The yellow sea of Mana

AN: 1 Bonus Chapter [Power Rank before last reset <30]

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Wednesday, 5 November 1986

01:00 am

Experimental Log - #23

Date: 30 Oct 1986 to 5 Nov 1986

…

After scribbling down Darcie's life from two different points of view, Kai put the Journal back into his MRB and took a deep breath.

He went to the basin, washed away the sweat, dried his face, and sat down back on the floor. Not much had changed about his routine in these last few months. That's one thing that was common about Darcie and Kai.

Discipline.

Kai crossed his legs, straightened his back, and took a meditative posture. His breathing softened. One long breath through the nose was followed by a longer exhale through the mouth. Three more times and Kai found himself in the optimum state to dive within himself. Beginner as he was in the ways of magic, for the magic within oneself, he wasn't even on the level of being called a rookie.

But he was learning. And there was a reason that the entire world in his previous life had proclaimed him a monster when he had just started reading and learning. A monster with the combined mental prowess of his parents.

Kai learned fast and remembered faster.

All he needed was time. Time was the only thing he had been having trouble with in this timeline, despite being probably the only one in the history of Chaos' Valley who had the access to unobtainable knowledge and resources.

Kai focused on the magic within him, an endless sea of yellow mist. Though he could see it stretching endlessly, Kai knew acutely that this yellow mist represented his tiny MP. An entire 200 points of Mana were coursing through his body as uncontrollable vortexes. Yes, he could access it. Yes, he could use it to give his imagination a substance. But Item-M and the High Priest of Byagoona both had told him that no Contestant had ever controlled its flow within themselves, for humans lacked anatomy to support such a flow. And if there was an alien species who could, they lacked the knowledge about them.

Nevertheless, Kai's aspiration, though boundless, was perfectly in his control.

For now, he was satisfied at the sight of this foggy ocean, his playground.

Suddenly, pillars of fog shot up, curled around each other like thinner threads making rope, and when the churning stopped, a room appeared, floating over the mass of the yellow sea.

Inside this room, which was completely white with white walls and a closed window, another Kai materialized, sitting in the same posture.

His eyes snapped open, then.

Kai made himself have a particular thought. This thought, in turn, generated memories, a collection of many pathways, spanning the last four days. Kai willed, poured imagination into his memories using magic, and two books appeared in front of him, hovering mid-air.

These books were — Ancient Runes Made Easy and Rune Dictionary.

By restricting Darcie's study plan to only these two books, 3 days had been more than enough for Kai to remember the contents of these books by heart. Alas! If remembering could help him with his goals, then there was no need to go about such a roundabout way to handle such things.

As the two books hovered in front of him, his another thought fired the second set of pathways, triggering one more memory. Now, a single page materialized between the two books.

This page was one of the tales Kai had copied from the Tales of Beedle the Bard after his reincarnation in Harry Potter World.

Kai stood up, brought his palms together, and the two books and the page pressed against each other, following his gesture.

Then Kai threw his hands outwards.

With an unheard explosion, the books and the page burst apart. Surprisingly, what had exploded out of them weren't pieces of torn pages, but runic letters.

Around twenty-one thousand runes and symbols from the book, Ancient Runes Made Easy, even more from the book, Rune Dictionary, and the incomprehensible letters from the unknown tale filled the entire space of the room like drops of black rain.

Now Kai concentrated more, his hazel eyes narrowing into slits.

All the black raindrops flashed, going in and out of existence, hammering at each other, and getting repelled. Some runes from Ancient Runes Made Easy melted into the runes from Rune Dictionary like they were drops of water. Some shattered on the impact, their corners breaking away, gaining new strokes until they too fused at last. But all the runic letters and symbols that collided the runes from the tale got repelled as if they were two ends of different magnets with same polarity.

This fusing, shattering, and restructuring of runic letters, and the repulsion wasn't without a basis.

Every single thought, thing, and action in this room signified the ongoing calculations in Kai's mind, his analysis, and his logical reasoning.

It was almost like adding 2 and 2 in mind and getting the result 4. One didn't need to think to get the answer in this case. But when one had to solve an entire mathematical problem on an unprecedented scale in one's mind, the mental capabilities required in those cases were inhumane, to say the least.

His mind and imagination fueled such method, saving Kai uncountable days of calculation, and bringing out results not even the brilliant minds could hope to get.

More, he needed more.

Outside, in the bathroom, Kai's body shook, his closed eyelids pressing into themselves even further. Veins popped up on his forehead, and the sound of his teeth grinding met the silence in open defiance.

Inside the white room made of Kai's imagination, and shaped by his Mana, the fusion, shattering, and restructuring of runes sped up exponentially. It continued for long until the white walls cracked, and dense yellow mist came seeping out of those cracks. The entire white room trembled as if its foundation had met an earthquake, but the hazel in Kai's eyes had deepened.

The Blood Demon had stumbled upon something.

In one corner of the room, one restructured rune was getting closer and closer to one of the many hideous lettering which had been used to write the tales.

Chips over this restructured rune kept breaking apart with every next repulsion, and when new strokes got added to it, it became closer to the rune from the tale.

Just when it seemed they wouldn't come any closer, the restructured rune and the original runic character from the tale kissed.

The first contact!

With a bang, Kai's eyes shot open outside. They were bloodshot.

Blood was dripping down his nose, ears, and mouth, painting quite an insane picture.

In this scene of unhinged madness, the corners of Kai's lips lifted, his smile demonic.

"Hahaha." Kai's low laugh made it sound like the snarls of an imprisoned monster. "Soon," he told himself, licking the blood off his lips. "Very soon."