Chapter 519 - Cyclist Destroyer

It’s early morning the next day when I wake up after my usual few hours of sleep. Ever since the body upgrades and everything that came with them, going days without sleep hasn’t been a problem. Still, I’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping 2–4 hours most nights whenever I can.

I’ve noticed that when I get some sleep, I’m less irritable, make fewer mistakes, and even find training easier. Surprise—it’s just like how normal people feel when they get enough rest.

Still, when I wake up, I bring a few of my evil pyramids into existence and start doing my usual mana-shaping exercises. Another part of my mind checks my body and Mana Cycling, only to ramp it up again.

I know some Champions like to trash-talk Lissandra’s mark on me and on Mana Cycling as well. They even call her a fossil. An ancient being, just like a grandma still driving a 50-year-old vehicle while other people use electromobiles.

My thoughts pause there, and I give it some consideration. Did I come up with the perfect metaphor?

Mana Cycling is dangerous, and even I’ve noticed that over time. It’s a technique made by someone without enough knowledge and time. I strongly suspect Lissandra created it during the war she told me she was born into. She probably spent her youth on the battlefield, having no time or knowledge to refine it further.

For a moment, I imagine her being as young as Isabella, constantly fighting for her life and hoping no Champion-grade being would just squash her.

The technique feels like a true remnant of those times. Far, far from perfect, and I don’t think it’s because of a lack of skill—no, currently she could easily make it better. Mana Cycling’s drawbacks were left there on purpose, requiring effort multiple times greater than what a similar, more refined technique would demand.

It’s just like the car metaphor: Lissandra’s car would be a 50-year-old, rusty wreck—a cyclist-destroyer held together by wire, duct tape, and a few prayers. It’s the kind of machine that forces you to learn every trick to keep it running.

Meanwhile, modern electric cars often stop you from running over cyclists. They give you warnings, sometimes even park themselves, and come loaded with GPS and all kinds of fancy features.

In this metaphor, my body is the cyclist. Mana Cycling allows me to harm my own body—sometimes even unintentionally. When I’m not careful, it turns by itself to run over a few of the cyclists by the road.

Amused by my own silly metaphor, I lie in bed for 30 minutes longer, waking myself up and getting ready to interact with people. I try to drain as much energy as I can from the bed to endure the day.

The tent isn’t that big, so I share the “room” with Min-Jae, who is already up. He has his eyes closed, and around him metal orbs float on erratic trajectories. After watching them for a while, I can see there are rules to their movement. Just a slight mis-movement would be enough to make these orbs touch each other.

For a moment, I release a burst of my mana to scare and test him.

He opens his eyes quickly and identifies the source. I’m satisfied to notice that even then his orbs continue to move without being affected. Nice.

“You’ll need more to affect my training!” he says.

Not wanting to cool his excitement first thing in the morning, I nod and say, “You really have gained a lot of muscle. You used to be so thin.”

He’s currently sitting on the edge of the bed without his shirt. Even though he’s still slim, his shoulders are wider, and he even has some abs. Looking at him closer, I notice that even the contours of his face are sharper.

“I know, right? I asked Maya for some training routines and, even though she grumbled, she gave me one! Plus I constantly use [Gravity Well] on myself, so that helps. Did you see that anime where the character took weights off his ankles and then moved incredibly quickly? That will be me after I deactivate my skill!”

“Possibly,” I say, turning to the sleeping Biscuit on the bed near me. “What do you think, will it be like that?”

The silly corgi, the best corgi of the six—no, now of the 7th floor! He still pretends to sleep, and I sense his ear twitch as I talk to him. But he doesn’t answer and continues to… pretend.

It’s incredibly silly, as everyone knows he’s awake. I’m sure he even heard us talking about it, yet…

With a groan, I reach out and pull him closer, gently tapping his soft belly.

“I refuse to listen to your belly rumble. Just. Stop. Pretending. To. Sleep. Go and eat something,” I say, tapping him after each word.

Finally, he opens his eyes and nips at my fingers while I pull back. He sits on my bed and barks softly at me.

“Sure, sure. Not that long ago, you pretended very well, I noticed it only a little while ago,” I tease him.

I notice his tail start wagging, so I reach out to pet him, making him push his head against the palm of my hand. “So sneaky, you got me there.”

He barks again and then pushes my hand away, lifting himself into the air, likely to try and surprise others.

“Did you try to lift something really heavy?” I ask Min-Jae.

He nods and, after a bit of thought, increases the speed of the orbs floating around him. “For a while, I trained by lifting really heavy stones and keeping them floating as long as possible. That was months ago. If I had to do it again, my max would be something like a small apartment building. Tess is better with raw power, so it’s not that impressive compared to her.”

“Wanna bet it’s already better than what most of the Hard difficulty participants could do?”

“Do you really think so? In three more years, someone from Hard can become quite strong.”

“Not like us. We’ll be apex predators when we return to Earth.”

Min-Jae giggles, and as I stand up he nods seriously, “It has a nice ring to it. One of the few hundred most powerful people on Earth. Angry Kitten Island might not be a dream.”

“I hope you mean a floating one; otherwise, I’ll be disappointed with such small thinking.”

“Sure! We’ll put one in orbit and then work on your Moon base.”

I nod in confirmation. "Gravity Emperor Kim Min-Jae, with his dozens of floating islands," I tease.

His smile widens even further, and I can see how much the thought delights him.

With a dismissive wave, I settle down and focus, preparing to enter my mind space before heading to workshop number three.

