"Delilah, open skill selection"
Having had his fun exploring the guide, Daniel quickly decides to put it to use, impatience burning within him as he thinks of being able to genuinely use magic.
[Opening skill selection]
[Select from:]
[Guide skills]
[User made skills]
Looking at the text, the 'user made skills' section seems to be greyed out compared to the rest of the text, Daniel assumes that its due to him not having made any skills; and his hypothesis is quickly proved correct as the guides robotic voice echoes in his mid.
[User made skills empty - Guide skills selected automatically]
Having been close to selecting the guide skills anyway, The interruption doesn't bother Daniel.
[Initializing skills]
[…]
[…]
Daniel's face is covered in disappointment as a mere four so called 'skills' appear infront of his eyes.
[Skills : Own power]
[Muscle mana absorption - 0 Contribution points]
[Stored mana absorption - 10 Contribution points]
[Stored mana consumption - 10 Contribution points]
[Stored mana transformation - 100 Contribution points]
"Thats it?"
He mutters to himself, doing his best to repress his disappointment long enough to read through the names of the skills.
"Really not very creative, are you Icarus?"
Muttering to himself heavily sarcastically, Daniel takes one glance at the cost of each of the skills before the obvious course of action appears in his mind.
"Delilah, Open Muscle mana absorption"
[Muscle mana absorption - 0 Contribution points, Opening]
[Muscle mana absorption:]
[The ability to enhance one's body with mana over time]
Once again, Daniel cant help but feel like the skill sounds incredibly bland.
"Delilah, Purchase Muscle mana absorption"
Taking a guess at the buy command by thinking of how plain each other command has turned out to be, Daniel is quickly rewarded by the female robotic voice in his ears, paired with white text infront of his eyes.
[Muscle mana absorption purchased for 0 contribution points - New balance : 0 contribution points]
[Muscle mana absorption text file unlocked for 'Agent Samson']
[Open 'Muscle mana absorption'?]
"Confirm"
Daniel nods absentmindedly, reading along with the text; Though within less than a second, his eyes are berated with a wall of text and diagrams.
[Muscle mana absorption comprehensive guide - Written by 'Agent Icarus']
[Enhancing one's body with mana is a fairly simple task in theory- By exerting tendons, bones, or muscles to tension within an environment that contains a higher density of mana that currently within said bones, tendons or muscles, will cause the external mana to diffuse into the body parts, allowing for the repaired tissue to be enhanced by mana.]
[However, Due to the complications regarding mana concentration, attributes, and clashes within a given fracture or environment, Issues quickly arise.]
[As such- This book is broken into a few segments, each for differing levels of mastery within this particular skill; First will be for those with no experience within this field of ability, second for those who have gained a concentration of mana equal to that of their environment in each of or all of their Muscles, Tendons, or bones]
Daniel reads past the wall of writing in his head quickly, not wanting to skip past a single word.
[Segment one: Muscle mana enhancement.]
[Muscle mana enhancement is fairly simple. Each human has an innate concentration of mana within their bodies, though some born before the breaking will have a tiny amount of mana in each of their given body parts, the rest can easily make use of this technique.]
Reading past this, Daniel frowns, knowing that he is one of the few mentioned; already with that tiny amount of mana, though he continues reading
[In order to exploit the bodies primal urge to use mana to fuel its motions, one must locate an area with a concentration of mana higher than their muscles currently contain.]
[Following this, one must have their targeted body tissue endure extreme duress, to the point that their typical bodily mechanisms aren't enough to repair the tissue.]
[Doing this will have a chance to awaken one's innate ability to absorb and use mana to repair tissue.]
[The repaired tissue will be enhanced in comparison to the original tissue.]
[Segment two..]
Daniel stops reading as he reaches 'segment two' not wanting to confuse himself with unnecessary and possibly dangerous information.
"So I basically have to destroy my body and leave mana to repair it?"
The content of the words seems overly simple to Daniel, if a little counterintuitive.
"But it says this is just for those with no internal mana to begin with? So what about that thing Icarus called 'Mana addicts constitution'?"
Thinking out loud, Daniel scratches his head, a little confused.
"I guess I'll try it and if it doesn't work I'll have to read through segment two"
Shuddering at the thought of the wall of thousands of words, from dangers to minor notes, likely contained within segment two, Daniel stands up and stretches.
Looking down at his bandaged, broken hand, Its fairly obvious to him what he should work on first.
'Hmm, actually- How come my broken hand didn't use mana to repair itself?'
Pondering as tries to move the fractured bones, He flinches in pain as he does so, confirming the sorry state of his hand.
'I guess its because it was outside of a mana rich environment such as this one?'
____
Daniel's breathing is ragged as he lays next to a pillar of jagged stone, one bandaged arm laying by his side as the other arm rests on his chest; blood drips from his unbandaged hand, aswell as from a few impact sites on the pillar of rock, the hand obviously broken.
Cursing himself, Daniel squirms on the ground, his face contorted with a grimace.
