Surprisingly, I couldn’t seem to cause any sort of backlash. I suspected I might just need more opponents and more shields being damaged at the same time, and I added that to the list of things to try in full squad training the next day. I thanked the cores for their help and let them resume whatever fun they were having while asking Corey to come with me to the garage.

  “Is something wrong?” Corey asked once we had the garage door closed behind us.

  “Wrong is a strong word. But what are your thoughts on the cores so far?” I asked.

  “Alpha and Gamma are adjusting well. Beta, I am not sure about. Sometimes what they say seems like attempts at jokes. But I have never been able to fully grasp humor, and I do not know that Traveler was able to either. It is currently a conundrum I wish to discuss with the more knowledgeable of our kind,” Corey answered.

  “Understandable, as I can’t really read them either. Do you think everything is fine for now, though?” I asked, wanting to calm at least some of my concerns.

  “I do. I still maintain full control over the mana connections between them and you. They cannot bypass that,” Corey replied.

  “Glad to hear it. I’m going to dig deeper into the rest of my mana orbs. You’re welcome to go enjoy yourself as well,” I said, wanting Corey to continue exploring their own independence.

  “Thank you, Dave. I am enjoying this new form far more than I expected to. It is quite interesting to have a fully autonomous body that is just your own. I will forever be grateful to you for allowing me this chance,” Corey replied.

  “Just pass it on. Let’s do our best to figure out the new cores and try to get them as happy and healthy as you,” I said.

  “Understood,” Corey replied as they left the garage, leaving me alone again with my orb plans.

  Starting with the Life orb I moved Medical Telemetry to the max value, and then I unlocked Soul Regeneration and did the same there. I figured if I was going to start throwing around soul mana, it was likely for the best that I had the ability to heal any damage I did to myself. I also needed it for the long-term investigation into the soul knots the Jesters had created on the others. Beyond that, there was a curiosity about soul oaths as well, but as we still weren’t bound by the Arena one that didn’t seem as important.

  I really wished I had more of the orbs leveled beyond the second tier, as things seemed to get much more powerful in the fifth tier of mana skills. Hopefully, as our mana flow grew and my very close proximity to the sources continued, I might be able to increase the growth rate on the orbs. There was also the possibility of Mana Weave Path, but that would likely take a lot more leveling than Corey could easily handle at the moment.

  In the Body-Enhancing orbs the only real choice I had was Overwhelming Strength, and I still didn’t have any interest in it. At any point, I could see myself actually needing to use that I had almost certainly already lost the fight, and activating it could only make things worse. I just wasn’t the type of combatant to find that useful, at least not yet. There was, of course, still lesser mutation, but I wasn’t ready to play with that quite yet.

  On both Elemental orbs, I quickly moved Silent Casting up to twenty-five ranks. I didn’t need the enemy to know exactly what I was casting just because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I knew that I would still hear the words in my mind from Elicec and that certain builds would still be able to pick that up for countering, but it was for the best to reduce that chance as much as I could.

  Components did still sound interesting and was almost certainly something I’d take the time to explore more of once this was over. I had a feeling the ability was just more useful for me in my future magical experiments. While I was sure I could utilize them in a fight, there wasn’t really time to add that level of complexity to things I needed to figure out at the moment. I was pretty settled into the idea of my current battle plan for the tenth floor. There was also the fact that with the way Aether seemed to work for me, I’d likely need to start carrying around pure samples of elements to make the best use of it. Which was something I wasn’t remotely against in the future, it was just that now wasn’t the right time to start building my collection.

  That left imbuing, which was my orb still at the lowest rank. The only real increase I could do on it was to finally fully invest in Elemental Affinity. This did leave me with a question, though. Was Corey able to activate mana skills from Alpha’s mallet to the other tools? Or were we only limited to using Imbuing on Alpha themselves?

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I opened my chat window, hoping Corey had a good answer to that question.

  I closed the chat window at the realization that I hadn’t completely removed the shield on the moose. Well, at least that meant he was safer roaming the grounds. It was certainly a strange turn of events that a moose was becoming such a fixture.

