cerim
patreon
Chapter 519 - Cyclist Destroyer
🕑 Added 2024-12-18 09:27:06 +0000 UTCIt’s early morning the next day when I wake up after my usual few hours of sleep. Ever since the body upgrades and everything that came with them, going days without sleep hasn’t been a problem. Still, I’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping 2–4 hours most nights whenever I can.
I’ve noticed that when I get some sleep, I’m less irritable, make fewer mistakes, and even find training easier. Surprise—it’s just like how normal people feel when they get enough rest.
Still, when I wake up, I bring a few of my evil pyramids into existence and start doing my usual mana-shaping exercises. Another part of my mind checks my body and Mana Cycling, only to ramp it up again.
I know some Champions like to trash-talk Lissandra’s mark on me and on Mana Cycling as well. They even call her a fossil. An ancient being, just like a grandma still driving a 50-year-old vehicle while other people use electromobiles.
My thoughts pause there, and I give it some consideration. Did I come up with the perfect metaphor?
Mana Cycling is dangerous, and even I’ve noticed that over time. It’s a technique made by someone without enough knowledge and time. I strongly suspect Lissandra created it during the war she told me she was born into. She probably spent her youth on the battlefield, having no time or knowledge to refine it further.
For a moment, I imagine her being as young as Isabella, constantly fighting for her life and hoping no Champion-grade being would just squash her.
The technique feels like a true remnant of those times. Far, far from perfect, and I don’t think it’s because of a lack of skill—no, currently she could easily make it better. Mana Cycling’s drawbacks were left there on purpose, requiring effort multiple times greater than what a similar, more refined technique would demand.
It’s just like the car metaphor: Lissandra’s car would be a 50-year-old, rusty wreck—a cyclist-destroyer held together by wire, duct tape, and a few prayers. It’s the kind of machine that forces you to learn every trick to keep it running.
Meanwhile, modern electric cars often stop you from running over cyclists. They give you warnings, sometimes even park themselves, and come loaded with GPS and all kinds of fancy features.
In this metaphor, my body is the cyclist. Mana Cycling allows me to harm my own body—sometimes even unintentionally. When I’m not careful, it turns by itself to run over a few of the cyclists by the road.
Amused by my own silly metaphor, I lie in bed for 30 minutes longer, waking myself up and getting ready to interact with people. I try to drain as much energy as I can from the bed to endure the day.
The tent isn’t that big, so I share the “room” with Min-Jae, who is already up. He has his eyes closed, and around him metal orbs float on erratic trajectories. After watching them for a while, I can see there are rules to their movement. Just a slight mis-movement would be enough to make these orbs touch each other.
For a moment, I release a burst of my mana to scare and test him.
He opens his eyes quickly and identifies the source. I’m satisfied to notice that even then his orbs continue to move without being affected. Nice.
“You’ll need more to affect my training!” he says.
Not wanting to cool his excitement first thing in the morning, I nod and say, “You really have gained a lot of muscle. You used to be so thin.”
He’s currently sitting on the edge of the bed without his shirt. Even though he’s still slim, his shoulders are wider, and he even has some abs. Looking at him closer, I notice that even the contours of his face are sharper.
“I know, right? I asked Maya for some training routines and, even though she grumbled, she gave me one! Plus I constantly use [Gravity Well] on myself, so that helps. Did you see that anime where the character took weights off his ankles and then moved incredibly quickly? That will be me after I deactivate my skill!”
“Possibly,” I say, turning to the sleeping Biscuit on the bed near me. “What do you think, will it be like that?”
The silly corgi, the best corgi of the six—no, now of the 7th floor! He still pretends to sleep, and I sense his ear twitch as I talk to him. But he doesn’t answer and continues to… pretend.
It’s incredibly silly, as everyone knows he’s awake. I’m sure he even heard us talking about it, yet…
With a groan, I reach out and pull him closer, gently tapping his soft belly.
“I refuse to listen to your belly rumble. Just. Stop. Pretending. To. Sleep. Go and eat something,” I say, tapping him after each word.
