I quickly moved my consciousness from my soul to my brain to see what had happened with my skill having fired. As I opened my eyes, I did not hear anyone screaming. I quickly got to my feet.
"Hey Travis, you took a long time to wake up. You shot a glob of crackling mana into the sky. I'm just glad that your right palm wasn't pointed at me."
I sighed. "Yeah."
As I did, my blue system screen popped up in front of me.
___________________________
Soul-Brain Skill link established: You can now use skills from the position of your brain if you have already used them before. Just recall the vested emotions that you felt.
___________________________
I pushed the blue status screen away from me and turned to Jason who was walking over. He had a frown on his face, but there were no tears. I looked into his eyes. "Hey Jason, you good man?"
"I'm fine. Can I take one of the weapons from this pile?"
"Yeah."
Behind Jason, Zane and Jett walked as well. Both had blood on their hands while Zane had a disgusted expression on his face. I nodded to Zane. "Were you getting the corpses out from under the boulders?"
He nodded. "Yeah, and I was afraid the whole time that they might turn into Zombies, but thankfully they did not."
I motioned towards the weapons on the ground. "Take one."
In the end, I took a sword. Zane took the ax. Tessa took a spear. Jason took the other spear. Jett took the last sword and the shield. We all looked at each other with our new equipment, and I nodded. "We look kinda silly right now, but we are going to kill so many Zombies with this equipment, and we are going to get so much experience."
After we had all armed ourselves, we walked into the ruined building to search for the Mana stone that the Lion had dropped. I saw it almost instantly, it was in a crater and though it was covered by a lot of rocks, it was glowing brightly and was extremely enormous. Lines of mana flickered from the stone angrily.
I jumped down into the ten foot deep crater, and I brushed all the loose rocks away from the Mana stone. The Mana stone was the size of my head, which was so much bigger than all the others I had seen. I bent down and I touched the stone with my hand.
The mana lanced through my body and entered my soul, as it did, I could feel myself being flooded with hostile mana. I felt unimaginable pain as the huge flood of green mana attacked my soul. I instantly switched my consciousness to my soul.
As soon as I entered my Soul, I heard screams of rage from the overflowing emotions in my soul. "LET ME GO!"
"KILL HIM, DESTROY HIS SOUL!"
"KILL."
"KILL."
…
There were so many emotions flooding against my soul, that I could not help but feel a little bit of anger. A million times in a second, scenes from my life played out in my soul. Things that had made me angry.
I felt rage flowing through my soul, how could I not? And then, amidst all of the visions recalled that made me angry there was one other that was played through my mind as one of my blue motes of Mana touched my Soul.
It was a memory of the need for Focus. How anger gets a man nothing. It was the memory of me sliding a blade through my father's eye socket. I remembered the blood and brain matter leaking out as well as him spasming out on the bed. I remembered my mother's heart wrenching screams. I remembered my brother's horrified expression as he ran into the room. I remembered the red and blue light flashing in the night. I remembered being in court.
EVERY MOMENT OF IT. That is the path Rage would lead down. All of the anger flaring through my mind. I banished it.
"YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE."
The mana played memories in my soul, but I ignored them all. I held steadfastly against the rage of mana rushing through me. Against the rushing mana, my soul stood steadfastly. I projected my own emotion against all of the violent ones. Slowly, but surely, the attacking green Mana motes began to turn to blue.
It took me a very long time, but eventually all of the mana settled down. I had won. There was just one problem, as the Mana had all turned blue, it began to calmly drift away from my soul. There was not enough room for it all.
I felt the dark room inside my soul stretch. I felt such incredible pain, that I could feel my body in the crater screaming at the top of my lungs. My mana veins stretched, and my soul began to pump the mana at increased rate and volume through my body. It took time, but my body eventually stabilized.
I let my consciousness go back to my mind. I opened my eyes and stood up. I looked down at my body. It had grown in size slightly and alongside my own veins, I saw slightly glowing blue veins where mana was.
Suddenly, a blue window popped up in front of me.
___________________________
You have consumed 1 Mana stone and have gained 800 Mana.
!WARNING! You have past the maximum amount of Mana your body can hold (10x other stats)! 11 Mana has been discarded forcefully and has been exchanged for shop points. + 1100 shop points.
Travis Scott: Level 11. Transformation tier Awakener.
SYSTEM → [Input Command/Open Store]
Vitality → 100 // Strength → 100 // Agility → 100 // Stamina → 100 // Mana → 1000
___________________________
I saw motes of Mana burst out from my body through my skin. As soon as they exited my body, my skin closed back up. The Mana that left my body flew straight into the system window where it disappeared. The system window glowed brighter for a second and then that faded too.
I sighed and glanced back up at the top of the crater where the other's stood. "Why don't we go kill some Zombies and get some Mana for you all? I need levels."
I jumped out from the crater and Zane nodded. "Let's go."
If a god was watching us from the sky, the scene of us majestically walking from the ruined building with our new equipment must have looked purely spectacular.