Chapter 100: Worth the Trouble

Jaxir appeared inside a shallow cave tucked into the side of one of Sparkle Village’s many rocky hills, exactly where he had logged out the night before. The territory around Sparkle Village was much rougher than either Twinkle or Glimmer, with exposed stone, broken ridges and enough caves scattered around that finding somewhere out of sight had been considerably easier than usual.

The Village Head had been easier too, although that had less to do with the terrain. He used Sparkle Mana, and after everything Jaxir had learned while fighting Auren, he probably understood Sparkle better than any of the three village mana types now, which was more than a little ironic considering it was the last one he’d encountered.

Twinkle Orbit had made the mismatch even worse. Once the Village Head couldn’t safely expel Mana without hurting himself, Jaxir only had to stay out of physical reach and keep firing until 100,000 HP finally disappeared.

His only regret was that the fight had given him almost no chance to experiment with the Glimmer Vestigem Cards he’d bought. Between everything he’d learned about Twinkle and Sparkle, Glimmer had become the odd one out, and Jaxir made a mental note to fix that once he finished inspecting the three rewards still sitting in his Inventory.

The first looked like a sheet of thick parchment rolled around a thin metal rod. Jaxir pulled it open and expected a normal recipe, only for his attention to settle on the bottom of the page where a complicated magical circle had been drawn beneath the ingredients.

It looked suspiciously familiar.

The shape wasn’t identical to a Vestigem Card circuit, but the way different lines split, looped and reconnected made Jaxir’s eyes narrow. He scanned the page, and another screen opened over it.

―

Name: Grand Mana Potion Formula

Grade: Epic

Source: Mage Alchemic God’s Tome — Page 3

Ingredients:

1 Manaheart Berry

1 Silvervein Herb

1 Condensed Blood Drop from a Beast at or above the user’s Level

Creation Cost: 5 MP

[Complete the attached Mana Circulation Pattern while supplying the listed ingredients to produce 1 Grand Mana Potion.]

[Grand Mana Potion]

Instantly restores 500 MP.

Circulation Time: 3 seconds

―

Jaxir looked from the description to the strange circle again before noticing a smaller note written beneath it.

―

[The Mage Alchemic God’s Tome does not teach mundane alchemy.]

[Learn the circulation. Supply the materials. Mana will complete what hands cannot.]

―

"Oh."

That was considerably more interesting than mixing things in a pot.

If Jaxir understood the note properly, the circle was effectively a magical recipe rather than a set of physical instructions. He only needed to learn the circulation pattern, place the ingredients within it and spend 5 MP, at which point the Mana itself would fuse everything together into the finished potion.

Quite literally magic.

Jaxir traced one section of the pattern with his eyes and smiled. "That’s actually pretty good."

Mana recovery had been one of the more annoying limitations he’d encountered since entering Divinity. He’d visited enough shops by now to notice that most things advertised as Mana Potions weren’t useful in the middle of a fight at all, since they only accelerated natural MP recovery while the user slept, meditated or otherwise remained in a rested state.

The ones that restored Mana immediately were much rarer, and most carried a restriction that made them usable only once per day. Even then, a supposedly large instant recovery usually meant somewhere around 100 or 200 MP, which had stopped sounding impressive the moment Jaxir’s own pool climbed into the thousands.

His Ultra staff regenerated 100 MP every minute and even that needed more than half an hour to restore 3,300 MP from empty. This formula would let him spend 5 MP and roughly 3 seconds of concentration to recover 500 at once, assuming he had the materials prepared.

The 3 seconds weren’t ideal in combat, but they weren’t impossible either. Jaxir had already proven he could split his attention between multiple Vestigem effects, several attacks and his own movement, so maintaining one circulation pattern while buying himself a few seconds sounded manageable.

The materials were another matter.

Manaheart Berries and Silvervein Herbs sounded like things he could buy or hunt down, or he could probably buy them directly from his trusty personal merchant. The last ingredient was the problem.

"Condensed blood?"

Jaxir focused on the ingredient and pulled up the expanded description.

―

Condensed Blood Drop

Condense the complete viable blood essence of 1 Beast into a single drop.

The Beast must be at or above the intended potion user’s Level.

―

Jaxir stared at it for several seconds.

"So I just squeeze an entire animal into one drop. Simple..."

He had absolutely no idea how to do that.

There was probably some profession, Skill or piece of equipment designed for exactly this sort of thing, but Jaxir hadn’t spent enough time around alchemists to know where to begin. The formula went back into his Inventory for now, useful enough that he definitely intended to solve the problem later.

The second reward was easier to understand.

A thin sheet of dark material unfolded in his hands, and for a moment Jaxir thought he’d received another robe until he realized how closely it was meant to fit against the body. The entire thing was barely thicker than cloth, designed to disappear beneath whatever armor or clothing the wearer already had on.

―

Name: Mana-Skin Aegis

Grade: Epic

Level: 10

[Mana Conversion]

When the wearer would suffer HP damage, Mana-Skin Aegis may redirect the damage into stored MP instead.

Conversion Rate: 2 MP per 1 HP Damage

[Reserve Core]

May store up to 10,000 MP independently of the user’s personal MP pool.

Stored MP Leakage: 1,000 MP/hour

―

Jaxir’s lip twitched.

"Of course it leaks."

The effect itself was excellent. As long as the armor had enough Mana stored inside it, every point of damage that should’ve hit his HP would instead remove 2 MP, effectively giving him another defensive resource that enemies had to burn through before touching his actual health.

The problem was filling the thing.

His Grand Archmage Crystal currently recovered 100 MP every minute, which worked out to 6,000 MP every hour. If the armor leaked 1,000 during that same hour, then feeding all of that recovery directly into the reserve would only increase it by 5,000 MP per hour.

That meant filling all 10,000 MP from empty would take 2 hours.

Jaxir looked down at the nearly invisible armor stretched between his hands and shook his head. Between the wings demanding he throw himself hundreds of meters into the air, the Crystal Ball threatening to reset him to Level 0, the potion asking him to condense an entire beast’s blood into one drop, and now armor that leaked Mana faster than most players could probably regenerate it, his recent treasures seemed determined to make sure he earned every advantage they gave him.

Still, 2 hours wasn’t bad for what amounted to a rechargeable second health bar.

He could fill it while traveling, training or doing anything else that didn’t require all of his recovery, then walk into a serious fight with as much as 10,000 MP already stored inside. Even with the 2-to-1 conversion, that represented up to 5,000 damage that could disappear before his HP had to care.

"Unfortunate, but still worth it."

He couldn’t just keep hoping he didn’t get hit.

Jaxir equipped the Mana-Skin Aegis beneath his clothes, confirmed that he could barely feel it against his body, then turned his attention toward the final treasure waiting inside his Inventory.