Chapter 656 - Temperature control

POV Nathaniel

When I'm finally done with yet another round of examination with Doc, I use [Ley Line] to teleport to my room. It took over ten days to create one that would work within the defensive array of this building. But I had taken it as a challenge. A game of cat and mouse.

Then the voice of said cat echoes in my room.

(I will ask you again, no, I plead with you, please no more teleportation inside the main building. I had to call off the guards again, turn off three alarms, and modify four different arrays.) That voice belongs to the security lady. A rude vyssari woman.

"Sure sure, I will modify [Ley Line] so I can teleport again. It's not my fault your defensive array sucks."

The voice sounds again. (If you said something, I didn't hear it because of privacy rules, and you know that. Still, I'm pretty sure it was something rude.)

"I already started modifying my [Ley Line] to counter the changes you just made."

(It was so calm here after all the lunatics were moved to the lower floors and... wait a second... are you messing with the defensive array again, right now, as we speak?)

"Oops."

(Okay, I have had enough! Motherfucker! I’ve held myself back so far because of the branch leader, you being a newbie, and all that crap around you. Do you fucking know how many times I’ve had to deal with your bullshit!? Three of the members you beat up required a healer. Nine times you triggered the defensive arrays. Three times your black mana BULLSHIT something erased parts of the arrays. Five times you left the guild branch without proper procedures. AND DON’T THINK I DON’T KNOW IT WAS YOU WHO BROKE THE TEMPERATURE CONTROL IN MY ROOM. And you did that only because I reprimanded you a little and called you names. YOU PETTY LITTLE SHIT! I swear, when I-)

I use [Eclipse] and disrupt whatever sound transfer array she is using, and the voice cuts off. Then I start stacking defensive arrays around the door, along with additional locks.

Next, I use [Focus] to filter out outside noise and begin going over the results of today’s experimentation. This time, we were observing my sealed Ignition Heart. Even though it proved difficult, there is a thing or two I took from it, and a few more I will need to think about longer.

The past two weeks here have been annoying at times because of lessons, certifications, and all that guild stuff, but Doc has proven himself useful, as time with him helped a lot. I can only wish we had Lily with us. She would have loved it here.

And Biscuit. I miss that corgi. I wonder how he is doing. Not even being able to use Community to talk to my ESC doesn’t help either.

I had hoped I would have learned a bit more about black mana by now, but it’s nearly impossible to observe properly, at least for me and Doc.

We more or less confirmed my previous suspicions. It is extremely densely compressed mana, but also something else. If it were just compression, every other Champion would have it. It dominates all mana in the area, and it grows the more it absorbs.

The more mana I use for its creation, the more it can absorb before it destabilizes. The destabilization, if allowed to continue, always ends in an explosion. Interestingly, if the same amount of mana is used to create a tricolored orb and a black mana orb, the explosion from the tricolored one is bigger. The black mana orb, however, causes a wide-range disruption that lingers for a while. The more mana, the bigger the range and the longer the disruption lasts.

Part of that disruption is similar to the field [Empyrean Lance] creates behind it, so we at first thought there might be a connection. But the difference is that the lance destroys, while the black orb disrupts. It is like a last attempt to dominate, to take control or absorb. Black mana is also really difficult to observe, which makes things harder.

As a side effect, it is difficult to estimate how much mana was used to make it as an outside observer. That means it is hard to grasp how dangerous it is. That could explain why some powerful but less perceptive people I met immediately tried to get rid of it and perceived it as a great danger, even though I likely would not cause much trouble to someone truly powerful.

And oh, how many times we tested using black mana for body strengthening, mind strengthening, and empowering my skills. Up until now, I mostly went by feeling, but that crazy catboy came up with some numbers and more efficient methods.

Black mana isn’t that effective for powering my mind, but it is far more efficient for my body. And even there, it’s better at increasing my durability rather than strength.

As for my skills, [Redistribution] and [Eclipse] work best with it. But even though we have no proof yet, I think once my mastery over it increases, [Focus] and [Manifestation] will become very scary.

I throw the mana stones and a few papers on the table and start taking off my clothes while heading into the shower, these thoughts still running through my mind. I keep thinking about the tests we could continue. Plenty of them already helped improve my constructs, some of them significantly.

As unpleasant as it is, I also know from the tests Doc ran where my body is most damaged. I know what parts to improve and modify further, and I know how to push it more if I choose to. And so I continue speeding up, running downhill, because stumbling and falling means nothing good.

Even if I had not gained anything from being here over the past two weeks, I think it was worth it. All because of that single piece of information I got from the Doc in exchange for three left arms.

I heard about someone who's rumored to have something similar to my black mana, or maybe even the exact same thing. One of the four or so people known to have had it in the past millennia.

The Ruler of Kindness.

***

Later that evening I venture into my mind space where I face mini Sophie. She, as always, is in that same room, and even now I do not ask her. I'm waiting for her to tell me, and she knows it.

And she is clearly annoyed by it.

At first, I had wondered if there would be a big difference between this and the real Sophie. After all, she herself said this is just an amalgamation of some memories she disliked. But the longer I talk to her, the more I think she is wrong. Even though this one remembers almost nothing from before the tutorial, she knows everything since the start of the 1st floor.

