Dungeon of Niflheim

Chapter 13: Channelling mana

“Ok ok, calm down young master I’ll teach you geez.” Maya could barely contain herself; Frost’s current appearance was irresistibly cute to her. She held down the urge to corrupt him, releasing all but an evil smile. She’s definitely an S type. Frost was oblivious to her current thoughts, misreading her smile.

In response to her words Frost clammed up, acting like an honour student, patiently waiting quietly for her next words.

“Alright since you don’t know any spells as of yet let’s purchase one. How much DP do you have left?”

“Taking away the 1300 for traps that leaves 690DP I think.” Frost opened up the menu just to clarify.

“Ah! My mistake I forgot about the DP from the mana vein, we’ve got 720DP left.”

‘Hopefully, that’s enough.’ Frost knew that he wouldn’t be able to purchase a lot of spells with that remainder, but one should be okay right.

“We can purchase one spell then.” Magic spells could be learned through reading and experimentation however purchasing from the menu would bypass that need, instantly granting the user all the necessary information required to cast the spell. Of course, they’d only have the knowledge, applying it would still take skill and practise.

.....

Maya knew of a few basic ice spells that would be great for beginners and should be within budget but considering Frost’s enthusiasm.

‘It’ll be best if it’s an attack spell.’ Thought Maya as she took control of the menu. She knew the perfect spell to start with, simple to use and enjoyable to master.

“This one!” Maya suddenly stopped scrolling through the list of spells.

[Ice bolt]: 500DP

Creates a bolt of ice that can be fired like an arrow towards a target. Improving mastery of the spell allows for an increase in the bolt’s size and number.

A simple yet very effective spell that would grow alongside the user, the perfect spell to start with. According to Maya’s knowledge there was in fact no limit to the number of ice bolts that could be summoned making it truly reflect the casters true ability. Maya herself was able to summon more than 100 at a time making it rival the capabilities of higher-level spells.

“Purchase this one.” Maya relinquished control back to Frost, moving out the way so that he could have a quick look at the description.

Frost didn’t need to look as he believed in Maya’s choice, after a quick skim through he swiftly purchased it. The core glowed once again but only briefly, probably due to only creating a single item.

Almost immediately after completing the purchase a magic crest appeared above Frost. It released a thin blue book before vanishing. Frost grabbed the book that was even thinner than the guidebook given by Dark with interest, Maya didn’t mention how he would go about acquiring the spell after purchasing.

“So that’s how.” Maya uttered as Frost was inspecting the book’s contents, it was full of complicated text and magic crest images.

“How what?” Frost asked rather puzzled.

“It’s a magic skill book. It allows you to instantly absorb its contents by injecting it with your mana. You could also read and study it like a regular book to eventually cast the spell but that’s less efficient.” For books to become magic skill books they need to have been written with mana and have certain crests throughout. It’s a very time consuming and expensive process which makes skill books fairly uncommon. They’re mostly used by very rich people who don’t wish to waste time. Nobles often buy a few skill books for their children to help them get ahead of their peers.

Other than using an artificer (magic item creation profession) to generate the skill books they can be found in monster lairs akin to a reward for clearing them. That’s another reason why the adventurer occupation is so popular.

‘Inject my mana,’ Frost understood the principle but didn’t know how. He tried to remember the feeling of having divine power flowing through him since Maya said it was similar to mana. He closed off his mind trying to focus, searching for the energy inside him.

Maya patiently watched him; she gave him a hint with the divine power but if he actually managed to succeed in manipulating his mana without her assistance it’d be very impressive.

This silence continued for a few minutes before Frost grew irritated, veins started throbbing on his forehead due to the intense level of concentration he was generating.

‘Why won’t it move?’ He could feel the mana stored within his body, but he couldn’t get it to move. No matter how much he pushed, pulled, or squeezed it wouldn’t budge, any longer and he’d probably just burst a blood vessel.

“Calm down young master, it’d be weird if you could do it straight away.” Maya announced noticing his increased frustration. She moved closer to him placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m going to inject some of my mana into you, it’ll help generate a flow.” Maya slowly started to inject her mana into Frost’s body, it felt cold yet warm at the same time. Her mana reached throughout his whole body, moving past his mana encouraging it to move and circulate.

“Good now try to redirect my mana to your hand.” Maya continued to inject more mana into his body while giving him his next instruction.

Frost listened and tried to redirect the mana towards his right hand. It was awkward at first but eventually he managed to do it. Maya’s mana and a little of his now congregated within his hand causing it to heat up and feel swollen.

“That’s great young master now try and push the mana outside of your body and into the book.” Maya released her hand from his shoulder stopping her flow of mana. She had given him enough mana to start the flow, anymore and his body would resist it.

Frost felt the connection to Maya being cut off but didn’t let it distract him, he was at the final stretch. He could feel his and Maya’s mana fusing together, continuing to fill his right hand. He struggled to make it leave his body and enter the book. The mana in his body continued to grow more and more active, generating a stream of mana that grew more and more powerful causing swelling in his entire body.

“Push young master, you need to push.” He could barely hear Maya’s voice over the pressure in his body. He continued to try and force out the mana from his right hand, it felt as though it kept hitting an iron wall. His mana repeatedly slammed against it and getting repelled back repeatedly, becoming more and more powerful with each rebuttal.

