Mana Reasoning II — Ambrosya

Lying down in a dorm room for examinees, I stared at my test paper and fiddled with its controls. I turned a knob here, rotated a planet there, forced a solar system to spin, and rings to revolve, I did everything according to my memories.

But I still came up with error, after error, after error.

I couldn't arrive at the final answer I had outlined through the solutions I vaguely described. Although I was a writer who was very keen on details with my hundreds of auxiliary chapters for world-building, there were some things that truly weren't possible to accurately describe with words.

Especially since I brought intuition into the playing field. If I had been in the body of a wizard character with an intuitive sense that I had crafted myself, I could most certainly pinpoint the answer to this test paper at a moment's notice.

But this was Caelum. A fourth-rate villain who died in chapter 1.

I barely had any data on him. I did not know how his body's senses reacted to certain frequencies and movements of mana.

"The answer lies in Deuzetai's titles," I mumbled to myself as I blankly stared at another failure.

"[ Illustrator ], a title given to Deuzetai for the manner in which mana blossoms from his being. He was an artist of magic. All his creations were beautiful and full of grace." I restarted my solution by pulling out all my mana and pouring it back in.

"And an artist draws from emotions, experiences, and imagination."

I smacked my lips. I was getting close to the answer I wanted despite it being only a few hours since we received the test. All I needed to remember were the feelings that Deuzetai poured into his work.

His burning sorrows and his unending suffering.

See, there were two types of characters in [ Evergreen Passage ]. Those who had experienced tragedy, and those who have yet to.

[ Illustrator ] Deuzetai Illius Astario was a man of the former.

Click—!

A mana lock snapped into place as I recalled the words that I wrote to describe that one fateful night. With every paragraph, every sentence, every phrase I remembered, a little bit of my solution fell into its rightful place.

[]=[]=[]

Deuzetai stood before four corpses. Blood flowed like a river all around him as he breathed ragged breaths. The silence of his clan's compound was defeaning.

"Father... Mother... Opheliu... Jun..."

Deuzetai fell to his knees. The hem of his apprentice robe was thus soaked in crimson. His plain, wooden staff fell to the ground beside him, crashing into the wooden floorboards.

His eyes were empty. No tears fell from his eyes, and only a deep, deep coldness began to sprout from the wells of his soul. His gaze simply lingered on the four corpses.

"If only my magic was greater..." He inadvertently muttered. "If only I was wiser than what I am now... If only I was a genius beyond imagination..."

He could have cured them all. His entire clan.

He could have eradicated the disease that had infected each and every one of them.

Soul Leeches. A lethal pathogen that used the soul to propagate and spread. A menace throughout the southern parts of the Great Plains for several years.

It was a plague that consumed the soul bit by bit until one inevitably lost their life. It could bring about excruciating and unimaginable pain to those inflicted. So much so that suicide and death became one's only solace.

The Astario clan was a victim of such a disease, which had instantly spelt their doom.

There was no cure. No countermeasure known to man.

It was the verdict of the guillotine. Death incarnate.

And yet, Deuzetai was the only one capable of bearing the pain among the hundreds of thousands who had ever been infected. He was the only one with the mental power and sheer force of will that did not waver even under the tearing of his soul.

So, with his own hands, he granted the requests of his clan members and family.

Relief.

He killed them all after being unable to bear their bloodcurdling screams and unending cries. The cold reasoning of logic had told him that that was the right thing to do.

If not, then they would have suffered much too much.

It was better like this.

That was what Deuzetai wanted to believe. But he so dearly wished that he didn't have to do it.

"Why must the world be so cruel?" He closed his eyes, wishing to cry—to at least show that he himself was still capable of emotion.

...Deuzetai could not let out a single tear.

[]=[]=[]

Whoooooom—!

The test paper was humming with power now. I fine-tuned my control of the interface and a moving picture then blossomed all around me.

I was in the midst of an empty street. The lights of each house were on, but all was silent.

Only twelve moons shone overhead. It was the night of the thirteenth moon's disappearance. A time of misfortune.

But the stars tonight were beautiful. With the light of one of the moons gone, it was much easier to see the stars that sparkled in the black night sky.

A breeze that smelled of metal and iron rolled over, making my nose twitch. It was warm and wet. A feeling that made me uncomfortable in my long cloak.

"A reconstruction of Deuzetai's memories. A magical painting crafted through mana programming..."

I could feel Deuzetai's sorrows just looking at this silent world. I could feel the unending pain he currently experienced while dormant Soul Leeches lingered within his spirit. His passion and will to survive no matter what was engraved into the essence of this picture.

"I have secured my bonus points," I grinned to myself as I relished in the atmosphere of pain and suffering.

There was nothing as beautiful and poetic as a broken and empty heart.

I then collapsed on my bed. A migraine plagued my brain. My eyes felt like they had been gouged out while my empty eye sockets were then set aflame.

Mana Vision indeed provided me with vital information, but with such an intricate interface of mana programs, it was torture to have. Even at its lowest output levels.

I was very much glad to be able to close my eyes.

Sleep swiftly came for me.