Chapter 448: Rebuilding his mana pathways

Hurriedly, Eldrian moved to check the two alicorns. They had both reverted back to their natural form as it was the form in with they could use mana the freest. Luckily, it seemed that the two were just exhausted and not hurt. 

Looking at the cracks in the black metal and the dust of what used to be a Magic Crystal, Eldrian had no words.

Naturally, he had to use mana sense to see what the metal was. He was unable to receive any details on the disk as a whole. Whether this was because it was broken, or beyond mana sense, Eldrian didn't know. 

However, the metal it was made out of was shocking enough. Leaving him flabbergasted at the fact that it had cracked with seemingly no effort. 

[Voidstone: Rank 5 Crafting Material]

[A stone from the void, found in the deepest caverns. It is beyond rare.]

[??]

Even mana sense couldn't give Eldrian much information, making it clear that it was a truly powerful and rare material. While Eldrian wasn't sure if mana sense could give him detailed information on Divine Metals, he felt confident it would be able to do so for anything below that level. 

Next, he turned to look at the sparkling dust near the center of the disk. 

[Magic Crystal dust: Rank 5 Crafting Material]

[The dust from a Magic Crystal that was depleted so quickly it couldn't even recover through absorbing the ambient mana. It is one of the rarest materials on the planet, even rarer than a Magic Crystal as turning it to dust is near impossible.]

[??]

Seeing the question marks a second time, Eldrian realized that it was likely in regard to the usages of the items. And instead of waiting for the wind to blow this dust away, Eldrian scooped it in his hand and stored it in a small pile away from all his other items. Ensuring that there was a good distance between it and anything else. 

Unfortunately, the slot-type inventory only took in single items. The dust counted as thousands of individual items. Eldrian was confident it would be the safest place to store it, if it were possible. 

"Did you succeed?" A tired Zamia asked. 

Nodding, Eldrian smiled and shared the difficulty of resurrection. "As I always have, I will make sure to prioritize his life. My resurrection will be far easier, so if possible I will stay behind to give him a chance."

Hearing this, Cephaphyr wanted to give a facade of a brave face, however, he too had gotten the system's message. To him, it wasn't as sleek and clear as to Eldrian, but he clearly understood that him dying would not be a good thing. 

Of course, he wasn't a psychopath who wanted to charge into danger and die, he had just hoped he wouldn't be coddled. Naturally, he had dreamed of charging into battle like a hero. He clearly understood this would not be smart, and while he was still immature, he wasn't dumb. 

"Thank you... Then?" Slowly standing up, Zamia summoned a brightly colored fruit and ate it. Feeding herself via magic, since she didn't have hands in her true form. And at the moment, her mana was too chaotic to allow changing form. 

"Right, I am planning to first reach Tier 4. Once I manage that, we will go. If that is fine with you, of course." Eldrian turned to Cephaphyr who quickly nodded in agreement. He wasn't capable of forming words through wind magic just yet. The language itself was still a bit too foreign to him. 

So, instead, he shapeshifted, "Of course, I can't wait to see the kingdom of centaurs. I have heard so much about them, but..."

"I am sorry Ceph..." Zamia sighed as she recalled how often she had to say no to his requests to explore. 

Shaking his head, Cephaphyr replied with childlike forgiveness, "It's fine, mom. At least I can go and see the world now."

Nodding, tears formed in her eyes as relief flooded her. Happy that her only child wasn't holding it against her. 

"I'll leave you to talk a bit," Eldrian said, climbing off the platform which was slowly starting to fall apart.

'I should ask for some of the pieces, maybe...' He thought as he headed to the spring.

He wasn't planning to keep the dust he had collected for himself. While it might be priceless, he had no way of using it. This was also why he hadn't jumped when Zamia had suddenly talked. He had just focused on saving it from the winds. 

However, he wasn't going to bring that up right away. Instead, he wanted to give mother and child some time alone. He was certain their feelings must be extremely complicated at the moment and not for him (nearly a stranger) to bud into. 

Finding a nice tree and the right distance to have the flowing water just be ambient noise, he started meditating. 

Looking at the pathways he had made last time, Eldrian smiled and shook his head. 

'I get what I was going for, but this is quite primitive.' With a nostalgic smile, Eldrian started deconstructing what he had made last time. Wanting to start from scratch.

This would have been impossible for him to do before his training. But the last 2 months had allowed his mana control to grow by leaps and bounds. While he couldn't always move his mana as one would move a limb, he was close to achieving this.

For now, it required minimal thought, but it still required thoughts. Only when he had bottled up all his mana in his heart, did Eldrian start feeling the pressure. 

'Right, just stay there until I can finish what I want to do.' Eldrian said, but of course, he wasn't talking to the mana, that would be strange. Right?

After saying this, however, it seemed like his mana listened. It still placed some pressure on his mind, but that was simply because of the pressure of having so much mana bottled in one place. 

'Okay, I liked the premise, but it was lacking. Mana isn't blood, sure it flows through me. But it isn't blood. There is no need to have a vein and artery. Heck, there is no need to have dedicated return paths.'

'Like electricity, it just needs to be a complete circuit... But... I do like the return paths. Maybe...'

Getting to work, Eldrian slowly pulled just a tiny string of mana out and used it to make the framework. 

His first target was no longer his limbs, but rather his organs. He quickly formed a network between them all, allowing multiple mana flows to each from different directions. 

'I don't think spell modules will work. No, they differently won't. But, arrays or runes might. That will be for next time though.' Eldrian thought as he worked, moving from the organ network he now added larger strings to his limbs. However, he didn't make return pathways per se. 

Instead, from the larger pathways, a number of smaller interconnect ones sprung. The idea being that the mana should spread through his entire body, not just select areas.

He had these small pathways meet at longer ones along the limb (two for each limb for now), but they didn't return to the heart. Rather they returned to the organ network. 

{AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support this novel on WN.}

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