Chapter 89: Stuck
[You’re back at level one, because you ascended into a new realm of Mana Comprehension. Otherwise known as the Spiked Ruby realm.]
[Each Realm of Mana is limited by eight levels. The eighth being the highest, which in turn prepares you to ascend to the next realm. With that said, you will circle back to level one every time you ascend, but looping back to level one isn’t exactly a bad thing.]
"I think I get it," He shook his head, as if to shake the headache away. "I hope my fireballs burn hotter now or some shit like that, because otherwise I just went through a lot of pain, and I mean a lot of pain for nothing."
[Your Arcane Comprehension, and your Mana Quality improved when you ascended, so your overall magic-based skills have also improved. Including your fireballs.]
[Pain and progress often come hand to hand. The only difference with ascending through realms is that progress is guaranteed.]
"Alright," He nodded.
Despite the pain that he experienced, and despite the fact that he was hesitant to experience more, even if it was a fraction of it by volume, the fact was that most of the Mana Core that Virena ripped out of that human, remained untouched.
Virena couldn’t eat the whole core herself. It would take her ages, and odds are the core would rot away by then.
Jimmy had to absorb more of it. The only thing he hated more than pain was the idea of a perfectly good core being wasted, or worse, being absorbed by some random creature.
With some pettiness and greedyness, he ripped another piece off of the core, and swallowed it whole.
Pain steered from his stomach, and then it branched out to the rest of his body, but it was a short burst. It only lasted two seconds before he felt himself again.
"Oh," He mustered a tiny smile, "Forgot it worked like that. I’m like a bottomless well now, aren’t I? Well, not bottomless, but a very deep one nonetheless. Cores don’t hurt me as much as they used to."
Jimmy’s growing tolerance towards cores came with a disadvantage, and he was reminded of this the more he tore chunks from it. They may not hurt him as much as they used to, but this also meant that he had to put in more work to progress.
It took five mouthfuls of raw, mana-cramped flesh for him to actually progress, and even then, it was nothing worth writing home about.
Jimmy was sure that he had to eat the entire core, or most of the core, in order to progress. The Arts of the Arcane refused to reveal themselves too quickly.
Comprehending them had to be earned.
Virena was facing the same problem more or less. Well, she couldn’t take bites as big as Jimmy’s, as she was much smaller in size. It would be impossible, but when the situation was scaled down to her size, she was also struggling to progress.
Pieces of flesh knocked her out, or pushed her through immense episodes of pain, but only for a few minutes. She gathered herself together once the pain was gone, and had to get back to eating another piece.
Jimmy was nice enough not to eat the whole core, and left her something to nibble on later, on account to the fact that he was absorbing the core faster than her.
"Looks like you’re still in the first realm," He said.
However, Virena didn’t pay any attention to what he said. She was fighting her own, frustration-laced battle right now.
Anyway, it took Jimmy half an hour to absorb his share of the Mana Core, which was most of it, really, and only now did he see some progress that he considered worthwhile.
The system flashed the results in front of his eyes, and he was satisfied.
[MQ: 90 >>> 110]
[Mana Realm: No change]
[Mana Quality: Level 1 >>> Level 3]
[Mana Absorption: Medium >>> High]
[Mana Quantity: 2,000 points >>> 2,200 points]
[New skill absorbed: Summoner’s Whisper (1/9)]
It was difficult to celebrate the progress right now, because his headache from all the 10/10 searing pain caused a huge headache that the feather he merged with desperately tried to catch up with, and heal, but he found it within himself to focus at the very least. He wanted to be aware of how he progressed.
"Huh?" He grunted, "What’s that? The Summoner’s Whisper?"
[The Summoner’s Whisper skill is basically an introduction to the magical branch of summoning.]
[The skill you got is immensely weak, and it doesn’t even promise success in summoning creatures, but it’s a start.]
"Can you elaborate?" He said, "I don’t remember reading anything about summoning in my evolution tree."
[There are only a handful of skills in your Evolution Tree revolving summoning, but they’re far beyond your reach right now.]
[As for the Summoner’s Whisper, it’s weak, because it guarantees a Russian Roulette’s worth of randomness. Not to mention, it may not work most of the time, and you’d have to try it out within a Summoning Circle’s bounds.]
"Randomness?" He parroted, "So what? I can summon a dead dragon, or Satan or something at random?"
[You might summon anything, be it from the depths of hell, or the meadows of heaven. In most cases, you wouldn’t be able to coax, or control your summons. You might accidentally have a demon hunt you, or at the very least, mock your comprehension of the Arcane.]
"Noted," He said, "I don’t plan on summoning shit that could kill me. I don’t know how to fight, or kill a demon. Also, demons can kiss my ass, they have no right to mock me. I’m finally starting to feel like a true wizard, or mage, or whatever the hell the right term is in this world? I’m strong."
[Playing it safe is preferable.]
Jimmy nodded. He may be opinionated, but he wasn’t stupid. If the system herself could not help her deal with an honest-to-god demon, then he didn’t want to find himself fighting one.
The only summoning he wanted to do today was related to Gundor.
Regarding the matter, Jimmy remembered his mission shortly after. Well, he saw the stone staff, which in turn reminded him.
"Okay," He sighed, "Time to stretch my legs a little bit."
Jimmy let Virena be. She had a bit of the core left over, which she was absorbing a tiny piece at a time. He let her be, and started dragging the staff towards the other end of the tunnel.
"God damn!" He grunted, under his breath, "That’s a lot heavier than I thought it would be."
It took him ten minutes to drag the stone staff across a relatively short tunnel. The weeds and stones really got in the way, and being a relatively small bird, he had to clear the way as much as he could, or else the staff would get stuck, over and over again.
Jimmy was left breathing heavily in the end, and yet, his greatest challenge laid ahead, or, above.
The ruined building he had entered in order to retrieve the staff, was only accessible through a vertical ladder, or in his case, a hole in the ceiling.
In other words, if he was to get the staff out of here, and close to the Summoning Circle, he would have to grab the staff, and fly out with it.
In hindsight, this was impossible. The staff had to weigh at least fifteen kilos, or thirty-two pounds. A two kilogram crow couldn’t possibly lift the whole thing off of the ground. He wasn’t supposed to.
"How can something so short weigh so fucking much?" He sighed, "Jesus!"
Jimmy forced himself out of the ruins, but only momentarily. He threw his hammer at the other side of the exit, and then hopped right back into the hole where he had left the staff.
After that point, he didn’t even bother touching the staff again. He knew that he couldn’t lift it even if he tried.
Instead, he tried to concoct a plan. He knew that there had to be a way to get the staff out of here. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.
"I could get bigger," He pondered, "But the math doesn’t add up. It would be too expensive, and I’d still be a damn bird in the end. I’m not supposed to lift heavy shit."
Furthermore, he figured, "It would take too long, and from the looks of that open hatch, I wouldn’t be able to get out of here in the end. I’d be too big, so I would have to blow the fucking ceiling up just to get out of here. This place is old, I’d end up burying myself alive."
"Hmm... burying, blowing up? That’s it!" He exclaimed.
Afterwards, he backed a few feet away from the staff, raised his right claw outwards, and observed every corner of the wall in front of him, calculating.
"This should work." He said, as he aimed at the staff.
Quite dramatically, he then shouted, "Blue Fireball!"