The allure of power was hard to pass up, especially as he felt the very components of his body being drawn to the mana emitted by the thing. Like his bloodline alone responded to the power contained within the bone, and knew of the potential it held.

From the edge of the ball, he walked inside and down a light slope. Every step reinforced the almost unfamiliar will to devour, its growth hastened with every step, and the space’s mana drew him in more and more…

It was no willpower which stopped him from taking a bite, just a strange sensation from his mana sense. A… chaos in the surroundings. None of the mana felt orderly at a glance, so his mind ignored it in favour of the immense power contained.

But he could tell something was wrong. No, actually, he knew something was wrong!

This mana around him wasn’t close to chaotic, it very purposely circled around him sometimes but passed by seemingly at random during other instances!

And it was in those moments of passing by that the thing’s allure grew strongest. But now he stood just inches away from the piece of bone larger than his whole foot, and there was no way he could resist. His resistance to devouring the bone faded as soon as he stood without arm’s reach, and while the concern remained, he felt wilfully ignorant of it. In fact, his body no longer even listened to his commands! Like a puppet on strings, his neck already reached down and tried to swallow the thing whole!

He had to stop!

His mana sense showed nothing nearby causing this effect, so the bone itself had to be the problem. If it wanted him to eat it, then obviously he had to do anything to work against that.

Anything to not eat it… Anything at all…

An idea finally came to him which he executed, ignoring any regard to his own health. Without a moment to spare, he cut one of the many links connected to his mind and jumped back to the tunnel he entered from. Overshooting it wildly, his body barely even registered hitting the compact wall of bone and falling back down. His scales even showed a small crack from the force!

Turning away was the first priority.

Jumping straight back into a wall clearly had no effect. So much so that he didn’t even register the pain. The only way to do that was blocking the mana around him, something which he should be able to do in theory.

But he hadn’t tried it out yet… Could he learn to control the surroundings before consuming the bone? The mana controlling him clearly wasn’t powerful, just continuous and somehow never ending.

With Windburst seals taking a couple spots, he used the majority of his mental strength on applying 9 Jump seals all over his body. Which roughly meant 8 more allowances… This mindless thinking was eating into that all as well.

Unfortunately, he had no clue where to start on that front. His first guess was that mana sense had something to do with control, after all, it was the only way he had ever interacted with mana outside his body. Using his mana sense, he quickly closed his sight on those swirling and cloudy streams all over him.

However, this mana not only felt incorporeal, but even in sight he couldn’t truly grasp it. Like trying to see through a thick fog, he didn’t understand in the slightest how his mana sense was supposed to help in this situation. The problem arose from the instability of mana flows, something he’d never actually seen prior to this moment.

Being next to the bone once more, he used another Jump seal.

7 times remaining.

Immediately picking a place with somewhat stable mana, he didn’t know what to look for but started off trying to push it with his mind like Telekinesis. It was like trying to move an arm by thinking about pushing it… Utterly useless as an alternate description. Even as the one doing it he only needed a few seconds to tell how dumb the idea actually was.

Another idea formed right after though, that being how mana sensing spells allowed for direct control simply by thinking of a motion. He’d read of several spells which worked like this as well, so possibility remained.

But soon after trying for a few seconds more the results turned up poorly.

6 times remaining.

He spent a while more trying to directly use his mana sense but nothing occurred.

5 times remaining.

He needed a new method, and those attempts all reminded him of the last time he deeply sensed the absorption process. How he sensed those strange instantly forming whirlpools of mana, and thinking about how they clearly didn’t depend on his mana sense to work.

Perhaps… It was as simple as focusing on the real mana around him to move things around. The image of his mana sense was just that in the end, a projection of reality! Admittedly an extremely complex and powerful one.

But how could it ever translate to an effect on the real world?

4 times remaining.

There was no time to waste, that last Jump seal half failed as it sent him crashing far too soon. Fortunately, this seal avoided that and he properly flew away from the bone and took a while to stand back up and walk towards it.

First, he used mana sense to locate some stable mana, something moving slower and without the heavy rotational chaos produced by the bone. His mind focused on the small spot, but without direct sight he found it hopeless to control. How was he meant to know where that spot specifically was!

Changing to a small spot right next to the bone, the direct view gave far better results. Thinking of the chaotic mana at that spot, he imagined a force repelling it, slowing down the spot to a standstill.

And the mana there slowed down! But not to a standstill… Why was that? But knowing how simple this mana control method truly was, he saw no reason to not continue understanding it.

3 times remaining.

His life depended on it anyway.

Avoiding any thoughts to ponder on it, he changed to pushing as hard as his mind allowed. Not knowing precisely how the process worked, he imagined that at some point mana would simply stop reacting to his commands… His thoughts turned out to be entirely wrong.

As he pushed more and more, a mental weight suddenly appeared on his mind, a very recognisable effect to him. While a surprise, he barely reacted and just pushed harder against the flow of mana, his mana sense showing that not only did this aggressive pushing stop the chaotic mana, but he reversed the flow in that one small section!

This was it! Now he just had to stop the flow around his body.

2 times remained.

With only one Jump seal intact, he absolutely had to get it right now. He still couldn’t properly use his mana sense to figure out space in the real world, so he absolutely had to find a point using an alternate method. And he figured one out nearly instantly.

