All things considered, she felt downright wonderful. Sure, her lower back ached from sleeping on it weirdly, and her ego was certainly a touch bruised from collapsing in the middle of the common room only to wake up alone the next morning, but her body was fine. No more did she burn with the fires of unspent Mana.
What she did burn with, however, was the realization that she wore just her underclothes beneath the thin sheets. Eve hoped that… she gulped. She didn’t know what she hoped. Knowing him, Preston had probably insisted on privacy as he’d stripped off her armor. The neat way her clothes sat folded on the foot of her bed seemed to support the theory.
At least as a healer, he was probably professional about it, not to mention that Preston of all people was familiar with being exposed to unwelcome glares from the opposite sex.
Eve shook the thought from her head. There were more important things to worry about, most pressingly the flashing notifications at the corner of her vision. She opened the first.
Race Changed: Manaheart!
The conjunction of your previous skills, inability to manipulate Mana, and accidental participation in the science experiment of a dead race has created something unique. Something new. For the first time in millennia, a step has been taken towards the Burendian dream of true balance between life and Mana. Good luck.
Through the combined efforts of magic and alchemy, you have overcome the inner workings of life. No longer are you bound by the limits of chemical energy. You are a being of Mana.
Eve reread the message. Well that’s… vague, she thought. She wasn’t even entirely sure what ‘chemical energy’ was. The Manaheart looked down at herself.
“I still look human,” she thought aloud. In fact, other than the familiar white glow coming off the jagged lines along her chest and neck, Eve appeared no different than the day she’d left Nowherested. She’d need a mirror to confirm the assessment.
The idea of being transformed into ‘something unique’ was at once exciting and terrifying. What if healing spells didn’t work on Manahearts? What if her body needed some obscure resource she’d never heard of just to get by? Eve froze. What would her mother think?
Eve dismissed the thread of anxiety with a look towards her notifications. There was no use worrying when she hadn’t even gathered all the facts available to her.
Ability Upgraded
Ethereal Metabolism
Overcome the inefficiencies of flesh. Mana is the purest form of energy, and your body has learned to use it. Metabolize food directly into Mana. All bodily functions require Mana instead of Stamina.
That last sentence was enough to widen Eve’s eyes, giving her sufficient pause to set aside the array of messages in favor of checking her status.
Evelia Greene
Manaheart
Level 34 Shatterfate Striker
Exp: 475/8862
Health: 560/560
Stamina: 0/0
Mana: 194/2250
Constitution: 56
Mana Density: 225
Intelligence: 12
Dexterity: 65
Strength: 84
Spirit: 0
Unsurprised as she was, Eve still gulped at the word ‘Manaheart’ where it had once said ‘human.’ No doubt it would take some getting used to. The next line of the unsightly blue screen reminded her she’d leveled up amidst yesterday’s chaos. She wondered if the upgrade to Ethereal Metabolism counted as her level-up reward or if another ability change awaited her in the notification list.
And then she saw it.
Stamina: 0/0
“Gods below,” she swore. A bit of quick math confirmed the sum matched up with what had once been her Endurance. Her mind raced. Even without the need for Stamina, she clearly would still need to eat. Her Ethereal Metabolism made that clear enough. But what about water? If her body had replaced its chemical functions with the use of Mana, did she still require hydration? Her dry throat argued that it did.
The question of sleep arose in her mind. If she metabolized nourishment directly into Mana, was a full night’s sleep still necessary? The description of the skill upgrade had mentioned overcoming inefficiencies. Eve wondered what exactly it meant. Once more she cursed the vague nature of the messages.
The curious absence of Endurance from her stat sheet only added to the mystery. Eve shook her head. There had to be more in her remaining notifications. Sure enough, a series of messages explained.
Statistic Gained: Mana Density
With the ability to store Mana in one’s very flesh comes the need to quantify how much can be stored. Mana Density measures how much Mana you can store in the limited space of your earthly form without leaking or taking damage.
Statistic Lost: Endurance
Race [Manaheart] does not have access to the Endurance statistic. All points and future gains have been redirected to its closest analog.
Eve furrowed her brow as she considered the new information. She hadn’t expected to gain an entirely new statistic, especially when one already existed to measure Mana capacity. She recalled that Spirit measured one’s ability to make room within their soul for magical energy. Apparently Mana Density was for space within one’s body. Then again, the description seemed to imply the amount of space within her body was set, and the new stat just allowed her to pack more Mana into said space.
Eve shrugged.
She was no scholar, and the complexities behind statistic names and effects were well beyond her expertise. As long as her abilities still worked and she wasn’t losing power, she wouldn’t worry about it too much. The basic mechanics of how this change would affect her life concerned her more. She moved on.
Ability Altered!
Active Ability - Jet
500 Mana
Momentum is a tool just like any other, and you’ve learned to wield it. Massively increase or decrease your personal momentum in any direction.
“Oh, thank Ayla,” Eve muttered. She hadn’t even considered what would’ve happened if all her skills still cost Stamina. Seeing no other changes to Jet, she continued through the notifications. Fate-al Blow and Charge! underwent similar shifts towards Mana use, maintaining the same price as before, if of a different resource. Adrenaline Rush was another story.
