Leon's eyes flashed, reflecting the light that burst forth from the fist-sized piece of crystalized mana.
'It's happening,' he thought, pulling together all the focus that he previously used to maintain over ten thousand tiny barriers, all in order to keep perfect tabs on what was happening within the crystal.
The activated and extremely pure mana from his blood wasn't fuel for the reaction. It was only an activating element that pushed the unstable crystal beyond the barrier that normally would only be breached during high-scale natural disasters.
At first, the mana from the blood seeped into the outside layer of the crystalized mana particles. The crystallized piece then turned red, taking on the color of Leon's blood.
To the side, Sarah was stuck on the ground. The shockwave of the raging winds moved over her body only an instant ago, making her too scared to raise her head and look at the process.
'Good,' Leon thought when he spared just a tiny bit of his attention to confirm the state of the girl. And then, he ruptured a small vein in each of his eyes, squeezing his blood from the tiny wounds only to use it to completely cover his eyeballs.
And then, he started the process.
With a whisk of his will, Leon ignited the blood inside the outer layer of the crystalized piece. At first, it simply replaced the force formerly brought upon the piece by the swirling winds, stopping the natural process of the mana decaying into a less concentrated form. And then, by adding just a little bit of pressure, he squeezed the crystal, breaking right past the limits of how much space there was for the volume of the crystalized particles inside.
Just like it would happen in physics of a much greater scale, something had to give up.
In the universe, when one attempted to fit more mass than space could fit, it would collapse on itself and turn into a black hole. On a smaller scale, if someone were to freeze a bottle of water, it would then promptly rupture, due to the physical integrity of the bottle's structure falling way below the mark of strength that the expanding particles of water could create.
Yet, contrary to the example with water, the barrier that enclosed the mana and the pressure of Leon's blood was much greater than the integrity of the inactive mana particles. And when Leon shot right through all the barriers of stability, something had to give up.
In the case of black holes, it would be the space itself. In the case of a water bottle, it would be the integrity of the container. Yet, in the case of inactive mana particles... it was the atomic-sized structures of the mana particle that dissolved, shedding the burden of the past usage that turned the mana from active to inactive.
"Hmmuh?"
A few seconds passed, and Sarah finally uttered a tiny moan. Her body twitched as she started to check up on her own state, only to slowly start raising up.
"DON'T..." Leon attempted to warn the girl... but it was too late.
Before Leon's words could reach Sarah's ears, she brought her head up...
And stared right into the blood-red crystal of the ongoing reaction.
In essence, mana could exist in three basic states. The inactive one was what one could find all over the world. But in reality, it was its final form.
When the natural processes within the world would lead to the release of huge amounts of energy, active mana particles would come to be a way for the world to store said energy. Yet, contrary to the mass that created the world humans knew of, active mana particles were way closer to the border that separated energy from the mass.
On its own, active mana was just a particle like any other. Its only difference would be the ease at which it could turn back into its raw form of pure energy. Yet, the magic would happen when a mage, or an operator, would infuse their intent into the active mana, changing it into an activated form.
Back when Leon was learning the basics of mana manipulation, he was taught to perceive active mana as a particle with two possible connections and activated one as the same particle but with the intent of occupying one of its two slots.
Inactive mana, on the other hand, was simply a particle of mana that guided by intent would combine itself with a particle of mass before following the instructions contained within the intent to bring forth change.
In this way, the inactive mana particles were no different from either active or activated ones. The only difference lay in the fact that in their case, both of its slots were occupied, rendering it nearly useless within the mana-usage system developed back in Leon's homeworld.
Right now, however, Leon forced a huge amount of crystalized inactive mana particles into an environment that was so drastic, it freed both slots of mana particles, reverting it back to its original, pure form.
Yet, just like in every aspect of physics, nothing could be lost. Stuff could be, at most, transformed into a new form.
And in this particular case, all the intent and mass-echo, something that even Leon only heard about from the scholars researching the topic, now radiated like crazy from the blood-red crystal, showering everyone and everything with the intent of old and, just like the name implied, the echo of the mass formerly moved by mana.
Normally, human skin was more than enough to repel this form of radiation, as long as it was kept within reasonable levels. Human eyes though were a different matter altogether.
And right now, before Leon could stop her from doing so, Sarah exposed her eyes to the intense mana radiation, allowing her mind to be assaulted by a powerful wave of information her brain couldn't process.
'FUCK!' Leon screamed out in his soul. And for the first time since he came to this world, he was faced with a choice where no matter what he did, he would be at a massive loss.
On one hand, he could drop the refinement process, saving the girl from frying her brain. Yet, the refinement process on this scale not only attracted a lot of attention with all its side effects but also was extremely taxing on one's focus and mana reserves. Completing it would reward its orchestrator with more than enough energy to recuperate the losses... but dropping it right in the middle would bring Leon into a massive net loss.
Yet...
'I brought her here,' he thought, an intense feeling of guilt filling up his soul. 'I failed to warn her in time,' he realized his own mistake. 'So the question is simple, is she worth the cost of dropping the reaction?'
Leon thought through all of those things in a mere instant. He was in a greater rush than ever before, as once the mana radiation would enter the girl's brain, the first reflex it would fry would be the ability to look away. As such, for every second that he would hesitate, the chances of the girl surviving would fall by roughly twenty percent. The chances of her keeping her personality, memories, or even intelligence, though...
'I'm no longer the same as I was back then,' Leon then thought, reaching the conclusion to his quandary within a single second.
Back in his world, his slave collar would force him into a pragmatic decision. This girl was nothing to him so her worth wasn't even comparable to even the tiniest amount of mana.
But in this world, Leon was free of his slave status.
And that difference was enough for the bloodmancer to make up his mind.
Leon raised his hand, ready to pull all the blood from the mana crystals to kill the pressure and stop the reaction. Yet, right as he was about to release his intent...
"How beautiful," Sarah uttered two words in an astonished voice, her eyes opening wide.
Leon's eyes opened up wide, all the way to the point where the blood he used to protect them barely managed to keep shielding his brain.
The girl then stood up, her eyes naturally drawn to the beauty of the reaction.
Leon's hand froze in place. What he saw happening before his own eyes were just too incredible for him to stop the reaction.
Between saving the innocent girl and properly refining his mana, Leon already made his choice. But now that Sarah proved to be somehow able to retain her sanity despite feeding on a scary amount of mana radiation, the equation changed.
'I need to know more,' Leon thought, relaxing his hand as he ignored the refinement process and started at the girl.
Sarah apparently sensed his stare, freely pulling her eyes away from the blood crystal only to look at Leon's face.
"Yes?"