Finally, he opens his eyes and nips at my fingers while I pull back. He sits on my bed and barks softly at me.
“Sure, sure. Not that long ago, you pretended very well, I noticed it only a little while ago,” I tease him.
I notice his tail start wagging, so I reach out to pet him, making him push his head against the palm of my hand. “So sneaky, you got me there.”
He barks again and then pushes my hand away, lifting himself into the air, likely to try and surprise others.
“Did you try to lift something really heavy?” I ask Min-Jae.
He nods and, after a bit of thought, increases the speed of the orbs floating around him. “For a while, I trained by lifting really heavy stones and keeping them floating as long as possible. That was months ago. If I had to do it again, my max would be something like a small apartment building. Tess is better with raw power, so it’s not that impressive compared to her.”
“Wanna bet it’s already better than what most of the Hard difficulty participants could do?”
“Do you really think so? In three more years, someone from Hard can become quite strong.”
“Not like us. We’ll be apex predators when we return to Earth.”
Min-Jae giggles, and as I stand up he nods seriously, “It has a nice ring to it. One of the few hundred most powerful people on Earth. Angry Kitten Island might not be a dream.”
“I hope you mean a floating one; otherwise, I’ll be disappointed with such small thinking.”
“Sure! We’ll put one in orbit and then work on your Moon base.”
I nod in confirmation. "Gravity Emperor Kim Min-Jae, with his dozens of floating islands," I tease.
His smile widens even further, and I can see how much the thought delights him.
With a dismissive wave, I settle down and focus, preparing to enter my mind space before heading to workshop number three.
***
As on previous days, the twins, and Sophie head towards the shoulder guard. There’s a damaged section where the inscriptions have been removed. Other technicians restored the metal, and our job is to connect that section to the rest of the shoulder guard.
We have blueprints, and this part isn’t even that difficult. The problem is that inscriptions of this size behave differently.
Sophie came up with a temporary structure we keep working on through the link the twins made. All of us have access to it, but it’s up to her to maintain it with all the changes while we modify it and prepare for inscribing.
“There has to be a simpler way to do it,” Aaron notes. “It’s fine for this part, but what would you do with bigger structures and more difficult ones?”
“Maybe there isn’t,” Sophie says, shaking her head and gesturing toward the structure we all see. “What we’re doing is akin to creating a template for a tattoo, and the tattoo in this case is the inscriptions. You can store some parts of that template to reuse them, but you still need skill to ‘tattoo’ it to make it permanent, and before that, you must modify it for a certain person.”
“Damn, Nat’s ‘explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old’ really rubbed off on you,” Dennis remarks, provoking her as he likes to do.
“How did these two trolls survive six months with you?” Sophie looks at me and sighs before turning to Dennis. “What we’re dealing with is essentially a mana inscription framework. The framework acts as a schematic—a preliminary construct outlining the mana pathways and nodes. Portions of this schematic can be stored for later integration, but permanently inscribing it requires precise mana-weaving techniques to anchor it into the target’s unique mana lattice. Moreover, the framework must be meticulously recalibrated to harmonize with the individual’s mana resonance before it can be stabilized.”
Dennis smiles even more. “Perfect. So anyway, wanna try a practice run? Me and Aaron are ready.”
“Are we sure? Leth said to wait for him,” Sophie says.
This is where I join in, “It will be fine. Let's do it for real. There is no need to waste that much time.”
While the twins look like all life has left them, Sophie looks confused until Aaron explains, “Something always explodes when he says that.”
Putting away the blueprints, I jump onto the section of the armguard we should work on and tap on it. The hardness and coldness of the metal feel nice under my knuckles.
Then I reach towards the structure and “pull” it closer, placing it over the surface. I find connecting points to the rest of the structure and check the blueprints again. I also make preparations in the back of my mind and let mana collect inside my body.
Sophie scratches out some of my changes and makes her own. I do the same, replacing them. She does it again, and this time I only modify them. She changes them again, and I modify them again.
