"Yes?" Sarah's simple question coupled with a puzzled expression on her face was more than Leon could handle.
'Anyone else would be no more than a vegetable after getting this kind of mana radiation dosage,' he thought, biting down on his lips and then using the pain as an anchor to help himself stay focused. 'At least, she isn't looking at the reaction right now,' he then thought, taking a deep breath before blinking his eyes a few times.
'Still... Maybe it's normal for the people of this world?' Leon thought, desperately combing through all his distant memories of the lessons he received about the mana theory to come up with any possible explanation of what he could see before his very own eyes. 'Or is she the one that's special?'
The weight of this last question nearly made the bloodmancer fall to his knees. Because if there was one thing that he was sure about, it was a complete lack of "ifs" when it came to the survivability rate of mana radiation exposure. Which meant its either Sarah that was special, or that his assumption that magic worked in a similar manner between the worlds... was wrong.
"First off, do not look at the blood crystal," Leon snapped back to reality and muttered. 'Whichever is the case, there is no point in having her risk her sanity any further.' He took a deep breath. "If you don't want to become a fucking vegetable, do not look at it!"
Leon had to hold himself back from screaming out loud.
The side effects of the process were powerful enough to attract the attention of not only the villagers, whose homes took the brunt of the shockwave but also the soldiers in the nearby camp. As such, it was unwise for him to give anyone any further hints as to who was behind the shockwave. And raising his voice right now was the easiest way to attract unnecessary eyes to the scene.
"I... Sure?" the girl hesitated, more baffled than she was scared.
'I guess the meaning of becoming a vegetable eludes her,' Leon realized. And as soon as he did, the logical explanation for it appeared in his mind as well. 'Right, in a world where technology is on this level, anyone with a fried brain would be simply considered to be dead,' he thought, only to shake his head and move his eyes back towards the core.
"No matter what, don't look at it again. In fact, it will be best if you laid down and..." he said, only to hesitate for a second.
'And what if she's special? Wouldn't it be beneficial to have her exposed to the radiation for a little bit longer? In the worst case scenario, I could learn a bit from her corpse and...' Leon's eyes suddenly went wide when he realized what path his thoughts took.
The bloodmancer then bit down on his lip to the point it opened up and oozed blood.
'I'm not that kind of person!' he screamed out in his mind only to blink his eyes and look back at the girl. "Just lay down face first. Looking at it might kill you."
This time, the bloodmancer didn't use any indirect words. And just like expected, this simplified explanation finally allowed the girl to understand her situation as well.
Sarah's face turned white. Her body tensed up... only for the girl to slowly fall down to her knees before laying down and pressing her face against the ground.
'Good,' Leon thought, turning his eyes back to the bloody crystal still hanging in the air before him. 'Now, let's finish the process up.'
With renewed motivation and clarified thoughts, Leon directed all his focus to the task at hand. He then infused his intent into the blood within the crystal, ramping up the pressure it applied on the inactive mana inside.
Then, for roughly five minutes... nothing happened.
The bloodmancer continued to stay in his spot. His eyes were locked on the bloody crystal while the rest of his body stayed fully motionless. To his side, Sarah took Leon's advice to her heart, only moving her hands to dig up the ground from around her body and then stack it to the sides of her face, killing any and all possibility of turning her face around.
POOF!
Another shockwave appeared when the pressure induced by Leon's blood suddenly struck against a crystal that couldn't be condensed any further. It then bounced back from its tough surface before dissipating in the air around along with the tiny bit of residual mana that was left in his blood.
"It's done..." Leon then muttered, taking a deep breath. And as the air filled his lungs properly for the first time in a long while, his body suddenly relaxed, causing him to fall on all fours.
He kept his muscles and tendons tensed up to their limits for long enough to render himself unable to move for a while.
"Hmhmphm?" Sarah said something without moving her head from her small dugout, making it impossible for the bloodmancer to discern even a single of her words. Instead, rather than busying himself with the girl, Leon took a moment for his body to regain its elasticity before standing up and reaching for a generally see-through crystal the size of his thumb.
'Now then, what should I do with it?'
There were four possible means of further transforming the crystalized form of active mana that Leon got his hands on.
The last and the most useless one was about using it right away. Yet, he didn't spend an entire droplet of his mana-infused blood just to create a huge firework, making this option a massive no-no.
'I can either transform it into an infused blood, some sort of accessory, or just activate it right away,' he thought to himself, considering his options. Yet, before he could even decide, his eyes wandered off to the side, towards the girl still hiding her head in the dugout of her own making.
'No, there is no way I will waste it on her, not in my current state,' Leon thought, rolling his eyes over the naive side of his soul that even took such a possibility into consideration. 'Turning it into an infused blood would be beneficial, but wouldn't change much in the long term,' he then thought.
Leon then looked around, searching for a suitable material that could serve as the carrier for the active mana. And after a single glance he threw to his surroundings, Leon reached his final conclusion.
'With no crystals in sight, I guess activating it right away is the best option,' Leon thought, only to enclose the crystalized active mana in his fist before coating it with an empty intent of his.
In a sense, it was a massive loss. Back in his original world, activating active mana was no different from limiting the ways in which one could use it.
'It doesn't seem like I will face any grandmasters anytime soon in this world,' Leon then thought, pushing through with his choice.
The crystal in his hand dissolved into a semi-material state only to then sink right through his skin. And with a single push from Leon's will, the activated mana traveled all the way to his stomach only to take residence there.
'And now, I've gained a new triumph card,' he thought and blinked his eyes a few times, getting himself accustomed to the weird presence in his stomach.
"It's finally over," he then muttered only to walk towards the lying girl before patting her on her shoulder. "It's over," he then said, pulling her shoulder up and forcing her head out of the hideout.
"Can I look now?" Sarah asked with her eyes still tightly shut.
"Yeah, it's fine," Leon replied, helping the girl to stand up properly. "But we don't have the time to waste right now," he added, looking back in the direction of the village. "It's only a matter of time before someone will come looking for me. So for now, we need to return right away."