ITWOK Chapter 9: Mana circuite

Back at the guild, Haru settled his things onto the wooden floor. He stretched out his limbs and let out a sigh of relief. "They were quite persistent. But I'm glad I was able to get everything I need."

After leaving Becker's office, the other guild members swarmed him with questions. He continued his act, lying about their conversation. He claimed that his second skill was just a minor weakening ability that applied a small debuff. He also explained that the guild leader had taken him aside only to keep his promise and let him join the guild without a big fuss.

The guild members seemed to accept his explanation, given their familiarity with the guild leader's personality. A few even offered to buy Haru a drink to get to know him better, intrigued by his status as a Summoned. Thankfully, they dropped the idea when he mentioned he was busy preparing for his first quest.

After he was left alone, he quickly made his way to one of the side counters that dealt with exchanges. Here, one could buy or sell materials from the guild. A newbie adventurer could buy gear or supplies for their first quest. Materials gained while questing and not directly related to the quest could also be sold at the exchange for additional money. While it wasn't a one-stop shop, adventurers could get most of what they needed. And what Haru needed right now was mana stones.

Mana stones were pretty self-explanatory. They were condensed mana formed within the ground over many years. Much like all metals and minerals, mana stones were mined using heavy machinery. Though all things contained mana, mana stones contained what's known as raw mana, which could be processed and harnessed as energy. In the capital city, mana fueled innovation and progress and was used to power up pretty much everything. That's why even small stones were incredibly pricey, and most adventurers wouldn't buy them without reason.

However, before him now lay more than a dozen pieces. The smallest of them, no larger than his fingernail, cost seven Klador each, a week’s wages for a B-rank adventurer. This was his second chance at a new life, and he wasn’t about to squander it by being frugal. Not when he had already borrowed a thousand Klador. Every coin spent was an investment in his future, a gamble he was willing to take.

He picked up one of the stones, rolling it between his fingers as his thoughts drifted to Becker. Something about the man gnawed at the edges of his mind. He wracked his brain, trying to recall if they had ever crossed paths before. "The guild leader is undoubtedly a powerful figure, so why can’t I remember meeting him? Surely, someone of his stature would have crossed my path at some point. And I’m almost certain the guild leader was someone else the first time I came here. Did something happen between then and now? Did I miss something important?"

After a moment, he shook his head, dismissing the thought. "Ah, it doesn’t matter right now. I’ll figure it out later. For now, I need to focus on opening my mana circuit."

Looking at the mana stone, he enveloped it in his hand. Focusing, a stream of mana left the stone and flowed into his body. The moment it entered his body, he guided it with his intention, leading it to his heart.

"This is gonna hurt…" he muttered as he began to guide it through the natural path of his mana circuit. As a regressor, he naturally knew the location of his mana circuit. Haru immediately began to grunt as he fell on all fours, cold sweat dripping down.

Unlike before when he had been standing before Becker, the pain he was experiencing now was… hard to describe to anyone who had never been through this.

Traditionally, finding one's mana circuit was a long process. It began as early as one could begin to read. For nobles, a teacher would come and guide the younglings daily, making it a daily practice of controlled breathing and trying to sense the path of least resistance within their bodies. The first stage merely consisted of mapping out the mana circuit, and even that could take months if not years. It was most beneficial to do this when you were younger, as that is when you are most sensitive to it and can find the mana circuit easier. As one ages, the sensitivity dulls, and finding the mana circuit becomes much harder, which is why for most adults, it is generally advised to give up ever opening one's mana circuit.

Stage two involved sensing the mana within the heart. The heart naturally pumped mana throughout the body and was the reason a body was capable of movement and life. You take in mana with each breath where it is then circulated through the body. That's mana 101. However, at stage two, we began to manipulate mana, taking a single strand of it and guiding it through the mana circuit you had mapped out, all the way to the end. This was the longest and most delicate process. The strand was so fine it could perforate the walls of the circuit, which were as thin as the walls of the eardrum.

