35 Learning how to Create a Mana Heart
Waking up to the warmth of a fire licking his face, Roy slowly opened his eyes. All the kobolds were peacefully sleeping around him, save for Terren.
"Good morning, Terren." Roy whispered to her as he moved Inbellis out of his belly button.
"Morning, Roy. How are you feeling?" Terren asked back with a slightly worried tone.
"A little sore, but fine aside from that." Roy stood up and stretched out.
"I'll get to work on dismantling all the boars in a bit. Right now, I want to start with the rabbit." Roy looked down at his hands and activated [Keratin Control] in order to absorb the hatchet hand and tri-knives.
"Well ain't that convenient!" Terren said, watching the process in amazement.
"Yeah, so much easier than cutting the pieces off. I'm quite excited to see what the next trait skill will be..." Roy, with his now freed fingers, got to work. He created a couple tools, namely a butcher knife, boning knife, cutting board, and a couple thin containers for the meat.
"It's much faster to make simple stuff like this now that I don't need to worry about growing the keratin the wrong way." Roy smiled as he got a few new ideas he wanted to implement soon.
As he waited for his mana to regenerate, Roy took a look at his system log. He wanted to see exactly what he got after that intense fight.
[Combo Skill Generated]
[Recieved Drill Shot]
Notes:
Combo skill derived from [Pierce] and [Keratin Control]
Spiral designed keratin shot out with [Pierce] applied.
[Giant Forest Hog killed]
[155 EXP Received]
[Enough Experience has been accrued]
[Level up 1->3]
'Nice, thirty nine EXP until Inbellis evolves! Also what is a combo skill exactly? It doesn't have a level...' Roy excitedly waited for the explanation as he watched the system interface pop up.
{Info}
[Combo Skills]
Skills combined from 2 or more different skills.
Allows the skill combination to activate automatically, reducing the time needed to deploy.
Slightly higher mana cost.
'Convenient, but the increased mana cost is annoying. I need to form my Mana Heart soon. System how do I do that.'
{Info}
[Mana Heart]
A Mana Heart is formed by condensing the mana in your body into a solid entity then hollowing it.
Typically a creature's instincts will guide them on how to make one autonomously, though as this is not active guidance of the mana, it is a much slower process than manually cultivating your Mana Heart.
Step 1:
Guide all the mana within yourself into your chest.
Step 2:
Force the mana to combine into a ball.
Step 3:
Rotate the newly forming Mana Core until it becomes one solid entity and begins rotating on its own. Continue adding mana until it has a total of 50MP.
Step 4:
Carefully hollow out the fully formed Mana Core, once it is fully hollowed it will be tied by a number of Universal Laws. (Laws involved relate to your affinities)
Step 5:
Newly created Mana Heart should slowly be filled with mana and condensed.
'Wow that seems complicated. I haven't even attempted to move my mana without skills yet...' Contemplating on what he should do, Roy pushed it to the side for now. He would handle the forming of his Mana Heart after all his other business was in order.
Picking up the bone knife, Roy looked over to the horn rabbit carcass. Using his [Apprentice Dissection] skill to the max, he carefully cut it apart. He even removed the stomach to use as a water skin later. He also collected the keratin using his skill and formed them into balls. Each ball was made of a collection of keratin from the specific part.
For example, all the fur was collected into one ball as a solid entity; as was all the nails in their own solid ball. Roy had a few plans he could use the extra keratin for, so he set them off to the side. It was cheaper mana wise to use existing keratin after all.
The only issue was that the rabbit keratin was less dense than the keratin he could create, so he couldn't use it for armor.
The meat was cut using the butcher knife and thrown into the containers Roy had made earlier, while the bones were thrown off to the side. He didn't have much use for bones at the minute, aside from using them in cooking so he decided to put them all in one pile and decide later.
'Would be nice if I could get [Collagen Control] as a skill later...'
"Buhihi" Roy laughed to himself, imagining controlling a skeleton army as he finished up carving the rabbit completely. At this time all the others had awoken and the meat he had just cut was being prepared on the fire.
"God, am I starving!" One of the kobolds enthusiastically yelled out as she held her stomach.
"Saaaaaame." Another said as she dragged out her word for emphasis.
"It will be ready soon relax everyone!" Asandra said calmly, smiling as she watched the meat.
...
During breakfast, Solus kept looking over to Roy before looking away quickly. Taking note of this, Roy decided to ask her if something was on her mind.
"Is something wrong Solus? You can talk to me about anything," Roy tried comforting her, she soon after looked him in the eyes and spoke as clearly as she could.
"I a-mm gl-ad y-ou are o-kay, ss-o-rry." She spoke slowly and had a sad look in her eyes. Roy, seeing this, decided to assure her.
"Solus, it's okay. I did what I did because I didn't want to see you get hurt. I'm the one that should apologize. Had I not evolved so soon, I could have been there to help everyone during the attack." Roy had a distant look, remembering the short conversation he had with his mother. 'I'm just glad no one died...'
"N-ot y-our fuh-f-ault." Solus tried to comfort Roy, seeing the look in his eyes.
Roy looked to her and pat her head with a light smile. "Thanks, Solus."
The two siblings continued to chat as they ate breakfast, enjoying each other's company.
...
After breakfast ended, Roy got back to work. Using the keratin from the boars and rabbit, Roy created multiple containers to house all of the meat he was harvesting from the boars. As he processed them, his [Apprentice Dissection] continued to grow in level. By the end of the day, Roy had completed all but the final, giant boar.
