12 Saintess powers 5.3

The world started moving again. She took a deep breath before anything. Her breath was a little erratic, but nothing serious. After calming down, she opened her eyes and with her right hand, she caressed the baby's head.

"As for you little one, I'll do my best. But, I won't promise anything." Being the saint gives her three powers, that only she can use. One is the saintess robe, the other is the power to manipulate any type of mana, as well as all the elements.

As for the third power, it's the most powerful and the most useless. As for why it's useless, you need to understand how mana works. The mana has a total of three stages: Neutral or raw mana; Manipulated or processed mana; Dead or inactive mana.

Raw mana is the basic state of mana, can't be found in nature, but can be formed by the intermediate state of mana, the manipulated state when properly refined. It cannot take any type of physical form, and can only affect one's soul.

The manipulated mana is the mana that comes from the soul of living beings. Humans, elfs, beastman, monsters, demons, angels, and more use the state of processed mana. Can't be found in the wild normally, nevertheless, it's not impossible.

The last state is the inactive mana. The mana that can only appear in nature. Can be manipulated freely, with a certain degree of skill. The most common state of mana has several practical uses.

That being said, why it's the most useless power? The soul of mortal beings is only susceptible to external changes before the Awakening, in other words, the fusion of soul and body. A normal process that occurs between birth and the first breath of life.

When the Awakening process goes wrong, one of the solutions is to inject the baby with processed mana, or inactive mana.

Raw mana is the last option when nothing else works out. However, it has two big risks. One, the user has to be proficient in neutral mana manipulation, just a little mistake would kill both baby and caster.

Two, because the body and the soul of the one that is receiving the mana will go through a mana overload. It is almost deadly, at the very least. Everything is up to the baby's soul power. One of the good points is that at least it's easy to determine someone's soul power. Before the Awakening, a 'shell' forms from the soul impurity. It covers the body for protection. The harder and darker the shell is, the stronger the soul power is.

Let us go back to the present. The saintess had had already made the proper preparations for the ritual. A mana seal with a square shape around the table, twelve white candles, and a porcelain bowl with holy water. She had everything in her magical pouch.

She poked the baby again. "The shell is really hard. To think that the gods would allow someone with a stronger soul than me to appear in this millennium... Sigh."