"What was that? What did you do? You've gained so much mana capacity in just a few minutes! Is that permanent?" Mary shouted at Karl, seeing he appeared to have survived.
Karl took a moment to take inventory of his body, searching for damages and changes. "Looks like it stretched the mana veins and cleared a couple of blockages." He started. "Feels like there's some residual change to my body itself too, like it's been refined in a way? It's hard to explain."
Me and Mary both had to wonder at this, but in different ways. I for one, know nothing about mana veins, but the concept of refining the body at least makes a little sense. "You mean like the first time a Lycan shifts? How it clears out lingering damage, illness and replaces scar tissue with healthy?"
"Yeah, like that. Though not on as large of a scale. But more than the minimal healing when you usually shift. Are you willing to do an experiment Kat? I wonder what will happen if you eat one of these in human form then shift?"
Has Karl gone totally insane? Running human experiments on site in a portal?
"Are you nuts? What if something goes wrong? And why would you do it here of all places?"
"If we bring it back to the base, what will happen? The mages will want to study it for years, then study the phenomenon on mages for years, then they'll involve the Lycan council and there will be ethics concerns, and demands it be tried on other races first instead of Lycans, and you see where this is going."
I do see. If this can help me, like I can feel it's boosted Karl's power, it's a HUGE find. World changing level huge.
"Are you sure you can draw the mana out if it starts to get dangerous?" Both Mary and Karl nodded at this.
"That's the easy part, controlling mana flow is the basics of the basics for Arcane mages"
Well that's reassuring. "Alright, but I hope I don't regret letting you two talk me into doing something really, really stupid"
The two mages huddled around for a second, muttering a plan in obscure technical jargon that quickly lost me.
"Since you've never used your mana veins, and we don't know how blocked they are, as Lycans don't usually have any sort of aptitude for magic, we've decided to cut this next one into 12 pieces. You'll eat one at a time and let it absorb. If it can flow through your body, we'll help you circulate the mana and try to get the benefits to your whole body. First go, in Lycan form for the extra healing"
This is such a dumb idea. Incredibly bad. Why am I even thinking of this? But Karl's power soared. I can feel it radiating off him even from here. What if it works for me too? Would I be as strong as an Alpha? Is that a risk worth taking for the potential reward?
Yes, I think it might be.
Taking the first piece with some trepidation, I close my eyes and pop it into my mouth. A surge of power flows through me, following a path that I've never noticed before, but one that feels absolutely natural, before seemingly hitting a wall and beginning to build pressure.
"It's flowing, but it looks like she's got a hard bottleneck" Karl notes in a clinical voice to Mary, who I can hear taking notes "I'm going to try circulating it on the route that's open and see what happens".
Oh no, I've just remembered the response my body has to mana flow, but it's too late, and Karl has begun the circulation. Fortunately the pain of the surging mana hitting the blockage is overwhelming the pleasurable tingle of the mana itself and I'm not in immediate danger of an embarrassing moment. With a bang that echoes throughout my body, the first blockage breaks, and the mana begins to flow through more and more of my body before it's all absorbed.
"Interesting, once it begins to circulate past the initial bottleneck, it changes form." Karl notes "It's no longer raw mana, like when I did it, but it's got more of the feel of a Lycan's dominant energy to it."
Mary notes down everything he says then smiles at me "So how was it? No damage? Any lingering pain or sensation?"
"No lingering pain, a bit of a tingling feeling left over, like my body is fuller with energy than usual, like I can do anything"
"Good good. Next!" Mary gets ready to take notes as Karl tosses another piece at my mouth. Surprised by his action, all I can think to do is open up and swallow the piece whole, as it turns to liquid and begins absorbing into me the moment I try to bite it in my teeth.
8 times now we've repeated this process, each time getting easier and easier until after the seventh the energy circulated through my whole body. The feeling is almost pleasant, but not arousing like the feeling I get from Karl's spell casting. The 8th on the other hand behaved in an unexpected way, it began to pool at a point behind my belly button, still circulating, but the excess seeming to find a storage point before slowly absorbing entirely.
"Okay, we're going to go for the last 4 pieces all at once, see if we can get that storage area to fully form. Chinese medicine calls it the Dantian, mages call it the mana pool. Not sure what it is for a Lycan, but a storage of energy to be called on for combat or healing would be a huge benefit if that's what your body's really trying to do."
Okay, we've come this far, we can do this. Just one more mouthful and it's all over.
I'm learning to circulate the energy through my body, following the feeling of the mages doing it for me, and we have found a great benefit already. On the 5th try I had made a small cut on my arm with a silver knife. A wound that would normally take all day to heal. Once the circulated energy passed it for a few seconds it disappeared as if it was never there. This influx of energy is much larger than the others, my body can't absorb it nearly as fast as it's coming in, though every test has increased the rate of absorption. As expected it's collecting behind my belly button, and I can feel the storage area solidifying. A few minutes later my body is brimming with energy. Most has been absorbed into my body, but I can feel it slowly flowing from the now solid storage area into me with every beat of my heart.
Shifting from Lycan to human and back again seems to have no effect on the flow, but it feels like the energy in my body activates in Lycan form, giving me a power I've only ever dreamt of.
Karl looks at me with the air of a warrior eager for combat "Ready to try out those newly enhanced muscles little Lycan?"
Now we're talking. I take a combat stance across from him and he strips off his shirt, showing off the glistening muscles and tattoo covered flesh underneath "Wouldn't want to ruin my favourite shirt" he smirks at my lustful gaze.
What? He's pretty built for a mage.
His first strike comes in fast. Too fast for a human, even with his enchantments up. But it seems my body is more than up to it, moving easily to block and counter strike at his chest. He rolls his shoulders to the side and is immediately on the defensive. Strike after strike I put on him, driving him into a corner between trees, before he ducks low and with a surge of mana, flips under me and out into the clear, causing my kick to hit the tree. The large oak tree, as thick as my torso, disintegrates into kindling the moment my foot hits it, ripping my boot, but barely leaving a bruise on my skin.
"Impressive kick Kat" Karl congratulates me. "Pretty sure not even Alpha Petros can shatter an oak tree like that." No, no he couldn't. Not even close. What has this mana treatment done to my body? And can it be repeated?
Laughing and returning to our gear, we find Mary finished taking the notes of our fight and eyeing one of the mana gems longingly.
"Your turn trainee?" Karl asks her.
"Would it be okay do you think?" she answers, never once taking her eyes off the gem.
"Yeah, let's go for 6 pieces for you, since you've already got flow through your mana veins, we just need to clear them and see if we can stretch your mana pool."
Mary's process went much more smoothly than mine. 3 of the 6 pieces in and the energy was flowing smoothly. The last 3 she said all went to expanding her mana pool.
"Alright, we've blown our schedule to bits with this little 4 hour delay. It's time to pack everything up and get going." Karl insists, pocketing the remaining mana stones and shouldering the furs in a bundle tied with climbing rope from his pack.