The Empires Rise

Having been forced to one side to meditate, I started. Circulating my mana through my system, I began to note the differences that had occurred since I had cleared all of my mana veins.

First, the mana runs through my system more quickly.

Second, Xelyphe's damage to my legs helped alleviate the pain and strengthened them considerably more than the rest.

Third, I found the mana is refining the veins further. With each pass of mana through my system, they grow more robust and can stretch to accommodate more mana.

Fourth, I can tell that as the mana passes through the mana heart, it is also being refined by my mana. The increments are so small it is hard to tell the difference at first, but I can tell after cycling my mana for a few rounds.

Finally, the purity of my mana is increasing, and more impurities and blockage waste are being pushed out of my system slowly.

With all of these factors compounding, I can enter a deeper state of meditation. Notifications keep popping up during my deep meditation, but I ignore them, not wanting to distract myself from my findings.

I will continue cycling my mana and trying to incorporate the mana outside of my body, making a whirlpool of mana. I slowly can grab hold of more mana in my immediate surroundings. First, it is just within a couple of centimeters of my body, growing to 15 centimeters.

After completing the first step, I try to pull the mana into my body. A couple of specks land on my hands and slowly become absorbed. Upon absorption, there is an immediate reaction in my body.

Pain is all I feel as the mana slowly courses through my veins. There is a distinct feeling of death in the mana; with this reminder, I remember all the death mana in the air. I try to expel it out of my body and am unsuccessful for some reason.

Being unable to remove the mana, I follow its excruciating path through my body until it reaches my mana heart. From there, an unbelievable pain wracks my body. The mana is slowly boring through my mana heart.

Panicking, I try again to grab hold of the mana to no avail. It progressively digs further and further into the heart, slowly corrupting it. Trying to think of something, I control some of my mana and wrap it around the death mana.

This process is slow, and I can feel that I might make a breakthrough and be able to pull the mana out of my body successfully. That is when it finally finishes burrowing through my mana heart and starts to burrow into my heart.

Shocked at this progression, another wave of torment floods through my system, this time for my heart. Because I lack control over my mana inside my body, I don't risk pushing my mana through the veins and into my heart. With no other options, I try anyway.

Hoping I won't mess up, I grab my mana and start condensing it in my mana heart.

Condensing more and more mana in the mana heart, it starts to revolve. With the revolution starting, another bout of pain courses through me. The death mana trying to dig through my heart has found purchase and is eroding its way further.

The pain has caused me to lose control over the mana flowing through my veins, and I have to start over by condensing the mana in my mana heart. Trying to speed up the process, I pull more mana from my system and do not focus on the mana heart itself.

As the revolution starts again, I try to condense it but cannot.

What's wrong? What am I doing wrong?

Thinking furiously about what the issue might be, another about of pain comes, disrupting my progress once again.

Starting again, I look closely at my mana and see the golden and green motes inside it. Then I look at the death mana. It is black, but I also see deep purple on closer inspection. If I weren't looking closely enough, I would have missed it.

Thinking about what this might mean, I try to split my attention, gathering the golden motes into one section of my mana heart and the green motes into another. During this process, I have to restart four more times from the pain, but with every attempt, I get closer to creating separate whirlpools of mana.

It feels like I have been working on this whole process for several hours when there is a notification that I can't ignore.

-Fourteenth Wave Cleared.

Calculating Experience...

Contribution 0 Kills. 0 Experience granted.

Fifteenth Wave Starting in 1 minute -

Knowing I can't stop because of the death and other mana in my body, I continue to push forward and try to complete the process of getting my two mana types to work together to push out the invading mana finally.

Slowly, the whirlpools gather strength, and as they do, they start to make an attracting force for all of the mana through my system. This includes the two motes of mana digging into my heart. Slowly, I push the whirlpools harder, getting them to attract more and more mana. The motes are about to be pulled out when the corruption of my heart makes a passage for them to enter.

I black out for a second, dealing with the pain of what just happened. There isn't a physical hole in my heart as I expected from the corruption. Instead, it is a metaphysical hole in my heart. This hole, though, has done one thing I hadn't expected: my mana heart enters as well, and that is when I noticed what happened to the mana heart.

From just barely encompassing 65% of my heart, it has fully enclosed it now. Looking at one of the rapid notifications in my vision, I see what I want.

- Mana Heart's progress: 99% -

Right as I look at that notification, another comes up.

- Mana Heart Complete, Integrating... -

This is the last thing I see before collapsing backward once again, passing out from the changes occurring in my body.

- Ritotorous' POV -

I find it intriguing to look down at Drake as he breaks meditation to start convulsing on the ground. I expectantly await the news that he can overcome this trial.

Turning away from the boy, I look at the sky again and smile before flying down to meet with Eleanor.

"I can see why you are so interested in the boy." She says, looking down at him, and his family rushes to his side.

Drake is covered in blood, his body is shaking uncontrollably, and a tiny bit of happiness escapes from my aura. "He is a good seedling. Let's see where he goes."

Rhenriqi approaches us and bows to me.

"What are your orders?"

"Protect the boy, and make sure that not too many people die in the next wave. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

Looking at the now disappearing corpses, there were once again 50 slimes, but this time, there were 90 sea devils and three Barons.

Several people were hurt enough that we had to start handing out our few healing potions.

Draemish also joins us, looking at me with less reverent eyes than the others, "The fighting is getting to them, and seeing Drake-like this is going to take a big hit to our morale."

"It will, but remember, the manor is our last line of defense. There is more than enough space to have a final hold. The sea devils have never been a species that burned things." I reply. "Make sure to pull back before too many injuries mount."

"As you say," Draemish walks away to talk with the other commanders Drake has appointed. He did an excellent job picking someone from each world to lead a section of the army. No favoritism. This is going to be exciting.

I watch as his family brings him back to the manor before I fly up into the sky to keep watch and let Draemish know where the enemies are coming from.

- Fifteenth Wave starting in 5 seconds. -