Mana High

None of the other clan leadership really said anything but they all looked toward the silent head priest skeleton who was clasping his forearms within his sleeves and carrying himself in a detached but dignified manner.

After a second of silence, what looked like a middle-aged orcish character in loosely plated armor asks, "What does this mean besides we're dying first?"

"It means we're going to give you guys a bunch of equipment to use and basically play tower-defense," Mr. Thirteen replies. "Throwing spears and arrows. They'll be coming after us by the thousands but with sustained fire you guys should be able to eat up all of the experience until their big guys come into play. Just be mindful of the giant bone monsters, it's better to wear down their front lines with arrows before switching to spears because they'll eat up all of your spears."

Thinking of how useful those particular chaos entities could be if I was able to take control of them, I could only inwardly sigh in regret as I realize that they would end up becoming cannon fodder.

I could tell from the looks on some of their faces that they were weighing their options. It was obvious that they were being used as pawns after the experiences they had in fighting the demons as well as the skeletons. However, they were also aware of how powerful our equipment was.

Having saved the best part for last, Little Thirteen gives them just enough time to estimate the values on their abilities and experience gain or simply question the situations before adding more content for them to think about. "If your people manage to survive the initial clashes, seventy-five percent of the loot will be yours. If you all fall during the confrontation you will be assured half of the material loot as insurance from us pl- Travelers."

Not only did he pitch the fifty-percent share as a cushion, but he even raised their hopes and expectations by giving them a greater profit offer.

A single outpost alone was enough to produce enough demonic materials to make a few hundred suits of armor and weapons for as many suits. We simply waited until our raid gear was no longer up to par and we had access to the greater level materials like the ram-head Taurians and even chimers in the other clan's armors. The insect chitin from some chimeras could be treated and folded into armor plates as strong as the bone fiend ivory.

This was going to be a final battle where all the enemy gathers in one place, meaning there would be enough different demons to supply several armies. They were basically being offered half of that in material loot and most of its experience. Sure, death would cost them ten percent of their levels but the leaders alone were in their lower eighties with their elite guards in their mid eighties.

There might have been a hundred of them between two clans but there would be at least ten thousand demons being mowed down by their sustained use of our equipment. Little did they know, we could only offer them pieces and know-how while their own skill levels and buffs would determine the overall quality of their supplies. The arrows alone had level-seventy restrictions because they did seventy-two damage on top of a bow's output.

From their currently available clansmen, the arrows they put together would probably have a much lower output. However, after the middle-aged orc and another younger elven guy with shiny platinum hair stepped away to talk quietly over their options, they came back and the orc says, "What kind of numbers will we be dealing with and why did you guys even come up with a plan like this?"

"The NPC want to create a stalemate situation to actually subjugate the demons," I reply from my once quiet and out of the way position in the back of the alliance group behind the head priest. "I estimate you'll be facing as many as ten thousand on an open field, so I suggest you all start training your speed shooting. They want to show the demons how it feels to be weak and since you're the weakest among us you'll be the scale model of our strength. One hundred of you simply mowing the lawn with thousands of them will be the show of force."

I did my best to help out even though they had basically already agreed to the plan, giving them a better numbers projection to base their following estimates off of. Bone fiends aside, if they spread out in a straight line and threw spears only a hundred yards out, they really could mow down thousands of all the other demons.

Little did they know, the remaining outposts at the back of the encirclement were where all of the reinforcement chaos fiends had come from. Even though they probably had less of these entities than before, they probably still had thousands of them between their group of outposts while augmented with even more demons and undead behind them.

If I was the demons, I would simply lead with every undead available just to appease our experience needs.

After a brief glance between the two clan leaders, the pretty elven guy finally says, "We'll do it. I'd rather be involved and get something than be killed off by The Bully if we say no here and now."

Damn, did they really think of me that way? I have been doing so much for them and this is how they repay me?! Even though they had decided to accept our shitty offer because of me, I did not know whether to laugh or cry the more I thought about it.

Since there was little else to discuss, Little Thirteen simply told them to start running their players through archery and marching drills in preparation for their upcoming standoff. After that, all of us returned to the supply stations to start reorganizing the train of supplies through the magic-capable skeleton NPC and to the outside player base.

This was a fairly simply changeover considering all they were doing was transmuting mass amounts of arrowheads, crystal filament fletching, shafts, and lance poles from blocks of Zekrom's crystalline black soul material. After making these brief amendments, we left the head priest overseeing the interactions of the skeletons and other players and returned to the graveyard.

By now, all of our demons were being used to compress the increasing field of divine energy in the pond.

Crushing stones to mine mana crystals caused massive releases of divine energy which would wisp away into the surroundings if released. After being contained, the once dense haze of shimmery light filling the pond was now like a small ocean filled with layers of rippling energy that flowed and swirled about in confinement.

