Aethernea

by Cloe D Frost

  To prevent itself from being easily destroyed, materials with low mana tolerance usually had a high mana resistance. They would resist the passage of mana, slowing it down and decreasing the amount of mana passing through them. If the passage of mana was impaired, it would be harder to go over the mana tolerance. It was a simple self-preservation mechanism that achieved balance.

  If the material was like a pipe, and mana was like water, then higher mana resistance would mean a narrower pipe. It would limit how much water can pass through it at the same time. Mana tolerance, on the other hand, would be the material of the pipe. If it was flawless steel, it could handle a violent water current, but if it was wooden, the fast current would soon cause it to start leaking. The holes would expand until it is completely destroyed.

  If Kiel wanted to increase his mana flow speed, he would need to decrease his mana resistance and increase his mana tolerance. If his mana resistance decreased, it would make it easier for the mana to pass through his body and thus it would be faster. And if his mana tolerance increased, he would be able to make more mana travel through his body at the same time without fear of injury. It would also make it less physically tiring to use magic.

  Both his mana resistance and tolerance would impact his mana flow speed.

  As mana passed through Kiel, he felt energized, his cells were agitated. This sudden increase in the density of Kiel’s aura startled Elaru out of the strange mood she was in. She stopped her work and observed Kiel instead.

  He started pulling the mana gently, but after ascertaining that this speed wasn’t his limit, he would make it flow faster.

  Some time and a lot of mana later, the mana pool still wasn’t fazed by the loss of mana. Just how large was it?!

  Faster. Still faster.

  Soon, mana crashing into his flesh felt like a tsunami. His mana flow speed had reached above average. If he had to give it a score, he estimated it would probably be 17/25. Yet, he could already feel sore all over his body.

  No matter how fast the mana traveled through his soul tendrils, his mana flow speed wouldn’t increase if the bottleneck was his body. It would be like attaching a wide pipe into a narrow pipe, it would either block the flow of water coming into the pipes or cause the stream flowing through the narrow pipe to become extremely fast. If his body couldn’t tolerate the speed of the stream, it would be damaged.

  If his mana flow speed was low, having a large mana pool and mana regeneration would be wasted on him. Since he would never be able to empty his pool no matter how hard he tried. His magic casting would be limited by how much mana he could transfer from the soul for use.

  Kiel gritted his teeth and continued. He kept pulling more and more mana out, almost drunk on the power he was feeling traveling through his body. Yet the tingles of power couldn’t overshadow the stinging pain spreading through his body. His clothes were already drenched with cold sweat.

  He wasn’t surprised at his approaching mana tolerance limit. He used to be a non-mage. There was never much mana passing through his body so his body wasn’t used to it. He was extremely fit, which increased his mana tolerance, but because of his status as a non-mage, it could only reach the average mana tolerance. He speculated that the only reason why his current mana flow speed was above average was due to the changes to his body caused by Aetherneal bond.

  Kiel’s hands clenched into fists tightly. He had thought that he had finally escaped from his identity as a non-mage. He thought that he had transformed from a caterpillar into a butterfly. That he had shed his old skin. Yet, at every corner, he kept being reminded that he used to be a non-mage.

  He had hoped that he would be able to shock the entire world by having a perfect score on Muni entrance exams. Looking at it now, he was naïve and greedy. He thought too highly of himself. He was full of hopes and dreams like a little child, and he kept looking up at the clouds instead of facing reality.

  The sourness, the bitterness, the disappointed that clenched his heart, must have spread onto his aura, because Elaru honed in on his worries like an arrow.

  “Are you aiming for the perfect Muni exam score? Do you want to be the first? To shock everyone? To raise from no one into a genius in one swell swoop?”

  Kiel’s knuckles turned white from how hard he was clenching his fists.

  His silence gave Elaru all the answers she needed, or perhaps her questions were rhetorical from the start.

  “If the only thing standing in your way to reaching a perfect score is inadequate mana flow speed, all you have to do is raise it.”

  Kiel’s eyes flashed dangerously as he glared at her. What did she think? That raising mage specs was as easy as reading a book? “My mana flow speed is too far from the perfect score, there is too little time. I can’t raise it enough in the span of a few days.”

  Elaru smirked and teased him. “What are you going to do? Sulk?” Her teasing tone disappeared, her eyes radiated strange heat. “Or are you going to try your best to raise it as far as you can in this remaining time?”

  Elaru’s words struck Kiel like a hammer. It might have not been the actual words, maybe it was the intent behind them, or the aura that spread from her. Either way, his entire body shook with enlightenment.

  So what if he couldn’t reach the perfect score? Was he just going to give up? Or will he do his best to reach as high of a score as possible? If he couldn’t win a battle, would he just throw in a towel or fight until the end?

  The sourness and depression was instantly replaced with steely determination.

  He wasn’t the one to give up. Even as a non-mage, he didn’t give up. He sweated rivers, shed tears of blood. He started out as a person who hated magic to become someone who loved everything about it. The pain, the unshakable resolve, sweat and tears, it is what turned him from a person who couldn’t do magic to save his life, to a genius mage. It wasn’t a change that happened overnight. No, it took him 12 years.

