Mana Cores

|Gary|

Tiny beads of sweat trickled down my plump cheeks as I concentrated on gathering mana. Thankfully, my family understood the importance of personal space for young children. If not, I would have been caught by my parents a long time ago.

I was grateful for my natural talent, as I had read that children usually gather mana gradually, with the average age of human awakeners being twelve. But my body was different. If I didn't manually pull in mana, I would have awakened at the age of three or four. It was a slow process, but I could already feel my power growing.

However, my lack of a mana core meant my control over mana was limited. Nonetheless, I had discovered the intricate connection between magic and science. It was even more pronounced in my previous world, but I still noticed it here. The elements deviated from the base elements and were interlinked with them.

Mastery of water allowed for the compaction of molecules, transforming them into ice. The same applied to wind and sound, as vibrations could produce sound waves in the air. Although illusions and sound were more complicated, I suspected that certain vibrations in the air could create distortions of light, resulting in illusions.

Earth and gravity were particularly perplexing, but I speculated that an advanced earth mage could manipulate gravitons, the hypothetical elementary particles that mediate the force of gravitational interaction.

Fire and lightning were the most challenging elements to comprehend. Fire was just a chemical reaction, a result of ignition in the air, while lightning was the flow of electrons. Connecting the two was difficult, but I hoped to master it eventually, as it seemed that most others had struggled with it.

I concentrated, feeling the formation of a sphere around my sternum as the mana fused with it like pieces of a puzzle. When I first learned about the concept of mana cores, I was puzzled as to why multiple cores couldn't exist, since it seemed to make sense that having more would increase one's power.

But as I delved deeper into the subject, I discovered the limitations of the human body. No matter how hard one tried, a single core was the most that could be achieved due to the positioning of the mana veins and channels within the body.

Or so it seemed.

Through careful planning and experimentation, I found a way to create a Binary System of Cores - two cores that revolved around each other inside a larger sphere that connected to all the future mana channels and veins. To make this possible, I had to make the cores smaller, as small as possible, which meant I could only have two cores at most.

Fortunately, the size of the core didn't affect one's mana strength, which was measured by its purity, not its size. The revolving motion between the cores may seem insignificant, but it aids in the smooth flow of mana throughout my body and also allows me to conceal one core when necessary.

As I continued my exploration of Dicathen, I delved deeper into the different kingdoms and their inhabitants. The continent was divided into four regions: Sapin Kingdom for humans, Elenoir Kingdom for Elves, Darv Kingdom for dwarves, and the Beast Glades for mana beasts and dungeons.

There were twelve official elements recognized in Dicathen:

Wind, which leads to Sound and IllusionWater, which can lead to IceEarth, which can lead to GravityFire, which can lead to Lightning

In addition, there were unique elemental combinations that only certain races could master. For instance, Elves could master Earth and Water to manipulate Plants, while Dwarves could master Earth to manipulate Metals and Fire to manipulate Magma.

However, each race had limits to the number of elements they could master. Humans had the potential to master up to nine elements, while Elves could master six, and Dwarves only four.

Special mages with unique abilities also existed in each kingdom. For instance, emitters in the human kingdom were exceptionally skilled healers, while diviners among the elves had the gift of foresight, similar to seers.

Despite the extensive knowledge of elemental magic in Dicathen, there were still unexplored areas, such as the potential for deviancies or combinations of elements that were yet undiscovered. It was a topic that I planned to investigate further.

Returning to my plan, the decision to have two mana cores offered several advantages. Firstly, I could more effectively conceal my true strength when needed. Secondly, I could potentially control two beast wills, as opposed to just one. And finally, having different elements on each core could allow me to master all nine elements available to humans.

As time passed, I reached my second birthday, and a grand celebration was held in my honor. While I was too young to fully participate, I received a multitude of gifts from nobles of varying ranks, including the royal family themselves. I caught glimpses of the seven-year-old prince and his cute, innocent sister, Princess Kathyln.

It seemed our mothers were keen on arranging our engagement, as they were close friends who had attended Xyrus Academy together. My mother had been the top student, graduating after defeating a professor in a duel. Meanwhile, the queen, Priscilla, was also quite special, although less talented than my mother.

