Ali's mental voice held a new tone—awe, edged with a sliver of fear. System. You brilliant motherfucker. No offence, I'm complimenting you.
The System's response was a flicker of what might have been dry amusement in the data-stream. [Acknowledged. Context suggests positive valence. No offence taken.]
Look, Ali thought, pacing the small confines of the shed in his mind. What you explained… if I understood right, is that you aren't expending mana—well, not much of it. You're using it as a key. A signal. To unlock the limiters of my own body. But the cost is paid by my body itself. So this… this overclocking… it isn't sustainable long-term.
[Correct. It is a bypass. A temporary exploit of your unique physiology and my computational authority. Prolonged or frequent use will lead to accelerated cellular degradation, cumulative trauma, and eventual systemic failure. It is for crisis evasion, not foundation building.]
Right. So what I need is to unlock my main gate. To actually use mana. Properly. Once that gate is open and mana is flowing… then you—we—will truly start to utilize it? To infuse it?
[Affirmative. With the Primary Mana Gateway open, your core will become integrated with your life functions. Mana will cease to be a separate, tiny reserve and will become a circulating system, like blood or breath. It will passively reinforce your body, heal minor injuries, and sustain basic magical senses. This is the native baseline.]
And until now… Ali replayed the moments in the forest, the burst of speed. We haven't been "infusing" mana. Not really. Except… that time with the wolf. My eyes. I momentarily unlocked Mana-Sight. Even that happening was absurd. No matter what. And let me guess… it was because of you? You used the crisis to force a temporary fusion of my senses?
[Precisely. The 0.00207 units were used as a catalyst to create a brute-force, unstable bridge between your visual cortex and your Mana-Sense for 0.8 seconds. It was a calculated risk to provide critical data. The 'sight' itself was your brain's interpretation of mana-data, forced into visual format. It was a hack. A glorious, dangerous hack. True, stable Mana-Sight will require the gateway to be open and dedicated skill development.]
Ali leaned back against the cold wood. A thought nagged at him. You're describing others as… way too weak. I mean, there are those out there who are weaker, sure. But not all, right? You gave me that math on nobles and elves. Their mana is denser, better. You can't be saying all of them are just blunt instruments.
[Clarification: My analysis of inefficiency pertains to the application of mana, not its potential. I am a scalpel. Most are using a variety of tools: some are skilled with a hatchet, some with a well-made sword, a rare few with a surgeon's tools of their own forging. The Noble with dragon's-breath mana wielding a sword is still phenomenally dangerous. The Archmage with centuries of study wielding a scalpel is a deity. My point is not that they are weak. It is that their path to precision is one of gradual, lifelong refinement. Ours is instant, imposed, and currently limited to your fragile biology.]
So this isn't a cheat? Ali asked, the concept feeling both true and false.
[Definitional. If a 'cheat' is an unfair advantage that bypasses established rules: Yes. The System and your Core Mutability are cheats. If a 'cheat' implies an 'I Win' button: No. Emphatically, no.]
Explain.
[The advantage is in learning speed and precision of execution, not in power generation. Consider a magical clash. Even with my optimization, if you were to channel your Fledgling mana into a firebolt and clash with a Noble's firebolt of higher-grade mana, greater capacity, and experienced, if less perfectly efficient, shaping…]
A formula etched itself in his mind.
Your Attack (Optimized): (Fledgling Mana Quality 0.1) x (Quantity) x (Skill Efficiency 0.99) = Low Total Force, Perfectly Directed.
Their Attack (Traditional): (Noble Mana Quality 10) x (Quantity) x (Skill Efficiency 0.7) = High Total Force, Well Directed.
[Result: Your perfect, needle-thin lance of flame meets their raging, house-sized inferno. The needle vaporizes in the first millisecond. You are not just fucked. You are erased. Optimization cannot overcome an order-of-magnitude deficit in foundational power. It can only help you avoid the fight, or strike a vulnerable point they never considered defending.]
The analogy was brutally clear. He could be the most precise archer in the world, but if his bow only fired toothpicks, he couldn't bring down a castle wall. A mediocre archer with a ballista could.
