Chapter 484 484 Rank Three
Katarina stepped forward and leaned towards Wolfe's outstretched hand. Unable to resist the temptation, he patted her head and then scritched behind her ear, making the little Witch give out a pleased moan.
"No fair, that's not helping my magic." She complained but didn't move her head.
"Fine, I will start now." Wolfe laughed, then began to work on her mana system.
As with the other young Witches, the curse had already been cleansed from her system entirely, thanks to its liquid state when he had cleared her Mana System, but her power level had a long way to go.
She was still underage, and her mana veins were developing, so Wolfe went carefully, but he slowly worked their capacity up until he felt resistance to the process. At this point, the sensation would become extreme if he continued, but the veins weren't fully developed, and the process could damage them, so that was where he stopped and began to flood her system with mana.
With his advancement to Rank Five, Wolfe found that he was much more in tune with the nature of the mana around him, and adjusting it to more closely match a Witch's aura the way that he did to match an Elemental Spell was only mildly difficult.
The modified mana flooded into the beastkin Witch's aura, stabilizing and rapidly growing her aura density for the first few seconds before that also seemed to reach a plateau, and an increasing amount of the mana simply flooded through her and back into the air.
With a bit more practice, Wolfe was sure that he could avoid most of that wasted energy and make this process easier on himself, and as luck would have it, he had hundreds of volunteers right here to practice on.
Katerina was wobbly on her feet and off-balance after the influx of mana and the change to her aura, but the worker from maintenance was happy to help her get up to her room safely.
The next young witch in line took her place, and Wolfe began the process again, making sure her system was clean and gently massaging her mana veins to their limits before tailoring a mana influx to her aura.
The effects were just as shocking the second time, and this time, Wolfe didn't waste nearly as much energy on the overflow, and the process was much less draining.
All through the young Witches, Wolfe refined his technique so that he had it just right when he got to those whose mana veins were fully formed when he met them, so they would need a final stage of cleansing to remove the last traces of the Bloodline Curse from their system.
The lingering damage would be permanent, but with this last step, they would no longer pass it on to future generations.
"Alright. The youngsters are all safely in bed, sleeping off the effects of the process, so who is up first? I will warn you, this might be a more intense process than usual because I fully intend to reach everyone's limits today in order to help keep the village safe." Wolfe warned the others.
Mary stepped forward with her Nekomata Familiar and Pup right next to her.
Wolfe patted her on the head, and Mary laughed while the twin-tailed Fae cat looked jealous of the attention she was getting.
Wolfe purged all signs of the curse from her body using the fine mana control that he had gained with his latest advancement and then began to work on expanding her mana veins.
Once he did, he found that there were other ways to work with a matured Mana System than he had been using before. Mary had a Pentacle Bond to him, and the spell wove itself around every part of her mana system, which gave Wolfe a wonderful idea.
It might only work for the ten Witches in his Pentacles, but he could use the spell to modify and force-feed their auras continually, even after today's process was over.
He would set it up once he was done with everyone, but as he worked, Wolfe determined exactly how the process was going to have to proceed for it to work.
There was only one issue with enhancing Mary's aura. She was in the Pentacle, and the Pentacle tried to balance everyone's power.
"I need the other nine Witches in the Pentacles to come forward. I need to finish your mana systems and enhance your auras all at once." Wolfe explained.
The mana systems had to be done one at a time, but that was no real challenge. The hard part was when it came time to tune the mana flow to ten auras at once. That level of precision was possible for Wolfe, but he didn't have any practice at all in attempting it.
One spell at a time had been the way that he had always done things. Even when it was being cast on a group, it was always the same for everyone.
Sweat formed on his brow as Wolfe worked to adjust the mana resonance to each of the Ten Witches, and then he split his mana flow ten ways and poured it into their auras.
The power level in the area immediately surged in response, and the stress of creating the spell faded into an odd sense of disorientation as he continued the split mana flow.
It was fast, but it was not enough, and Wolfe could feel that the Witches could take more. He was feeding their auras but not truly stretching and enhancing their mana veins with this process.
So, he began to dump all four of his completed mana cores into the spell at the same time.n-)0Velb1n
That was enough, and Wolfe felt the shudder of pleasure roll through the link as the mana flow began to exceed their capacity to transfer it. That was the only way to truly expand a Witch's mana capacity in a hurry, so Wolfe refused to relent, even as they collapsed to the ground, and continued until a sudden surge of draw emptied his remaining mana capacity entirely and began to overdraw what even a Rank Five Demon was capable of.
Unwilling to relent, Wolfe drew on the other Witches who had Servant Bonds with him, using that mana to fuel the process until he felt the limitations on their aura shatter, and all ten Witches advanced to Rank Three at the same time.
The sight was enough to bring tears to the eyes of every Witch present. For the first time since the war, a Witch on their Continent had advanced to Rank Three. It was a miraculous sight, and the profound feeling of attunement to nature that the Witches were giving off was enough to inspire a handful of other Witches who had been close to Rank Two to break through on their own, using only the inspiration from the Pentacles' auras and the overflowing mana from their advancement.
One after another, the Witches completed the process and fell into a deep sleep, lying on the hard stone pavers of the pathway.
"Can I get someone to bring them to a bed? I need to catch my breath, and then I will continue with everyone else." Wolfe panted, drained by the work but determined to finish what he had started here tonight.