Power Up! Mana Vision

The table in my workshop was covered in vials, beakers, and neatly labeled flasks. Every single one of them was something designed to undo what I was about to do.

Stomach purges, liver cleansers, blood thinners, anti-inflammatory brews, and enough neutralizing tinctures to make a poisoner skittish. I had a mana stabilizer—a rare, costly concoction meant to dampen magical activity in the body, even if you weren’t one of the lucky souls to have access to magic like the MCs of the games. I also stopped by the stall that a woman of the city’s faith ran to pick up blessed potions, just in case I got possessed or something.

All this preparation, just for a few bites of monster meat… Truth be told, the reason I told Meredi to wait for three days before freaking out was because I was almost certain I would be down from what I was about to put in my mouth.

I exhaled and settled my gaze on the carefully cleaned chunk of Gloomspawn limb, maybe the size of my fist. Gray-black, faintly twitching, previously glowing rings now forever dimmed. I'd seared it lightly, but no amount of flame made it look less revolting.

“In the game,” I muttered to myself, “all you had to do was take a bite.”

That was it. One mouthful and boom—up popped a development screen. Three options, every time. Sometimes weird and underpowered, sometimes clearly game-breaking. The game let you shape a build gradually—specialization based on choices made after each first consumption.

Each Gloomspawn had a rank, from Rank 1 grunts to the total-budget-sinks Rank 12 nightmares. You got one upgrade per rank, no matter how many of that rank you devoured. There was a funny trick I respected. If you skipped a rank and ate something stronger first, the system would retroactively grant you the missing developments.

The third game later confirmed that the power unlocked wasn’t just based on the spawn—it was shaped by the person eating it. Personalized developments, in other words. It made it so that each of the MCs was unique by the end of their games. Oh, and the third game dropped the bombshell that the heart of a Gloomspawn was always considered one rank higher than the flesh. 

So naturally… I wasn’t starting with the heart.

I was in the world of a game, but I didn’t have the luxury of menus or stat screens like some other lucky bastards in isekai stories. I needed to figure things out without skipping steps. Which raised the question—how the hell would I even choose a power?

Given that the lore said that the development was unique to every person, I was willing to bet that I would have no choice at all. Figuring out what power I ended up with could be the most realistic process I might ever go through in this world.

I didn’t have a system screen to guide me. No menu, no three flashing choices. No auto-sorting of abilities or stat bars to admire. Just intuition. And a very unpleasant piece of flesh on my workbench.

“It’s for all the moms cut short out there.”

I picked up a pair of tongs and rotated the meat in the light. Still warm. Slightly rubbery. Smelled like swamp—a most unexpected smell to have to contend with.

“Okay,” I said aloud, “moment of truth. If this does nothing, I wasted time and risked poisoning myself. If this does something… then holy shit, I’m a genius.”

I took a long breath, and then just stuffed it into my mouth.

I chewed for what felt like minutes.

It was gamey—unpleasant, but tolerable—until I hit a pocket of juice that flooded my mouth with an earthy, sour taste reminiscent of that time I tried magic mushrooms.

I gulped it down, finally, and washed it down with sweet juice. Then I looked around.

“I guess that wasn’t so bad… Pretty good sear, if I do say so myself.”

I didn’t want to rush anything. An important part of science was observation, so I just sat there and took notes of any little change I felt in my body. As I did, I thought about the setting.

In the games, ingesting anything that was spawn-related was considered taboo, largely because 99% of the population would die if they did so. The taboo was so strong that not even Timaeus tried to break it.  Wasted opportunity, evidently.

Eventually, I got up and stood by my dirty window.

“Maybe I should clean the exterior sometime… I wonder how long it can stay clean for in this grimy city…”

My eye itched. I rubbed it. And then my head throbbed.

“Oh, here we go,” I said, lightly shaking my head.

My eyes focused on the scene outside the window—and I paused.

The steam rising from the nearby exhaust vents, which normally disappeared into the ambient fog, wasn’t just steam anymore. There was light threaded into it. Pale, wavering strands of pink and silver, twisting like ribbons through the fog.

“That wasn’t there before.”

I tilted my head slightly, watching the steam drift past my window again. The strands of light weaving through it pulsed gently.

I rubbed the corner of my eye with my knuckle, then looked down at my hand and paused.

“Wow.”

The skin along my palm shimmered faintly, like it had been overlaid with a glowing, phantasmal circuit. A network of thin threads ran up my wrist, not bulging or pulsing like veins, just existing as quiet, glowing lines right on the skin.

I held my hand closer to the light.

“Can I see the chakra circulatory system?” I muttered, eyebrow raised.

Then I smirked.

“Nah. Just reminded me of that one ninja show. The one with the yelling and trauma and giant animal demons… Come to think of it, didn’t that main character’s mom get killed, too? Damn! What is wrong with those people and their vendetta against moms!?”

My moment of renewed irritation aside, I focused on the matter at hand—the circuits covering my body.

The resemblance to the show I watched in my youth was uncanny. I twisted my wrist a few times, studying how the glowing network stayed stable, locked to the exact position on my arm. It really was like I was looking at a circulatory system.

I reached over and grabbed one of the red mana crystals from the bench. Same quality as the one I inserted into the Merry Edge. I rotated it slowly between my fingers, enthralled.

“Yeah… That confirms it, doesn’t it?”

The core gleamed brighter than I remembered, like a miniature star trapped in mineral. Wisps of color—different shades of red—spiraled lazily out of it.

“God, no wonder alchemists spent half their lives blowing themselves up. How were they even supposed to direct this stuff without seeing it?”

I let out a low, amused whistle and set the crystal down on the bench. Then I tapped the side of my head lightly.

“So… the first thing I unlocked is Mana Vision, huh?”

I knew this ability. Introduced in the second game in the series, players were railroaded into having this be their first unlock. It was essential for a lot of the puzzles of the second game because you’d need to use it to follow trails of mana to find stuff. I would have complained about that, but the second game introduced two more ranks of Gloomspawn, so they made up for it. Anyway, the Mana Vision I unlocked was evidently more fleshed out. In my case, I could see the mana in everything, including my body, despite how little I was supposed to have.

“I’ll need to make a point of finding the MC of the game. I can use them as a baseline of what someone with actual magical ability is supposed to look like.”

I turned back to the window, eyes adjusting to the new visuals. The world outside looked a little more magical. Thread-thin trails of magic leaked from vents, lined the edges of buildings, and flickered through the air.

“I can’t see through thick materials, it seems… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Was it a good power? Well, if I were going to be heading into dungeons, then yes. But otherwise? In theory, having an extra point of information on things should upset the balance of things, but it really hinged on me being proactive about turning it into an advantage.

I crossed my arms and watched the city breathe for a while. 

“I don’t know if I want to see the circulatory system of the women at all times, though. Feels kind of creepy—like I’m looking at them without skin… Can I turn this thing off?”

I couldn’t. It was going to have to be a problem for another day. You had to activate it in the game, so hopefully, I would be able to deactivate it.

“Well, so far so good! Next up, the heart!” I said, letting out a maniacal laugh—goodness, if the women heard me, they’d think I was mad.