Eventually and not a moment too soon he felt the wall crack which quickly spread before the wall completely shattered releasing the torrent of mana from his body.

“Pwoaah!” Once the wall fell mana started to loudly burst out from Frost’s hand. A bright silver light quickly consumed his hand, the skill book and it didn’t stop there. It continued to grow and grow slamming into the ceiling of the private space with a loud bang.

“Shit!” Shouted Maya with a shocked expression. She quickly raised her hands in the air to absorb the rampant mana that was released.

“Stop your mana!” She quickly managed to get the raging mana under control before it broke the furniture, but Frost was still releasing more. Unless he closed the tap, it wouldn’t stop.

“How?” Frost didn’t know how to stop it, more and more mana kept flowing out of his hand generating a more radiant silver light. The longer this went on the more drained and deflated he felt, he had no idea what would happen when he ran out, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.

“Imagine a wall that the mana can’t pass through!” Maya stood in front of him forcibly absorbing his mana after it escaped his hand. She could force his mana to stop through brute force, but it was better for the individual to stop it themselves only, Frost had a lot more mana than she expected. And it wasn’t just the quantity but the quality of the mana that was an issue. Frost’s mana felt incredibly dense much too dense for a beginner.

‘A wall a wall a wall,’ Frost repeated what Maya said trying to construct a solid image, but it kept breaking. Every time he created the wall to block the mana it would be shattered almost instantly.

‘Shit it’s not strong enough, what to do? what to do?’ He was at a loss. He tried to recreate the original wall that initially blocked his mana from escaping, but it was a poor imitation lasting only a single second before breaking.

‘Ah! sod it if one won’t work how about dozens.’ Frost allowed the mana to flow freely out of his body as he tried to construct multiple walls before placing them before the tide.

After making a super thick multi layered wall so to speak he dropped it right in front of the raging mana.

‘Hold hold god dammit!’ He inwardly prayed as he felt the mana crash against the wall repeatedly with such force that his caused his entire body to shake.

After a few seconds the wall was still holding strong, a few layers were broken but nothing major.

“I did it Maya, it’s holding.” Frost couldn’t help but smile as he opened his eyes and looked at his guardian.

“Good, now you need to make it circulate through your body repeatedly until it calms down.” Maya stayed on task not getting distracted by small wins even though she was very impressed.

“Ah! Ok got it.” Frost had forgot that even though he managed to seal his mana back in it was still raging around. If he didn’t calm it down his body would pay the price.

He closed his eyes concentrating once again on circulating the mana throughout his body. This time he didn’t encounter any issues with moving the mana in fact just the opposite, it frequently crashed around causing him pain.

After about 10 minutes his mana had calmed down and was circulating freely throughout his body filling every part of him with strength.

‘Wow,’ the feeling was amazing, his whole body felt warm and full of energy. He subconsciously started punching the air repeatedly.

“How does it feel?” Maya asked with a proud smile on her face. She remembered the first time she used mana, the power and warm feeling that filled your body was addictive. Normally people slowly feel the mana within them and over time poke and prod it along until they generate a flow. It’s a much safer and easier method but it takes time plus you miss out in feeling the pure raw force of mana.

Many people believed that doing the more dangerous and violent method that Frost went through allowed for a higher potential in mana mastery. As usually only the highly talented and people with strong backing use this method but it’s debatable.

Frost turned to face Maya with a large smile.

“Amazing, it feels as though I’m full of power.” He continued to punch the air and shadow box as if to prove his point.

“Good how about the skill book, do you know how to cast the [ice bolt] spell?”

“Ah!” Frost had completely forgot about the reason he had to use his mana in the first place. He stopped his punches and searched his mind.

‘Cool,’ everything that was written in the skill book was now in his head. He now knew how to cast the spell [ice bolt], of course he’d need to work on his mana control first.

“I got it.”

“Perfect now we can get started.” Maya showed an evil smile as she said that. Seeing how much mana Frost had, she knew he’d be able to take a much more rigorous training regimen.

Her smile sent shivers down Frost’s spine. Accessing his mana was hard enough but that wasn’t even the start.

Maya opened up the dungeon menu.

“Let’s move to somewhere a little more appropriate.” She clicked something on the screen causing space for her and Frost to warp, teleporting them somewhere.

In another room separate from the private living space and dungeon Frost and Maya suddenly appeared from a warp in space.

The room’s dimensions were roughly close to 200 metres each way with a 25-metre ceiling. The walls and floor were white in colour and looked incredibly sturdy.

Frost stomped on the ground to test its strength. It was absolutely solid but his foot didn’t hurt as if it absorbed the entire impact yet there was no distortion or movement from the floor, a strange material.

“This the training room provided by the core, it’s similar to the private space but with the sole purpose of training. No matter how hard you hit or how strong your spell is there’s no chance you’ll be able damage these walls.” Maya knocked on one the walls as she said this.

“We’ll practise your magic, chakra and combat skills in here since it wouldn’t be practical if we destroyed part of the dungeon whenever you train.” She still had that evil smile on her face as she described the room’s purpose.

“Gulp” Frost audibly gulped; he knew that with his strength there’s no way he could destroy the dungeon so the fact that Maya brought him here.

‘Shit! She’s gonna beat the crap out of me.’