I sit in my room with several large mana batteries, manipulating a large amount of mana in a great swirling pattern just outside of the village: experimenting with an artificial mana storm. By manipulating the MM fields of most of the mana, and especially the storm's core, I can increase the velocity of the mana and make weak spells manifest spontaneously.

I've been at this for four days now, trying to master two breakthroughs at once, MM force manipulation and storm conjuration. I need to double down on these breakthroughs in order to cap my breakthroughs in time for the ritual.

I don't know if I can do it in time; I need to master six breakthroughs in two and a half weeks. If I can get these two, then I can make something to get the mastery level for vitality weaving and super-solid mana, and then that will leave ‘liquify spell mana’ and ‘make reserved mana’ which will have to be done separately. By combining the mastery tests, I only need to do four tests instead of six, which is the only lifeline I have for this deadline.

The storm increases in strength as I drain mana from the batteries to fuel my efforts. The spell manifestations intensify, and I use my other minds to direct the spells into a certain spot. Waves of cold freeze a layer of the water below the storm, followed by waves of heat. Wind howls and blades of air shoot out. The air is charged with electricity while rolling lightning sweeps over the area.

My body aches and my head pounds in pain, but now a smaller, more powerful version of the superstorm is raging just outside of the village. I already informed everyone of what's happening a few days ago, when I caused a panic, but now people are used to it.

I continue manipulating the storm, waiting for the 'Tings!' to let me know when to stop, until I suddenly fall over, losing control of my body.

What happened? I immediately stop controlling the storm and examine myself, and my heart feels like it has just stopped in a moment of terror. My vitality is dangerously low!

I hadn't noticed since, one, the mana I normally work with was too little, two, I wasn't looking for it, and three, I hadn't expected this outcome, but it makes sense: vitality is mana and the curse will transform my mana into other mana. This will also explain the pain I've been feeling. If my vitality, which is stored in my body, is turned into fire, ice, or lightning mana, it will damage me.

With this sudden realization, I just want to kick myself for not predicting this outcome in the first place! It is obvious now, and with my manipulating several hundreds of thousands of mana the damage, which is normally not immediately noticeable, adds up. However, [Inquisitive Perfection] has another question to ask: if, when I manipulate lightning mana, my mana – vitality included – is transformed into lightning mana, then what happens when I manipulate the MM force?

I'll have to find out before I continue, but first, I need to restore my vitality. I draw mana out from my batteries and transform it into vitality to heal myself, and then I start testing the effects of my curse, quickly finding that manipulating the MM force does very little. It does make the MM force around me slightly stronger, and I notice that the mana seems to be gaining more MM particles at the loss of elemental particles.

Now I know that I also have to keep restoring my vitality when manipulating large amounts of mana, which just makes it cost even more to do; however, this blunder cost me another valuable day. I spend the rest of the day refilling my mana batteries, to retry this tomorrow.

In the morning, I give it another try. I have one mind focused on controlling the storm overall, a second to keep me healthy by restoring my vitality and occasionally casting a healing spell on myself, my third mind is directing storm spells in the same direction, my fourth is manipulating the MM force, and my fifth mind is focused on the smaller details of the storm.

I start by compressing a large amount of mana into an orb of liquid mana and cranking up its already strong MM force. Mana immediately starts swirling around the core and being flung around. I amplify this behavior, and soon storm spells manifest, directed at a poor Domr that wandered too close.

I then start playing with the MM fields on clumps of mana, trying to find out the best way to make even stronger storm spells. I amplify the intensity of the mana and storm spells, all while making the storm stronger overall.

This attempt is a lot smoother and there is less discomfort with my body being healed, but that doesn't mean it's not just as hard to get. It still uses all of my minds, but now the storm is raging more than ever before, and I still can't get any mastery levels!

Desperate to get at least one level, I quickly shift all minds to one task, focusing on the storm's core and amping up its MM field as much as I possibly can. I push [Manipulate Mana] as hard as I can with all five minds, which pulls in all the mana from its surroundings, rapidly growing the storm and increasing mana pressures. The storm suddenly surges in strength, and fields of storm spells manifest in swirling flames, freezing blizzards, lightning waves, tornadoes, and more. Beams of light shoot out, vaporizing the water below, and rolling clouds of darkness whip around the storm core.

Ting! Manipulate mana has obtained levels 501-502!

Well, I guess I just needed to give it a kick in the rear. As I carefully release my control, unwinding the storm core manually so that it doesn’t lash out and damage something, I consider my next steps. I need to finish studying super-solid mana and get that mastery level, but first, I should check on the construction of the ritual site.

