Methodology - 3

Papers spread against the floor, all as I fell to the ground, my long hair obscuring my vision.

It was only as a hand reached down and spread my hair to the side, cupping my chin and pulling me closer. 

Only then did I find myself among company. Emilia, took my by the hand, waving the papers into her room in a neat stack.

"What was it… for you to come so late?" She drawled out, eyes half lidded and clearly tired.

"I- I can come back another time if that is what you want." I ground out.

It was disappointing as I wanted to share my discovery with her, but if she was so tired then I would comply. After all, sleep was a sacred thing.

She laughed, covering her mouth as she kneeled down to my height and once more grabbed my chin.

"It is of no consequence, come, sit." 

And with that she dragged me to her chair, placing me atop it and before the papers that I had brought with me.

"Ah- Then…" I hurriedly rearranged the papers, placing them in the order I found best for my explanation.

"This… is a copy of the runes? No, it has a certain pattern to it."

Emilia muttered out something… Though I could barely hear it over the excitement.

"Ah- let me explain then, as we already found in this sequence," I pointed to a particular one, "We translated them to nordic then back once we had placed them through the correct cipher."

"Yes that's right, and afterwards we were stuck with no place to go." 

"Yep, but that wasn't what we were supposed to do. I was cycling my mana earlier and I found something strange."

Emilia sat next to me, picking a chair from somewhere and leaning her head over the paper, puzzling it over.

"This…"

"Yep!" I beamed, letting her decipher what I had found.

"That's absolutely brilliant. It's so…"

I stood up and hugged her, so caught up in my excitement. She hugged back too, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I thought it was impossible but this… if it's true then we can absorb mana from mana rich objects. It would cost a lot but one could use this to grow several leaps in power."

Emilia immediately shouted for a servant, having him bring her something.

But I ignored that, there was another application that she wasn't thinking of.

"That would be too impure, it would take too long to filter out the elements and contamination of the monsters. But what if we used our mana like this…" 

I pointed to another piece of paper. Pointing out the diagram of mana and the effect it had on outside objects.

"As is common knowledge, mana when it interacts with an object likes to enter and give it its property. And that's what the method is essentially doing. It's taking the mana from the object and through careful processing giving it the property of the users man. The only problem would be the time that it took."

Emilia thought for a moment before standing up, taking the stone from her servant and sitting back down.

"Yes, but the professor said that we… that you, those that have naturally low mana and lesser techniques would benefit from this. No, this only benefits those of the upper class, with money to burn."

I nodded, taking the stone in my hand and processing it with the method that I thought would work.

"The first step…" I drawled out, for some reason matching the tone of Emilia, pitch for pitch. But it was only an absent thought.

"Would be to wrap your mana around the object, letting it get through all of the crevices, around every spec of hidden mana."

I then did just that, closing my eyes to focus, letting my golden mana flow through my arm -as slow as it was. Then after a moment it hit the stone.

I could feel the pitiful amount of mana within it, the toxic sludge that it was. And then I sent my mana flying, every drop wrapped around another drop. For every spec that the stone had I had to send another three.

It was inefficient but then again this was my first time trying this.

I waited a moment, then another. Then a minute passed.

"Finally the second and last step, pulling it into your body." 

I grit my teeth and let it in, like my normal flow it wrapped around my body once before coming to a complete stop.

Only for blood to flow from my mouth, a golden black sludge falling out. But I felt it, a mere speck but it was worth it.

My mana had increased, no matter how small it was. But there was an increase.

"Did it work…" Emilia drawled out, her face closer to mine than I would prefer.

But when I nodded it only found a smile blooming on her face. As if she was extremely proud of me.

"But it was only an increase that I would find in maybe half an hour of training."

"For… only two minutes… that's potent."

"Yeah but this only benefits rich kids, rich people."

She nodded before swiping my notes from me.

"This here… right here and here."

I looked at what she was trying to point out and found myself sheepishly rubbing the back of my head.

"Oh."

"Oh indeed, that was completely inefficient. If we first convert our mana to the attribute of the object then convert the new mix of mana then it would be much easier."

In simple terms what Emilia was saying was rather than trying to convert the sludge to our attribute first then absorb it.

Instead we should first convert our own mana to the attribute then assimilate the familiar mana, as it would heed our commands easier.

Then after that we would assimilate it.

It was much more efficient that way.

"But tell me about that method. The commoner method as she so dubs it."