Ability Upgraded!
Active Ability - Mana Rush
X Mana/Sec
The strength of a Manaheart is determined by the energy that runs through their veins. You’ve learned to manipulate it to your advantage. Gain [X*MND/20] Strength for the duration.
So she had received a skill upgrade for reaching level thirty four, and gods was it a doozy. Assuming ‘MND’ was the abbreviation for Mana Density, Eve had just unlocked a massive well of Strength. Sure it scaled at one twentieth instead of one third, but a bit of quick math confirmed that the original price of X equals four would give her about half as much Strength as the old version.
Eve’s mind raced with ideas. At twenty Mana a second, she could add her entire Mana Density to her Strength. Gods, if she wanted to dump her entire Mana pool into the skill, she could break ten thousand for a few seconds. Combined with the Strength scaling on Fate-al Blow, she’d have nine hells of a first strike. She’d have to be careful, of course, to cancel it quickly. If her body required Mana to live, she didn’t want to find out what might happen if she ran out.
She would, of course, have to test the skill. For all she knew, there was a cap on how much she could spend or a minimum duration she’d have to pay for. She could hardly reach ten thousand Strength if the ability wouldn’t let her spend more than ten Mana a second. These descriptions were way too vague.
The Striker took a breath as she dismissed the last of the notifications. Her thoughts continued to run through the various changes as she finally rose from the lumpy bed and moved to dress herself, pocketing a few silver from her pack. She left her armor where it lay. It seemed unlikely she’d be attacked at the breakfast table.
With a meal in mind, Eve swung open the un
latched door to step into the empty upstairs hallway. She stopped short halfway through to stare into a mirror that hung upon the wall.
Sure enough, the familiar jagged lines still crawled up her neck, but the skin of her face itself remained untouched. The same couldn’t be said for her eyes. The same white web traced along her irises, making the green circles appear shattered into a dozen pieces. Cool as they looked, it was her pupils that drew her attention.
They had turned white.
“Definitely not human,” she mused. Raising a hand to her face confirmed her recolored eyes glowed just as bright as the lines along her chest. Eve took a moment to thank the gods she didn’t have a stealth class. No way she’d escape notice with these beacons on her face.
Eve shook the thought from her mind as her stomach grumbled from days of malnourishment, and if her sub-two-hundred Mana pool was anything to go by, it was justified in its complaint. She continued on to the common room.
Only one of the many tables of The Foot’s Rest sat occupied, as a lone warrior with an enchanted spear nursed a cup of hot tea.
“Eve!” Alex shot to her feet. “Are you alright? Preston wouldn’t let us check on you.”
Eve smiled. Saving her life and guarding her decency, she’d have to reward the healer somehow. She wondered if he took payments in scones. “I’m okay, I think. Where are the others?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever known those two to wake up at dawn?”
“Right. Well, I’m glad to know at least one of my teammates was worried about me enough to not sleep in,” Eve said with over-exaggerated disdain.
The Survivor sat back. “Nah, I always wake up this early.” She chuckled to herself. “Seriously, Eve, how are you?”
Eve took a seat across from her companion. “Hungry, mostly. I had—um—a lot of notifications to read this morning.”
Alex raised a hand to beckon the young man behind the bar. “You can tell me all about it while Peter here gets you some breakfast.”
Eve gave the warrior a curious look at her casual use of the man’s first name but declined to comment. The heaping plate of ham and sausage and eggs and—thank Ayla—leftover scones that soon appeared before her more than distracted her from the thought. It took Alex’s prompting gesture to remind Eve she had a story to tell.
“Well,” Alex said as Eve wrapped up her tale and shoved another forkful of egg into her mouth, “that definitely counts as ‘adapting.’”
Eve swallowed. “Well it did say I completed that stage of the secondary quest. Now I’ve just got some vague mission to ‘discover their legacy.’”
Alex shrugged. “Probably just means you need to level up more and explore more Burendian ruins. Maybe we can find an expedition into one of the more dangerous ones.” She paused, resting a hand on her chin as she mused. “A race change kind of makes sense if I think about it. That gnome at the institute in Lynthia said the human body isn’t meant to store Mana. He didn’t say anything about… whatever you are.”
“Speaking of leveling up,” Eve said, “have you checked the job board? There’s gotta be a few dungeons around here, right?”
“Too many,” Alex corrected. “There’s too many dungeons around here.” She conjured a sheet of paper from some unseen pocket, unfolding it and sliding it across the table. “This is the only one we’re even close to qualified for.”
Eve scanned the rough map and scribbled description. “Demons, huh?”
“Demonoids.” Alex nodded. “Mostly lesser ones if the listing is accurate. Wes might have a hard time dealing with them if they’re from one of the fiery hells, but Preston will be especially useful.”
“Pay’s shit,” Eve gestured to the hundred-silver reward for completing the dungeon.
