Chapter 203

While I created the storage the headmistress requested I had a tense expression, and that was not just a fake expression I wore to trick her about the difficulty of the challenge.

I wanted to mislead her, but that was not the reason for my true tenseness. I was tense because, even at the moment, I wasn't entirely sure the path I had chosen was the right one, and I revealed the correct level of information to her.

As I created the storage, the mana I used to construct it carried little Tantric mana.

Or, more accurately, it didn't carry the Tantric effect. It was hard to describe the effect of Tantric on mana, because it didn't work like the other natures, like elemental or arcana, which just transformed the pure mana into corresponding nature directly.

It took me a long time to understand but Tantric didn't just transform but somehow elevated the intensity of mana — though even that was an inaccurate definition, just the best way I was able to pin the process down.

It was not just a merger like one achieved by merging light and elemental magics. That process, while being extremely explosive, was much easier to understand. It was just that merging different natures, requiring a lot of power to suppress the necessary conflict between them.

Different natures, but the same hierarchy of existence.

The hierarchy of existence was certainly a difficult concept, but one that I wasn't sure I understood correctly. I certainly didn't remember reading it in a book or talking to someone about such a concept. Of course, such instinctual understanding was not entirely unfamiliar. I had received many skills, and every single one of them came bundled with such deep and integrated understanding.

And, that left me with another interesting conundrum. Which skill was responsible for that information?

I was inclined to believe that it was Tantric responsible for this portion.

After all, not only it was about how Tantric was different from other skills — a fact that was getting clear more and more as time passed – but also that realization came after I have just improved Tantric twice in a row, making it my first grandmaster skill. So, assuming Tantric was the origin of that information was reasonable.

However, under the circumstances, assuming something was true because it was reasonable and fit together well with other circumstantial evidence might be dangerous, leading me to a tunnel of misunderstanding.

After all, we were living in an apocalyptic world that was built over ruins of a battle that included gods in destroyed planes.

Logic was not a rule but a luxury.

Luckily, identifying the source of that scrap of information was not exactly a priority with everything going on.

And, deciding on where Tantric fell under this hierarchy was much easier. It was clearly higher than ordinary mana, and belonged to some group as the divine spark. And even, considering its great effect on the divine spark, even on that scale, it clearly ranked high.

Though, if I asked the headmistress, I had a feeling that I would receive a different classification.

I still remembered her calling the presumed source of the fake companion node I created to trick her as the Degenerate — though, whether she was referring to another user like me or someone that might be compared to her God needed to be clarified.

Ultimately, lack of information was the problem I faced constantly, making it difficult decision whether to reveal the full extent of Tantric's effects or keep it hidden.

So, I decided to play it conservatively. I used only a minuscule amount of Tantric effect as I created the storage, just enough to contain the divine spark successfully while also adding a subtle calming effect, but nothing else. Because, ultimately, it was better to be on the safe side when it came to such matters, especially when dealing with someone like the headmistress, who was yet to earn the privilege of my trust.

Still, even if the effect was subdued compared to its full potential, it was a great improvement over the last display, enough to show that, without a doubt, my mana was superior when it came to containing the divine spark.

And, while my mind was busy with the tangent of Tantric and how it compared to other mana natures and divine sparks, the headmistress was busy examining the effects of my storage, making a note of the improvement. Seeing the expression of astonishment on her face, impossible to be hidden despite her best efforts — not that her best efforts were particularly difficult to unravel when it come to subterfuge — suggesting that, even my conservative choice was already pushing the limits of credibility.

Dealing with the divine spark might be even harder than I had assumed despite my best efforts to put a safety margin on the concept.

“How...” she murmured as she continued to examine the storage, poking with her own to get a better sense of what was going on, only to fail spectacularly.

I wasn’t surprised by her failure to understand its source. I was the one that cast the spell, which gave me a considerably better insight into the process behind it, and even then, it took several hours of repeated experimentation to understand the reason for the Divine Spark’s reaction.

[Level: 34 Experience: 591170 / 595000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6936 / 6936 Mana: 8163 / 8500 ]

SKILLS

Grandmaster Tantric [112/120]

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [85/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Titania - Level 35/38]

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]

[Marianne - Level 21/29]