Master Of None

Normally the flow of mana was balanced. It had a direction and if Walker used his senses, he could track it. This was the case for many mages. As long as they had the proper affinity or skills, they could sense their mana and follow it. This was even how magical trackers could use their mana to find what they were after.

Right now though, the wind mana that Walker was sensing was flowing against the air currents above him in the air. The way that he could tell that it wasn’t two opposing air currents was simple. There was nothing to cause the air to flow differently. No massive mountain to stop the air nor any canyon to greatly cause a change.

This was a very open place before entering some forests and other areas that would not change the air currents so drastically. Therefore, the proper method of solving this issue was to follow the problem overall. And with his true mana sense, that was easier than ever.

Moving forward, Walker focused his eyes looking for any signs of movement. The leaves of bushes and dresses were tall enough to cover up many small monsters. This was normal for the area, he didn’t have a problem with that. What he did have an issue with, was that they stopped him from spotting anything.

These plants were removing with the breeze too, but when he spotted one of the bushes moving in the opposite direction of the wind, that was where Walker began to use the all around appraisal.

His eyes might not have caught what was making this happen, but the all around appraisal was better. It used his sight and mana to activate the skill. Therefore, when Walker received the information through his system, he was a little shocked.

’Corrupt turkey

This turkey would normally not be a monster at all. Nor would it be a powerful animal. However, the entire animal species, turkey, was on the cusp of sensing mana. Before this happened, this specific turkey was infected with corrupted mana.

The corrupted turkey is the first truly corrupted species of monster to be born of purely corrupted mana. This will define their entire monster species as they grow in to a monster species unless the source of corruption is solved.

Upon gaining the ability to use mana, the wind affinity that these animals had was awakened. The corrupted wind affinity causes the turkey to naturally create small wind currents around it that will tear up the natural wind currents.

They have a voracious appetite and will pick every bush clean of anything that they can eat. If they can not find berries or fruits, they will attack any living thing for more food. They have a unique skill due to their awakening called bulk stomach. This allows them to eat much more than what they appear to be able to due to their unique physical abilities.

They can also use their wind affinity and control to shoot their toughened feathers at enemies. This is a last ditch attack since they can not miraculously grow new feathers. However, the corrupt mana allows them to also use this wind to attack as wind blades carrying corrupted mana that stops other natural magic from being used of the wind variety.’

Now this was just messy. A new monster had just been about to be born as nature and the world intended. Yet, corrupted mana had attacked the body of this animal on the verge of awakening. Now they were the first truly corrupted species of monster compared to the others which were already monsters before this.

While an animal growing over many years to become a monster that could use mana was amazing and many hunters would be happy, this case was bad. Instead of being a new species of monster that would thrive and have a chance to grow and be hunted as a massive resource to the world, it was a plague.

This turkey had clearly picked every single fruit from these bushes. But as Walker looked around the area, under the bushes and around the grass, he realized that there were seven turkey bone sets all picked clean. This monster had gone from a potential new amazing find to a terrible creature that destroyed the entire small flock it was part of.

Worse off yet, the turkey had a clearly vibrant set of feathers that had become more green with the wind affinity it had gained. But it was looking like it was going to suffer more with the effects of the corrupted mana. The awkward twitching it was doing proved that it was not healthy due to the broken mana flow within its own body.

’So the corrupted mana makes the monsters and animals it effects go mad. It must flow poorly and cause damage to the body.” Walker understood why the false death runes and the undead were used by the demons. If they didn’t do this, then the living monsters would have been harder to control and most likely been worse off. The undead were able to be controlled and did not feel pain from the corrupted mana running rampant in their bodies.

With a single more powerful wind blade, Walker used his manipulation to attack. The wind blades he could make were definitely stronger. However, he attacked this way so that he could see what was going to happen.

While he could have attempted to purify the monster, he knew it was not normal and it would most likely fail. But seeing the wind mana from his wind blade hit the turkey and degrade quickly, made him understand the degree of damage that the corrupt mana does to the world.

The wind blade was weakened? even after it had still defeated the turkey in a single attack. But the wind mana had lost its form faster. This was against the control that Walker still had over it. Therefore, that meant that the corrupted mana could easily break down larger magical attacks or even have an effect physically on contact. Again, that was a risk to the soldiers that didn’t use magic.

When the body of the turkey hit the ground, Walker could still sense the wind mana was off around him. The feeling had begun to fade though. ”That’s the corrupted mana leaving the body. It could gather elsewhere though.” This mumbled understanding brought Walker to his next attempt to understand it all better.

With a hard look at the body of the corrupted turkey, Walker placed a hand on it. After a moment, he felt like there were pins and needles on his hand. It was the corrupted mana flowing from the body to him. The reason he felt pain was that he could tell his own body’s natural flow of mana was being affected.

”Now add some natural mana.” The natural mana moved in and directly clashed with the corrupted mana. Instead of purifying it and stopping things, the natural mana became chaotic as it clashed with the corrupted mana.

This resulted in Walker feeling like his hand had been burned before both manas dissipated entirely. ”That means I can’t use the natural mana to perfectly purify anything. If I did this to the living turkey then it would have died…” The long sigh that followed held a lot of unhappiness. Walker was further from a solution than he thought.

The good thing that came from this though, was the understanding that the two manas could counter one another. Even though the corrupted mana wasn’t purified and was clearly missing something more to cause purification, natural mana had balanced it. That raised more questions too.

”Is corrupted mana opposite to natural mana? Or are they both unfinished and that causes issues?” Walker started to mumble questions as he stored away the bones and the body of the corrupted turkey for research purposes. He was going to be looking for more similar monsters around. Hopefully he could find a turkey that had properly awakened so that he could bring a living group to Genesis for the farmers to raise.

The thought that corrupted mana might be part of the world in a way made Walker uncomfortable. it was more like it was against balance, yet, it also could be countered. That meant it might be something similar to how the angels thought. Elemental pure manas compared to the outer other manas like space, time, life, and death. Could corrupted mana be something even further out of his understanding?

Regardless, Walker had a lot to think about and had to gather more information. The sooner that he did, the better, if he did not find the right information to help the researchers counter these issues, then these problems would spread like a plague along Genesis and the world. The only hope he had was that they were faster.

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