I Won't Eat It!

Riot got up and took the core. It was round and smooth letting out a slight blue glow similar to the crystal bomb when mana is let into it. It was the size of a Seer's orb ball.

Cain hopped on his shoulder. "It's pretty easy. You just have to make a mana channelling path from your core engine to the mana core in your hand. Then let the core engine do the rest."

Mana channeling path were like tiny veins in the body made of mana created to properly channel magical energy around the body. It aided in reducing the chance of a mana backlash when activating skills.

"Just that?" Riot was surprised he expected something complicated. Visualising the flow of mana he willed mana from his core engine in a small pipe-like spiral form, it extended within his hand and finally connecting with the mana core.

Like a switch being turned on the core engine hummed and it began pulling at what was within the mana core.

"Try to maintain the connection." Cain added.

Riot then noticed that the mana channel was becoming unstable. Cracks could be felt around the mana veins and pure mana burst out into his body. Seeing this he willed more mana towards maintaining the channel.

Slowly the once colorful mana core lost its color until it became like transparent glass.

[+9 max mana]

"My max mana increased! Nice!" Thinking of this he checked his new max mana

[Mana points: 84/85°]

Riot then looked at the glass-like core in his hand.

'It's most likely useless now.' He thought.

"Keep it! It's needed for a skill I'm going to teach you later."

Cain then walked around looking at the pieces of meat on the ground. "In situations where you are in a rush for time, but want to salvage as much potential essence from a kill as much as possible or the creature is too large to consume everything. Parts like the heart and balls usually contain a lot of potential essence if you can't eat the whole creature at least grab those parts."

Riot eyes twitched. "...balls?"

"You know, the orbs under the pe—"

"Yeah, yeah! I know." Riot waved.

But he thought inwardly. 'The heart should be enough, if such a situation occurs I'll just grab the heart. Who in their right minds would eat balls?! Even if I can't taste it I wouldn't eat it anyway!'

He looked at Cain and saw him looking back.

"...What?"

"Select the edible parts and roast them. You need to eat well for tomorrow."

Riot quickly cut the meat and piled them on a large leaf he took from a plant. The wolf skin was very hard. He could barely cut it with a normal blade and had to use his enchanted dagger to make it faster.

After storing away the leather he searched for dried wood for a camp fire. Along the way he picked up some berries he found storing them in his ring for extra nutrients.

Setting up the wood he was about to start making the fire when he had an idea. He remembered the attack the wolf had used on him and the strange feeling he had afterwards.

He then tried to simulate the feeling. Closing his eyes he felt large amounts mana come out of his mana core and then turning into energy. But this energy felt different!

He didn't know how to describe it. If the tremor energy felt like gasoline which easily vaporises at normal temperatures, this was like boiling water huffing out steam vigorously as if looking for a place to release the volatile energy within.

He became became excited. The powerful energy surge within him. And he tried to let it out, he instinctively willed the energy towards his hand.

KRAACK!

A bolt of lightning thick as an arm struck. It looked more powerful than that of the lightening wolf. It hit the pile of sticks causing them to burst and scatter a few hitting Cain in the head who looked expressionless.

[Health: 93.8%]

[Mana points: 0]

[You are suffering from mental instability]

[Energy rank temporarily halved.]

[You have entered a weakened state.]

A series of notification appeared before his vision.

Riot gasp for air as he looked at the deep ditch on the ground. His hand had split open and his body felt cold and he shivered. Seeing the notice he immediately knew that he was suffering from mana deprivation he had used up all his mana in one go and had entered a weakened state.

Riot's vision swayed, he couldn't even attend to his severely wounded hand.

"Extend your senses and make your mana pool swirl." Cain spoke from his shoulder.

Riot's mana pool was a section in his tempest core engine where his soul was kept.

"Hah? How do I make it swirl!"

He asked as he tried to stop his heavily bleeding hand.

"Unlike before when your soul was spread out across your body you had to enter a meditative state in order to quickly recover mana, even then the recovery rate was still pathetically slow. Now that your soul has been compressed within your core engine your ability to sense mana in the atmosphere has improved really well."

Riot held his throbing head. "Enough... of the explanation just tell me what to do before i bleed out!"

"You're empty currently. Your mana pool is dry so you can't use the mana syphon technique. I'm just going to heal you until you recover a bit of mana through normal recovery." Cain then cut his paw making a drop of blood flow. He then touched Riot on the neck. Writing down a few characters. Then Cain chanted again using words that Riot couldn't understand.