So rather than it being just a few memories, I think her mind fractured into many parts, and each part had tutorial Sophie as a base, with some Earth memories mixed in.

Or something. Who knows. Mindblender stuff is weird.

“I think that spine implant he showed you could help you improve your Thermal Cycling construct,” she says.

“How the fu… how the hell.”

“You know you can swear in front of me.”

“You look ten. I won’t swear in front of a child.”

“Don't bullshit me. I’ve heard Vega talking.”

“She learned it all long before she met me. You know, growing up on the street kind of…”

“Sure.”

“Anyway, so how the hell do you think that weird spine implant can help me with cycling?”

“Isn’t that simple? That implant was made from whatever body of a monster he got his hands on. That monster channeled not thermal energy, but fire through the bone.”

“Yes, but they were mostly hollow. And are you asking me to fix my construct by messing with my body more? I mean, I’m not against it, but…”

“No,” she energetically shakes her head and moves closer to me.

A bit of pale blue mana glows on the tip of her finger as she starts drawing into the air.

“Your thermal threads don’t handle flow that well. They’re static and built to hold form. That’s fine for weapons, not for something like your Thermal Cycling.”

I raise an eyebrow. “So?”

She redraws the bone and threads again. This time, instead of focusing on layering or hollowness, she adjusts the shape. The thread starts folding into itself, spiraling along the inside of the hollow. Like veins wrapped around a spine.

“You wove multiple threads,” she says, “but you didn’t let them interact. You bundled them. That’s not a structure, that’s a bundle of rope.”

I grunt. “I’m not stupid. I know where this is going. You want me to let the threads support each other.”

“No.” She looks annoyed again.

I stay quiet and listen.

“Right now,” she continues, “your pathways heat up evenly. All at once. That’s why they heat up so much and likely part of the reason you feel so much pain. But what if one thread runs hotter, faster than the others? What if you let some threads rise while others fall?”

“That’d destabilize everything, and make channeling slower.”

“It’d accelerate everything,” she disagrees. “One thread surges forces the weaker one to collapse, feeds the stronger. Not simultaneous heat, but cascading. You get spikes and surges. Instant, localized small explosions inside of your construct, that would force thermal energy into narrower paths and cause them to move faster.”

I blink, slower this time. "And to do that you want me to make the pathways so they feel more like proper parts of my body and then use my subdermal combustion to heal them at the same time as they combust in cascading explosions?"

She watches me, then finishes, “Something like that. You and I saw the implants of that maniac, right? And you heard him blabber about the ways he makes sure the body doesn't reject the implants he creates. Your natural regeneration and passive heal those constructs, but it’s not that quick."

"Yes, yes, my constructs aren’t like system-given traits, so they don’t work as well with body upgrades, natural healing, passives, and stuff, and often mess things up," I say, giving it a moment of thought.

Then I continue, "So instead of just thinking in lines, or as you so nicely put it, bundles or ropes, I’ll think of it as layers. Of course, it’s going to be a shitload of work again, just to modify what I already made. There’ll need to be segmentation, multiple layers, sacrificial threads, the main one... and fuck, creating nodes at the places where multiple paths meet will be a pain in the ass. But like you said, I can use my bones and send some paths through them as well."

"That should make it easier to force your body to accept them as a proper part of you."

"Or mess it up so badly that I won’t be able to heal my bones with my passive."

"Or that," Mini Sophie nods.

"I can do that."

"It’s always scary when you say it."

"Mini Sophie-"

"Please don’t call me that."

"Do you realize how much thermal energy I’ll be able to channel if this all works?"

"A shitload?"

"Language. You’re too young to swear."

"Fuck you."

"A lot of thermal energy. And maybe, in just a few months, I’ll be able to keep the second seal on Ignition Heart lifted for more than just a few seconds. Anyway, you know what’s so nice about all this, Mini Sophie?"

"What?"

"As I apply these changes, I can start working on a prototype construct that would allow me to turn all that thermal energy into mana."

"Not another construct. You just barely patched the ones you already have."

"Mini Sophie-"

"Don't. Call. Me. That."

"More mana."

She glares. "You're going to set yourself on fire or die from mana radiation one day. You're actually proud of that, aren't you?"

"It was your idea. You should make a spreadsheet."

"You can’t blame it all on me. And no, I won’t be making damn spreadsheets."

"Something color-coded by likelihood of organ failure, heart explosion, and those kinds of stuff."

"Fantastic. Can’t wait to watch you combust."

“Thanks for the support.”

"You're welcome, you absolute maniac. I fucking swear, the longer I talk with you, the more I'm inclined to the idea of returning to my body."

She then tries to kick me out of my mind space, but she can't. Instead, she just stands there, awkwardly staring at me.

To make it easier for her, I leave.

It's all statistics in the end. Sooner or later, someone who enters my mind space will actually be kind to me.

***

Next Chapter

***

Author Note: Soo, it seems like I finally know the time for my vacation. Everything just got set now, so I couldn’t let you know any sooner. But like I said before, if anyone gets screwed by the timing, just send me a message and I can refund you, no problem!

I’ll be taking a break from July 20th until August 2nd, so two weeks.

That means you’ll get 10 more chappies (including this one) before I take that break. After chappy 665, I’ll be gone for two weeks.
I swear I didn’t plan it to land right before chapter 666.