AN:- I am currently preparing for the upcoming writathon, which is why the schedule of the chapters will be dodgy today and tomorrow. But there will be chapters every day.
From the 1st, there will be two chapters a day. I should do like, one chapter every 12 hours or so, until I have reached the goal of the writathon. This means that there will 2 chapters a day, till the 15th or 16th.
For patrons of my P*atreon page, the two-day a-chapter routine might extend beyond the above date, because I need to create a stockpile for P*atreon.
Just a heads up.
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The first time Drac heard about the Era of Ice, he was in the Hampshire Manor. He couldnt understand the whole context of the era, he learned that it was a time when this island was covered in ice. Which was pretty strange as this island seemed like a tropical place. The winters are not cold enough to freeze someone to death, let alone cover the whole island under ice.
At that time he couldnt understand what the Era of Ice was all about, and he didnt care.
When he came to Sumor keep as a butler, he went to the library to get books about mana arts. His other motive was to find anything that he could get to understand the language that the books of the Albino woman were written in. He was able to go through the satchel when he came to the keep and soon uncovered tons of things from the bag. And most of them were books, whose language he couldnt understand.
He knew that these books would be about Mana Arts, which was why he wanted them to be translated. But couldnt approach anyone for help, and he was not able to find any clue about the language. As far as Sumor's Keep library is concerned, it had some books which told him a lot about Mana-wielding warriors, and what was happening to his body.
And it was when he wanted to delve deeper into how a mana wielder's body worked, did he found a certain interesting book in the Library. It was an old book, more precisely it was a diary of a Matriarch who once ruled the Sumor family. Most of the diary was filled with insights of Warrior Path, and how they were able to dodge obstacles.
The writer of the diary mentioned that she had a younger brother, who was planning to kill the current regime of the kingdom. And how she foiled his plan of poisoning the drinking water of the capital. But the strange part was, the writer mentioned that how she felt that she was lucky that she was able to stop another Era of Ice type of disaster from happening again.
The library of Sumor Keep contains the map of the whole Alanor Kingdom. And from looking at the map he realized that if she hadn't foiled his brother's plan then there was a chance poison would have killed almost three-fourths of of the population of the kingdom itself.
But the comment remained stuck in his mind, he wanted to know whether the ancestors of the Sumor Family were indeed responsible for the Era of Ice, and if so, how? Which is when he contacted Helen….
In the dining hall, in front of the gaze of the Sumor Family and Travis, Drac showed everyone the book, "This right here is the observation diary of one of the ancestors of the Sumor Family,"
"What about it?" Daniel asked curiously.
"Well, Mistress and I were trying to uncover the truth of Era of Ice. Sumor Family caused it or were responsible for it somehow. From different diaries, we were able to uncover that most of the ancestors knew about the Era of Ice. But as time passed by, the knowledge of the era was not passed on. We were able to find any clues about the Era.. But this diary contains a passage that could explain some stuff,"
Drac then opened the book, and started going through its pages, "This diary recalls the time when the writer had to fight some magical beasts that had made their home on the southern edge of the island…" Magical Beasts were beasts who could wield mana. There was not a lot of information on such beasts in the library as there are essentially no magical beasts or predators in the Kingdom. They had gone extinct a long time ago.
He then started reading the passage from the diary, "…I stared at the corpse of the beast. Its reptilian wings and outrageous size amazed everyone on the hunting party. That beast managed to kill 600 people and 70 mana wielders with it. Some were saying that this beast was the single biggest threat that the kingdom had ever faced. If only these people knew the horror that the Sumor Sanctuary was hiding. The beast down there, its size was almost 4 times the size of the beast before me…"
He then looked up, "This was the secret of the Sumor Family's ancestors. They brought a beast to the island, that went rogue and covered the whole island under ice," There are legends that some strong Mana Arts could change the weather itself. So he just concluded that this might be true for magical beasts as well.
No one spoke anything, which Drac didnt expect. Everyone was stunned, but all were staring at Gregor for some reason. Los in thought for a few seconds, the old patriarch of the family stood up, towering over him. "Have you told anyone about this matter?"
