Chapter 108 New Home [2] - Creating A Mana Core

Since Lloyd had slept pretty early the day before, most of the family was asleep when he woke up.

While the epiphany faded pretty quickly, the information Lloyd could get out of it was beyond impeccable. Everything from the knowledge to the risks of creating his own cultivation technique. However, it was as if he also instinctually knew that he needed to create a mana core before actually going through with his plan.

While at first, he thought the area his runes were stored in was his mana core, but after checking his body again, he quickly realized that it most likely was not the case.

His runes, while being clumped together in the center of his chest, they were not attached to his chest at all. In fact, they weren't even in the same plane as his body. It simply floated around in the small space it was given, choosing to stay around the chest area for a reason Lloyd still did not understand.

'To create a core, I must first gather all the ambient mana within my body into a single point before trying to compress it. Once I create my own mana core, mana channels will move on their own to create connections all over my body optimized to my class...

But my class says walker of voids, so I have no idea how it will turn out.' Lloyd thought while scratching his chin.

Cultivation techniques come in many forms, and the same could be said about classes. Classes usually come in two forms. Those who use their bodies to fight their battles and those who use mana and elemental abilities.

They both need a mana core in their own sense; however, while one might use their mana to create a spell, the other will use it to enhance their body. Of course, there are some abilities they can use to do such a thing; however, after the creation of cultivation techniques, many realized the true potential hidden before their very eyes.

Martial artists like Hime or Rex had cultivation techniques specialized toward their fighting type, allowing them to pull mana into their cores before using it to permanently strengthen their bodies down to their cells. It's one of the main reasons why their bodies are so much stronger than someone like Tina's since Tina's cultivation technique specializes in strengthening her mana core and magical abilities rather than her physical strength.

Of course, this does not mean that people specializing in body strengthening only use mana to strengthen their bodies, since they still use mana to activate their abilities or use certain martial art techniques during a battle.

'I know my mana pool is larger than the average individual, but I have no idea how big it is since my use of it hasn't been the most efficient. For now, all I know is that its less than Tina's but larger than Rex and Hime's.' Lloyd thought to himself before sitting on the ground and analyzing the mana in his body.

He stayed like that for almost two hours, trying to understand how he was going to create a mana core and stabilize it without anyone else's help.

Modern technology had found a way to make core creation easier for most people.

Many choose to create their cores as they break through to the next commandment, yet in Lloyd's case, that was a luxury he did not have at that moment, not that it mattered too much.

It was just a lot easier to do it while breaking through due to the abundance of mana around the individual at that moment.

"No pain no gain, am I right?" Lloyd sighed before writing, "Do not disturb. Trying to create a mana core here" on his watch and projecting it with enough size that anyone walking into the room would see it.

Closing his eyes again, Lloyd used [4-dimensional thought] and manipulated the mana inside his body.

Using [4-dimensional thought] would allow him to ignore the pain while also accessing enough brain power to make creating a core seem like a breeze.

Of course, he knew he would probably receive the headache of the century after deactivating the ability, but it was a consequence he wouldn't mind bearing for a little while.

His senses washed over every piece of mana in his body before he breathed in and began controlling them.

It was a slow process, but the mana particles had begun moving toward his solar plexus. However, he quickly realized that something was wrong. The mana almost resisted him; however, while he would have usually panicked, [4-dimensional thought] did not allow such a thing.

With a calm mind, Lloyd breathed in again despite not needing to do so, and simply pushed as hard as he could, yet that is when it clicked in his mind.

They weren't all pushing against him. Some of the mana was moving faster than the rest, yet after passing a certain point, they seemed to push back even harder than the rest.

Lloyd took a few minutes trying to locate the where the area of effect was, and when he finally found it, it confused him slightly.

It was common sense for a core to be in the solar plexus. Everyone did it that way, and those who tried differently usually ended up becoming cripples without any magical abilities.

However, when looking at where his mana seemed to want to go, Lloyd felt like there were only two explanations for the situation he was in.

'Why is it also trying to move to the center of my chest. Are the runes changing their trajectory and sucking it in? Maybe my runes are too strong for my current commandment, making it harder to create a mana core?' Lloyd thought to himself, but it didn't make sense.

However, after thinking about it a bit longer, Lloyd realized something.

'What if the runes are there for a reason? Most people only see their runes once they reach the first commandment and already have a core, but what if the runes are trying to tell me where my mana core should be.

Maybe the runes moved to the center of my chest out of instinct.' Lloyd thought to himself, yet after waiting for a moment and trying to think of any other solution, he shrugged and went through with it anyway.

Lloyd's mana suddenly shifted within his body. Their speed has almost quadrupled the instant Lloyd thought of making the core in the center.

After thinking about it for a while, it started to make sense. Lloyd expected the runes to appear inside his core when he was done, but maybe the benefit of having strong elemental runes was the fact that they could guide you to making the right choice.

His mana began to swirl around the runes before coming together in the center and creating a small ball that increased in side the more mana Lloyd poured into it.

The of the mana core began as barely noticeable, before enlarging to the size of a pea, then an olive, then an orange, to finally becoming the size of a soccer ball.

The mana core had already encapsulated the runes when it had become the size of an orange.

Covering the mana core with his aura, Lloyd began to compress it.

The mana began to swirl once more, this time inside the mana core itself, becoming smaller and smaller every minute.

Hours flew by in what felt like minutes to Lloyd, yet despite losing track of time, the fact that his ability was beginning to flicker away had told him that it had been a long time since he started his mana core creation.

Yet it didn't matter since Lloyd was finally done.

Opening his eyes, Lloyd squinted out of habit when the sun blared straight into his eyes. The sun's intensity wasn't nearly as strong as Deroxa's since the planet itself was further from the sun, yet brightness felt all the same, especially after having closed his eyes for more than 9 hours.

Looking around, Lloyd raised a brow after realizing the room was a complete mess. Of course, after deactivating [4-dimensional thought], it took him a moment to comprehend everything around him. Still, after looking at how the ground below him was scorched, he finally understood what had happened.

Scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, Lloyd looked at his new core before smiling.

It had been a success beyond anything Lloyd could imagine.

The core was now the size of his fist and was placed right in the center of his chest, yet that was far from what amazed him.

The core itself seemed to be beating at a rhythmic pace, while the mana channels themselves looked like something that not even humans, with their advanced technologies and minds, could create.

The channels expanded outwards from the core in a web of small and large tubes that wrapped around the entirety of the body's insides. To Lloyd, it felt like the layout was a combination between the human blood circulatory system and the nervous system. It was far more intricate than any mana-channeling system he had ever seen, yet it was a double-edged sword.

'Holy shit, if anyone sees this, I'll definitely be caught. This is next-level shit.' Lloyd thought to himself while playing around with how the mana inside his body worked.

Lloyd only had to think of using his [shadow manipulation] ability before the mana circulating around his body instantly turned black. The mana released from his body in the next moment, quickly creating a shadow claw at twice the speed it usually would have.

'Man... I could get used to this.' Lloyd grinned from ear to ear as endless possibilities ran through his mind like wildfire.