Each version gets better and better. I test it by sending a few pulses through the structure, nearly breaking it, but the mana flows nicely.
Then, using the twins’ [Connection], we start inscribing that structure, the [Connection] serving to make it work with the rest. There are multiple ways we could do this, but we’ve decided on this method this time.
After a few days of working in the workshop and plenty of preparation, the actual inscribing goes smoothly. As expected, it requires a lot of mana to inscribe it into the section.
There are also locks that prevent the inscriptions from fully connecting to the rest - something only a level 8 technician can handle. Protections are in place to stop tampering, and even the section we’re working on had to be unlocked and stripped of these safeguards. It’s fascinating. The more we work on it, the more I learn about how it all fits together.
And we succeed, quite easily too, and earlier than Leth expected, judging by his face when he checks the result.
Always in a good mood, he smiles and says, “Great job! There are a few tiny missteps, but that’s fine for a replacement part. You guys did well. Still, I’ll have to come up with some punishments for not waiting for me.”
He hands us a few blueprints. “Tomorrow, you’ll be working on a section of the inner plating for the war armor of one of the Lord Champion’s disciples.”
***
When Min-Jae is off training somewhere else, I head back to our room, close the door, and sit on my bed. For the last time, I take a look at the trait that’s been with me for so long. Level 10? Or something like that? Time really does fly.
Mana Circuit – Integrates a network of mana channels throughout the user's body, optimizing the distribution of mana and amplifying the power of their mana-based abilities without additional mana consumption. This enhancement allows the user to draw upon their mana more efficiently, resulting in more potent abilities while reducing overall mana expenditure.
Its age shows, though. Even strengthened, it’s nowhere near as high-tier an option as Mana Wavelength Iris.
So yeah, the decision is simple. I’ve also been considering combining active skills, as some are starting to lag behind—like [Mana Domain], which I currently use to keep control of my mana. Still very useful, but not as powerful as [Eclipse] and a few others. The same goes for [Bone Knitting], but that one is relatively new, and I always planned to use it as a foundation to create something better in the future.
Evolving skills? I can handle that myself if I really really want to. But combining passive skills to create a unique passive? That’s very enticing.
The main reason I’m going for the trait, though, is simple: so far, I haven’t seen any option for trait evolution. Not in Floor rewards, not in side quests—not even once. I strongly suspect it’s only possible through the Primary Class. It makes sense, too.
Plus, the trait will likely stay with me for as long as I live, while the passives could be replaced with stronger ones within a year or two, even while I’m still in the tutorial.
After claiming my reward, a notification pops up:
Your trait Mana Circuit has been evolved!
The evolution has been influenced by your performance up until now and by your Primary Class: Mana Weaver (Unique Arcane).
The number of trait strengthenings has been reduced to 0.
Mana Physique - The user's trait evolves into a tightly woven network that resonates perfectly with their mana wavelength, transforming their entire physique into a finely tuned vessel for their mana. Mana circuits seamlessly integrate into every fiber, amplifying the potency of mana manipulation and enabling precise control and immense output.
Let’s see how much this is going to hur... I black out before I can finish the thought.
***
Comments
Val the mysterious Jedi
Or they can be used as home security
Memelord Steambath
Nats going to have to do some pest control when he gets back to earth.....moon bases can't have any pesky spiders walking around
Marter
That spider’s gonna be real pissed off with the Moonbase proposal
im_among_you
Um, but the longer the wait the stronger his body becomes for the RTE, ergo easier to withstand. So would that make it 'safer' given the slow rate at which he levels this high? Also the longer it goes the better his control the easier to survive... Also to manohar - Tutorial privileges?