He shook his head, "I have not talked to anyone about the matter, other than the mistress,"
Gregor then turned towards Travis, "Take this boy and put him on lockdown, until you receive a word," The old butler nodded, when Gregor turned to him, "As far as you are concerned boy, do not try to talk to anyone during your confinement. If someone asks you, tell them you are sick or something.. Try to run, or disobey any order, and my men would hunt your ass down like a dog that you are,"
"Understood sir," he said, Travis then held his shoulder and escorted him to his room….
***
Drac's quarters were in the basement of the keep, which was not a very pleasant place. It was damp, had a ton of moisture on the walls and there were a lot of rats running around the place. However it was, he was not complaining about it. He just came to this place, when he had to sleep. Most of his time he had to spend upstairs. But now, as he had been confined in the place for a few hours, he couldnt help but be a little bit angry.
I knew that these guys would flip out when they heard about the corpse of the beast, but didnt predict that they would confine him here.
In this world, the corpse of a Magical Beast is considered very precious. Through a magical beast's bones one could make different types of elixirs, through its bones one could nourish the soil to make it habitual for magical herbs. Hell, the meat of any magical beast is so nourishing, that a Mana wielder eating it on a regular basis could ascend with tremendous speed. It was even faster than the mana stones that he had safely tucked away in the magical satchel bag.
Hey, If I have time, why not just make my first circle? He thought.
In this world, the mana wielders increase their strength by increasing their innate mana in their body. All the mana in the body is stored in something called the Dantian, in the case of warriors, and Mana Heart in the case of Mages. Drac does not possess Mana's heart, but he does possess dantian.
When he first met Travis, that old man mentioned that he was close to creating the first circle. Now he understands what the old man meant by that.
Dantians are made when a warrior increase their innate mana by opening their pores located on their skins. These pores are the ones through which he absorbs mana through the air, and these pores are connected to the Mana circuit in his body. According to Travis, he was very close to creating the first circle, because he was able to consilidate a dantian back then. But he didnt move forward to create a circle because he wanted to flush out all the impurities from his body.
He had understood that flushing out the body's gunk made it easier for him to control the flow of the mana. So he figured that before going to the next step, why not map out the whole circuit and flush out all the impurities? This seemed like the most logical thing to do at the time. So he did just that, and for the past few months, he was able to make a ton of notes about the mana circuit of his body.
Whether his interpretation was correct or not, he didnt know. But now he could move on to the next step…
He sat down in a meditative position with a mana stone in his hands. For the past few months, he had mastered the technique from which he could control the pores of his whole body. Because of this, he could now control the amount of mana that he absorbs from his palm. Which is why he could touch mana stone with his bare stones, without being subjected to pain.
Slowly he started absorbing the mana through his palm and started sending it straight towards his dantian. Even with his control, the process was a little bit difficult. It was when his dantian was filled to its brim, did he started the next and most crucial part of the process, creating the first circle…
When Drac found the depiction of how the circles were created, he was very surprised to see that they resembled the diagram of an atom. The dantian remains in the middle, and around the dantian mana circles are made. In the same way, the dantian gets consulted, when a circle or an orbit made of mana is made, the orbits consolidate. This is how the circles are made around the dantian.
Like that, 13 circles can be made around the dantian. But not everyone could make 13 circles, there are many problems that mana wielders might face. If their control is not very good, then the mana orbit or circle won't consolidate properly, which would make them unstable. Also, the innate potential also plays a role here. Sometimes, the dantian of a person is not big enough to successfully make a stable connection with various orbits.
The books didnt answer properly the reasons or the solution for the problems. But as a modern human, Drac had some idea how to bypass some of these problems.
In the natural world, the atoms are the building blocks. The reason why there are some atoms in the natural world with more than 13 orbits is because of something called the electromagnetic force. The positively charged particles of an atom are located in the nucleus of the atom, or in the center. Electrons revolve around the nucleus because the electromagnetic force that acts on electrons
And Drac realized that maybe he could use this same principle here. He knew that after the consolidation of the orbits, there was some force that made the orbits stay around the dantian. So if he were to use the same principle of an atom, create an orbit around the dantian, with a sphere in the middle of the orbit like an electron, then might be able to create circles that would be more stable then most of the warriors in this world…