As these questions about my ranked-up buff continue to race through my mind, we come face to face with the Abyss, and I save my theories for later when I can actually test them. Arie opens his status to see the new skill shared with him.
A flash of white light shimmers all around him and creates a single body double. I do an All-Seeing Eye scan to confirm a copy of his greater demon's core did in fact manifest in his new body.
I point at the Abyss.
"Alright, it's time to begin your training."
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It takes a while to get started because without a Demonic Energy Manipulation skill, the unrefined energy that drops from monsters cannot be manipulated from long distances. However, after a few trial and error attempts, we figure out a way for Arie to channel the unrefined energy into his core.
All it takes is physical contact with a newly slain Demonic Monster.
The first attempt with a Demonic wolf is a success in my eyes. Even though Arie's body double erupts into a massive ball of sparks and explodes on the spot, at least some of the Demonic Energy enters his pathways to his core.
It works similarly to using mana control and creating shielding, but without a mana manipulation skill. Even though Arie doesn't have a Demonic Energy Manipulation skill, he can still move the energy around and sync his movements with his core.
Just the fact alone that a demon's core is in his body opens up the possibilities of wielding this new energy. However, he still has to learn it from scratch, like I did.
Arie creates 3 more doubles and is determined to improve.
I re-tell the stories of all my past experiences learning to let the Demonic Energy flow through my emptied out mana pathways while turning off the flow of active skills to not mix the two.
It takes dozens of failed attempts of massive balls of sparks and killed body doubles until Arie finally manages to keep some of the energy in his body double's core.
He releases it with a slow drip from his fingertips just like I did when I first started, and also self-destructs when his pathways are not completely cleared out while instinctual mana is used to power footsteps or movement speed.
On the bright side, Arie's high level of knowledge and experience manipulating mana translates over well. In just a few hours, he manages to fully absorb a full 10 units from a fallen Demonic wolf into his core and also can let the energy itself leak from his fingers pretty quickly, activating his mana skills again within minutes and not being overcome with sparks.
This kind of result took me many days to master. However, I didn't have 3 body doubles that speed up training and remove the risks of dying. Plus, he has access to a nearly endless supply of Demonic energy, and of course, most importantly, an excellent teacher.
Once Arie gets the hang of things and has a set goal in mind to replicate the black crescent slash I showed him before we entered the labyrinth, I finally take a break from overseeing him and sit down in the desert sand right outside the abyss and pull one of the isolation pods from my item storage.
I need to be within range of Arie's main body with my Rising Emperor's Domain. It stretches out almost 40 meters now, it's much larger, but the range is still limiting. His doubles are capable of traveling far away and practicing on their own, scouring the edge of the abyss, but I need to stay near the real Arie to continue sharing my skill.
So, we both get situated next to the shade of a small nearby rock structure jutting out of the sand.
"While I have a moment, I think this is a good time to start figuring out how these things work."
I activate my All-Seeing Eye, then my appraisal skill, and begin tinkering with the isolation pod.
There really isn't much to it.
It's a large heavy metal cylinder with a mechanical door set to open and close with a mechanism locked to a control panel. The control panel on it allows a user to set any amount of time using seconds, minutes, and hours.
The inner walls are made of what seem to be a unique mana shielding, and up above in a compartment connected to the shielding is an incredibly high mana reading. Covering this, is a powered-down digital clock that usually displays how much time is left in a user's pod session. If I had to guess there's still hundreds of millions of mana still locked away up there even though Lith said these machines are dormant and out of juice.
I can't seem to see through it all the way with my All-Seeing Eye, and my appraisal skill just gives blank and basic readings back.
It isn't until I activate my mythic grade crafting skill that a few new text boxes pop up in my mind's eye that were not there before.
[Input Mana]
This hovers over the top portion of the machine's mana dense section. It glows blue and looks just like the setting in my mythic grade craftsmanship interface that allows me to imbue items with skills, elements, and other features.
My gaze shifts down to the other lighter blue text box that hovers right over the control panel on the inner wall.
[Current Dilation: 1.2039x]
It doesn't have any way to add anything or change it in any way. So, my best guess is that it is dependent on how much mana is inputted, and the dilation will increase if more power is stored.
A final blue box is visible on the floor inside the pod.
[Crafters Note]
I click it, and a single text wall of instructions is left behind.
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Isolation Pod version 1.9.3
2/2: Sold to Lith Galeheart
Craftsmen instructions: Upon sale, time dilation will be about 10x faster inside the pod vs the outside world. After daily use, this pod may run dry in 1-2 years. Energy output and mana leakage for higher dilation is not worth the mana costs for commercial sales. Latest test of 28.3055x Dilation fell below 10x in just 36 hours of usage. Stability of A+ Grade mana shielding has diminishing returns after 9-10x dilation. Energy loss can be mitigated with higher-level shielding, but materials are not available. V2.0 date TBD.
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It looks as if this is another craftsmen note left behind by the Sector 2 leader, most likely not meant to be seen by anyone's prying eyes but his own.
However, it gives me interesting insight into his crafting process...
I reach into my item storage and pull out a few thousand MP worth of mana crystals and begin feeding them into the [Input Mana] slot to do some testing.
The pink crystals instantly disappear from my hands in a flash of white light and are added to the dense core on top of the pod in an instant. When I look at the control panel and see [Current Dilation: 1.2039x], showing it hasn't changed at all, I reach into my storage and pull out many more crystals.
I have tons to spare, and just want to see this number rise to confirm I'm doing it right.
After countless gems are pushed through, roughly a hundred thousand MP worth, it shifts to [Current Dilation: 1.2040x] and a grin comes across my face, also paired with a long sigh, realizing something...
"These are going to be really expensive to maintain..."
Arie looks over, replying to my mumbles.
"Find anything interesting?"
I nod.
"Yeah, I figured out how to power them... but according to my calculations here, it's going to take at least a billion MP to get this thing to dilate time up to twice as fast. Plus, it seems like there's an issue with holding in its energy past a certain point. I'm not even sure if my calculations are correct, it could get more expensive the higher it's pushed, there's no guarantee the energy needed for higher dilation is linear. Honestly... I doubt it is. On top of that, according to the creator, pushing the machine to anything over 10x faster than the outside world is burning excess mana unnecessarily. However, it's apparently plausible for one-time uses, which may be worth the excessive burn if we're in a time crunch."
I start thinking deeply to myself, and Arie asks the question that is exactly what's on my mind.
"Well, where are you possibly going to come up with that much mana to test these things out?"
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Author's Note:
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Thanks for reading:)
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