Infinite Drain

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When Riva opened her eyes she found herself lying on the broken floor tiles of her mindscape. The dungeon seed's tree branches swayed above her head in an illusory, unreal draft. They appeared especially mysterious in this otherwise dark and desolate space.

While inside the mindscape she was disconnected from her body. It was a relief, that whatever was going on outside was no longer affecting her thinking.

No serious consequences my ass!

Riva cursed the system. It had obviously given her false information when it talked about the results of depleting her mana.

In what way was being wholly incapacitated in both body and mind not serious?!

She would be out of breath when she ran out of stamina. Wouldn't be running out of mana be comparable? She had expected some grogginess. Maybe even a bit of dizziness. Instead, she ended up in a state that could best be described as on the verge of fainting. Neither conscious nor unconscious. Wasn't this way too extreme?

Riva genty stoked the rune-laden bark of the dungeon seed's tree once again feeling their connection, the one that enabled her to temporarily escape her predicament. With a clear head, she could focus on thinking about a solution.

Before, she had been using the 'Mind Control' skill when it came to tricky situations that affected her thinking. Not this time. This wasn't something that could be solved with mere self-control.

Thinking back on the cause of her dilemma, Riva inadvertently clicked her tongue in annoyance. This was just so in character for the system. It didn't care to warn her even though she set herself up for suicide.

It dawned on her that when a normal person depleted their mana they would continue to absorb the surrounding mana and in that way constantly refill their reserves. The point where their mana was perfectly empty would be imperceptibly short.

And then there was her. She had foolishly set up an automated routine that resulted in her being perfectly drained at all times, immediately converting any mana she absorbed into energy. It sounded like an efficient setup at the time. The best way to maximize her gains. As a result, she was stuck in the state that a normal person would never experience for longer than the blink of an eye. She couldn't recover without regaining mana. An impossibility of her own making.

Right now she was nothing more than an unmoving, zero-cost, infinite-energy generator.

Get a few more and global warming won't be an issue, an incomprehensible thought popped into her mind. No! she had better things to do!

Another problem dawned on Riva. She had paid the Inn two days in advance for the room in which she was staying. Right now she had spent more than a day doing perfectly nothing at all, making this her second night. She needed to leave in the morning. If she didn't they would be sure to check on her, something she couldn't allow.

They would sooner or later find out about her true nature if they were to discover her 'sick'. She wasn't human. Far from it. And she didn't want to imagine the consequences of being discovered.

Riva was aware that she was being overly fatalistic. She needed to focus on the core issue.

The system had identified her symptoms as mana withdrawal.

That's it! Wasn't withdrawal when something that used to be constantly supplied became absent? Missing her mana caused withdrawal, especially because she had never used it before. Anyone and anything had mana. Some had more and some less but ultimately it was ever-present. Using every bit of it and all at once at that was pretty extreme. Of course, she would feel its absence!

The important realization about this was that even if she was missing all her mana, she would eventually become used to it missing. And there was proof for this fact. When she started having symptoms she had been unable to think at all. But after a day had passed she was able to say a few words. She even managed to enter her mindscape.

Going from there, it could be said that this state wasn't necessarily dangerous. She would eventually recover. In fact this might turn out to be a pretty huge benefit, if used correctly. The issue was that she didn't have the luxury to wait for it to happen.

Looking at the meager progress made in a single day, it would at the very least take an entire week to get back on her feet. And she couldn't wait that long! She had at best a few hours until she needed to clear the room. Otherwise, she would be found out!

Riva considered her options. In the end, it was her automated mana to energy conversion that caused this mess. Only by resetting it would she recover in time.

This wouldn't be easy. The system generally needed extremely precise commands and in her state, she didn't have the ability to say all that much. She needed to plan her words in advance.

This was when Riva had a flash of inspiration, she didn't necessarily need to rely on the inflexible and clunky system. If she played her cards right, the fact that it had been behaving weird might just be her ticket out of this.

A good bit of planning later, Riva gave the tree, that was the dungeon seed, a final determined glance and willed her consciousness to exit from her mind space. She had decided on her plan of action.

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Back in her body, Riva opened her eyes. Her thoughts were back to the near unconscious state. But it didn't matter. She was prepared and immediately strained herself forcing the previously memorized words from her mouth.

"You.. listening... help…" She said, slowly and with utmost effort.

"Need… mana!" She had successfully made it through the five words.

[...]

But despite her efforts, the system didn't respond.

Riva could do nothing but wait.

It reached the point where she decided it was time for plan B.

She wrecked her muddled thoughts for the prepared words and was about to execute the second plan when all of a sudden copious amounts of revitalizing energy flowed into her body.

Immediately, her thoughts cleared up significantly and to her relief, they ultimately returned back to normal. Having regained her usual fidelity, Riva surveyed her situation.

The plan was to reset the automated process for the energy conversion. She needed to hurry. If she didn't, everything up to here would be for naught and it would just drain her mana once again!