VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 141: Natural Suppliments
’It’s in the plants? Oh... Oh of course! Val you absolute moron! The bald Wizard said something about mana flowing through everything. It’s an energy surrounds and is generated by every living being, even if its just in dreadfully small amounts.’
Valerie slapped herself in the head as her thoughts spun. Her eyes, widen with amazement and the joy of discovery, scanned over every plant that she could see. All of them had small coatings of colouration clinging to them, like individual auras.
These same colourations slowly bled from the plants, flowing through the air and mixing with all of the other bleeding colours like oil in water. It created a beautiful, otherworldly portrait that bore a striking resemblance to the classical painting ’The Starry Night’ by Vincent Van Gogh. It was so similar that Valerie almost considered if he too had been able to see the truth of it all, just like she did right now.
In truth, this was not the first time Valerie had observed the world with her mana vision. She had done so many times, hoping to see picturesque views like this. But all she had seen was pathetic dregs of mana. Just lone wisps, barely larger than her finger, emanating from people and swaying in the empty air before they dissolved into nothingness.
She had assumed this was simply because of the lack of mana in their world, that if people were to gain their sources or start to train then this might change. While that assumption of change might still hold true, she had her initial start backwards.
They weren’t like this because they had a lack of mana. They had a lack of mana because they were like this.
’Our world must have had so much of it before but now... It’s all gone. Taken over by progress and machinery.’
They lived in a world of metal and concrete. A world in which greenery was rare and fleeting, and what existed was artificial or locked away in domes like this. Even the people fit that same description, artificial.
If mana was created by natural, living beings. Then how much could be generated by someone who had replaced most of their natural, living parts with cold machinery?
Implants were incredibly common nowadays, to the point that Valerie could be considered a freak for not having any, and that was solely down to her condition. Even Percy, who had incredibly low amounts of implants for a normal person, never mind the wealthy, still had the basic Ocular implants and CPU hardwired to the brain.
’What if... What if its more than just reducing the output or what exists in our world? What if its harming our intake too? Almost like an insulator in an electrical circuit, reducing the flow and requiring more energy to bypass it, or a cheesy clog in your artery.
If the implants are stifling people’s potential... then the creeps timeline would make more sense. I mean it’s not like I was drinking loads of that stuff. Only a little more than a normal person, not including the bath.
But even Percy was drinking more than me and he’s not awakened yet.’
She contemplated on it for a few more minutes, calculating some things in her mind and stringing together different theories on what was possible, before eventually sighing and giving up. It was pointless to think about now.
But at the very least, now she had a good source of mana to replenish herself on, which is exactly what she did.
Closing her eyes, Valerie pushed her senses outwards and felt the mana surrounding her properly. Finally, she felt like she could breathe again. Gone was the suffocating feeling of the mana deprived city, as she had returned to levels that were comparable to Dawd.
It wasn’t actually on the games level just yet, and it was confined mostly to this garden. But it was much better than the alternative.
The mana swirled in the air, moving fast enough to create a small wind that played with the leaves of the plants around her, as Valerie’s body became a black hole for all of the mana filling the garden.
Her emptied reservoir was rapidly filled by the incoming flood, as the colour returned to her face (as much as her naturally pale complexion could be considered colourful) before all of the mana that spilled over was pushed towards her forming source.
It was much easier, and much less sticky, than her attempts in the bath. Her interactions with mana becoming easier the more she played with it, especially in this world where she was able to let it flow more freely from her body.
But in the end there was still less than her bath’s mana content, filling her up only a few 2 - 3% compared to her baths roughly 10%. It was only a garden after all and her senses could only extend so far.
However, as soon as she finished her black hole treatment, Valerie could already feel the mana started to seep from the plants and saturate the air once again. By this time tomorrow, it would be filled back up to the same level.
Plus, there was the rest of the greenery within this magnificent manors grounds that she could drain too.
That was the main benefit of this over her D-fuel. The drink was a wonderful starter, especially to develop the senses, but it was limited and finite. Nature on the other hand was neither, so long as she kept her access to it.
Letting out a content sigh, Valerie turned around and headed back inside, already planning her routine for the week between training and mediation. If she could get the ratio of absorption right, she might not even have to wait for the garden to repopulate its mana, or anywhere she chose to meditate.
Once she was back inside, a new scent tickled her nose. Not flowers or mana this time, but the wonderful scent of bacon that was still cooking and just about to get to the perfect crispiness.
