106 Purple Mana Experiments

The next day.

Ed reverted to his human form and waited patiently near the entrance of the maze. He spotted several elite groups but ignored them. Soon, he spotted his targets. 'Looks like my luck is good today.' He grinned as he started following the group of espers. This group had the same leader and several of the same men that had attacked him previously. As for the rest of the original group? Maybe they had switched hunting groups or died. Those were really the only possibilities since espers never leave the cage. If they have a trial, then the best they can hope for is a life sentence as opposed to a death sentence.

Ed followed them for nearly a day before they set up camp. 'Hmm. I only have 6 mana-cores. I'll probably need to focus on mana-powder experiments.' He examined the group of nearly 30 espers. 'Fortunately, there are plenty of test subjects, but this is going to be difficult without killing them.' He calmly watched as he waited for the men to go to sleep. It wasn't long before there were only three men awake on guard duty.

Ed activated his chimera form and controlled the purple flames to barely cover the tips of his claws. He gripped the cavern wall, the flames easily allowing his fingers to sink into it. Then he climbed up to the cavern ceiling, slowly moving across it until he was directly above the esper encampment.

The three guards were close enough together to support each other, but far enough that he couldn't take out all three at once. It was made even more difficult due to the fact that he didn't wish to kill them, and he had nothing to bind them with.

Instead of pressing the attack, he continued to wait. Several hours passed before an opportunity presented itself. One of the guards had left the encampment to relieve himself. Ed followed while clinging to the cavern wall. When they were out of sight, he dropped down and covered the man's mouth to stop him from screaming. He carefully choked the man to the point of passing out. 'Whew.' He sighed in relief at succeeding. It wouldn't be good if he accidently damaged his precious specimens.

It would only be a few minutes before the remaining guards grew suspicious about the unconscious guard not returning. If they were fools, then they might come check out what happened. But espers were rarely fools, and chances are they would wake up their fellow espers to survey the area. Knowing he didn't have much time, Ed searched the body for anything that might help. 'Hmm.' He eyed the manullium cuffs that each prisoner wore. 'Come to think of it, I lost my cuffs. It should've been when I lost my sanity and went swimming in the lava river. Why didn't the mana-powder sealed within them explode then? Did Carlos lie to me about the cuffs containing mana-powder? Or does mana-powder react differently to the purple smoke and the purple lava?' He shook his head, escaping the trail of thought that he didn't have time for at the moment. Continuing the search, he found nothing particularly useful. The only things the man carried were a short spear, a small shield, and his leather armor,

'To hell with it.' Ed frowned as he took the spear. 'No point losing a pack of sheep by trying to save one or two of them. It's simple risk management.' Now resolved to kill, he climbed back up to the cavern ceiling. He positioned himself over a guard and let go of the ceiling, the air brushing past him as he fell. As he landed, he wrapped his tail around the guard's neck, crushing it instantly. The other guard noticed, but it was too late for him to shout as Ed's spear flew through the air. It stabbed straight through the guard's head. Ed hurriedly and gently lowered the first guard's body to the ground with his tail. Then he dashed across the room and caught the 2nd guard's body before it hit the floor, softly placing it on the ground as well. He carefully examined his surroundings and sighed in relief. 'Good. No one noticed.'

With the hard part of the job finished, Ed began to search the camp. He soon found their supplies and what he was really looking for. Several manullium chains were piled up near their food. It was common to bring the chains to carry back mutant flesh as well as restrain mutants during fights. He took the chains and went towards a sleeping esper. His hands shot down to cover the esper's mouth and neck, startling the man awake. However, the man soon fell unconscious again due to the lack of air. Then Ed bound the esper's hands and feet with the manullium chain.

Ed moved from one esper to another, repeating the process. Soon, he had captured all of them. Not even their leader had been able to resist the surprise attack. 'I wasn't stronger than their leader before.' Ed rubbed his chin in thought. 'I must have strengthened up a lot after losing my sanity. I wonder if I'm comparable to Tai yet?'

With all the men captured, Ed took over the camp. He leisurely cooked himself a meal while waiting for them to wake up. It was nearly two hours before their leader, a large blond man, awoke. He glared angrily for a moment before his eyes widened in shock. "You're the esper that killed Samantha?! I thought you were dead!"

"Well, people make that mistake sometimes." He replied nonchalantly while biting into a mutant steak he had cooked. "I once fooled OP Baldy into thinking I was dead too. I really do have a knack for it."