***

As on previous days, the twins, and Sophie head towards the shoulder guard. There’s a damaged section where the inscriptions have been removed. Other technicians restored the metal, and our job is to connect that section to the rest of the shoulder guard.

We have blueprints, and this part isn’t even that difficult. The problem is that inscriptions of this size behave differently.

Sophie came up with a temporary structure we keep working on through the link the twins made. All of us have access to it, but it’s up to her to maintain it with all the changes while we modify it and prepare for inscribing.

“There has to be a simpler way to do it,” Aaron notes. “It’s fine for this part, but what would you do with bigger structures and more difficult ones?”

“Maybe there isn’t,” Sophie says, shaking her head and gesturing toward the structure we all see. “What we’re doing is akin to creating a template for a tattoo, and the tattoo in this case is the inscriptions. You can store some parts of that template to reuse them, but you still need skill to ‘tattoo’ it to make it permanent, and before that, you must modify it for a certain person.”

“Damn, Nat’s ‘explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old’ really rubbed off on you,” Dennis remarks, provoking her as he likes to do.

“How did these two trolls survive six months with you?” Sophie looks at me and sighs before turning to Dennis. “What we’re dealing with is essentially a mana inscription framework. The framework acts as a schematic—a preliminary construct outlining the mana pathways and nodes. Portions of this schematic can be stored for later integration, but permanently inscribing it requires precise mana-weaving techniques to anchor it into the target’s unique mana lattice. Moreover, the framework must be meticulously recalibrated to harmonize with the individual’s mana resonance before it can be stabilized.”

Dennis smiles even more. “Perfect. So anyway, wanna try a practice run? Me and Aaron are ready.”

“Are we sure? Leth said to wait for him,” Sophie says.

This is where I join in, “It will be fine. Let's do it for real. There is no need to waste that much time.”

While the twins look like all life has left them, Sophie looks confused until Aaron explains, “Something always explodes when he says that.”

Putting away the blueprints, I jump onto the section of the armguard we should work on and tap on it. The hardness and coldness of the metal feel nice under my knuckles.

Then I reach towards the structure and “pull” it closer, placing it over the surface. I find connecting points to the rest of the structure and check the blueprints again. I also make preparations in the back of my mind and let mana collect inside my body.

Sophie scratches out some of my changes and makes her own. I do the same, replacing them. She does it again, and this time I only modify them. She changes them again, and I modify them again.

Each version gets better and better. I test it by sending a few pulses through the structure, nearly breaking it, but the mana flows nicely.

Then, using the twins’ [Connection], we start inscribing that structure, the [Connection] serving to make it work with the rest. There are multiple ways we could do this, but we’ve decided on this method this time.

After a few days of working in the workshop and plenty of preparation, the actual inscribing goes smoothly. As expected, it requires a lot of mana to inscribe it into the section.

There are also locks that prevent the inscriptions from fully connecting to the rest - something only a level 8 technician can handle. Protections are in place to stop tampering, and even the section we’re working on had to be unlocked and stripped of these safeguards. It’s fascinating. The more we work on it, the more I learn about how it all fits together.

And we succeed, quite easily too, and earlier than Leth expected, judging by his face when he checks the result.

Always in a good mood, he smiles and says, “Great job! There are a few tiny missteps, but that’s fine for a replacement part. You guys did well. Still, I’ll have to come up with some punishments for not waiting for me.”

He hands us a few blueprints. “Tomorrow, you’ll be working on a section of the inner plating for the war armor of one of the Lord Champion’s disciples.”

***

When Min-Jae is off training somewhere else, I head back to our room, close the door, and sit on my bed. For the last time, I take a look at the trait that’s been with me for so long. Level 10? Or something like that? Time really does fly.

Mana Circuit – Integrates a network of mana channels throughout the user's body, optimizing the distribution of mana and amplifying the power of their mana-based abilities without additional mana consumption. This enhancement allows the user to draw upon their mana more efficiently, resulting in more potent abilities while reducing overall mana expenditure.

Its age shows, though. Even strengthened, it’s nowhere near as high-tier an option as Mana Wavelength Iris.

So yeah, the decision is simple. I’ve also been considering combining active skills, as some are starting to lag behind—like [Mana Domain], which I currently use to keep control of my mana. Still very useful, but not as powerful as [Eclipse] and a few others. The same goes for [Bone Knitting], but that one is relatively new, and I always planned to use it as a foundation to create something better in the future.

Evolving skills? I can handle that myself if I really really want to. But combining passive skills to create a unique passive? That’s very enticing.

The main reason I’m going for the trait, though, is simple: so far, I haven’t seen any option for trait evolution. Not in Floor rewards, not in side quests—not even once. I strongly suspect it’s only possible through the Primary Class. It makes sense, too.

Plus, the trait will likely stay with me for as long as I live, while the passives could be replaced with stronger ones within a year or two, even while I’m still in the tutorial.

After claiming my reward, a notification pops up:

Your trait Mana Circuit has been evolved!

The evolution has been influenced by your performance up until now and by your Primary Class: Mana Weaver (Unique Arcane).

The number of trait strengthenings has been reduced to 0.

Mana Physique - The user's trait evolves into a tightly woven network that resonates perfectly with their mana wavelength, transforming their entire physique into a finely tuned vessel for their mana. Mana circuits seamlessly integrate into every fiber, amplifying the potency of mana manipulation and enabling precise control and immense output.

Let’s see how much this is going to hur... I black out before I can finish the thought.

***

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