And so, Ali pressed, the final piece of his curiosity flaring. Once we truly start infusing mana—once the gate is open and we're using it as actual fuel, not just a signal—what do you think will happen? It won't be… too cheat-like? Unreasonably OP?
The System paused, a longer pause than usual, as if running trillion-cycle simulations.
[Speculative Projection: Post-Gateway Mana Utilization.]
The Learning Cliff Will Vanish: Currently, you learn physical skills rapidly. Magical skills are hobbled by your sealed core. Once open, your progression in [Mana Manipulation] and its sub-skills will accelerate exponentially. You will learn in weeks what takes others years.
Efficiency Will Remain Your Hallmark: When you finally cast a [Firebolt], it will use 30% less mana than a native's equivalent spell for the same effect. It will be more stable, more controlled. It will be a surgeon's fire, not a bonfire.
True Infusion Will Begin: Instead of using mana to signal your muscles to act, you will be able to infuse them with mana to enhance strength, speed, and durability directly. The energy will come from mana, not your ATP. This is sustainable. This is real magical reinforcement.
You Will Not Be Overpowered. You will be different. A level 1 [Firebolt] cast by you will be a perfectly formed, fuel-efficient level 1 [Firebolt]. A noble child's level 1 [Firebolt] might be wilder, hotter, and waste more mana, but it could still be stronger if their base mana quality is higher. Your path is one of absolute optimization within your limits. Theirs is one of higher innate limits. You must raise your limits (Grade, Rank) to make your optimization truly terrifying.
[Conclusion: The 'cheat' is not in starting with a cannon. It is in having a divine-grade gunsmith teaching you to perfectly craft, aim, and maintain your slingshot, with blueprints to eventually build a railgun. The power still must be earned. The materials still must be gathered. But you will never make a faulty weapon, and you will always hit exactly what you aim for.]
Before Ali could fully digest this, the soft ping in his Mana-Sense came again. Closer. It wasn't aggressive. It was inquisitive. Methodical. Tracing the lines of the palisade, seeking a weakness, a seam, a spiritual knot to loosen.
A new, direct notification flashed.
[Alert: External Mana Signature attempting subtle communion with homestead wards. Signature matches 'Seeker.' Intent: Covert Reconnaissance. Probability of detection if he succeeds: 100%.]
Kaelen had said man-shadows were worse than beasts. This one wasn't kicking the door down. He was picking the lock.
Ali's earlier questions—theoretical, long-term—evaporated. The vertical line to infinity had a very immediate, very real problem standing at its base, running a finger along the mortar.
System, Ali thought, his mind shifting into a colder, sharper gear. Forget the future. What's the play? Now. He's out there. He's looking for the source of the ripple. He'll find the steading. And then he finds me.
[Tactical Options:]
Silence: Do nothing. Hope the steading's passive wards and obscurity hold. Hope he leaves. Probability of success: <5%.
Reveal: Inform Kaelen and Bryn of the exact nature of the threat. Coordinate a defensive ambush. Risks exposing your atypical senses further. Probability of neutralizing seeker: 40%. Probability of steading taking casualties: 60%.
Misdirection: You are the anomaly. The ripple came from you. You must be the bait. Lure him away from the steading.
Counter-Scan: Use your Mana-Sense, guided by my optimization, to perform a passive analysis of his scan. Learn his method, his pattern, his weakness. High risk of detection. High reward in data.
Ali looked down at his hands. They were no longer soft. They were calloused, scarred from labor. They held the ghost of a practice sword's weight. They had held a knife against the dark.
The patient drip, the first scoop, the foundation of flesh and knowledge… it all led here. To a silent fight in the dark against a man with a wand.
Option four, he decided, a strange calm settling over him. We observe the observer. But be ready to run. And this time… we're not just running away. We're leading him on a chase. Give me everything you've got on passive, undetectable sensing. Let's see what this 'seeker' is really made of.
[Directive Accepted. Initiating Protocol: Phantom Gaze.]
[Mana-Sense engaged at 99% dampening. Output re-routed to internal processing only. Scanning for scan-source…]
Ali closed his eyes. In the dark of the shed, he reached out not with power, but with silence. He became a hole in the world, listening for the echo of the man who was looking for him. The game had changed. It was no longer about hiding from the arithmetic of power.
It was about learning to count in a way no one else could see.