling that if he evolved his species once more, perhaps into whatever species existed above Mid rank, his body might naturally develop Mana blood vessels. Higher-ranked species should logically be born with bodies that were better suited for mana circulation, especially if Alex continued absorbing the gene potential of Mage-type monsters.
With three options eliminated, only two remained: Advanced Blood Vitalization Spell and Blood Strengthening Spell. The first provided an overall improvement, while the second seemed to focus more heavily on stamina and endurance.
Given Alex’s previous problems with stamina, Blood Strengthening Spell looked very appealing. As the energy requirements of his Superior Body Strengthening Spell increased, he would need more stamina to continue fighting for long periods, making a spell focused on endurance extremely useful.
However, if Alex was being honest, he could probably learn Blood Strengthening Spell himself given enough time. It might take some effort, but after learning so much from his other spells, he was confident that he could eventually recreate something similar.
The same was true for Advanced Blood Vitalization Spell to some extent. With enough experimentation, Alex believed he could probably develop a similar spell himself.
In the end, the question was which one would be more valuable to have directly available through his Status.
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