Chapter 203: Shake It Till You Make It

Magna walked back through the cave toward the huge rock, carrying the sack that was still full of food.

He put it aside and looked around, using his senses to check if anyone was nearby.

Once he was sure he was completely alone, he opened his panel and checked the new options.

[Option 1: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase the stability of mana patterns formed within your body by 5x.]

[Option 2: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase lung oxygen storage capacity by 10x.]

[Option 3: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to increase maximum mana storage capacity to 200%.]

’Wow.’

Magna was quite excited by the options.

Especially 2 of them.

He immediately ruled out Option 2. It was certainly a useful ability that could save his life in certain dangerous situations where he needed to hold his breath, but compared to the other 2 options, it wasn’t nearly as appealing right now.

First of all, Option 1 was practically perfect for him, considering that he had learned every spell he knew so far by imitating its sounds and mana patterns.

He had never found any books containing actual spell patterns in Celeste’s study room. Since they were important and confidential, she kept them somewhere else, and Magna had never asked to see them to avoid raising suspicion.

So far, copying spells through observation had been his only way of learning them.

With the first option, he would be able to copy spells more accurately, especially the latest one he was trying to learn from the sound the Stoneman Chief had made while polishing his stone spear. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Even his Glacial Calamity was still flawed. He couldn’t cast it as well as Celeste because there was an error in the mana pattern he had copied that he hadn’t managed to fix yet.

With this mutation, he would certainly be able to cast it better.

Option 3, on the other hand, was something he had been offered before, back when he chose to increase his Strength stat by 3x instead.

He didn’t regret that decision in the slightest. After all, it had eventually earned him the friendship of the crackhead, and having more muscle strength was always a good thing.

But there was another reason he hadn’t selected that option back then.

Its description had been rather tricky.

Previously, it had only stated that his maximum mana capacity would increase by 2x.

This time, however, the description had changed, specifically stating that his maximum mana storage capacity would increase to 200%, making Magna much more certain about its effect.

With this mutation, he would be able to store more than 100% mana inside his body, up to a maximum of 200%, without worrying about the excess escaping.

That meant he could undergo future mutations without fearing that he would deplete all his mana at once, since he could always keep some in reserve for emergencies.

Having extra mana in his reserves to cast stronger spells or simply cast more of them was also a good thing.

After considering the 2 options for a while, he finally made his decision.

’I think I know which one I need most right now.’

[Option 3 selected. Utilizing gathered energy to increase maximum mana storage capacity to 200%. Prepare for sudden physical pain...]

3...

2...

Magna sat down on the ground with his legs crossed, as usual, and waited for the pain to hit him.

1...

It started slowly.

At first, he only felt a little dizzy, his head beginning to spin.

Then the dizziness rapidly turned into nausea. He could feel everything he had just eaten churning inside his stomach like clothes spinning in a washing machine.

The spinning sensation soon became so intense that his entire body started moving with it. His crossed-legged body began vibrating across the ground like a phone set to vibrate.

"Aaaaarrreee yyooouuu kkiddiinnggg meee?"

Magna grumbled in annoyance, his voice trembling along with his body.

It was painful, certainly, but the experience was more humiliating than anything else.

Unable to stop his body from shaking because of the spinning sensation in his stomach, he even tried lying down to endure it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t help much either, as his body continued vibrating and moving around on the ground.

Realizing that the only way to stop it was to wait until the mutation ended, he helplessly gave up and let his body move freely.

—

"What’s happening to him?"

Watching the strange scene from a distance, Triss frowned in confusion.

Arthas stood beside her, looking equally puzzled as he watched the boy lying on the ground, vibrating and moving around.

They were currently under one of Triss’s spells, hidden within a different flow of time where they couldn’t be seen, let alone detected by ordinary senses.

It wasn’t that Arthas thought a child could detect him, but Triss had insisted on casting the spell on him as well.

She had been behaving strangely ever since arriving, and even now, she appeared unusually cautious while observing Magna.

Seeing one of the strongest beings in the Witch World being so careful around a little boy was enough to make Arthas curious and, at the same time, a little worried.

As they watched, Magna’s vibrations grew more intense with each passing second. His body had even started bouncing up and down on the ground.

Then Triss finally spoke, muttering in shock.

"Time is bending around him. How?"

She couldn’t see mana the way Magna could, nor could she sense it directly, but she could clearly see the lines of time running through the air.

As Magna vibrated, the lines of time around him appeared to move along with his body.

They even looked as though they were trying to avoid touching him.

As far as Triss knew, there were only 2 possible reasons for such a phenomenon.

The first was time-related spells.

She had many spells in her arsenal that allowed her to avoid the lines of time, but that was all. She knew of no spell that could make time itself avoid the caster. In fact, her spells worked in precisely the opposite way.

The second possibility was mana density.

She had only ever seen the lines of time behave so strangely in places with extremely dense mana. One such example was the boiling water at the entrance to the Underworld.

While Triss was still trying to understand what she was seeing, Arthas noticed something else that left him equally shocked.

"His body seems to be getting stronger? What kind of training method is that?"

He narrowed his eyes, examining Magna’s skin and muscle density. With his senses, he could clearly detect even the smallest changes taking place in the boy’s body.

While Magna endured the pain, his Stamina stat was continuously increasing, making his body more durable with each passing second.

This was the first time Arthas had ever seen someone improve their physique simply by vibrating on the ground.

It was beyond surprising.

It was downright ridiculous.

In the end, despite being shocked by entirely different discoveries, the Grand Witch and the Shadow arrived at the same conclusion.

Whatever was happening to the boy was far beyond anything they had ever encountered in any of the realms they knew.