  12 long years. So why is it that he felt disheartened if he couldn’t reach a pinnacle in a few days? Laughable.

  Now that he had the opportunity, now that he had the means, there was no way he would give up! He would milk every drop of sweat from his body, he would squeeze out every bit of willpower he had.

  All so he could walk forwards.

  Step by step.

  No matter how distant his goal was, as long as he kept steadily walking, one day he would reach it.

  It might take him months. It might take him years. It might even take him his whole life.

  Was the goal worth it? Was it worth dedicating his whole life to pursue the pinnacle of magic?

  Kiel’s eyes burned with flames of passion. Every cell in his body, every thought in his head, everything responded unanimously with a load roar.

  YES!

  He had to keep walking.

  His spirit rekindled, his resolve hardened. The waves of conflicting emotions that wrecked havoc in his mind stilled into a perfect calm.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled. He didn’t notice Elaru’s eyes glittering mischievously, nor the satisfied smile on her face.

  What do I need to do to take a single step forward?

  That’s what he should do. He should concentrate on that single step.

  A step to increase his mana tolerance and decrease his mana resistance.

  He searched his knowledge of the subject until he found what he was looking for.

  He needed to temper his body with mana.

  That was something that happened to mages naturally. Mana would constantly pass through their cells, and over time, after the old cell died, a new cell that replaced it would have a higher mana tolerance and lower mana resistance. The bodies of all creatures in the land of Halnea had an incredible ability to adjust. Natural selection and evolution would happen to all of the cells making the body. After countless generations of cells, new cells would reach a much higher tolerance than the first generation.

  However, that would take too much time. And time was
one thing that he lacked. He needed to speed up the process of his cells dying and being replaced by new cells.

  It was easy to speed up the process of his cells dying. He just needed to increase the amount of mana passing through them to reach their mana tolerance limit. They would then start disintegrating, and new cells would need to replace them.

  He shouldn’t damage his own body too much, otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to recover to his best condition in time to participate in the exams.

  How many cycles of destruction and regeneration he could go through depended on his healing rate. If he could increase his healing rate, by consuming some healing elixirs or pills, he might be able to pull this method off.

  He needed to visit an elixir and pill shop. He opened his eyes and looked at the blood red sunset. Would they be able to make it to a shop before the closing time?

  * * *

  Author Note:

  For all of you guys out there with dreams, keep chasing them and don’t give up! Just concentrate on taking one step at a time.

  And I too will do the same by writing Aethernea. One word at a time. :)

  However, my path is different from Kiel’s, to walk forwards I need your support. It isn’t something that I can do by myself no matter how hard I work. Without readers there is no successful author.

  One easy way to show your support is to click on “Vote for Aethernea on Top Web Fiction” in the Aethernea toc page. It would mean a lot to me if you could click on it and vote for Aethernea on top web fiction once a week. It just takes two clicks for you to support Aethernea. Thank you <3

  Coming up in the next episode:

  Elaru smirked. “Can you even afford something like that?” Kiel froze.

  His heart involuntarily skipped a beat. “Too darn close!”

  Elaru stroked her chin with one hand, looking solemnly at the motionless body in front of her.

  Like a sack of potatoes. She giggled and smacked him on his behind teasingly.

  Everything was deathly still. Without any sign that anyone had been there at all.

  Episode 23 – Acupuncture

  Episode 23 – Acupuncture

  Previously:

  Kiel realizes his mana tolerance is not as high as he would like it to be, preventing him from getting a perfect score on the entrance exams. He is momentarily discouraged before he remembers all his hard work and is determined to work even harder. To increase his mana tolerance, he would need to temper his body with mana. This process would be faster if he had some healing elixirs or pills.

  * * *

  Kiel didn’t have any healing elixirs on him – needed to visit an elixir and pill shop. He opened his eyes and looked at the blood red sunset. Would they be able to make it to a shop before the closing time?

  He got up quickly. When he noticed the drenched state of his clothes, he used a temperature manipulation spell to heat them up until they were completely dry. That didn’t make him clean, though. The smell of sweat made him scrunch up his nose. He couldn’t go to the city like this.

  He needed a cleansing spell.

  He looked over at Elaru, thinking about how to ask her for a cleansing. He noticed she was looking at him too.

  Kiel decided to explain his thoughts about buying some healing medicine first, and then nonchalantly mention a cleansing. Yes, that way he’d retain his pride.

  Before he could fully explain his intentions of getting some healing medicine, Elaru interrupted him.

  “Healing the damage caused by going over mana tolerance isn’t as simple as healing other types of damage. Since your cells were damaged by mana, you need to heal them with a medicine that has natural, gentle healing properties. If you use a medicine that relies on magic to heal then the density of mana inside the medicine would cause further damage to your body which was already damaged by mana. It would be like trying to heal burns with a hot ointment. You need a medicine refined from something with innate healing properties or specialized pills used to temper the body with mana.”