The Survivor turned up her palms. “That’s what you get for tackling dungeons so far from the cities. Sure there’s more of them, but fewer people care enough to pay up. Higher level you get, the more your money comes from loot rather than commissions.”
“What kind of loot do demons have?”
“Hells if I know.”
Eve opened her mouth in a wide smile of silent laughter at Alex’s choice of words.
Alex groaned. “Gods, you’re no better than Wes.”
“I didn’t just make a demon/hells pun.”
“It’s a common expression!” Alex insisted.
“Whatever you say,” Eve laughed.
Alex held her head in her hands.
The Striker pushed herself to her feet. “Anyway, while we wait for the two lov—” She caught herself. “The two layabouts to wake up, I’m going to get some practice in.”
Alex nodded in approval. “Practice is good. See you in a bit.”
Eve checked her status as she crossed the empty common room, taking note of her rapidly rising Mana pool. The messages she’d read had implied it could overflow, and she sure as hells didn’t want it to do so indoors. She could experiment with that once she had Preston around her to heal any damage it dealt.
At least now she had a good way of dumping extra Mana, one she was all too excited to try out. Eve smiled. She may have finished that leg of the quest, but by no means was she finished adapting to the changes. For the time being, that meant one thing and one thing only.
She had an ability to test.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A Hell of a Time
“SO BESIDES THE—um—the glowing thing,” Wes said as his eyes traveled over Eve’s inhuman form, “what actually changed?”
Eve instinctively moved to brush her hair behind her ear, forgetting she’d cut it too short to even reach said ear. “I just told you; it’s—”
“No, no, I get the whole ‘Mana instead of Stamina’ thing,” Wes interrupted, “but what does that actually mean?”
The Striker turned up her palms. “Other than not exploding and being able to eat again? I don’t know. My Mana regens the same way Stamina used to—up to half without food—and since I still don’t have any Spirit, I’m pretty sure the change hasn’t turned me into a spellcaster.”
“You mentioned efficiency, though,” Alex chimed in with detail from Eve’s prior telling of this same story. “And running on Mana has gotta change how your body functions somehow.”
“Well I still need to eat and sleep and drink. Maybe more efficient means I don’t need as much? My Mana did fill up pretty quick as I ate breakfast.”
“Wait.” Wes stopped in his tracks, forcing the entire party to pause their trek through the thick pines of the northern woods. “So instead of breaking down food to get nutrients from it, you’re turning it directly to Mana?”
Eve furrowed her brow, uncertain where the mage was going with this line of questioning. “Um… yes?”
Wes’s voice fell to whisper. “So—um—do you still poop?”
Preston smacked him. “Wes! You can’t just ask that.”
“What? We were all thinking it.”
The healer held his head in his hand. “Well, now we are.”
Eve exhaled. “I’ll add that to the list of ‘things we’ll find out later.’ It’s only been a few hours; all I’ve tested so far is the new ability.”
That piqued the party’s interest. “New ability?” Preston asked. “What is it? What’d you learn?”
“It’s an upgrade, really. Adrenaline Rush is Mana Rush now—I guess because I don’t have adrenaline anymore?” Eve shrugged. “The main thing is it’s got a scaling Mana cost, and gods does it scale.”
She briefly explained the numbers and math behind them before continuing on to talk about her experiments with the skill. “The bad part is it’s got a minimum duration. I actually can’t cancel the ability within ten seconds of using it.”
Wes blew through the calculations in under a second. “You can still hit two thousand Strength if you’re willing to dump most of your pool. More once you’ve leveled up and have a bit more Mana Density.”
Preston whistled. “He’s right, Eve. That’s gods-d
amned ridiculous. Most Tier fours don’t have that kind of firepower.”
Eve smirked. “Most Tier fours are human. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. It’s just… weird. The skill description says nothing about a minimum duration, and ten seconds feels super arbitrary.”
“All abilities have their limits,” Alex said. “And yeah, the descriptions are shit sometimes. That’s why we test things. My guess is your body can’t handle two massive stat changes one after the other like that, so it makes you wait a bit before losing all that Strength.”
“Maybe.” Eve exhaled. “I don’t know. I’ll have to keep an eye on my Mana and do the math ahead of time. If I accidentally activate Mana Rush for too much and get locked out of canceling it for ten seconds, I could run dry. Natural regen can only do so much, and I don’t want to wind up without any Mana left over to keep my body running.”
“Maybe you’ll just pass out like most people do when they run out of Stamina,” Preston suggested.
“Or maybe I’ll take damage or maybe my heart will just stop,” Eve continued. “It’s not something I want to test.”
“Right,” the healer admitted. “Fair point.”
“So—um,” Wes changed the subject, “remind me what kind of demons we’re supposed to be hunting?”
“Demonic ones,” Eve answered.
Alex sighed. “The listing didn’t say. All we know is a cave in the Teeth naturalized into a dungeon a few years ago, and apparently there’s demons there. The details are too limited for my liking, but it’s the only job within our level range so… here we are.”
“Are you sure we should be heading into the mountains?” Preston asked. “I thought it was supposed to get more dangerous the farther north you go.”
This Quest is Broken! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 1) Page 28