Chapter 10: Action
According to modern magical theory, which conflicted in many points with the way of the Magi of old, though mana was a natural resource born with the dawn of the universe, it existed in a different wavelength that was decisively difficult to perceive, which gave it a quality fundamentally distinct from that of the air. So while each breath a person could inhale air and the different elements mixed within it, mana refused to be moved with basic suction of gravity and the likes.
When forced into the body without the guidance of a Life Magus, on the other hand, it became highly unstable and harmed whatever tissue it came into contact with.
Therefore, the common understanding suggested that mana was never meant to be held captive in one’s body. Human anatomy just didn’t have the capacity nor the affinity to handle such a miraculous source. It could only be guided by tools and complex spell formulae.
This theory, of course, had been proved baseless through the discreet research Valens and his Master had pursued for the last few months, which focused mostly on the old texts sourced from a well-preserved chest found under the depths of the Black Sea by some pirates. Getting it had cost Valens the greater part of his wealth.
Even though they were full of undecipherable symbols and lore about the olden times, Valens could still remember that the ancient Magi had, in fact, steady mana sources resting inside their bodies. Still, there was nothing suggesting that ancient Magi could absorb mana into their veins and change the very fabric of their beings..
But in this strange world the System did just that. Or rather here, Valens theorized, mana itself rested in a wavelength closer to that of the human brain which allowed this all-seeing and all-knowing being, or whatever was behind the System, to manipulate the relation between the frequencies through a screen accessible but with a thought.
When asked in a roundabout way, Nomad made it clear he had no idea of the songs or the tunes of the mana. To him, becoming strong by putting a point in a stat was simply common sense, a deed done without any awareness of the Resonance. He did say it was something about the mana you’d gained through killing beasts or performing tasks that aligned with your own class, but he wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about the reasons behind this strange tradition.
It was a kind of ignorant acceptance, but Valens could understand where he was coming from. There was a reason why most of the Magi leashed under the Empire’s strict laws never bothered to perform dangerous experiments like Valens anymore. It wasn’t just because they were afraid, most of them scarcely felt a need for it.
With Wisdom, he found that he could indeed accelerate the rate at which his inner mana source renewed, but since his Intelligent stat boosted the amount of mana he could hold in his core, he had to balance it out with sufficient points in Wisdom to keep the renewal rate the same.
On that front, a simple experiment with stat points showed that for every two points in Intelligence, he had to put a point in Wisdom to keep the renewal rate the same. Another strange thing was that past a certain point, the acceleration rate supplied by more Wisdom stats diminished slowly, which suggested that there was a limit to how fast the renewal rate could get.
From the trickle of mana that’s ever-supplying my core, it seems like an hour is the maximum I’ll ever get, which will come about when I get a 2-1 ratio in the Intelligence and Wisdom pair.
The other stats intrigued him, especially Dexterity which gave him a sense of lightness around his feet. Each point of Dexterity added a slight note to his muscles, fibers, tendons, and ligaments. Valens even heard the harmony of his bone frame being adjusted with a new set of frequencies.