Manohar
That shouldnt be any time soon tho. We know that Liss had 2nd stage mana potency .. same as Niall So far we have only seen a champion as the earlist one has the 2nd stage Imo the 2nd stage mana will come along with Nat becoming a champion .. and by that point his being or physique should transform in a way to handle all that mana since we know that its a big breaking point
Dreyday
Oh are you proposing a Nat and Sophie ship 🛳️
Mark Bullock
Thanks
Zaim İpek
Yeah, a formula 1 car has much better performance than a Honda Odyssey, but easier to control? I don't think so. A formula 1 car can be pushed in ways that would probably break a minivan if similar maneuvers were tried, but I would never consider it "easier". Nat's body can now handle what it couldn't before, but it's also a much more complex machine now. There is nothing in the description to indicate ease and safety, but there is one phrase that indicates significant danger: "Amplifying the potency of mana manipulation." That's not a specific skill, that's ANY mana manipulation. That means all his mana manipulation exercises just got much more difficult because his mana is much more responsive than before.
Zaim İpek
I very sincerely hope Nat does some of that pretending to be asleep to turn the tables on Biscuit. Give that puppy a taste of his own medicine.
Zaim İpek
Very demure.
Zaim İpek
??? This makes little sense. The longer he waits, the more lethal it would be. Doubling mana is doubling mana. The more mana he has, the bigger the jump will be. The bigger the jump, the greater the danger.
Zaim İpek
Beyond her. . . ✨for now✨
Tab
I’m going to make a prediction. I think his next big upgrade is going to be getting his mana stat to stage 2. It just feels like if he waits much longer It’s not going to be potentially lethal. and that’s just not how Nat does things.
Damian Karis
I really love how Nat and Sophie always try to one up each other when it comes to mana structures, it’s very cute.
Bob
Like sharks, only half his brain is sleeping at a time. Or 8/9th for him.
Mister Cakers
Apparently he can sleep 2-4 hours without needing to monitor his mana so idk.
zoarian
Well, the whole point is to make his body better at handling mana: a "finely tuned vessel". He might have issues adjusting but if the end state doesn't improve his ability to handle mana through his body then it's not much of an upgrade.
Cnote
This 👆
Manohar
Lily should have one trait that makes her bones stronger .. other than that we dont know As for replicating the Mana physique .. Its not gonna be any time soon .. if ever Lily is more into body parts and mainly bones .. replicating soma abstract mana circuits is beyond her
Jughead
Lots of positive reinforcement and affirmations from Nat lately. it's sweet.
Lonnie
Best doggo needs his own section in the next chapter. Gotta make room!
Zaim İpek
Why do you assume this will make mana Cycling easier? His pathways just became much more intricate and complex.
Zaim İpek
It's a rule one of them must be sleeping at all times. I bet Biscuit is poking his belly and his nose and pulling on his ears and doing everything Nat did to him.
Zaim İpek
So his mana pathways just became far more intricate and complex. Seems like this will make mana cycling much more complicated and difficult. He will probably need to abandon evil pyramid training while he adjusts. Since traits are heritable, Nat's children will be very lucky to have the opportunity to be born with Mana Physique and/or Mana Wavelength Iris. Anticipating that Lily eventually succeeds in seducing him, I wonder what her traits are. Speaking of Lily, she should study Nat's new mana pathways and use it as inspiration to make improvements to her own body. Her ability should be able to recreate nearly any trait if she becomes skilled enough with it.
Borbino the great
Let’s be honest next chapter he’s going to find some way to get absurd amounts of mana and break his body again😂
arnumart
So as soon as Biscuit is “awake” Nat gets in a temporary coma.
Simon
This chp would be a great Segway for Nat to wake up after several weeks finding everything gone to shit with most technicians dead. We can then jump straight into the action with him having to fix the champions armor. :D
Grappleshot
Lol. He blacked out. Thanks for the chapter.
Amazon Shopper
Nat’s morning routine is gold
TBONEMAN
His mana circuit was level 2. It evolved to level 0 mana physique so now he has to level it up again.
TBONEMAN
He needs a stat upgrade asap
Sofie
Yes! He evolved mana circuits!
Andrew
Thank you!
David McCreight
I do think it’s been established he mana cycles while he sleeps. If that’s all that’s required for him not to explode then we might be okay.