If the walls were perforated, that was the end of one's mana journey, and you would likely have to give up on trying to manipulate mana for the rest of their lives. There were situations where the walls would heal, but that was left to luck. While there were medicines that could accelerate the healing, they were expensive and reserved only for the rich. If the damage was too great, no amount of medicine could fix it.

This was why, even among the many people in Kladin, only a small percentage had actually completed their mana circuit. In fact, among the Summoned, Haru was one of the few who had completed his circuit.

Moving on to stage three, this was where things got challenging. Think of stage two as laying down the pipework, a guide that told you where to go. After that, you began to release the dam that held the reservoir of mana. Like a dam, the heart, which stores a vast amount of this energy, will be released in a controlled manner. This gradual release fills the mana circuit as it flows through the channel you had laid previously. For most, this process was uncomfortable and always came with a bit of pain.

The process required intense concentration and focus, always monitoring the flow of the mana. As mana flowed, the walls would expand, and you had to ensure not to release too much at once.

If too much mana were to build up in one spot the walls of the circuit could potentially burst, leaving the uncontrolled mana to ravage your body. This was part of the reason opening one's mana circuit took so long. Before even attempting to open your mana circuit, you needed to be quite intimate with it, knowing what it could handle.

Following the expansion of the wall, you would then need to employ a technique known as Hardening, which was used to reinforce the walls. It was like laying the foundation to support the walls so that they could withstand the flow of mana in the future. Once the walls were hardened, their size could never be changed again.

Mana circuits were known and understood for hundreds of years, and techniques and best practices have been developed, learned, and refined over many years. While there were standardized ways to open the mana circuit, those with more resources and knowledge often tried to improve their own circuits.

The size of the circuit dictated the flow of mana, and naturally, a larger sized circuit resulted in better flow of mana as it could output greater amounts of mana per second. In the world of magic and status, having a larger-than-average mana circuit was definitely a bragging point and was even measured within the famous Mage Tower. Some would forgo opening their mana circuit for a couple of years to stretch out their mana circuits first, using various techniques or medicines.

Now, after all that said, we can throw all that logic away when describing what was going on with Haru. As a Summoned, any preconceived notion on how to properly open one’s mana circuit no longer applies. As a Summoned, their circuits were a vastly different.

As previously demonstrated, Haru had done something completely unconventional and had actually linked up the endpoints of his and Becker's mana circuits during their bet. The reason why it had taken Becker by such surprise was not merely that Haru, a seemingly newly summoned, had managed to find the endpoint of his mana circuit and connect it with his own, but that Haru was willingly taking in the flow of mana from him as well. Mana, in its base form, is all the same, yet mana from a foreign body is completely different and personalized.

It was similar to how everyone has blood but everyone has a different blood type. There are properties we can't even see or measure, and when you introduce a foreign mana stream into your body, the body can react wildly and may even reject it. Add to the fact that you're guiding that towards your own delicate mana circuit, and you might as well say goodbye to your mana career if you weren't a complete match.

However, despite what Becker thought he knew, Haru's circuits didn't explode, and he was actually clearing a pathway in his circuit. Becker had been connected to Haru's circuits and had a front row seat on what was happening. Never had he seen this before in his life and didn’t even believe what Haru was doing was even possible.

The circuits of a Summoned were several times thicker than regular mana circuits. Haru didn't have to be as careful as regular people, and it was a fact he planned to take full advantage of.

Having been newly summoned, his mana reservoir was small and not yet filled up like those who had lived their entire lives in this world with mana. He could use the mana in his own body to open his circuits, but it would barely open the walls of his circuit. To truly utilize his thick walls, he had to be able to have a good flow of mana. He needed to stretch his walls as much as possible.

Using the mana stones he bought, he was going to force his mana circuit open just like he did using Becker's mana. Only, this time it was a little different.

He couldn't mask the pain like he did before. Haru tried his best to not make a sound, and yet there were now gasps of desperation. Redness flushed his face as he tried to control the pain.

