The status report was a mirror, and the reflection was brutally honest: insignificant. But in the final line, Ali found his fuel. A vertical line aimed at infinity.
He focused on the tiny hum in his core, the bead of mana that represented a week of patient waiting. The passive drip was too slow. If he wanted to be more than a laborer before he was an old man, he had to take a risk.
Alright, System. Talk me through the first Active Draw. Maximum caution.
[Active Mana Draw Protocol Initiated.]
Objective: Consciously attract ambient environmental mana into your core, bypassing the passive osmotic process.
Method: Use your Mana-Sense to 'reach' into the environment. Do not 'pull' with raw will. Instead, create a gentle, resonant 'invitation' from your core, a low-grade vacuum for compatible energy. Imagine your core as a warm stone on a cold, dewy morning, drawing moisture to itself.
Safety Parameters:
Duration: 3-second attempt.
System Monitoring: Full. Abort on any neural stress, core instability, or signature spike above background.
Location: Wood-shed. Minimal shielding. Acceptable risk.
Warning: Even a successful draw will create a localized 'ripple' in the mana field—a tiny eddy. In a high-traffic area, it would be unnoticed. Here, in the magically silent Blackridge, it may be perceptible to anything acutely attuned within a very short range.
Ali took a steadying breath. He closed his eyes and sank into his Mana-Sense. The world dissolved into a tapestry of faint pressures. The dense, quiet warmth of the sleeping longhouse. The vast, sleeping choir of the forest. The cold, hard non-presence of stone and earth.
He found his own core, a tiny, hungry grey pearl. He focused on it, and tried to project not a demand, but a need. A quiet, open emptiness.
For two seconds, nothing.
Then, he felt it. A slight shift. Like the barest current in still water beginning to orient towards a drain. A few—a dozen—infinitesimal motes of ambient energy, the free-floating "breath of the world" around him, changed direction. They drifted towards him.
His core shuddered. It was a cold, bright sensation, like drinking from a mountain stream. It wasn't painful, but it was intense. The influx wasn't a gentle drip; it was a trickle.
[Active Draw Successful!]
Duration: 3 seconds.
Mana Gained: 0.00015 units.
Total Mana: 0.00207 / 100.
Physiological Response: Core temperature elevated by 0.1 degrees. Minor synaptic flash. No damage.
Ripple Effect Generated. Localized mana field disturbance: Grade 0.5 (Negligible). Probable detection range: <5 meters for a acutely sensitive entity.
Ali opened his eyes, buzzing with a new kind of energy. It was done. He had actively taken mana from the world. The gain was microscopic, but it was five times his previous hourly passive rate. In three seconds.
The thrill was immediately followed by vigilance. Ripple. Did anything notice?
He held his breath, extending his Mana-Sense outwards, listening as hard as he could with his new, clumsy sense.
The steading was quiet. The forest hummed its usual nocturnal song. No sudden shifts, no predatory attention focusing on the shed.
Maybe we're okay—
A new sensation brushed against his awareness. Not from the forest. From the longhouse.
A spike of sharp, cold awareness. It was Lyra's signature, but for an instant, the guttering candle-flame had flared. Not in strength, but in focus. It was as if she'd suddenly sat bolt upright in her sleep, her mind, her dormant mana, instinctively orienting towards a sudden, faint chill in the room—the metaphysical equivalent of a draft under the door.
It lasted only a second. Then her signature settled back into its familiar, weary rhythm.
Ali froze. She felt that. Or her sickness did.
[Analysis: The 'knot' in Lyra's core is a stagnant mana mass. It likely acts as a crude, dysfunctional sensor. Your ripple was a minor perturbation in the local field. The knot reacted reflexively, agitating her system. She likely experienced it as a sudden wave of deeper cold or a fleeting sense of being watched. No indication of conscious understanding.]
It wasn't an alarm bell for the family. But it was a warning shot for him. His actions had a direct, if subtle, effect on her. Drawing mana agitated the very thing poisoning her.
The cost of growth was now starkly personal. Every draw might cause her a moment of discomfort, a shiver in the night. Could he justify that? To grow stronger to help her, he had to potentially hurt her first?
It was an ethical knot as tangled as the one in her core.
The next morning, Lyra looked paler. She moved more stiffly to her bench, a faint, puzzled frown on her face as she rubbed her arms against a chill only she could feel.
"The night grew sharp," she murmured to Elara, who simply tucked a thicker blanket around her shoulders.
Ali, splitting wood nearby, felt a pang of guilt. He'd done that. For a gain of 0.00015 mana.
He needed a new plan. He couldn't stop drawing—it was his only path forward. But maybe he could get further away. Or find a time when she was deepest asleep. Or… find a way to shield the ripple.
System, is it possible to learn to mask the draw? To dampen the ripple?
[Theoretical Skill: Mana Manipulation - Veiled Draw (Advanced/Epic Tier).] Requires exquisite control, deep understanding of mana field harmonics, and likely an evolution of your Mana-Sense. Centuries of study for a normal mage. For you, with my optimization? Possibly achievable as a long-term evolution of the basic [Internal Channeling] skill. Not now.
So, for the foreseeable future, his growth would come with a side of silent, invisible suffering for the person he wanted to save. The irony was cruel.
He made a decision. He would keep drawing, but only once per day, at midday, when Lyra was often resting indoors and the general activity of the steading might provide some cover. He would accept the guilt as part of the fuel.
The days fell back into a new rhythm. Labor, passive sense, one careful, guilty scoop of power per day. His mana pool grew, agonizingly slowly: 0.0025… 0.0031…
A week after his first draw, as he was repairing a hinge on the goat pen, Kaelen approached. He held a small, whetstone in his hand, but his eyes were on the southern tree-line.
"The traders spoke of a good price for boar tusks and unblemished wolf pelts," Kaelen said, his voice low. "The snares on the east side have been empty. Too long. Something's moved into the territory. Scared the game away, or ate it."
He turned his pale eyes on Ali. "Tomorrow, you'll go with Bryn. Not to set snares. To watch. To carry. To be a second pair of eyes. You have some wood-craft now. You stay silent, you do exactly as he says, and you do not run. If you see something, you point. You do not shout. Understood?"
It wasn't a request. It was a test of a different kind. No longer just utility labor, but trust in the field. In the place of danger.
Ali's heart thumped. Outside the walls. In the forest. Where his mana sense might be more useful—and where a ripple might attract things far worse than a sick girl's discomfort.
[New Objective: Forest Reconnaissance with Bryn.]
[Primary Goal: Demonstrate reliability and basic survival competency.]
[Secondary Goal: Gather environmental data. Observe fauna.]
[Warning: Maintain magical anonymity at all costs. An active draw in the forest may attract direct predator attention.]
"Understood," Ali said, meeting Kaelen's gaze.
The vertical line to infinity had just entered the forest. And the forest was watching back.