007 The Roots of Mana

The next morning, Nico diligently unwrapped all the manaherbs and manacores he had gathered. He laid them out and waited for the lifeless water to fill up. In the meantime, he checked the task box.

Tasks:

*new* Kill 200 Manabeasts. 1/200. Reward: Roulette Coupon.

*new* Kill 5 Manabeast Terrors. 0/5. Reward: Roulette Coupon.

*new* Create 5 Alchemy Pills. 0/5. Reward: Roulette Coupon.

There were three new tasks. Of the three, manabeast terrors and alchemy pills were above his understanding.

At dawn, the lifeless water filled up like clockwork. Nico squeezed the top round nozzle, and a drop of water dripped out onto the manaherbs. Nico continued until everything was infused with lifeless water. He had attempted to add additional drop of lifeless water before, but it was ineffective.

Junior and Snowy climbed over him, and clawed their way onto his arm as though they wanted a drink. They were attracted to the scent of the lifeless water.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" asked Nico. "Just a bit of warning, you're going to pass out if you drink this!"

They greedily sucked on the nozzle like a pacifier. Nico didn't know what he was expecting, but they both passed out.

"Well, at least it's going to be a quiet day." Nico cradled the two cubs to his chest and strapped them on tightly. They cuddled together and softly yapped in their sleep like they were savoring every last drop of the lifeless water. Nico was sure he didn't look as cute when he had passed out.

Nico slipped out a manacore from his breast pocket and swallowed. He studied the avatar and status box.

Status:

Manaroot: None

Mananode: None

Manaspirit: Midnight Koi 28

Strength: 27

FP: 7/7

Defense: 20

Speed: 25

Magic: 28

MP: 56/56

Resistance: 24

Casting: 18

His strength and speed increased after his fight with the manabears. His manaspirit status had been stuck on 28 for awhile. It was an important stat that seems to improve all the other stats.

Watching his anatomy from the avatar box, he saw the path of the manacore inside his body. Minko happily wiggled its way toward the manacore and nibbled on some of the symbols. There were some leftover symbols that remained in his digestive system. Minko had a preference for certain symbols, and other symbols were simply wasted. Nico wanted to find a way to use them.

Nico rushed back to the farm. Three unlucky manabeasts crossed his path during the way. One, death by thrust to the eye, two, death by thrust to the anus, and three, dead by thrust to the anus.

Nico looked at the managoat carcass, it was a male. He wondered if there was a female goat around. Nico thought for a moment, he wanted to capture one and domesticate it. There might be a way, but he had to place Pesticide slightly closer to the village. It could be his next project.

Nico dragged two 500 kg manabeasts back to the farm. He could have carried all three manabeasts, but he didn't want to pile them on top of the two cubs.

At the foot of Lindan Peak, the wooden gate of his farm came into view between the clearing of the trees. Nico glowed. It felt good to be back home.

The farm had few minor upgrades. The first was a water mill by the river that powered the irrigation system. Everyday, the water, infused with lifeless water, from a wooden storage tank would flow out into the field.

Water was a strange substance. It couldn't be considered manawater, but it had a similar effect to lifeless water, albeit very weak. The diluted water were drinkable, refreshing, and had sanitizing effect. It was also suitable for bathing. Unfortunately, it didn't have healing or other magical properties.

The next upgrade was a compost outpost made mostly from his own body waste and a heated bathhouse. Nico wasn't capable enough to provide modern conveniences like plumbing and electricity.

The last upgrade was a secret cave behind his house that he had been slowly digging out. He kept the Pesticide bracelet hidden inside.

Nico checked on the few manaherbs in the field, they were still growing and healthy even in the midst of winter. Nico had learned that not all manaherb required water and that some manaherb were growing better in the wintertime. The ones that couldn't handle the cold were placed in the secret cave behind the house.

Everything else in the farm was the same as when he had left it a week ago. Other than Rooster, no one knew about the farm.

Nico had mentioned it casually to Rooster and Chamber when they talked about the house. They nodded it off, but didn't ask any further. Although the mayor office was aware of his lease, they never believed that he was going to cultivate the property seriously. If anything, no one wanted to leave the safe zone to satisfy their curiosity.

Nico entered his house and immediately started the fireplace using the talisman. He dropped the two sleeping cubs by the fireplace, walked back outside and dragged the two manabeast carcasses by the kitchen. After a bit of preparation, Nico unsheathed the skinning knife and carefully skinned the managoat and manadeer.

Manabeasts could be sold to traveling merchants or even one of the wealthy nobles for 10 gold pieces. However, that was only if the manacore was still in tack. A simple carcass was only worth 1 gold piece since the only usable parts were the fangs, claws, skins, and innards. The flesh was useless to most people. The hides and skins of manabeasts were valuable commodities for traveling merchants.