The man's eyes trembled as he examined his captured men. "What do you want?" He questioned in a soft voice.

"To start, I want answers. How long has it been since you last saw me?"

"Uhh." The blond man closed his eyes in thought for a moment. "About six months, I guess?"

"Six months?!" Ed replied in shock. He had half expected it to have been a while, but it was still surprising to hear it out loud. 'So much for celebrating my 17th birthday.' He smiled, finding it funny he was still concerned over such a mundane thing. 'Come to think of it... I'm about the same height as this blond guy now.' He looked towards the man. "Hey, how tall are you anyways?"

The man appeared confused by the question but answered anyways. "I'm 1.9 meters tall."

"That tall?" Ed's eyes widened in surprise. 'I must be about 1.85 meters tall now then? Damn, I finally hit my growth spurt and I didn't even notice until now.' He reverted to his human form and rubbed his chin, feeling a small patch of hair. 'I'm starting to grow facial hair too, I might need to start shaving soon.' Discontinuing his train of thought, he returned to questioning the man. "How are things in the settlement? Any recent changes or undercurrents? How did the Warden react to me disappearing?"

This time, the man hesitated to answer. "You're just going to kill me once I'm done answering all of these questions, right?"

"Fifty-fifty." Ed answered instantly. "I'm going to run some experiments on you, so you might survive. But if you don't answer my questions then I guarantee I won't stop until you're dead."

The man ground his teeth in frustration and nodded. "Things at the settlement are... odd. It's like there's an invisible pressure encompassing everything. The four gangs have started cooperating behind the scenes, and even the woman's side has started participating. There have been more guards posted than in the past, and the Warden is frequently coming down to check up on things. As for your disappearance? Nobody cared. I haven't heard a single thing about it."

"Hmm." Ed frowned and crossed his arms. 'Tai should be moving forward with his plan soon. For all the gangs on both sides to be participating, and for the Warden to be somewhat aware of it... Don't tell me it's just a fucking prison riot? I swear to God I'll kill him if that's the plan he hyped up so much.'

Suddenly, the other men began awaking, some groaning in pain as they did so. Ed glared at them. "Let's go. I don't have a lot of time." He started to drag the chains that bound the men. They tried to resist at first. After all, the chains didn't bind their physical strength, so it was easy for them to collectively resist. However, their attitudes quickly changed when Ed used his purple flames to scorch several of their faces. Fortunately for them, he needed them alive, so he still held back quite a bit.

The group traveled through multiple winding tunnels and caverns.

"Hey." One man whispered to another. "How did he use his powers down here?"

"Idiot." A man snorted as he replied. "Espers with amazing control can train themselves to use their powers even if they're in a manullium mine."

"Don't be retarded." Another esper interrupted. "That only applies to ordinary manullium mines. Do you think the government would be retarded enough to leave us here unattended if we had a chance to master our powers? Have you ever seen a manullium mine with purple smoke and lava before? The cage is unique for a reason. No one has ever used their powers down here before. I would know, I've been here almost twenty years!"

"Enough!" Their leader shouted. "None of us have ever seen something like it before, but it's hardly a concern right now. You all should focus on surviving whatever the hell he plans to do to us."

The rest of the journey continued in silence. It took nearly a day to reach Ed's temporary camp, which was well hidden from the usual trails. Ed took to grinding all but one of the purple mana-cores into mana-powder. The ice giant's mana-core was so large that it gave as much powder as nearly five ordinary mana-cores. He set aside the fire hyena's mana-core, wanting to preserve it for future research.

"Time to get started." He smiled towards his test subjects. He walked up towards a fat man and held out a spoonful of mana-powder. "Eat it." He said while staring into the man's eyes.

The esper hesitated a moment before swallowing it. For a brief moment, he seemed completely fine. However, his body soon started to change. His flesh rapidly sunk into his body, changing the fat man into a skinny skeleton. His breathing sounded hollow, and he soon took his last breaths.

'Interesting.' Ed nodded. 'Assuming I really ate a purple mana-core, then I'm the exception to the rule. It's likely related to my chimera body. It makes sense when considering the hyenas wanted to eat the purple mana-core I carried.' He moved onto the next test subject. Lacking proper tools, he directly slit the man's wrist, draining a good amount of blood into a bucket. Fortunately, the espers had brought quite a few resources with them, otherwise Ed wouldn't even have a simple bucket. After collecting enough blood, he bandaged the man's wound. Then he mixed a single grain of purple mana-powder into the blood.