"EVO!"

Riot immediately felt his body nerves straighten, all his muscles tightened as his eyes dilated. His hand began to itch seriously. He pushed the partly seperated hand together with his other hand while griting his teeth.

His would heal extremely quickly. With moments his hand became brand new. He felt really exhausted and weak.

Sitting on the ground and breathing heavily Riot asked. "Is this the other method you said I wasn't ready for? What do you call it?"

   "Yes it is. It is the use CC, a language of the god's also know as the source of all languages. I'll teach you when you advance to a higher grade. Right now, you're still too weak, if I thought you now it wouldn't have much effect.

Sign, and look how you nearly blew your hand to pieces. Though, I was surprised you where able to manifest the lightning authority even before i taught you anything about it. Did you received some kind of inspiration when that wolf attacked you or was it just plain luck?"

"It's because I'm amazing." Riot grinned, rubbing his head.

Cain sneered and didn't mind his goofiness. He knew this wasn't his true character. "You should have recovered some mana by now. I guess we can begin. To use this technique the beginning is crucial. Release mana from two opposing side of the pool fast, but in small quantities like gas trying to gush out through a small hole.

Immediately you should feel the mana pool begin to swirl, next you should stop releasing mana, switching your focus outwards to sense the mana in the atmosphere and begin drawing them within you. As soon as the mana in the atmosphere comes in contact with your swirling mana pool it's carried into the pool automatically by the centripetal force of motion the pool undergoes. You just have to maintain the swirl of your mana pool until it fills up, it should stop swirling when it reaches your maximum mana capacity."

   Listening to the instructions he suddenly thought of a lawn sprinkler system which spun as was spewed out.

Riot followed the instructions step by step and was able to make his mana pool swirl. He then drew in the mana around him. But before he could connect them with his mana pull, it stopped swirling, so when the atmospheric mana came into contact with his mana pool a little mana was all that flowed in.

[+1 mana point]

"It seems you failed your first attempt. If you had did it on your first try I would have to increase the complexity of the training plan I had made for you, thinking you where a genius."

Riot hearing this decided to fail some more.

After six tries he 'finally' did it. The mana connected with his swirling mana pool and it automatically pulled more atmospheric mana towards him. It gave him the feeling of a whirlpool within his core engine sucking in mana.

[+1 mana point]

[+1 mana point]

[+1 mana point]

Notices of his mana recovering appeared rapidly in his mind.

"So you could do it after all. It seems like you're bit dull. I'm going to have to reduce your resting time so that you'll have enough time to adjust to your training."

"Well as long as I become powerful you can work me to the bone." Riot didn't mind much.

"Haha! That's my boy!" Cain laughed.

'I didn't think he'd be that happy to train me. His grudge against the gods must be very great indeed.' Riot mused.

After preparing another set of wood he let Cain light the pile of wood on fire with his power. He then cooked lots of meat jerky stored some and ate the rest.

Riot glanced at the dark forest. "You said I had night vision right?"

Cain glanced at him while fiddling with two round objects. "All you have to do is direct magical energy into your eyes."

"Oh? Is that all?" Riot was delighted by how simple it was.

He channelled latent magical energy into his eyes in small amounts. The more energy was channeled into his eyes the clearer he could see in the darkness, until he could even see clearer than when it was day.

But the down side was that whenever that happened his eyes began too glow. Looking at himself in the reflection of his dagger his pupil glowed a blue sheen of light. It looked menacing. From time tot time arcs of electricity flashed within.

"How is it?"

Riot answer in a dazed manner. "It's...really cool. Just that it might attract attention in the dark. Other than that it's nice, really nice."

"Good, now eat these." Cain tossed some objects towards him.

"What are thes— wait don't tell me." Riot eyes widened.

"They are good for you, eat them."

"Can't I just eat the heart?"

"The heart had been shredded by multiple shards of crystals. The balls are the only good parts left."

Riot stored them in his ring. "I'll eat them later."

But inwardly he schemed. 'There's no way I'm going to eat balls! Even if they are monster's, I wouldn't eat them! Never! I throw them away when Cain's not looking.'

A smile grew on his face but he suddenly shivered as he saw Cain staring at him with a wide grin plastered on his face.

A few moments later...

"Noooo! Don't don't! Uugh!" A loud cry reverberated through the forest.

That night the balls where forced down Riot's throat.