My father and the king had a formal relationship, but it was evident that the king was intimidated by my father's dominant and formidable demeanor.

Observing the royal siblings, I noticed that Princess Kathyln possessed a significant amount of ambient mana, which seemed to be drawing towards her. Despite not having as much innate talent as me, she could potentially awaken her powers by the age of eight or nine and even reach the legendary white stage. In contrast, Prince Curtis had less potential and would never progress beyond the silver stage.

As the celebration came to an end, and I found myself wondering why there were no realms beyond the white stage. This was a question that I would ponder over in the days to come.

Despite the advanced technology in Dicathen, the limitations of their knowledge and exploration baffled me. The fact that they believed there was only one continent on a planet that seemed as large as Earth was absurd. It was possible that other continents had sunk under the ocean, but more likely, the people of Dicathen were simply unaware of them.

Shaking my head, I pushed those thoughts aside. I needed to focus on my own awakening. As I had two mana cores, I knew it was best to awaken them simultaneously, even though it would cause a massive explosion.

To avoid damaging the mansion, I decided to perform the awakening in front of my father, who had already reached the high silver stage and could calm the rampaging ambient mana.

I carefully calculated the rate of my ambient mana absorption and timed it so that I had just enough mana in my cores to give them a slight push before awakening them. I felt sweat starting to drip down my forehead, but I remained focused on the task at hand.

My mother, too scared of my father to watch over me, missed my sweating. But my father noticed and furrowed his brows in concern, though he did not interrupt me.

As I finished the process of creating my mana cores, I saw my father's eyes widen in shock. He pointed his hand in front of me, and I knew that my awakening had begun.

A deafening explosion rocked the dining room as I simultaneously awakened both my mana cores. Despite my father's quick reflexes, the dining table was obliterated. The staff, fortunately, were shielded in time.

My body was trembling with excitement as the newly awakened mana coursed through me, heightening every sense. Surprisingly, the mana felt familiar, almost reminiscent of my old world.

I focused inward, inspecting my body and saw the two cores, one black and one dark red, swirling and revolving around each other in perfect harmony. A satisfied smile crept onto my face as I realized that everything had gone according to plan.

__________________________________________

|Gary|

After the explosion, I carefully inspected the two cores inside of me: one dark red and one black. My plan was to primarily use the black core and only resort to using both cores or the red one alone in life-threatening situations.

To better understand my elemental affinities, my father provided me with a device that displayed the different elemental colors and their corresponding elements: red for fire, green for wind, blue for water, yellow for earth, white for sound, grey for illusion, cyan for ice, orange for lightning, and purple for gravity. He then left the room with my worried mother, assuring me that he didn't mind if I kept my affinities secret.

I activated my black core and channeled my mana through the device, revealing the colors green, white, grey, and orange, corresponding to the elements of wind, sound, illusion, and lightning. Not bad for a start, but I wondered where my fire affinity was, considering my secondary core's deviant. Perhaps it was in my primary core?

Switching to my dark red core, I channeled my mana through the device once more, revealing the colors red, blue, cyan, yellow, and purple, corresponding to the elements of fire, water, ice, earth, and gravity. With my two cores, I had affinities to all nine human elements. I smiled to myself, feeling lucky to have gained affinities to all elements, unlike my parents who only had two each.

Next, I activated both my cores simultaneously, causing the device to light up in all nine elemental colours. After deactivating my primary core, I showed the device to my parents, which displayed only the four elements I had chosen to reveal.

"I'm done," I announced to them through the door. They entered, my mother's expression curious as I tossed her the device.

"Four elements!" she exclaimed, amazed.

My father was impressed too, but he quickly redirected the conversation to my training. "You should start training with Galliard," he said. My mother protested, stating that I was only two years old, but my father assured her that Galliard would only help me get used to my mana core and that my real training would begin when I turned four or five.

I nodded in agreement, hiding my excitement. 'Second mission: recreating my swordsmanship styles begins now,' I thought to myself.