His other senses remained, albeit greatly dulled, and that meant enough intuitive ability to move mana at the surface of his skin. In other words, move mana interacting with his body! His mana sense picked up on another flow swirling over him, and by finding the point on his scales it was merely an attempt at pushing away. He didn’t know how precise this was, and for all he knew the point he pushed completely missed the mana flow.

But at that moment. Just as he began pushing the heavy flows around his body…

His leg shook lightly! Quickly trying to push his whole body away from the bone. No further actions worked after that insubstantial but critical effect. He repeated the attempt over, barely being able to now shake and move small body parts, but still walking all the way to the bone as usual.

This wouldn’t work! Little bits like this meant nothing compared to the flows all around. But if he went any higher then the process impacted… He came to a realisation.

So what if he felt a mental weight? Just push it all away and nothing could influence him! Only one thing could possibly matter in this case, and he prepared for the last chance.

His final chance came.

Any mana touching his body suddenly began moving away, but not fast enough for the cloudy flows to stop their interaction with him. The weight of pushing so much mana greatly suppressed him, in fact cutting off the nine Jump seals actually made the task barely withstandable. But it was not enough.

So he pushed more! And more! And with whatever mental strength remained within him, feeling faint and weak, he pushed until literally nothing else could give! A manaless void surrounded him, and his single chance appeared.

Steps away from the bone, he stood in place. The throbbing ache within made it hard to really think about anything besides pushing away more mana, literally switching thoughts to delicacy of this situation was enough to allow his control to slip. But from head to tail, the bone’s control lifted and he had to slowly manoeuvre back out.

Turning unsteadily, his body rocked back and forth with eyes unblinking. He didn’t care about such unimportant things right now. Like trying to hold a massive weight above his head… he just couldn’t maintain it.

In a single rush, he hazily dashed towards the exit and did his best to maintain the repulsion. Still, it just wasn’t enough. The streams of mana quickly reached out to him again and pulled his body back, taking control once more. He felt a splitting headache after attempting, but things weren’t over yet.

Just one second, that was all he needed.

He felt his scales once more and pushed, starting off gentle to get in the groove. And then.

Mind fading, the restriction and the incessant desire to consume vanished. For another two seconds he barely repulsed the mana this second time and escaped its sphere of influence. On the brink of death, he clutched a route to survival and actually escaped alive. With a resounding success, he collapsed to the tunnel’s floor, sensing mana from within seep out and trying to draw him back.

Weakly standing up, he moved forward several steps before collapsing in a puddle. After all that digging, he thought he’d found a valuable bloodline. Such high hopes and expectations from the Elder guard bones and such a massive store of mana… But looking into the well-lit hollow space, the bone’s true form revealed itself.

No longer was it ordinary like all the others, an old bone in apparently good shape. Instead shimmering runes glowed on its surface, as each pulsed with light he sensed mana around them contort for a few seconds. He couldn’t identify the language of these runes, but simply from power alone they deeply frightened him. Able to influence the mana around them even after all this time.

Only a few rare languages can do such a thing, and he naturally knew of a few from the myriad of books available to him. Having a vague idea of their true power when used properly, he simply refused to think about re-entry.

Staring at the glowing runes which seemed to look back, he couldn’t help but say, “I almost died, just like that in seconds… Is this the Primordium level? Or perhaps something far weaker?” Making blind guesses about the bone’s origin simply didn’t work though, and he chose to rest a while, staying awake out of necessity. Without any experience of such power he could never properly estimate such things, though it didn’t stop guesses from appearing.

Meanwhile, the bone’s runes continued to frivolously glow and spread mana violently, doing its constant best to reach into his tunnel to grab the young dragon’s body once more.

To think just a long-dead bone contained enough power to influence his body and soul purely through mana. Today he survived purely due to his own mana control, although stronger mental defences would’ve worked just as well.

As a throwaway test, he created an Explosive bolt and fired it at the bone chunk. It exploded without a problem, the flames and shrapnel clattered against the bone but caused no apparent damage. Not so much as a scratch appeared on its surface.

“I suppose I can only harvest the bones in the ball safely. But I suppose that’s enough for now,” he said, both upset yet full of greed. One day he would absolutely crush this remnant will and destroy the runes’ power, and on that day he’d begin assimilation of this bloodline. That day could not be further away though.

In the short-term though, the Elder guard bones absolutely beat the scarlet hoofs, making it his best obtainable bloodline for now. At the same time he’d return home for the assimilation out of safety. Sleeping for a day was a complete understatement of the expected time, perhaps a week made more sense… And he gave that as a lower estimate.

Using this mana controlling ability to such a degree not only exhausted him, like he ate a basket of coniferous eternity herbs, it gave him a headache which extended to the depths of his brain to his skin. Such omnipresent pain throughout his head made sleep impossible anyway.

The self-inflicted headache passed soon at least, and he looked at the back to the vicious mana still trying to reach out. An idea, albeit no spark of genius, swept through him. But before long, he truly believed it to be an excellent one.

Why not train himself using the thing?

The Elder guard bones in his stomach had yet to dissolve even slightly, taking several hours or days at a minimum. With that in mind, he might as well train right after filling up his stomach quickly!

Regaining energy took a bit longer, but after a while he made his way back to the top. Then crushed another section of bone using three Glacier crushes before stuffing himself completely, at which point he walked all the way back down, but stayed a fair distance from the bone. His only target was mana being sent into the tunnel, avoiding any risk of moving deeper.

His first goal sounded easy on paper. Focus on repelling just the small cloud of mana inside the tunnel, and nothing more.

So easy. Right?