I could not even seen any of my party of the other clan elites within the mass of energy but I could tell that the only logical thing for me to do was to go in there and absorb it while I could. Not only because I would probably complete MA1 in a couple of hours but because I would probably achieve several levels of Demigod in the same time. I did not say anything after taking a few moments to appreciate the pond of holy mana but simply jumped right in.

Luckily I managed to land somewhere without any rocks of other players at work or cultivating. Not only did I hopefully not disturb anyone but I also would not be disturbed in such a locations. I could still hear the sounds of breaking rocks and movement now that I was within the pond but these were further away from me along the banks.

As I settled down to start breathing in and absorbing the surrounding mana through my pores I could not help but wonder at how many thousands of divine crystals our clans had managed to farm in the few minutes that we had been away. We had all agreed to farm by hand to keep things balanced but I myself could crumbled five rocks in just a few seconds to bring out at least fifty stones.

My team could certainly produce at least a thousand mana crystals in a minute. Apiece. With odds like that it would not be long before everybody had completely farmed this entire pond!

Under these conditions, a single slow and calming breath could take in several thousand MP per second, adding nearly a percent of eighth level MA1 after every refining exhalation. Coupled with the constant absorption of at well over ten thousand MP per second with just my body, I was adding several percent per second.

Off to the side of MA1 was Demigod slowly filling up just under one percent per second of its third level. With a growth like this that I had not seen since I had crushed my first pond rock, it took only a minute to break through.

The third level of demigod only granted me another hundred MP and some light-based affinities but the ninth level of MA1 granted me nine hundred for an even thousand MP only a minute into my cultivation. The game had really messed up by creating the possibilities for me to do something like this but I was not going to NOT take advantage of this while I could.

Once I reached higher levels, it would not only be Demigod which eventually stagnates due to lack of resources.

The growth of MA1 did not change by much but Demigod itself went down to only half a percent per second, effectively doubling the cultivation time. However, this was only a few minutes worth of consumption and refinement. A few minutes later, I had reached the fifth level of Demigod and completed MA1

[You have achieved Proficient Success in: Mana Assimilation]

[+1000MP]

[+10% to all Affinities]

[+10% to rate and quality of refinement]

The first thing I noticed when I went to check my character information was that the actual Affinity setting in my stats had changed from small to medium. I had officially gained enough scattered affinities to different magics that my overall affinities had risen to a new level. How this would help me, though, I had no idea besides my current gain of Demigod five.

After achieving Proficient Success int Mana Assimilation, there were no new changed except than an MA2 orb had appeared above the old MA1. It was clear that I would have to achieve ten levels of Demigod or Chaos Fiend in order to see if there even were any advanced tiers available. For all I knew, I simply gained super powered healing and cursing affinities from these single tiers.

With only one way t find out, I stopped stuttering my cultivation by checking the progress and dangerously dedicated my full attention to expiration and absorption. It felt like the rate at which my body took in and refined energy actually went up a little, but a change of its level would not matter much in only a few minutes. The ten-percent boost to efficiency I had just received, though, made a more impacting difference.

Time crept by slowly with hollowed anticipation as I focused on the divine energies around me, feeling the waving swirls of its almost physically condensed currents as it swept into and through me. The sounds of the other players nearby breathing or mining further out were the only things that could be heard within the pond.

After only an hour, though, I felt as though I had taken in and refined tens of millions of MP on my way to achieving only the third level of MA2. This actually totaled out to and insane gain of six thousand MP with each level being worth itself a thousandfold. With this alone, I now had over thirteen thousand MP at my disposal.

Throughout this process I had only risen to the seventh level of Demigod, bringing my total MP up to thirteen thousand five hundred and twenty Mana Points. By now I found myself mentally and physically exhausted. It was almost like being blind stinking drunk from the rich magical and divine energies, feeling so bleary and disoriented that I could only lie down and look up with a very vague feeling of wanting to puke.

Finding a brilliantly lit sky above me, I soon realize that I really had consumed tens of millions of MP from the pond. The once densely watery energies condensed in the pond had thinned out to numerous layers of light haze that now swirled around. Now long were the layers of mana blinding, allowing me to look up through the pond to see the condensed demonic energies above.

It was both a shocking and interesting visual effect in this confined small-world setting, looking like the entropy of the universe as the brilliant little star we were cultivating from slowly burned itself out in the darkness of space. In just a few more hours, this little stare would probably be down to nothing but a bed of rocks and a bright and dense field of hazy light.

Had the urge to puke not been slowly becoming stronger, I would have felt like being poetic of philosophical while drunkenly smiling up at the fake dark sky. The only thing that really stopped me from embarrassing myself was the presence of other people.

If not for them I would have probably had an introspective conversation with Melpomene talking about life or simply puked up all of the 'combat rations' I had been eating over the past day in the dungeon. I had originally though I brought a week's work of rations but ended up eating through most of my food in less than two days. If not for my unique mana body and its constitution, I would have thrown up tens of pounds of food alone, not to mention the few gallons of potions.

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