Chapter 161: The Depth of Mana

Mid Afternoon - Early Spring : Northern Siratha

-----

*Cough-Cough*

"You're finally up?" I gave Bjørn a slightly forced smile.

*Cough* "H..huh?" He coughed and gripped his chest as he forced himself up. "W..where am I?"

"We are in a rest area between Syashara and Morva Asari." -Don't tell me he forgot everything..-

"Ah.. right, I remember now.." He spoke with a slightly forced confidence. "So, what happened to the rest of the guide team?"

-Well.. I guess remembering that much already is a good sign..- "They're all dead."

His face paled slightly. "What.. happened to them?"

"They tried to kill me so I killed them, they even poisoned you so don't feel bad." I casually pointed towards the ground behind him where there was a bit of spilled black poison.

"That crazy bi-" *Cough* He tightly gripped his chest and winced as he turned back to me. "Why would I pity them.."

Unlike what I expected, he gave a cold response. "Were you not comrades?"

"Of course not.." Looking back towards the vile, he looked at the blood stains with cold eyes.

Getting a bit curious about what his situation was, we continued to talk for quite a while. 

As it turned out, Bjørn wasn't actually a resident of the town, but was instead just a contracted messenger working in Morva Asari.

Wondering what a contracted messenger was, I asked him about it and figured out he was basically just a high-end mailman with extra steps. [1]

While we were talking though, his coughing continued to get worse and he asked if Thyra's body and gear were still around.

"Do you need something she had?" I couldn't help but be curious. -What could he possibly need from her?-

*Cough* "Y..yeah. On her belt loop, next to the poison, there should be an antidote." His face was slightly more pale than earlier. "Although I don't think I'll die thanks to you, the antidote could get us back on the road faster.."

It was a good idea, and something I didn't really consider. "Hm… In that case I'll go check her body."

"Sorry for the inconvenience.." As he relaxed against the side of the room, I went ahead and jumped down.

As I fell towards the ground, I quickly spotted Thyras body and moved over to land next to it. -Thank goodness the monsters have been occupied with the wyvern bodies..-

Although Thyra's body had been eaten a fair amount and she was crushed against the ground, her leather equipment was mostly intact. -Except for her stomach..-

*Wham*

Doing a quick scan over her body as I landed revealed several interesting things.

Around her waist was not only the vial of black poison, but also several other vials, most of which I couldn't identify. -They look like potions… Lets just bring it all up, I'm sure Bjørn can tell me what some of these are..-

Casually pulling the belt off her nearly unrecognizable corpse, I glanced back to see the monsters around the wyvern corpses not far away. They all stopped fighting and sat down when I jumped down. -Animal instinct is a wild thing isn't it..-

Not sticking around much longer, I tightly gripped the belt loop and tapped my thrusters to launch me back into the canopy.

"Here's the antidote." I lightly tossed Bjørn the glass vial with a green powder in it.

He looked a bit panicked as he struggled to catch it, but didn't say anything.

"Now.." I walked in front of him and sat down. "While you're doing that, I'd like you to explain what these other vials are."

He paused before pouring some of the green powder into his mouth and giving me a look like I was crazy.

I instantly knew what he was thinking. "I'm not from Siratha so I've never seen these before."

His look of disbelief didn't fade. "The outside world doesn't have potions?"

Although I had heard about 'famous elixirs' on my journey across the western continent, the only ones I ever saw were fakes. -These on the other hand.. have some potential.- "Just explain what each of them do.."

"R..right.. give me one second please.." He quickly tilted back his head and poured a bit of the green powder onto his tongue. "Ugh.." He gritted his teeth as he forced it down with a few gulps of water from his flask. "Haah.. haah.. no wonder it's called.. the killer's antidote.."

"You done?" I gave him a cold look.

He gave a slightly surprised look before wiping his lips and clearing his throat. "Ahem.. yeah."

"So let's start with this side." I pointed to the side of the belt with the darker colored liquids.

"Those are all poisons. Usually the darker they are, the more deadly."

-Easy enough..- "What about these brighter colored ones?" 

"These are the potions. The more vibrant the color, the stronger they are, but they each have different uses even if they are the same color." He slowly pulled out each of the potions and sorted them in a seemingly random order. "These over here are strengthening potions, and these over here are frost and fire potions."

-I'm sorry, what?- "I can assume what the strengthening potions do, but what are the frost and fire potions?"

"Well, they are used by strong mages to strengthen their magic."

-What? How does that work?- Gently picking up the light blue potion, I gave it a closer look. Off the top of my head, I couldn't think of a single way to strengthen magic with a potion. -How could this even be possible?- 

Although the chemicals that made up the potion were completely unknown to me, the chemicals had large amounts of ice mana accumulated around them like condensation

-It just looks like a really awful attempt at strengthening it..- "Do I drink it?"

"Yes, you might want some water to wash it down though." Bjørn set his flask in front of me.

"Thanks, but I'll be alright." Pulling off the cork, I leaned my head back and drank the potion.

Almost immediately, a wave of cold spread around my body that stopped at the skin.

My breath quickly became foggy, as the air around me started to cool.

"Wow.. how did it work so fast for you?" Bjørn gave me a look of shock.

"What do you mean, is it not supposed to be immediate?"

He lightly shook his head. "No, it usually takes around an hour or two for the full effect to take place."

Taking into account what Bjørn said, it only took a second for me to realize what was happening. -So the potion relies on the body to move the chemicals in the potion to where they need to go in the body..- "It's.. genius.."

Although it was a bit tedious to watch, the chemicals of the potion were transported up into my chest while slowly 'decaying' the ice mana.

-How fascinating..- I watched intently as the decayed ice mana slowly started trying to accumulate around my reserve.

Although my reserve let out far too much aura for the mana to actually accumulate, I was able to get the general idea of how it worked.

-That's actually so cool..-

The loose mana that 'decayed' off the chemicals, would accumulate around the persons reserve and form a shell of sorts.

Then, when the person would then use mana for a spell, it would be pulled through the shell and bring a fairly substantial amount of ice mana with it. In turn, this would strengthen their spell by a linear amount depending on how much of the shell they pulled from their reserve.

-The potion itself is useless to me.. but..- Even though it was less than useless to me, the method the potion used was enlightening.

-Do strengthening potions use the same principle just with strengthening spells?- I quickly scanned through the other potions and saw lots of recognizable and common minerals and vitamins, but similarly to the ice potion, there was a bunch of earth mana clung to it.

"Do I just drink this one as well?" I glanced over at Bjørn to see him give a light nod. -Well.. bottoms up..-

Just like with the ice potion, the nutrients and minerals spread around my body, but this time, the earth mana accumulated around my muscles.

-But.. Now what..- It didn't do anything besides accumulate a bit of earth mana around my muscles. "Is there something I need to do for this potion to take effect?"

"Ah, yes. You need to circulate a bit of mana through your body."

-Really? Will that actually do anything?- Circulating mana was not a new idea for me. The issue with it was just that, after a while, the strengthening effect of it wore off. -I guess it can't hurt to try..-

As I did it, I watched the accumulated earth mana straighten up like magnets and crystallize with one another. [2]

It was a beautiful display that filled my mind with ideas. -Wow.. what a smart way to do that..-

----------------------

[1] - They deliver messages or information but are extremely expensive and only really used to deliver important information.

[2] - The strengthening effect of strengthening potions is quite substantial for weaker beings, but it doesn't last forever. Because of the fragility of weak strengthening, the mana the user circulates will eventually wear down and cause the earth mana to decay off. The effects can last anywhere from half a second to a couple days depending on the user.