David McCreight
Love that Sophie and he can collaborate, the twins as well. Really speaks to his emotional growth and their growth as mana experts.
M van Dongen
Don't explain....just let the sentence stop unfinished...
Sailesh Kumar Kumar
TFTC
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
Actually, it was around before the expedition with the witch. 472. "Separating a small part of my mind, I form a simple evil cube and wonder over it. It’s an upgrade I made from the orb after becoming familiar with all three shaping exercises given to me by Lissandra. Lissandra is someone who has amazing mastery over mana, and her flow is smooth, perfectly controlled, and sharp. My way of control is more chaotic, and it’s something I’m mimicking with my shaping exercises, especially the 1st one, where I have to control multiple frequencies and ever-changing mana requirements to upkeep the thing. Changing the shape to a cube allowed the mana inside that shape to bounce more chaotically and nearly impossible to predict. Even after a few months, I'm still not sure what I expect from it, but I still decide to continue. Lately, I even started changing the shape into a pyramid, which made it even more difficult, the mana inside the shape bouncing and swirling even more unpredictably."
zoarian
Wait, is Nat going to be able to handle all his mana and primordial energies now? That's totally unacceptable! Is he some sort of 13 mana boy?! He needs to gain extra mana ASAP. Can you even call yourself a real man when your mana is not threatening to blow you up?
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
I don't know if those are automated though? I think he is splitting his "conscious" mind into 6 parts, with focus, but when he is unconscious I do not think he has yet anything in place. But maybe he does. I guess we will find out.
Gavriel
Also from mana... Everything
Gavriel
So if he tells any non-homicidal group they are going to try to get children out of him for his OP traits 😆
Tsorov
I think he already has such automated processes. A few chapters ago he told Sophie that he has six strings of thoughts goihg on at the same time, while only one is activly communicating with her. Now the question is: is the mana cycling going on passivly even with his "main mind" blacked out, or is his whole mind just gone
XPDev
I was thinking how many traits he can strengthen? Like a token for trait strengthening yknow?
max grok
The way I read it, it simply doesn’t have strengthenings applied anymore, aka Nat needs to do that again
Tsorov
As on previous days, the twins, and Sophie head I think there is an I missing
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
He prolly wouldn't like the idea of losing control. Wasn't the logic core, if I recall supposed to work as an assistant for automatic tasks for helping control easier his sword? Maybe he could automate a few things for future black outs? That might be a likely reaction as a result of this.
Midy
Can his Pride take him blacking out ?
TBONEMAN
If he blacked out then his mana is definitely out of control now. I wonder how the champion is going to react.
Mars
No, you know how his circuits were 1/3 before he evolved them. This just means his new trait is at 0/3 of trait upgrades
Kelto
As I understand, before it was at stage 2/3, and now it's back to 0/3
JTP
I think he can now strengthen it 3 times again. He went from 1-2 to 2-0.
Rubeno
So it's train EVOLUTION not trait just becoming stronger and gaining numbers like Mana Iris lol. That's much better proposition for losing 2nd Active Skill.
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
He was messing with the orbs, and found that the orientation of a pyramid suited his style better for reasons I cannot recall. Density, density something? I know this was shortly after the training arc with Lissandra though, if you wanna go check that out
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
how bad of a news is him blacking out? A lot of the stuff he has going on requires his fine control. I don't remember him ever blacking out, so I don't know how bad this can be. Obviously he goes to sleep, as stated in this chapter, so he can definitely be unconscious without everything going to shit....? maybe? I wonder
Tee
I thought it was a mana orb and not mana pyramids, no? Also, we all saw that coming 😆 but it has to be super if it knocked him out cold. No treat or passive ever came close to that.
Flippu
The number of trait strengthenings has been reduced to 0. What does that mean, he cant evolve it anymore or its like at stage 3 already..?
Funny guy
Danks fur da chappie!
Venno
Yay! Haha I love the end of this one, legit laughed out loud.