  Checking the time, I still had an hour before dinner; that meant I had time for one more conversation. I needed to talk to Mel about Maud. I was just too worried about her not to know what he was planning.

  Surprisingly, Mel wasn’t where I expected him to be. Instead of floating near his favorite tree, I actually found him talking to Glorp about possible choices for his classes and mana orbs. He had mapped several pathways out on a whiteboard with details of what he thought would give Glorp the best growth in several different directions. This had to be the Mel everyone referred to as a legendary manager. Whatever the tree was doing for him, I was glad for the change.

  “Hey Glorp, any chance I could steal Mel for a chat?” I asked as I approached.

  “Oh yeah, sure, I need to look over these ideas anyway and consider some things,” Glorp replied. “Oh, and do you know why Maud thinks I put a shield on the moose?”

  “I don’t, but thanks for letting me borrow him,” I said, looking toward Mel and doing my best not to give away my own guilt.

  “What’s up, Dave?” Mel asked as he bobbed his cloud form next to me. We were heading into the woods for a little privacy, but not far. I didn’t want to risk any more attacks.

  “I’m worried about Maud. That last floor people can actually die on, right? Is it really safe to bring her along?” I asked. Hell, was it safe to bring Glorp? Sure, he had managed some powerful things with his speed, but that was likely something this other squad would be more prepared for.

  “Oh, I may have made that seem a tad more dangerous than it actually is in that regard, mostly because ya do have to win, and at the time, the idea of retreating wasn’t viable. So basically, anyone who takes a killing blow has an option ta immediately leave the floor or stick around with a timer. The timer is based on just how much damage they took, but it can’t be less than five seconds. If y’all can manage to heal them back up before that time runs out, they will be fine ta continue the fight, and obviously, if they leave, they’re fine too,” Mel explained.

  “But if the timer runs out, they do die?” I asked.

  “Yes. In future floors, yer gonna find all kinds of weird rules that play with timers like that, so this is meant to be the introduction ta it, and ta further weed out some people. So yes, there ain’t really a reason to leave Maud behind; she can always tap out if she has ta,” he explained. I felt the crushing weight of one of my fears fade away. We could just escape if we had to. And with my new battle plan of shielding and healing, I could likely keep everyone up and fighting beyond what they were expecting us capable of.

  “Mel, you have no idea how much pressure you just took off of me,” I said, smiling at the man.

  “Yeah, well don’t get used ta it. Tomorrow, I got some new plans to push y’all even further, so don’t get lazy!” He yelled, some of his bluster back in his eyes, but I could see the caring along with it. The rough edges that been pushing some of his angrier moments seemed to be calming down.

  “Help, the moose stole a mana orb!” Maud yelled as she ran past me, bursting out from several large bushes. The moose was now chasing behind her. I sighed loudly, accepted my own blame in this, and started chasing the two of them, leaving Mel to let the others know what had happened.

  Energy is not infinite. You can’t produce more mana than exists in a system. That’s an important thing to remember and a goal no one should try to chase. Now, alongside that, it’s important to remember the mana in a system is generally much harder to fully take stock of than most people realize. Once connected to the Spiral, you are no longer in a closed system in the same way most species understand it. Entropy starts to work vastly different than in closed-off universes. There are even those capable of utilizing entropy as a force in itself. But what I’m trying to get through here is that you should not be trapped in a pursuit of some sort of perpetual mana machine. What you need to understand instead is all the mana forces at play around you. Study them, understand them, utilize them.

  Mana Sources by Henjen Klank

  4000 Followers - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 10%

  750 Favorites - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 90%

  100 Subscriptions - 3 Bonus Chapters

  ?????????? 50%

  100 Members - Vote On 2 Bonus Excerpts

  ?????????? 40%

  Read up to 20 chapters ahead of Magical Engineering on my Patreon:

  Checkout the official

  And if you like my work, consider checking out my other ongoing series.