Spending my retirement in a game

chapter 11

Eisen simply shook his head, "No, and that's why I came a week in advance. I wanted to see if you have something for me to read up on? Crafting is in my body, and I just know how to use it, but this mana just seems too foreign. I would like to practice a bit beforehand."

With a smirk, Morrom's ears begin to twitch back and forth a slight bit and he moved forward toward one of the bookshelves standing at the side of the room. He looked through a few of them and shook his head until he pulled one of them out and brought it out to Eisen. The book was neatly leatherbound and grandly decorated with golden stitches running across it like a frame.

After blowing some dust off of it in a very cliché way, Morrom began explaining. "This is a book that explains the process of Mana Manipulation, as well as a bunch of basic training methods. It would be easier to teach you by showing you, but since you don't seem to have the time for that, this is your best bet for now."

Eisen nodded his head and grabbed the book, flipping through it. On a few pages there seemed to be illustrations, although most of it was written text.

"Thank you, Morrom! This will be a great help! Do you want to go for Dinner at the Inn again?" Eisen asked with a smile, but Morrom only shook his head.

"Sorry, I would love to, but I need to continue my work for now. The only way I can run this place is through investors at the moment, and if I don't regularly show them new creations they'll stop funding me. So I need to finish that exploding arrow, or else I'm done for. I'll tell you when I have time, and this time it's on me!"

"Haha, I like the way you think!" Eisen laughed loudly and slapped Morrom on the back. "I guess I'll leave now then so you can continue working. Ah, do you know where I can meet Belrim?"

"Hmm... usually, around this time he's down at the mine, working the night shift. You might meet him at a bar in the morning. Usually, he goes to the one in your Inn."

"Thank you! I'll see you around!" With a smile, Eisen stepped out of the shop and decided to make his way to the Inn so that he can begin reading up on Mana Manipulation.

After eating Dinner, he paid for his room and made his way up there. Eisen placed his Storage boxes, Knife, coin-bag, as well as the introduction booklet he got from Ari onto the nightstand and sat down on the bed with his new book.

Eisen flipped it open onto the first page and immediately began reading. The Introduction mainly explained what mana actually is, and how important it is for any living being's body.

Since this was pretty similar to the concept of, for example, Ki, which Eisen learned about while traveling Asia, he understood this easily. According to this book, Mana can also be described as 'Life Force', something that flows within anyone's body as if it was their blood. Since mana is a type of energy, it can be expulsed from one's body, potentially creating the phenomenon called Magic. However, if one wanted to do this, they had to have control over their mana, which is not something easy to do.

The rest of the introduction spoke about famous Magicians of the past, especially about the first person that discovered magic, although they were mentioned as if common knowledge, so Eisen couldn't really find out many details about them.

Thus, he simply moved on. The first real chapter explained how someone should feel the Mana within them. It was described as hot energy filling out their whole body at times, while at other times it was focused onto a single spot, moving along with the flow of someone's energy. After Morrom used magic on his body, he kept feeling this energy all the time, so he wasn't worried about that. This was the only way he was able to pretty much instantly get the Tool Connection skill, after all.

Then, in the second chapter, there was an explanation on how to control this mana. The first exercise was to change how it acted within his body. Change it back and forth from filling his whole body, and then being compressed as much as possible. As a followup, he was supposed to move the compressed mana through his body.

Eisen decided to test this out and concentrated. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to feel his Mana inside of him, filling out every part of his body. When he felt like he had a grasp on the consistency of this energy, he imagined an invisible border forming at the place of his skin, slowly moving further inside of himself, shrinking constantly. Once he got to his limit of compressing his mana, there was a tiny copy of Eisen made out of pure mana inside of him. But since the excersize said to form it into a sphere, he tried to slowly change its shape into one.

The Mana, now in the shape of a perfect sphere, was pushed toward Eisen's right hand, now basically sitting directly underneath his palm. Slowly, trying not to lose grasp of his control, he opened his eyes so that he could continue reading the next step: Mana Expulsion.

Following the instructions, Eisen concentrated further on the mana sphere, slowly pushing it through his skin like it was a thin membrane. At first, it stung, and Eisen had to grit his teeth so that he wouldn't lose concentration, but after a short, while he felt a part of the mana under his palm exit, while the rest instantly exploded out, filling his body out once more.

[Mana Manipulation Skill Learned]

Immediately, Eisen opened his eyes, looking at the round, tiny sphere of glowing white light.

"Oho? This tiny thing looks interesting." Eisen muttered out and kept concentrating on the sphere.

He felt it and compared it to the Mana still inside of his body. Mana that kept swirling around his body, wrapped around every part of him. His Brain, Lungs, Blood vessels, up to his heart, that was beating slowly and calmly. Then, a change happened in the Sphere of Mana hovering above his hand. Slowly, it began pulsing in the pace of his heartbeat, expanding and retracting a little bit each time. He felt his life as part of this energy, and this energy as part of his life, of this new body inside of this game.

[You feel your Mana pulse with life. +1 INT]

However, surprised by this sudden notification, Eisen lost his concentration and all of the mana that made up the sphere instantly dissipated.

Eisen didn't mind, though, since he decided this would be a good time to end his practice for the day. For whatever reason, he felt extremely tired after manipulating his mana. He only realized why when he opened his status for a second.

[Eisen]

[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - None][Level - 4]

[HP - 210][MP - 20/150]

[STR - 19][END - 18][AGI - 16][INT - 12][WIS - 12]

[Titles]

-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]

-[Limitbreaker]

[Skills]

-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 0][Level - 1]

-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1]

-[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99]

-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 36]

-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 0][Level - 4]

-[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 91]

-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 29]

It seemed like during this short practice, just by creating this tiny sphere, Eisen expended nearly all of his Mana. Glad to know what would happen if his MP neared zero, and annoyed that this is the limit of what he could do, Eisen unclothed and laid down in bed to sleep.