Tier one has twelve levels. Each level for an arcanist corresponds to the number of points the star they use has. But that was about it. Tier one focuses on quantity, not quality. If a human does this mana siphoning, it could very well be at least a tier two arcanist.
He knew that the qualitative difference between tier one and tier two is beyond the strength of power through the books. If tier one spells are equivalent to stones, then tier two is comparable to steel. While a stone can still bend steel with enough force, the steel only bends while the stone turns to rubble.
In this case, a tier one absorbing ambient mana against a tier two is like using an electric fan against a tornado.
That was how he felt.
If this was a human, by how civilization works, he should be safe. If this were a treasure, he'd be loaded. If this were something else, he'd die, no questions asked.
——
After a few moments, the man noticed something peculiar. The mana absorption was absolutely impetuous. Thick or thin, dense or light, regardless of quality, it was being absorbed. None of the books he'd read nor taught in schools were like this.
The man gulped.
He had no idea what was going on. His instincts are fast asleep due to ignorance, but his curiosity is driving him insane.
"Just what the hell is in there?" he thought.
Arriving in a clearing, he found nothing conspicuous. Trees were forming a natural barrier, red and blue flowers scattered around the area. The ground was naturally brown, he wasn't a botanist, but he could feel that if he threw a seed at the soil, its bounty would be something never before seen.
Then he finally realized. Due to him concentrating on the flow of mana, he never really noticed the environment around him. But now, recalling the scenes. The lushness of the forest felt like a gradient where this clearing was definitely the lushest.
From where the hollow tree was, it looked just like any other forest filled with withered leaves. Dried up over ripen fruits that fell from some of the fruit trees. In contrast to where he is now, not a single leaf is on the floor withered as if someone took the time to clean it. The trees are much fuller, and the fruits that he could see from where he stood looking luscious beyond reason.
"A treasure!" the weary man ecstatically screamed.
This was the least likely result, but it was unquestionably the most desired.
Realizing his immaturity, the man immediately calmed himself down. Looking around, he began to focus again on the flow of mana.
The sparse wisps of mana have now turned into clouds. Some of these clouds were being absorbed by the plants, and the rest were going to the middle, where it dives deep into the ground.
His heart began to race once again. In delight, he prepared himself to move the ground with mana.
It wasn't a spell but an application of mana. If a spell was a customized function, this application of mana is something that was etched deep within mana itself. This was why the term " arcanist " is considered the main category for every other mana user, as it is universal to everyone.
On his right hand, the blood vessels, or something similar to it, began to glow within his skin, giving him a neon tattoo of what looked to be like roots, on top of the ground where the clouds of mana dived formed a glowing translucent hand.
Scooping a large amount of dirt with his mana hand, the ground was immediately excavated.
According to his senses, whatever the thing that was absorbing the mana is, it should be around 1.8 meters (6 feet) deep.
Easy enough.
After a couple of minutes, the man stopped digging.
The man was wholly mystified from what he saw.
Dug deep is a skull of a human with something glowing inside it. However, it was weird. The anatomy of the skull was vastly different from most humans in his time in that it looked as if the person who was buried here had no access to mana at all.
No.
Even mana itself refuses to pass through the bones. The clouds of mana went straight towards whatever was inside.
"It must've been the skull's work that let this area of the forest as lively as it is as it scattered the mana that collides with it," the man deduced.
Now he was certain he found a real treasure.
With little apprehension and a dash of caution, the man decided to grab the skull with his mana hand.
The moment the glowing hand caressed the bone, the mana hand exploded. Mana violently scattered in the air as it blasted through everything, including the man.
Unfortunately for the man, getting smashed by random debris of mana was the least of his problems. His hands throbbed brutally, leaving him on the ground in agony.
He barely rested in the hollow tree. This was something that he could not deal with physically and mentally. Once the mana backlash ended, he sprawled on the floor.
He went out of the safety to train in the outside world, he only lasted four days, and now the only ones left of his party is himself. In the face of treasure, with the hopes of winning the lottery and turning his life upside down, he let his greed take over. He truly was ignorant.
Believing that he was meant for something great, he disparaged his father and snuck out with a party he hired to take him to the forest where beasts are known to be very bloodthirsty.
Then, with blood dripping on his mouth, he snickered. "This must've been the self-reflection that happens before death huh," he mumbled in remorse.
Right then.
*AWOOO*
Cries of the wolves reverberated in the forest.
Due to how uncharacteristically thick the mana hand was compared to the regular clouds of mana, the scattering blasted most trees in the area. Only the toughest ones remained standing. Realizing this, the man was dumbfounded. The magic hand he used to dig the soil had the strength of a tier one level one spell. Any apprentice would've been able to do that. But the force of the explosion resulted in a tier one level ten spell, much stronger than what he could possibly achieve.
With his remaining strength, he crawled towards the pit. Enduring his currently burnt right hand, he once again saw the skull.
"Since I'm going to die anyways, why not go out with a bang?" he thought.
From what seems to be a hundred meters away, he began to hear the ground rumble. Gradually, the rumbles became footsteps of a pack.
*Thud* *thud* *thud*
Thirty-seven wolves landed in the clearing while the others went around and created an encirclement.
Seeing this, the man immediately rolled to the pit.
"If exterior mana reacts that bad to the skull, wouldn't me, a man filled with mana, would react even more terribly?" with such thoughts, he extended his left hand to grab the skull.
The moment he grabbed the skull, he closed his eyes and scrunched his face expecting the worse.
"I'm so sorry, dad," he whispered.
Contrary to his expectations, however, was that nothing happened.
Feeling the cold sensation of the bone in his hand, he immediately opened his eyes.
He then realized; he truly was depleted in mana right now as what was left already leaked out during the backlash. Feeling despair, he lifted the skull.
*Clack*
Something dropped from the jaw of the skull onto the ground.
A white crystal the size of a ping pong ball was there. It was glowing white and seemed to be full of mana. "Isn't this a mana crystal?" he inwardly asked.
*Thud* *thud* *thud*
Hearing the closing footsteps of the wary wolves, he panicked.
For an arcanist, a mana crystal is a good source of mana that they can absorb. For humans like him, it was to meditate and connect to the crystal; for the beasts, it's to consume.
Unfortunately for him, meditating takes a whole lot of time.
With the already-built resolve of dying in this place, he unhesitatingly placed the crystal to his mouth.
Due to the massive amount of adrenaline in his body, it felt like it took him five minutes to put the crystal in his mouth.
Still, when he lifted the crystal towards him, he seemed to have seen a metal place shaped like a rounded diamond with a '^' and three dots under it.
It was no time to hesitate; thus, he did not stop to consider what was that.
With the most enormous gulp of his life, he swallowed the entire crystal.