6 06 - Mana Stone
'The difference is even bigger than I imagined.' That's what came to mind when I saw the weight the Supernaturals were lifting.
There was a woman lifting 50 kilos in each hand, a man doing upside-down sit-ups while holding a 30 kilo weight…
If these people's training was seen by normal people, they would go crazy.
Elena apparently saw my surprise and led me to a more secluded space.
When we passed by the other Supernaturals she was very close to me to try to disguise the smell, but when we walked away she was able to reach a little further away and breathe naturally.
"You must have seen the difference in loads that a Supernatural can lift, that's what I told you about Mana improving the maximum quality of our muscle, not only allowing our body to take longer, but also reaching that goal faster." She explained. "Even if you keep a balanced training, Mana will also not let your body build up too much muscle, so you don't turn into a giant muscle monster."
"Haha ha." I thought of the image of a giant green monster screaming as it destroyed everything.
"I have a workout scheduled that we can take turns doing together, let's try." Elena said as she went to a training device and started to set up.
Even though she was still talking in a calm manner, I could tell she was getting quite excited about it, since from what she said, this is one of the few times she comes to this place.
With everything ready we started training, Elena was using a much bigger load than mine, as she had been training for a few years. But that didn't discourage me, in fact, it gave me even more motivation, since seeing someone with results in front of them motivates you even more to follow that path, since you know that you will also be able to achieve it.
I thought we would only train for 1 hour, which is how long someone normally trains in a gym, but as we weren't tired, we continued for another 1 hour because my body couldn't take it anymore.
Elena was just panting a little while I was sitting on the floor drinking a lot of water.
What Elena said about Mana influencing muscle growth really baffled me. While at the beginning I was only able to lift 20 Kilos in total, by the end of the training this amount had already risen to 30!
Looking in the mirror I could see that my muscles actually developed quite a bit in just 2 hours of training, which shocked me even more as it usually takes at least 2 months to see any results when you don't have Mana.
"Satisfactory, right?" Elena asked as she got to my side and also looked in the mirror.
I nodded. "When you train like that and get results like that it really becomes very satisfying."
"Yes, many Supernaturals end up becoming bodybuilders. Not so much for the fame or the money, but just because they become addicted to the pleasure of seeing their bodies getting more and more perfect with so little effort." She said as she looked at a group of Supernaturals who had been training for several hours.
I followed the gaze and I also understood. Those people had been training since we arrived, and they didn't even stop to talk to each other, the only thing they did was lift weights non-stop, as if they had become robots.
"Was that today's training?" I asked.
"That was physical training, now I'm going to show you how Supernaturals train Mana." She said as she took a small blue stone from her backpack.
Seeing that strange stone I activated my S-Eyes subconsciously and saw that that little stone was full of Mana lines!
"That's a Mana Stone, come with me." She said as she started to walk. "This mana stone is something that Supernaturals get in a few different ways, whether it's killing certain types of monsters, or finding some mines of this stone in some special places. As much as the appearance can be quite different from mana stones from different places. , the functionality is the same, for us to absorb the Mana that is inside the stone, or even use the stone as fuel for different formations."
Hearing about formations I was reminded of the formation I learned yesterday, so with this Mana stone I could keep the formation on for awhile without spending my own Mana, that was quite useful.
But the main thing that got me excited was knowing that you could increase your maximum Mana when using this stone.
As we were talking about this, we came to a hallway full of different doors. Each door had a number, as if it were the hallway of a hotel full of rooms.
Elena grabbed a key hanging on the wall and took me to one of the rooms that were vacant.
"This is where mages normally absorb Mana Stones. Each low quality Mana Stone like this averages 1 Unit Mana and how much of that you can absorb depends on your talent, which is based on what your Total mana upon awakening." She explained as she sat on the floor with her legs crossed and took the mask off her face. "I can finally breathe."
I sat across from her and watched her very carefully.
Before she started to explain to me, she took a breath of air, mostly getting a little closer to me to get my scent better and relaxed her eyebrows that were a little tight.
"As I awakened 28 Units of Mana initially, I can only absorb approximately 28% of the total Mana of this stone, that is, to get 1 Unit of Mana I would need to absorb a little more than 3 stones. But this room has a special effect that slightly increases the amount of Mana the user can absorb, this normally varies by 10% of its own value, in my case it increases the total amount of Mana I can absorb by 2.8%, rising to 30.8% for every stone." Elena explained as she pointed to some specific places in the room.
I had my S-Eyes activated, while looking at these places it was possible to see that there were some materials that contained Mana. Unfortunately it wasn't any kind of spell or training, or else I could copy it and try to do it at home.
"In addition to the amount of Mana you can absorb in each stone, your talent also defines how long it will take you to integrate Mana into your body and the time to flush out absorbed impurities." She said before pointing to the stone. "A stone like this normally has 20% impurities, because of my sense of smell I can feel which is the purest and I always choose the best ones for my own cultivation. But despite that, I still need at least a week to be able to remove it. the impurities in my body and transform the Mana I absorbed from the stone into mine."
