I still needed to dive into my class today, but first, following the advice of the book, it was time to look over my long-ignored interaction attributes, starting with moving presence up to five hundred. I didn’t feel anything noticeably different and started to assume that only came from changing my senses. Assuming my understanding was correct on how most attributes worked, I still needed to spend time training the part of my being associated with it towards that new limitation. The problem there was that I didn’t know how you trained your presence.

  Four more secondary stats were unlocked below presence after my point expenditure: Influence, Defiance, and an awareness attribute for each. With what Karlinovo’s book had said, I had a feeling these went beyond just people in how they interacted with reality. How did the awareness attributes work exactly? Would something ping in my brain to alert me, or would it just be more obvious that someone else’s influence was acting over me?

  These were questions that I likely wouldn’t find answers to on Earth. The implications of their value when dealing with other factions was an interesting thought. Did the heads of the big factions have these attributes pushed as far as they could, or did they employ specialists for faction negotiations?

  After investing five hundred ranks in each of the new attributes without finding a maximum value, I decided to call that good enough for now. I just still couldn’t get myself to risk using all of my spare attribute points, especially when I was about to go potentially invest levels into my class. Like presence before, there was no immediately noticeable change as far as I could tell, but I made a mental note to force myself to pay extremely close attention in future conversations to see if I could spot anything. Even if that sounded like torture, it was important to test out these changes.

  Putting aside my own attributes for the moment, I pulled up my class orb instead. In my earlier rush through the Path of the Dungeon, I had more or less entirely ignored anything else. That meant that the Path of the Mana Weave had been virtually unexplored outside of the top level despite having enough mana orb types to have unlocked at least one path.

  The first step was adding the ten million experience needed. It was still an odd sensation as whatever the source was that made up the value left my core and flowed into the class orb. Several new options appeared under the newly unlocked Types category.

  All three of those were interesting,, the first two incredibly so, and the third one seemed important relative to using the first two. Then again, how far did that skill extend? Would I be able to manipulate the mana flow inside another person? If I could shut down someone else’s ability to channel, that seemed potentially very powerful. Never mind, that was actually by far the most interesting of the three.

  There were several mana orbs sitting in here for me to experiment with if I wanted to. I doubted it would be an issue if I practiced on a few of the body-enhancing orbs. We had a dozen and would likely soon have more. Deciding to go for it, I dropped the ten levels needed for the dismantle skill and then pushed it as high as it would let me, which turned out to be fifty ranks. I figured it was best to start here and then use what I gained to unlock further class abilities.

  While more abilities had lit up below Dismantle, those could wait. My brain had focused on trying this out first. I grabbed two of the orbs and placed them on my work table. I focused on one of them and was immediately greeted by a new menu.

  How big would an absorption backlash be? Wait, would my backlash resistance skill help here? I hadn’t initially considered that, but it seemed entirely possible, depending on what exactly this energy was considered. I’d really need to set up a full lab sooner rather than later to start testing it all. That was something to consider as we scoped out how bad of shape Earth was in. Enticing some scientists to join this new faction would be a high priority, assuming we had anything to attract them with. Was otherworldly magical tech enough?

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  After a brief moment of further consideration, the reward of ten potential levels skipped for investment outweighed the risk as far as I was concerned, and I selected yes on the first of the two orbs.

  The orb glowed brightly like it had been superheated. It reminded me of the time the kids and I had seen a glass blower in action. Would it be possible to change the shape of a mana orb using a similar technique? Even if possible I wasn’t sure to what ends it would accomplish. Several cracks formed in the orb, pulling my attention back to it. A loud shattering sound rang out as an arc of green energy hit me painlessly in the chest.

  That wasn’t long, and also wasn’t something I had expected to happen. Luckily I already knew that Combine needed exactly ten levels and quickly invested the energy there, unlocking the skill. The time limit made me rethink my plan to try it out on both orbs. I’d need to better plan out these attempts in the future. The good news, though, was that despite the loud shattering sound, nothing seemed to have gone wrong.

  Where the orb used to be was a pile of fine dust. I dumped out a container of screws and reached for a hand broom, carefully sweeping the dust into the now-empty container and sealing it. I had no idea if it was at all useful, but it was better to hold onto it now than regret not having done so in the future. Hopefully I could find a use for it in some later projects.

  Going back to the class menu I had several new abilities illuminated. Under Combine I had four new class abilities, all of them improved the Combine skill itself.

  Divergent Ranks seemed self-explanatory, and I thought I knew what Divergent Paths meant as well. It was likely when an orb was specialized in a way that locked off other paths on it, though if that wasn’t the answer, I wasn’t sure what was. What was the resulting orb like if you combined something with different paths?

  Divergent Types and Divergent Sources existing as two different enhancements confused me entirely. I wasn’t sure what the difference meant in regards to mana orbs, but I was sure that was just coming from my own ignorance. If Pryte didn’t have the answer, Elody or possibly Rabyn likely did. I checked the new nodes under Dismantle next.

  The first one proved my earlier idea of the components having some use at least. Well maybe not the dust that had been left after that one, but potentially the things left over once I learned that enhancement. Energy Containment, while interesting, didn’t seem that great on its own. Was it possible to use it in conjunction with something else to move the energy outside myself? If I could transfer around this energy that might be a game changer for us. It was certainly something to explore.

  The door opened into the garage, ending my class exploration as John walked in, wearing a very stained apron and looking exhausted. “Dinner is ready. I went all out. I figure we may as well have a feast before we see how bad the world really is,” he said, looking proud of himself.

  “Sounds and smells great,” I replied, catching a whiff of something savory. The smell reminded me of a pig roast, but that seemed unlikely, given what we had on hand. I followed John back into the kitchen, my stomach now ready for whatever dish was waiting in the other room.

  It is believed that the Rainbow Sun itself used to be a mana orb. The origin of such a colossal mana source is a highly debated topic amongst scholars of the mana weave, but they are reasonably sure that it is not a dungeon core masquerading as a mana orb. The fact that it could ever grow so large without a dungeon core growing within it leaves even more questions.

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