Chapter 3

Sighing, I watch the quickly disappearing back of my cute little elf, before closing my eyes in thought.

I seem to be changing very quickly, much faster than I thought. Not only that, but there seems to be an odd overall sense of acceptance. I didn't quite feel it before, but now that I’ve had enough time to sort through things, I’ve noticed that I just don't find any of this as shocking as I should, and that I am acclimating to this very quickly. When I wound up in this body, it seems I didn't just switch bodies, but I in fact became my game character. I can only assume that it will reach the point where my human way of thinking only exists in my memories. Perhaps that would be for the best after all? I mean, I had no problems killing in game even though it was super realistic as I knew it was a game, but here? I can tell already that this is no game. If I was put in a life and death situation, even if I don't want to die, its not unrealistic that I might freeze and in turn lose my life. Who wants to kill for real, honestly? That's why it might be for the best that this is happening, a ruthless, lord-like vampire could certainly do what I don't think I can.

I shake my head and decide to stop thinking about what I can't change and focus on what I can. That's right, next is building my mana core!

I walk over to a grassy part of the field and plop myself down in the shade underneath a tree and close myself before I start sinking deep within myself.

First I picture myself to the best of my ability and the I overlap that image with the one in reality. Once I’ve done that I open my eyes to find myself standing at the top of a long, descending marble staircase with various landings with locked doors leading to vast libraries containing my knowledge about magic, however I ignored them as my destination lay deeper .

‘Hmm, this place certainly has more presence now than in Eternia.’ As I thought that to myself, I began my descent. What felt like hours was in reality seconds, and as I descended further the oppressing presence grew larger until it grew difficult to continue walking. Holding on through sheer will, I finally arrived at the bottom of the stairs and what awaited me was a stone room with a door in the middle of it. This door was fairly odd as it stood in the center of the room and seemed like it would only open from one side of the room to the other, however you could see when you looked through the door, instead of the stone room, only a nonsensical place filled with colors where physics had no meaning and only through pure will could you continue to even exist there.

A small smile crept up on my face as I walked through the door and seemingly vanished from the room. What surrounded me was swirls and rivers of colors that flowed in seemingly every direction, however what held my attention was actually a miniscule, pea sized piece of translucent crystal. It was hardly noticeable among the colors, but if you paid enough attention, all of the colors were severe so slowly revolving around the crystal.

‘Hah, it may not be much right now, but it is somewhere to start.’

I crossed my legs underneath me and brought my concentration to the max. I willed the multi colored mana to gather around me and as I did, the colors started to draw towards me at a snails pace.

This next part is what nearly drove me mad for a good while, the reason is this. A normal mage would have a class that would correspond with a certain type of mana, and when building their mana core they would filter out the impurities and then build it with that type of mana, but here's the problem. My class is the unique ruler of magic class, which allowed me to use all forms of magic, so how was I to construct an attributed mana core? A core formed from various types of mana would lower the explosive power of the core, and forming it from only one type would only limit me in what type of magic I could use which would be a crime considering my class, so what I to do?

After researching for almost a year, I finally came up with a method that would allow me to even further purify the attributed mana into a base form of mana that I called primal mana that was even more explosively powerful. The only problem was that I’d already built up my core by then so after I started building it up with primal mana, it was only around 1.5x more powerful than normal attributed mana instead of being 2x as powerful like it should have been, but now I have a chance to build my core out of pure primal mana, something that I’m actually rather excited about.

I willed the various colored clouds of mana to separate into their nine different attribute: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Dark, Void, Lightning, Force. As they separated, they slowly gathered together to form nine different vortexes which started rotating. The vortexes rotating would grind the mana with itself before slowly combining with the other mana and forming primal mana.

Like I knew would happen, light started shining from each vortex and tiny amounts of translucent shining mana are ejected before being gathered by me and being forced into my mana core slowly while I carefully controlled the growth of the crystalline structure. I made sure to force the crystal to grow in as perfect a way as possible so as to allow the most mana to be held within it.

While I say it grew, it only grew a few micrometres every couple minutes, which is actually fairly slow in regards to creating a mana core. Normally growing a crystal is able to happen nearly twice as fast, but purifying mana into primal mana makes you lose so much mana that it happens incredibly slow. Certainly as my Mana Manipulation skill rose, I’d be able to force more mana into the vortexes, but for now I am at my limit in terms of controlling mana.

I watched as my core grew ever so slowly for hours upon hours, but I stayed still as I knew that the time that had passed outside could in minutes unlike the hours I spent in this space. Finally, my core reached the size of a small quail egg. Nothing that would allow me to do flashy magic, but enough that it would allow me to level my mana manipulation, which would allow me to gather mana even faster. After it had reached the size I wanted I stopped consciously controlling the mana. Even though I had stopped consciously gathering the mana into vortexes, the vortexes continued gathering mana. See, a mana core would automatically gather whatever attributed mana with a similar amount of impurities into it, that's why creating a high quality core was so important as even one impurity would cause the core to automatically gather mana with impurities. Because I wasn't controlling the mana to grow anymore, the core was automatically controlling the mana to replenish itself with mana of a similar quality and nature. I smiled as I watched the scene and then turned around and walked back through the door.

