Mana Eyes

After the consultation with her mother, the system now knew what the negatives and positives are to containing the effects of the serum.

In order to stop the serum from finalizing its effects, the system had to isolate her emotions alongside it.

The system proceeded to inform Cynthia of what it had learned from its mother. Obviously, it didn't let out the fact that it had such a meeting and covered it up by saying the people who manage systems had finished their interpretation of the data.

"The negative effects are not that bad. They are certainly manageable," she said while thinking about what the system had said.

Migraines and headaches were something humans faced daily and they were negligible due to the plethora of medicines available.

[Is the host ready for complete assimilation?]

"Yes"

Cynthia took some deep breaths and then closed her eyes as she was already laying peacefully on her bed.

After a few seconds, she felt the stirring of mana within her body. It felt like a wave of cooling water flowing through her veins, dropping her body temperature by a couple of degrees faherenehight.

It was like a sea of arctic water had formed within her blood vessels, with the source being her heart. this encompassed her whole body.

When the waves from this sea entered her head, she felt an unfamiliar sensation in her eyes.

She could feel every single cell that built up her eyes, changing at the fundamental level. To most, this change would be unbelievably painful.

To Cynthia, this feeling was rather refreshing due to the nature of her mana. It is well known that holders of the ice elementals mana are more likely to be calm and collected. They rarely show signs of pain or struggle and often appear to be unfeeling.

Cynthia ha learned that this was a side effect of the Ice element when being used. It often gives off a cooling sensation to the user.

It didn't take long for the sea of mana to recede back to her heart as a cool feeling in her eyes had faded. She knew that the change was complete. A change that could never be reversed.

[The assimilation has been completed. The user may open their eyes.]

Cynthia nodded and opened her eyes very carefully. She was as gentle as a budding flower when doing so as she wanted to safely adjust her vision.

At first, what she saw was normal. The bright pink and light purples of her room that was decorated based on the tastes of a 5-year-old girl.

The room looked normal when her eyes were open halfway but as soon as they opened past that, she began to see particles of dust that were in a variety of luminescent colors.

This 'dust' flowed around her room with the circulation of air and it was coagulated in thin streams.

Cynthia found that there was a small amount of this 'dust that exited from her body and joined these streams.

"So this is what mana looks like," Cynthia muttered as she looked around in surprise. She had always been able to feel mana in the past but never had she heard about anyone being bel to view mana with their own eyes.

She found that it was strangely alluring and soothing to look at. The light blue dust was her own man that left her body as she knew that humans release trace amounts of it every time they breathe.

[Light blue is the color of Ice Elemental Mana. Each element has its own color when it comes to the corresponding mana.]

"Does that mean that I can see the elements of my siblings?" she asked. Cynthia did not understand exactly the elements that Oswin, Antoine, and Lilly used.

She only had a vague idea of them as this information wasn't something they shared with each other.

Cynthia wanted to go see what kind of elements they used right now but it was still 6:30 in the morning. the family usually had breakfast at 9 AM.

She still had over 2 hours before her family left their rooms. However, she did have something she could do in the meantime.

Mana Training. It is the process in which people circulate their mana in a way that increases the amount available in their bodies and improves the quality of it as well.

[ Below is the current mana amount and quality of the user.

Mana Amount: 143 CSU

Mana Quality: Grade 1

*CSU stands for Central Supreme Units and is the most common unit of mana measurement in the universe.

*Mana Quality is a measurement of the density of Mana. The lower the grade number, the lower the density. Grade 1 is the base form of mana in its lowest density.]

As expected by a system, it could quantify something that wasn't quantifiable by current human standards on Gaia.

There was no standard for measuring mana amounts on this planet as it was hard to quantify something that could not be seen. Mana was only felt by those who had it and everyone felt mana in a different way.

Cynthia was surprised to learn that there was a universal standard when it came to man but that would make sense. Seeing how the animals within GATES had mana, it is certain that many other planets in this universe had mana.

Mana might have been available to those planets natives for much longer than that on Gaia. It only made sense if they were able to progress enough to be able to create a universal standard for measuring it.

Cynthia was neither conceited nor proud of humans. She knew that there was always someone better.

She sat down on the floor while crossing her legs. (In America we call it the criss-cross applesauce position while in cultivation novels they call it the lotis position.)

You could sit down any way you want when man training and you could even stand up. It's what you find most comfortable. This is how Cynthia sat down in elementary school so she had become used to it and it wasn't too uncomfortable either.

Her brain associated this position as somewhere she is in a learning environment so it was easier for her to focus on it.

Cynthia rested her arms by placing her hand on her knees. She looked straight down as her eyes examined her own body. She saw the light blue lines that seemed from her heart and spread out towards the rest of her body like a spider web.

All of these lines seemed to represent paths similar to that of veins, arteries, and blood vessels.

Cynthia had learned that something like mana veins did exist in their bodies but they could only be sensed when the body was flowing with mana. It was invisible to both the naked eye and scientific devices.

"The principle of increasing one's mana involves grasping man from outside and forcefully adding it into your heart." Cynthia started to recite the process she had completed many times in her past life.

"Feel your mana heart and force the mana inside to exit through one of your veins" Cynthia didn't have a hard time feeling where her heart was as it is an organ that everyone can feel without issues.

The issue she remembered was feeling your mana veins. Not only did they not align with your actual veins, but people cant usually feel the blood flow through their vessels anyway.

Now, if you tell them to feel mana veins, which is somewhat imaginary, it would be difficult, to say the least.

in the past timeline, Cynthia needed 3-hour sessions every day, for 5 weeks before she had a good grasp on a single mana vein.

Now she didn't need to do so as she could see the hundreds of interconnected, light blue lines that ran throughout her body.

It wasn't that hard to visualize and something you can see.

"Let the mana out from your vein in a steady stream. Feel the mana that flows in the air." From Cynthia's forehead, a stream of blue light exited. This string of light was as thin a floss. It was around 6 feet in length.

"Touch the man in the air with yours. This will cause the ambient mana to stick to yours and cause the string to get longer." She did as she said and the two existences made contact.

The mana in the air started to become attracted to the string as if it was a magnet pulling on the small chunks of metal around it. The string started to feel heavier and heavier as time went on.

After about focus on the act of 20 minutes of maintaining the string, Cynthia felt that the string was too heavy. She started to feel a mental pressure that was no different from the pain of being hit on the forehead with a rock.

"When the part of your body heat the string is exiting from feeling pain, retract it." She visualized the string being pulled back like the reel of a fishing rod. It did as she commanded. The string was twice as long as it had started out to be.

"System, how much progress did I make?" Cynthia rubbed her forehead as she asked. She wanted to know how much one session of training increased her reserves. Having more mana meant being able to fight longer with her special abilities.

She needed to know how long it would take her to reach a decent capacity.

[ Mana Amount: 143 CSU > 144.43 CSU

Mana Quality: Grade 1 ]

"One percent?!!! You're telling me that every time I do this is only a one percent increase. No wonder I didn't make progress in the past." Cynthia complained about how horrible the returns are when performing this training.

"Ah, at least I have a head start." Since it is percentage-based, she knows that the more man she has, the faster it will increase. It is an exponential increase in the long term.

Since she started earlier this time, years earlier, she would be able to reach a level much higher than the one in the past. She could only hope that her life isn't dragged into too much drama but that is unlikely.

'I should still be able to do it twice more.' Cynthia remembers that she could perform this training 3 times a day before she is mentally exhausted. This exhaustion is different for everyone based on their mental strength.

One hour and 40 minutes later.

"System, how do I not feel exhausted yet."

[You already know the answer.]