When he first sold the hides, the merchants were only willing to pay 40 silvers, citing the cuts and poor condition of the hides. A hide in perfect condition could sell for 70 silver pieces. To keep the hides in good condition, Nico focused on killing the manabeasts through their openings like the mouth, eyes and anuses. Those that were killed by blunt force trauma were considered lucky.

After hanging the hides to dry by the window, he stored the innards and usable parts. Nico looked at the flesh. Nico used to pile it outside of the farm for Ollie, but he had a feeling that he won't be seeing Ollie again in awhile. Nico stored the remaining flesh to feed the cubs later.

He left a chuck of meat out for his Firehouse Steak experiment. He needed manameat steak, managarlic, manabutter, manalemon, and salt.

Manameat, check, and managarlic, check. He had managarlic that he had evolved from regularly feeding lifeless water to the garlic plants. He was missing manabutter. He had to use regular butter as a substitute.

The recipes sounded simple, but the meat was still raw even after being in direct flame for an hour. Nico had to use the flame talisman directly to cook the meat. But even then, the system didn't give him a rating or message.

Nico didn't have all the correct ingredients, but he mainly attributed the failure to the lack of correct flame. The instruction to properly cook goat meat was the Blue Crimson Flame at 150 degrees Celsius.

Nico remembered when he had used the tri-color flames on the manabears, all of their fur turned into ashes, but there were barely any damage to the manabears themselves. Whereas, if he were to use the same tri-color flames on manaspiders, they would be dead after one or two shots.

There may be many different types of flames, as there may be different types of winds, water, earth, light, and other elements. Nico understanding of this world was still very lacking.

After sunset, Nico focused on examining his body with the avatar screen and Minko's vision. He ate one manacore and studied the effects as it entered his body. Minko ate some of the symbols attributed to water and darkness. Although there were similar symbols floating everywhere in the environment, Minko could only absorb the symbols that were in Nico's system. Minko finished feeding, but there were still some remaining unused symbols swirling around his stomach. In two or three days, the symbols naturally seeped out of his body.

He thought it was unfair that Minko could get stronger as it ate the symbols, but he couldn't use it. He could get stronger through Minko, this was shown when he tested his level.

Nico remembered some of Rooster's explanation about spiritual roots and meridians. Could real cultivators store the manacore using the roots and meridians? That could explain why manacores were so prized by cultivators.

Since he had a mortal root and no meridians, was there a way for him to store the symbols? Was spiritual root the only way?

If he had a mortal root, where was it located in his body? The belly button where the meridians seemed to be centralized in? Or was a mortal root a nice way to saying, your life is **** and you have no spiritual root.

Was the spiritual root the same as manaroot on his status box?

The status menu clearly stated that he had no root.

"Argh!!" Nico wanted to pull out his hair thinking about it.

He needed to find more information.

"Ah, wait a minute, there's gale force," Nico head lit up.

From his experience, there were three ways to use mana. First was by using Minko to create symbols, which cost MP. Second was by using Minko to gather symbols, which also cost MP. Third was by using the mana in his body to create a gale force, which cost FP.

He had always wondered about the exact methodology behind gale force. The main requirement was for him to focus.

Nico slowly focused on the symbols and forced them to move into his right hand. The avatar box displayed the movement of the leftover symbols in his body. They were slowly moving to his arm and into his right hand.

Mana symbols were mindless sometimes. They didn't all listen to Nico, and some floated astray. Some symbols collided into each other, lost their characters and turned into glowing strings. The strings reminded him of what Minko had formed when making talismans. Since the strings were still in his body, it didn't cost him any FP.

Nico stopped his concentration and watched the strings of energy circulate freely around his body. He felt something similar to this when he had failed whirlwind spear. However, after a few days, the energy disappeared. The strings had either dissipated or leaked out of his body.

Nico focused on the strings, and it stayed, mostly still.

Nico decided to place all the strings into the center node. Nico felt that the area was the most important, but he didn't know how much of that was influenced by what Rooster had told him regarding meridians.

The strings gathered and floated around the node. However, if he lets go of his concentration, the strings drifted away. To keep it from escaping, Nico tied it into endless knots. In theory, knots are bigger, hence, take longer to seep out. It was a simple logic that might not work on manastrings, but he had no other ideas.

Nico ate more manacores, and continuously made the strings. He tied and wrapped the strings into a giant ball. As it gained more strings, it balled up and moved slower like an overweight hamster. That gave Nico an idea.

The next day, the ball moved up to his chest. He didn't see any shrinkage, which was a good sign. He added more and more strings onto the ball. Keeping the ball centralized and inside of his body required a lot of concentration. It was difficult to maintain daily, but meditation helped. Nico carried on with his usual routine while maintaining the ball in his body.