I had to walk back up the stairs before awakening as the stairs symbolized my depth of consciousness. To wake up, one has to come back out from the depths of the consciousness. After walking for what felt like hours, I finally reach the top of the stairs and when I did, I discovered a door with a shining handle. I reached out to touch it and when I did-

My opened my eyes and found myself sitting cross legged on the cool soft grass. I slowly stood up and then stretched.

‘Mmmm, that was tiring, but I suppose I progressed about as far as I could for now. I wonder how much my mana increased numerically...hmm, let's see..’

Mana has increased by 254

Meditation has leveled up x2 (+2 WIS)

Accelerated Thought has leveled up x2 (+2 INT)

Higher Dimensional Thought has leveled up x1 (+1 WIS)

You have learned Mana Manipulation (+1 INT +1 WIS)

Mana Manipulation has leveled up x1 (+1 INT +1 WIS)

Name: Roland Magnus

Titles: Lord of Imperial Silver,

Race: True Ancestor Vampire

Class: Ruler of Magic

HP: 210/210 MP: 108/354

STR: 13

AGI: 14

END: 21

INT: 18

WIS: 22

Skills:

Talent Restriction Removed: Lvl Max (All non class talents set at average)

Vampiric Urges: Lvl Max (Bloodthirst and Lust increased to fit your race. +10 END)

Night vision: Lvl Max (As a creature of the Night, the Night is as Daylight to you)

Sun Resistance: Lvl Max (As a True Ancestor, you don't fear the Sun +1 END)

Aim: Level 1 (You become more accurate +1 AGI)

Sprint: Level 1 (You are able to run at quick speeds +1 AGI +1 STR)

Bodily Control: Level 1 (You can control your body more easily +1 AGI)

Calculation: Level 1 (Your ability to use numbers +1 INT)

Art: Level 1 (Your ability to create +1 AGI +1 WIS)

Meditation: Level 3 (Your ability to clear your mind +4 WIS)

Bodybuilding: Level 1 (Muscles grow larger and denser +2 STR)

Parallel Thought: Level 1 (Ability to think of multiple things +1 INT +1 WIS)

Accelerated Thought: Level 3 ( Causes perception of time to slow at will +4 INT)

Higher Dimensional Thought: Level 2 (Ability to think in extra dimensions +4 WIS)

Mana Manipulation: Level 2 (Ability to use Mana +2 INT +2 WIS)

‘Hah? I already learned and level up Mana Manipulation? Well, I suppose what I did could be considered an advanced way of making a mana core…’

I simply smiled as I realised how stupid I was for being surprised at learning and leveling it up already.

‘Well, I suppose at this level, the best way to level it up would be this.’

As I thought that, I forced a tiny amount of mana out of my core and carefully through my mana conduits so they wouldn't burst. As I brought the mana out of me, a silvery glow surrounded me and then gathered into the air where I began making simple 2D shapes in the air, quickly getting the feel of using mana with this body. I continued controlling the mana into various 2D shapes until I got the hang of it and then I started to make 3D shapes, and instantly the difficulty skyrocketed and sweat started dripping down my brows. I continued pushing myself to my limits by making more complex shapes in the air until finally I heard a *ding* and I lost control of the mana which quickly dispersed into the air.

Mana Manipulation has leveled up x1 (+1 INT +1 WIS)

Name: Roland Magnus

Titles: Lord of Imperial Silver,

Race: True Ancestor Vampire

Class: Ruler of Magic

HP: 210/210 MP: 108/354

STR: 13

AGI: 14

END: 21

INT: 19

WIS: 23

Skills:

Talent Restriction Removed: Lvl Max (All non class talents set at average)

Vampiric Urges: Lvl Max (Bloodthirst and Lust increased to fit your race. +10 END)

Night vision: Lvl Max (As a creature of the Night, the Night is as Daylight to you)

Sun Resistance: Lvl Max (As a True Ancestor, you don't fear the Sun +1 END)

Aim: Level 1 (You become more accurate +1 AGI)

Sprint: Level 1 (You are able to run at quick speeds +1 AGI +1 STR)

Bodily Control: Level 1 (You can control your body more easily +1 AGI)

Calculation: Level 1 (Your ability to use numbers +1 INT)

Art: Level 1 (Your ability to create +1 AGI +1 WIS)

Meditation: Level 3 (Your ability to clear your mind +4 WIS)

Bodybuilding: Level 1 (Muscles grow larger and denser +2 STR)

Parallel Thought: Level 1 (Ability to think of multiple things +1 INT +1 WIS)

Accelerated Thought: Level 3 ( Causes perception of time to slow at will +4 INT)

Higher Dimensional Thought: Level 2 (Ability to think in extra dimensions +4 WIS)

Mana Manipulation: Level 3 (Ability to use Mana +3 INT +3 WIS)

I should have some time to level this before the meeting, right?