Haru's body spasmed as he barely held on, his entire body groaning in pain. He couldn't even close his mouth as saliva poured down like a waterfall. Anyone seeing this would be gobsmacked, and if they saw what was happening internally, they would question his sanity.

To really understand what was going on, you had to understand the forms of mana. Mana stones were simply condensed forms of mana, but not all forms of mana were created equal. The highest grade pure mana stones had streams of mana like silk with almost zero impurities, while the lowest grade had mana that was rough and jagged with greater amounts of impurities.

Imagine low-grade mana, raw in its form, as a type of fruit with a jagged exterior covering the main body. Now try to imagine fitting that fruit inside a tube a quarter its size. The effort it would take to even fit the tube over the fruit would already be a massive undertaking, but then also imagine pushing that fruit through the tube all the way to the end.

Mana circuits run through the entire body and are connected to every sensation, every nerve. From his end point, the nerve sensations were minimal and Haru could withstand it as he poured in Becker's mana even though it was a bit uncomfortable. However, the mana circuit from his heart area connected to every nerve in this body. Right now, the raw mana was stuck in his mana circuits near his heart and he could feel it immensely.

What he was attempting to do now was to build up pressure and exert it on the rough jagged form of mana and push it through his circuit.

Inch by inch, the mana was slowly moving through the circuit, stretching it out to its utmost limit. Once the pressure builds up, the idea is that it will simply clear out the rest of the circuit in one go.

The pain was... few things could really match it. As a male, the most accurate comparison Haru could make would be the passing of a large kidney stone.

It was enough for him to want to faint but he grit his teeth with determination. 'I can do this… c'mon… I suffered for years under those assholes. This is nothing! For my futures…'

He grabbed another mana stone, taking in the mana as he tried to build up more pressure. Through the pain, he absorbed seven more stones before finally...

"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" His voice let out, and all at once, mana released from his hands as arcs of mana streamed out.

When it was over, parts of his room were charred, and he was left sprawled on the floor, gasping for air. He stayed like that for a few minutes before finally moving a finger. Drenched in sweat, he haggardly leaned himself against the wall.

"Holy shiet… I knew… I knew it was going to hurt, but hot-damn. Is that really how the others felt?" Haru recalled the times he was still in the castle as a useful idiot of the manipulative princess.

The hundred Summoned were actually a happy accident, to which even the princess did not know how many of them would be Summoned. Since there were so many ample bodies, the princess kept a few to experiment on. The other Summoned would soon learn about the true side of the princess. This technique to use raw mana to force open the mana circuits was developed by the people of the Kingdom.

Haru couldn't imagine the pain they had gone through, but in the end, it ended up helping him.

He closed his eyes and began the process of Hardening his circuits. Around the halfway point, the raw mana came into contact with the other half of the circuit he had opened previouslly with the help of Becker's mana. He hadn't used Hardening there but had instead influenced the mana to put it in a form of stasis, which temporarily kept the walls stretched. However, as he was using Becker's mana at the time, he had to make sure he completed the circuit before Becker's mana completely dissipated.

Thanks to Becker's help, he had expedited the time he would've taken to complete his mana circuit.

Haru stayed still for several more minutes as he finished making sure everything was settled. He let out a large sigh of relief. As he opened his eyes, arcs of mana seemingly escaped. He reached out his hand and focused his mana towards one of the unused mana stones. The mana stone, as if touched by an invisible force, began to shake and move before suddenly levitating in the air. However, this only lasted for a second before dropping back onto the floor. Haru breathed heavily as if he had been through the wringer.

His mana reservoir was pitifully low at the moment.

Even with all his knowledge, it didn't bridge the gap of consistent training and exercise. Like a muscle, the heart could also be trained to take in more mana, filtering it and increasing its capacity. The heart was like a vessel for mana, and only with constant practice and time would his mana reservoir increase.

However, he wasn't discouraged. "That's good enough for now," he muttered. "Time to—" He stopped midway as he was trying to stand. His eyes shifted, and he carefully moved along the wall, making sure not to make any large movements.