  Kiel wasn’t familiar with healing and medicine, but what she said made perfect sense. She seemed to know what she was talking about. He stroked chin and then nodded. “Then I’ll get that.”

  Elaru smirked. “Can you even afford something like that?” Kiel froze.

  He was a noble, he had plenty of money, right?

  Not quite.

  His family was rich – not him. The bastards never sent him any pocket money. And even if they did, he wouldn’t have accepted it. He wasn’t on good terms with the rest of his family and he wanted nothing from them. Anything that they might give him would either be filled with obligations or mockery. He would be selling himself or catching a few coins like a beggar.

  He wanted nothing to do with it.

  Thus, the money in his pockets were earned through his own hard work, however the amount of it was rather modest. It was very likely that he didn’t have enough to buy such medicine.

  Seeing his frozen expression, Elaru’s eyes glittered excitedly. “If you can’t buy the medicine then we have to work with what we have.”

  She continued talking telepathically. “When we activated Aetherneal bond initially, the spell burrowed inside us, into every cell. It slowly destroyed our cells and replaced them with new ones. This process of damaging and healing is very similar to mana tempering. It took us only a few hours to recover from the process that would have taken days or even weeks for anyone else.”

  Kiel’s eyes widened, and his voice quivered slightly. “What you are saying is…”

  Elaru smiled and nodded. “Correct. Aetherneal bond increased our cell regeneration speed. It is very likely that your body would be able to heal quickly enough even without the medicine. I could even help further increase your natural healing rate by acupuncture.”

  Kiel stared at her emotionlessly. He had no idea what emotion he was supposed to be showing right now. He had long gotten used to Elaru knowing a bit of everything. “You know acupuncture?” Kiel raised his eyebrow. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  Elaru smirked and spoke in a self-satisfied fashion. “What can I say? I know a bit about everything, some things more than others. The more useful I find something, the more I study it. Knowing where to insert needless happens to be very useful in my line of work.”

  Kiel’s scalp turned numb. “What line of work are you talking about?” Something told him she wasn’t talking about the art of healing.

  Elaru waved her hand dismissingly. “My point is, just go ahead and go over your mana tolerance threshold. By morning, you’ll be fine.”

  Kiel furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

  “Our increased healing rate could have been an aftereffect of activating Aetherneal bond. It could have dropped back to normal now. And how do you know that the cells in our body got replaced? I thought you said you don’t know much about Aetherneal bond.”

  Elaru smirked mischievously. “I know you felt it as well. Our cells being replaced. The body completely changing from inside out. Didn’t you notice how fast we recovered from the distance experiment we did this morning? Did you really think that mana deficiency didn’t cause any damage to our bodies?”

  That’s right! Kiel remembered how his body was screaming back then. Yet, as soon as Elaru came back in range, it subsided and disappeared. He knew that the part of the pain was caused by mana deficiency, but he wasn’t aware of the actual damage. He wasn’t a healer – he knew no skills that could allow him to see the state of his own body. He could only go by what he felt, and the information that provided was very limited.

  Looking at Elaru’s confidence and the fact how everything she had ever told him turned out to be true, he had no basis on which to doubt her.

  “I could control the damage caused by mana tempering to not exceed the pain I felt back then. In such case, the damage wouldn’t exceed the damage caused by mana deficiency, and I should be able to heal quickly. In fact, if I go by the time it took us, I’d be able to com
plete dozens of rounds of tempering in a single day.”

  Elaru grinned. “Fast healing rate is priceless. Just imagine how much money that will save us in the future.”She jumped up from where she was sitting and in a quick motion arrived next to Kiel. She flung her arm over his shoulders and waved her hand in front of them in a motivational speech. It was as if she was pointing out the beauty of the world to him, or offering him an invisible mountain of gold. “No medicine shops, no hospitals, no medical fees or healing costs. We’ll be filthy rich!”

  Kiel’s face twisted in a strange grimace. He was unsure if she was joking or if she was actually serious. How would avoiding medical treatment cause them to become rich? Was she earning a large profit that was totally eaten by medical fees?

  Kiel snorted. Not likely.

  He turned towards her to give her a disdainful look, but it froze on his face as soon as he noticed just how close her face was to his.

  Her long ears were tickling his neck, a sweet scent of the forest wafted off from her. It smelled similar to cinnamon and made her slightly moist, lush lips seem almost edible.

  His heart involuntarily skipped a beat. “Too darn close!”

  Kiel wasted no time and shrugged her arm off with a solemn face. He slipped away towards the stream. He bent down and drunk some water, splashing it on his face nonchalantly as if trying to freshen up.

  The clear water drops dripped down his lips and made his thick black eyelashes stick together. He exhaled, calming his mind and turned around, glancing towards Elaru with the corner of his eyes. Was the vixen riling him up on purpose?

  She was humming a quiet tune with a smile plastered on her face and resting against the same tree as before. She unsheathed 5 acupuncture needless that were strapped to her thigh, holding 4 of them in between fingers of her right hand, while she twirled the last one in her left hand like a toy.