Chapter 206: A Mind Numbing Amount of Mana

Chapter 206: A Mind Numbing Amount of Mana

Early Evening - Late Fall : The Tree of Prayer

*vwoom-vwoom-vmmm* The sound of mana clashing around us filled the air.

It was definitely a bit odd at first, but after an hour of constantly hearing it, I quickly found myself getting used to it. -I guess it should be expected that so many strong people in one place would cause some odd spectacles...-

Casually looking around with my own aura, I watched as the countless other large auras danced around one another like oil and water before rising up a few more meters and suddenly mixing like there wasn't anything keeping them apart in the first place.

It was a simple phenomenon caused by people's subconscious aura control.

To put it simply, while they still had influence over it, it wouldn't naturally flow into neighboring, dense auras. But once control was inevitably lost, the mana would simply lose its attributes and become ambient mana that easily mixes with everything around it.

It was an aspect of aura I had known about ever since I first obtained mana, but seeing it in such exaggerated conditions made it something truly fascinating to watch. -At ground level, there is barely any ambient (absorbable) mana, but just a few meters above us is an ocean of it...- "It's really quite beautiful, isn't it..."

A smile came to Amara's face as she turned around to see me staring up in the air. "It truly is something to behold." Her expression quickly turned warm. "This amount of mana is usually only visible in parts of the Holy Kingdom, during the Coming-Of-Age festival, or in Atlas. Even people like us don't get to see it often..."

"R..right..." I stuttered a bit when she mentioned Atlas. -That’s where Krystallo is going to school, isn’t it? I hope she is doing well...- Feeling a cold blanket of yearning wrap around my mind, I tried to distract myself with some more idle conversation. "If the density of people's auras weren’t so high around here, people would definitely get mana poisoning. Is it really like that in Atlas and the Holy Kingdom as well?"

"Actually, yeah. You need a certain amount of aura to enter the cities where mana is this thick." Without making even the slightest movement, she threw up a silencing barrier. "The use of the mana here is a bit different though."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Well, in those cities, normally it's better for people to absorb, get stronger, and heal, but here, all that mana isn’t for us."

I raised an eyebrow with a confused look.

Amara seemed to find it funny but held back her laugh. "Ahem. Well, all that mana is to be given to the gods. The mana we receive and absorb comes from the Tree of Prayer’s roots beneath us, but that mana is the reason this ceremony is so appealing to dragons."

"Our gracious gods have finally returned after so many years! They have come home to rest, and gather their strength once more, so how about we show them just how much we have grown thanks to their previous protection and blessings!" She enthusiastically threw her arms out as all the visible ambient mana within a few hundred meters of the tree became denser and more vibrant.

It was a beautiful scene, but it also sent a shiver down my spine. -What a ridiculous amount of mana...- But little did I know, that was just the start.

"Let's show our lords how far we have come!"

As her voice echoed through the crowd, every single person, without exception, pointed their palms toward the center of the canopy.

-Huh? Is this the ceremony?- Following everyone else's lead, I held my arms up for several seconds before questioning whether I was doing it right.

But that was when the real ceremony began.

*RUMBLE* The Tree of Prayer started to pulsate out of nowhere, sending wide but short ripples through the ground like a heartbeat, but oddly enough, no one thought it was even the slightest bit odd.

-How is everyone so calm?- But I didn't have time to even question it before every single person, draconic, elven, and demihuman alike, started to simply dump their mana into the air.

*vvVwwWwWwOOooOmmMMM* I could only watch in awe as a ceiling of mana appeared above us and stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was a level of mana that instantly put the containment center to shame and even made me quite uncomfortable, but it didn't end with just that, and instead only continued to grow.

I could do nothing but stand there, frozen from awe for several seconds, as the dense sea of mana continued to grow deeper and deeper as people continued to release all the mana they could into the air.

But that was when I noticed that the colossal mass of mana was going to converge at one point at the top of the tree.

At that instant, like a switch was flipped in my mind, my intimidation, nervousness, and discomfort, turned into a deep an almost senseless greed.

-With that much mana.. how much divinity could I make...-