This I could understand, as the stone also had some of the green color I saw in other Supernaturals. They probably can't completely remove the Mana impurities from the stones and it ends up accumulating in their body over the years.
As Elena can see which stones are purer because of the smell, she uses the stones with less Mana, as well as being able to smell her own body to see if the impurities have been removed or not.
"Of course, most Supernaturals can't remove all the impurities from their body, so those impurities build up to the point where they can't develop it anymore, forever limiting the maximum amount of Mana they have." She said before shifting the vision to my eyes, which were currently covered by my glasses. "Most people awaken Mana with some impurities absorbed during their lifetime, this greatly limits the total amount of Mana they will be able to have in the future, but you... after thinking for a long time yesterday the only explanation I had for your scent be so nice is that your Mana is completely pure, without a single trace of impurity."
I raised an eyebrow in surprise as a joke came to my mind and a small smile crept across my face. "Did you think about me for a long time yesterday?"
Elena who was very calm suddenly froze as she looked at me and quickly looked away as she replied in a slightly shaky voice. "I was trying to understand why you smell different, don't take it any other way."
Her answer was good, but even as her mouth was saying it, her body was responding to me with the complete opposite.
"Haha, I'm just kidding, don't worry." I smiled as I thought of something else. "Is that Mana Stone hard to get?"
She took the opportunity and responded quickly. "It's not difficult, it's just quite expensive. Each low grade Mana stone costs $1,000, this is where mages become more profitable for large families than regular Supernaturals, as while a Supernatural with an average talent of 20 Units of Awakened Mana would need $5,000 in Mana Stones to absorb 1 Mana Unit, a mage with an average talent of 50 Mana Units would only need $2,000. This in the long run shows a big difference to the family economy to achieve the same result in force."
Now I get it. Really, with such high investments, mana stones are almost like feeding people gold and while some people need to eat pounds of gold to be satisfied, others only need a few grams.
"Take it, you can absorb this stone. I still have to finish purifying the impurities from the Mana absorbed from the last stone I used." She said as she handed the Mana stone into my hand.
Seeing this little pebble that cost $1,000 in my hand, I felt like I was holding a precious diamond.
Elena gave this rock to me as if it were something so trivial that it came to my mind that her family probably has a lot of money.
Although the stone was worth a lot of money to me, I didn't turn down the stone. Elena was helping me so much with these things that I didn't know I'd already made up my mind to reciprocate in the future. Compared to the knowledge she was giving me since yesterday, just $1,000 is very little in comparison.
With my S-Eyes activated, I was looking at the stone and analyzing the Mana inside.
"To absorb Mana, imagine you are holding a small bag of sand. If you squeeze that bag the sand will get tight and it will change position but it will still remain in the bag. Now try to imagine your Mana doing something similar, first entering in contact with the Mana in the stone, then pushing the Mana into the stone in such a way that it is tight and the Mana in the stone will automatically leak out. Finally, use your Mana to guide the Mana that comes out into you." She said while looking at me curiously.
Elena even got closer, probably trying to see the process I would use to draw the Mana while using my nose to see how much impurity I would absorb.
From her slightly worried expression, I could deduce that she was worried that my scent would change after using this Mana stone.
Seeing that I was looking at her, Elena looked away a little but didn't pull away.
I looked at the stone in my hand and started to guide my Mana into the stone just like the process she explained.
Because I had the S-Eyes, this process was made even easier, as I didn't have to rely on feeling the stone's Mana through my Mana, and I could see it clearly with my eyes.
With visual support it took me just a few minutes to absorb 70% of the Mana into the Mana Stone. I still felt like I could absorb more, probably even absorb all the Mana from the stone, but not to be too flashy, since I don't know what it's like for someone to absorb such a stone for the first time, I decided to stop at 70%.
Elena, who was without a mask, was sniffing nonstop. Her eyes were closed, so the only way she could "see" was with her nose.
The position of her head was oscillating between my hand, which was in my lap, and my neck.
When she finally opened her eyes she showed a surprised expression and a cute little smile appeared on her mouth.
"Your scent remains the same!" she said excitedly.
Yes, this was something I did deliberately. As my S-Eyes could see the Mana in the stone, I was also able to ignore the parts of the stone that had the greenest Mana, just absorbing the pure Mana.
I knew the main reason Elena was so helpful to me was that my scent was quite tempting to her, so it wouldn't hurt to keep my Mana pure to continue being so pleasant to her.
So I would have my guide to the Supernatural world and she would have her air freshener.
Of course, I only see it that way for now, as we've only been talking since yesterday, but after a while our relationship can develop further, and we can truly be friends.
'Or maybe something else?' I thought as I found the excited smile on her face cute.
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