"Maybe magic isn't for me"
He says rhetorically, the frustration and pain from having broken his other hand without the slightest sign of the effects described by the guide still trumped by his childish drive to attain superpowers.
It takes nearly ten minutes for Daniel to stand up, a grimace on his face as he lets both of his broken hands hand to his sides.
'Still no mana enhanced bones'
Gritting through the screaming pain, he takes a seat against the pillar of jagged stone that proved an overwhelming opponent for his fists.
"Delilah, open selection menu"
[Agent details]
[Exchange]
[Skill selection]
[Missions]
[Active agents]
[Submit report]
[Customize guide]
[Exit]
"Delilah, Open skill selection"
"Delilah, Open 'Guide skills'"
"Delilah, Open 'Muscle mana enhancement"
Daniel reluctantly begins reading the second segment, Slightly distracted by the pain in his hands, He does his best to read through the massive second segment.
______
"Are you kidding me?"
Yelling into the bland, grey sky, Daniel closes his eyes, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.
'There's actually nothing in the whole second segment about it'
Daniel slumps to one side, Exhausted and frustrated.
Yelling at himself internally as he lays his head on the hard stone, It takes him a fair while to realize that frustration isn't exactly helping him much in his current situation; Eventually reminding himself that he, in fact, isn't a movie protagonist.
He falls asleep with a cynical smirk on his face.
_____
Daniel wakes up in pain.
Taking a moment to move his stiff neck muscles, He goes to rub the sleep out of his eyes; only to curse in pain as he tries to move his broken hands.
'Bastard! There has to be a solution to this- There's no way that that man would have given the guide to me knowing that I wouldn't be able to use it'
'Think Daniel, Think!'
Doing his best to quickly wake himself up, Daniel rubs his eyes with his forearms before doing his best to recollect the information read a few hours beforehand.
'So I need to trigger my bodies need for mana'
'But that's supposed to happen when I exert myself to extreme duress'
'Maybe breaking my bones isn't enough duress- Never mind, even if that's the answer- fuck that'
'The instructions specify an environment with a higher concentration of mana than within one's body- Hmmm'
Noting the issue of the external mana concentration, Daniel takes a few deep breaths, closing his eyes to sense the flow of energy into his body
'Okay- So there's definitely mana in the environment'
'Could it be- Maybe my internal mana concentration is too high to trigger my body's response?'
Daniel's eyes light up at having found a valid line of thought, his thoughts slowly starting to race.
'So how can I reduce the mana concentration in my body?'
He starts off with the most obvious solution, recalling the feeling of drawing his internal mana to runes drawn on his skin, before using the same feeling to draw his mana away from his broken right hand.
'Hmm- I can't feel anything major happening'
Holding the mana away from his hand as best as he can for a few more seconds, Daniel eventually stops exerting his will upon his internal mana.
'What else could I try to reduce my internal mana?'
'What if I just use it all?'
The rather simple solution comes to Daniel. Looking down at the runes drawn in pen-ink on his hand, He notes much of the ink has been damaged from the excessive mana he forced through the basic runes during his fight with the wax-masked man.
'That wont do-'
Without much of a writing implement on him, Daniel doesn't rate the rune's chances of surviving long enough for him to burn though his internal mana, taking into account the external mana.
'If I limit my mana intake- Maybe…'
It can't hurt to try. Daniel Closes his eyes in concentration, holding his breath to avoid drawing in any excessive mana from the environment.
Then the runes on his arm start to glow, not bothering with which runes they are, Daniel fuels them with the amount of mana they need to activate, before forcing multitudes more mana through them.
He is quickly filled by the feeling of his mana running out- His body shaking, convulsing in as he does his best to not breathe in any of the rich external mana, forcing himself to push every last wisp of mana in his body into the runes on his arm.
Then he runs out.
Every part of his body screams with a desire for mana, each and every part of his body shaking as though deprived of it's very life essence.
'I feel something'
His thoughts are drowsy as he struggles to maintain consciousness, a slight internal feeling, overwhelmed by the screaming urge for mana, begins to fill his broken hands.
'Yes! Hold onto it Daniel!'
Daniel forces his weak consciousness through the suffering and other stimuli, doing his best to hone in on the feeling in his broken bones.
Like a trickle of an intangible energy being pulled by some internal mechanisms within Daniels bones.
'Amplify it!'
Daniel focuses on the feeling within the bones of his right hand, the bones having been broken more recently, wrapping his consciousness around it before exerting his force of will on the trickle of mana into his bones.
From a trickle to a stream, to a deluge, he keeps increasing it.
The feeling of mana working to repair his bones like the guide mentioned makes Daniel giddy with excitement amidst his bodies screaming desire for mana.
But it doesn't stop the darkness continually encroaching on his consciousness.
Too focused on maintaining the feeling of drawing mana into his bones- Daniel doesn't pay attention to his needs for mana till its past the point of no return.
'Oh- Sh*t'
is all that goes through his mind as he drops to the stone floor once again, unconscious.