'Hmm.' Ed frowned as he watched the bucket of blood. On the surface, nothing seemed to really change. But ever since he had gained control of the purple flames, he could vaguely sense the flows of mana again. Any mana that had been present in the blood had been completely absorbed by the grain of mana-powder. Now the blood was like that of an ordinary human, with the grain of purple mana-powder just barely increasing in size.

'So purple mana-powder absorb mana? Isn't that the complete opposite of manullium?' With that thought in mind, he grabbed a manullium sword he had taken from the men. Then he poured a spoonful of purple mana-powder atop it. Both the manullium and the purple mana-powder rapidly disintegrated, releasing purple smoke into the air and leaving a small purple puddle on the ground.

'So that's how it works!' Ed grinned. 'This is why this manullium mine is different from the one in New Hampshire. All of the purple lava and rivers are byproducts of purple mana-cores, and the purple smoke is a byproduct of manullium. That explains why my manullium cuffs didn't explode in the river and instead simply melted. As for the mana-powder sealed within the cuffs? The purple lava likely absorbed it just like the purple mana-powder absorbs mana.'

Satisfied with the answers but still desiring to know more, he continued the experiments. Sprinkling the powder directly on the espers' skin seemed to only cause irritation at first. However, Ed soon noticed that it was actually tearing apart the muscles and flesh of the espers. The mana-powder forcefully extracted mana from their bodies, but the purple smoke in the air rejected the mana at the same time. The forceful pushing and pulling of the mana rapidly damaged their bodies to the point of crippling them. 'I see.' Ed nodded excitedly. 'This is an extreme version of what naturally happens down here. The manullium in the atmosphere is constantly pushing against the mana within our bodies. Whenever we're near purple lava lakes or rivers, the mana in our bodies is pulled towards them. These lesser reactionary forces tear our muscles but are still weak enough for us to heal. The healing process allows the mana in our bodies to become increasingly concentrated and rapidly enhance our flesh. Interesting.'

Next, he began experimenting with the espers' mana-cores. Unfortunately, his lack of usual powers made it quite difficult. The purple flames would kill the men, and ordinary tools had a low success rate. He actually killed 10 men before he successfully exposed the mana-core of a man without killing him! He sprinkled a single grain of purple mana-powder onto the mana-core. Much like the blood experiment from earlier, the mana-powder rapidly began absorbing mana. Soon, the mana-core shattered, all of its mana absorbed by the powder. Unfortunately, the enlarged grain of mana-powder then collapsed in on itself, changing into a puddle of purple lava. 'Tsk.' Ed clicked his tongue in disappointment. 'And here I thought I might have found a way to manufacture infinite purple mana-cores.'

One after another, the experiments continued. All of the results were consistent with the previous findings. Ed sat down to collect his thoughts. 'So basically, manullium rejects all mana whereas purple mana-cores absorb all mana. Purple mutant flesh is potent but is still digestible since it isn't truly made up of purple mana-powder. The reactionary forces of manullium smoke and purple lava work together to strengthen esper bodies. However, none of this information answers my biggest questions.' He frowned. 'Why doesn't the purple mana in my mana-core absorb the rest of my mana and kill me? Why can I control it?' His frowned deepened further. 'If purple mana-cores absorb all types of mana, then they can be considered the amalgamation of the seven elements. If that's the case, then why do seven-colored mana-cores even exist? And most importantly of all." His eyes narrowed. "How did Relm get a purple mana-core? Was she born with one? Or did she develop it later in life?" Over the course of his conjectures, Ed had come to a startling realization. Relm, the student from the academy that controlled a purple domain, had the ability to nullify all types of elemental attacks. At first, he had assumed that she had a seven-colored mana-core as well, but now it was clear that she had a purple mana-core. In fact, she likely wasn't nullifying elements so much as absorbing them. What else could explain her ridiculous powers? Why else would the royal family go to such great lengths to protect her?

Ed sighed as he examined the dead bodies in front of him. Unfortunately, he had already exhausted his supplies of purple mana-powder and killed all of the captured espers. All that remained was the single purple mana-core he had saved. 'I guess I should head into the settlement now. I need to square away my plans with Tai.