The ritual site is already half-built, but there are a few key details that will need my personal touch. The bathing area is mostly done, but the rest will need me to finish the inscriptions, so to make sure everything continues smoothly, I should get that done before anything else.

I sit down at my desk and summon a clone aide with the basic clone A.I. The clone hands me a journal I made with mana, filled with hundreds of recorded inscriptions and details on how much mana per minute each design draws in. I unbind the journal and lay everything out in front of me, and start looking for a relation between mana draw and structure.

It takes me an hour, going through all the inscriptions with [Inquisitive Perfection], to find what I am looking for: the optimal inscription to gather mana. Now I just need to refine it, which will probably require a hundred more versions.

I set four clones, plus my real body, to this task. With each iteration of the inscription, I test if it's better. If it is, I use that as a new base design, and repeat the process until I cannot find any more iterations that are more efficient than what I currently have.

The inscription starts with the outer circle, with five smaller offset circles that connect to five ellipses that feed mana to the inner ring, which leads to five more smaller offset circles that finally leads to a core circle. It feeds mana to the center at an incredible rate.

I lean back in my chair, happy with my success, but before I can celebrate [Inquisitive Perfection] nudges my attention to the core of the inscription. Something about it feels... incomplete somehow, but having a proper core will start to consume mana...

"It's a fractal!" I exclaim after a few minutes of staring at the inscription core.

If I continue repeating the inscription design when it reaches the core, will it collect more mana? It's worth a try.

Sure enough, the inscription starts drawing even more mana; for some reason, the MM force has increased dramatically, resulting in an exponential increase in mana collecting capabilities as if it had multiplied by itself! I’m curious about why it works that way, but that’s not really the point at the moment.

I add another full design inside the inscription core to see how far this can go, but only get a twenty percent increase in its capabilities, indicating diminishing returns.

However, isn't this kind of what the Mana Arc wants to do? Collect mana and funnel it elsewhere? Perhaps this is what Kayafe was missing.

I should speak with her about this, and now I need to talk to the elders again about an updated design for the ritual site, but they can wait. I have finally done it! I made my own perfected inscription!

I did not simply copy this design from someone's magic framework; I did not read about it from a book; I wasn't even taught anything about inscriptions. This is all entirely my own accomplishment! No memories guided me; no one helped me; it's my very own creation!

I stand up, feeling too giddy to stay still; even my tails are wagging back and forth. I want nothing more than to brag about this well-earned accomplishment!

"Momara!" I call out, jogging downstairs to show my mom the inscription.

"What is this?" Mom asks, examining my work.

She doesn't know the significance of this – to her, it will look like a bunch of circles, because visually it is just that – so I start explaining to her what it is and the difficulties of finding out the best iteration of this inscription.

"That's amazing!" Mom says, although I can tell she still doesn't quite get it. But she's happy that I'm happy, and that's enough for me; she doesn't need to understand.

After enjoying a moment with my mom and dad, I fly over to the temple to initiate contact with Kayafe and tell her about the inscription.

"With this, we may be able to build a new and maybe an even better Mana Arc!" I gush excitedly.

"But it will still need to be a magic item," Kayafe says cynically. "To have the power it needs to cover the entire Nexus, it needs the bonus of the tiers."

"I'm just trying to help you," I say, somewhat defensively. "Even if this can't work, it might be able to lead us to something that can."

"I appreciate it, Alysara, but the only sure way to make a magic item is through sacrifice, and I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did."

That warms my heart.

"So, you're one step closer to completing the ritual; what else needs to be done?" Kayafe asks, changing the subject.

"I need to update the ritual site blueprints, make a lot of inscription ink, and a few other details, then I need to cap my [Manipulate Mana] to hopefully improve my Kyhosa before it is improved again by the ritual."

"And you only have two weeks to do all that?"

"Unfortunately," I say, "But I'm not going to give up! Even if it seems impossible, I'm going to try as hard as I can!"

I continue to talk with Kayafe until I am out of mana, then I fly back home and talk to the elders. We go over the blueprints and make adjustments for a two-step inscription, with the entirety of the inner inscription being the bathing area and the outer being out in the sea, but there are a few other things I may want to add.

The First Inscription had Runascript – what I call the written language of the Runalymo since they just call it ‘writing’ – around it, detailing how it works; what if I do that for this inscription? Can I change what mana it gathers? Can I make it more effective?

I'll have to explore all of this tomorrow, and it will likely result in hundreds more trial and error iterations to figure things out.