He peered out through the slits in the board covering the window. The sun had already begun to set, and dark shadows covered the area, but he could tell there was someone focusing on this building, though not particularly on him. There was a familiar sensation, one that he felt before back when he was in the palace.

"So it's Ren... Well, better you than Seraphina. She wouldn't pull such an amateur move and let me sense her presence so easily." Opening his mana circuits, he now expanded his field of sensitivity, also known as mana sensitivity.

Mana sensitivity is an inherent ability all who open their mana circuit possess, akin to how every human has an electromagnetic field around them. When someone enters this field, humans can sometimes sense the presence of another, even without visual or auditory cues.

Mana sensitivity operates similarly but on a higher, more mystical plane. It allows mana users to expand their natural field and attune themselves to the mana that permeates their surroundings. This heightened awareness enables them to detect the flow and presence of mana in people, objects, and the environment, sensing fluctuations and disturbances in mana. In battles, this mana sensitivity allows them to gain an edge on their enemies by detecting their movements, and advanced mages could even calculate the probability of future movements.

Right now, Haru's mana sensitivity field covered his room, but Ren wasn't covering his intent at all, which was focused on the Adventurer's Guild building. In the same manner you just happen to know when someone is staring at you, mana sensitivity could pick up the intent of others, especially when it was so honed in.

Haru thought for a moment before deciding on a plan. He took short, rapid breaths, taking in as much mana as he possibly could. He then focused his attention on the center of the room as his fingers touched the wooden wall. He began to tap rhythmically against the wall, his head nodding, his mouth mouthing something. As he held his other hand out, a figure began to take form. Soon, a shadowy form that roughly matched his build stood in the center.

Haru, out of breath once more, rested against his legs. "Oh man… I really need to get in shape…."

As soon as he found his footing, he scrutinized his work. "Yeah, this'll work," he smiled.

***

Ren sat comfortably against a chimney on top of a building overlooking the Adventurer's Guild.

He clicked his tongue. "What a lucky guy. He chose the one place I couldn't move freely into. It's strange, though. I followed him not long after he left, and before I could even reach him, he had already reached the guild. Did he already know where he wanted to go?" He went into thought. "No, none of the Summoned should know anything about our world. I guess it really is just a coincidence."

He sighed. "These Summoned are more hassle than they are worth. Though, I do feel a bit sorry for this one guy for managing to irk the princess. He must have had really bad karma in his previous life." He then yawned as he rested his head against his hand. "Well, nothing to do but wait for him to leave, I suppose. He shouldn't have any money, so he has to come out sooner or later."

Just then, he saw the door to the building swing open, and none other than Haru appeared.

"There you are!" Ren smiled. Haru came out with a cloak over him, but to Ren, he was still very noticeable. As he prepared to follow, he narrowed his sight, focusing on Haru's strange movements.

"His movements... they're stiff."

Suddenly, Ren's eyes were drawn back up as one of the windows from the building swung open, and a cloaked individual appeared and jumped from the room. The cloaked individual dropped down and immediately made a break for it. To Ren, even from a distance, he could notice Haru's features in that individual.

Ren was taken aback with a noticeable look of surprise. "Is that… is he a mage? I thought the Summoned came from a non-magic world." Confusion plagued his expression as he deliberated what to do. "Wait, even if he does know magic, there isn't a reason for him to use duplication magic. Unless…" Realization struck. "He must know I was following him!"

Springing up, he turned to the Haru who was walking stiffly and then back to the one who was fast disappearing into the darkening street. Gritting his teeth, he made a quick decision and decided to follow the more agile one!

Ren moved and quickly caught up to the duplicate only to realize it was a poor facsimile as he held the empty cloak. Panicked, he immediately chased after the other original Haru who left through the front door.

Haru needed to get out of the city fast. Thankfully, he knew this city like the back of his hand and by the time Ren returned, Haru would already be gone.

Returning to the same spot, Ren scanned the area, a throbbing vein on his forehead cursed loudly. “WHO THE HECK IS THAT SUMMONED?”