The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1193: Understanding Mana

Karl curled his enormous draconic body around the platform as he meditated about the different ways that the mana of this continent had been altered to become more suitable to the Giants’ goals.

Before the whole process had gone haywire after the mountain was damaged by tribulation lightning, that was.

Seeing that he was going to be delayed, the Epic Guard went to warn Dana that she could keep playing with Button for the night. Karl was in the middle of meditating to understand something, and he was guaranteed to forget to go to bed.

That made both Dana and the little dragon laugh.

It was easy to lose track of time while meditating. But she would drag him to bed in a day or two if he hadn’t finished what he was doing.

Usually, it didn’t take too long before he understood what he was working on and returned to the present. But she had only the vague description from the Epic Guard to tell her what was going on outside.

Karl had sealed the Tiny World as he travelled so that they weren’t subjected to the suppression.

That would damage the crops at the very least, and might seriously injure some of the residents at worst.

Cara flopped down on Karl’s head as he worked out how to fix what had been done with the mana, or at least enough of the damaged runes of the mountain to turn the effect off.

Maybe Cara’s plan of ”Just yeet it into another reality and make it someone else’s problem” wasn’t a terrible idea.

Even if Karl altered the entrance to this Tiny World and closed it tight, the effect should remain contained. The issue would be that if he closed it from outside, and the effect wasn’t contained, it would be nearly impossible to get back inside to try again.

He was lost in the runic layers of the mountain, but Karl was slowly understanding more of the fundamental laws of mana manipulation, and where the person who had created this array had failed.

They hadn’t failed to become an Immortal because they hadn’t prepared properly, or because they had been too weak.

They had failed because they didn’t understand.

According to the Immortal Regent and Matilda, you needed to fully comprehend a fundamental rule of reality before you could become an Immortal. And whoever had created this mountain had not.

There were clear flaws in the design that were visible someone with even the limited knowledge that Karl possessed.

So, he started to rebuild the array in his mind. Layer by layer, he fixed the flaws, as if he were editing a Skill Book that had been written incorrectly. For nearly an entire day, he studied the layers, leaving only the damaged portions at the top for him to fill in.

By that point, the answers were obvious, as the top layers were only the control layers of the spell.

Karl rebuilt them in the way that he thought would be best, if he were the one creating the spell, and then the System flashed a notice in his mind.

{Spell Learned: Mana Suppression} Artifact Grade. Increases mana needed to cast spells or use abilities by a rate set by the user.

Karl smiled, and then began to remake a control wand for the spell using a staff that he was supposed to be enchanting ages ago, but had forgotten about.

He had to add the damaged layers of the spell to it, but when he was finished, the staff linked to the mountain’s magic as intended, and Karl cranked the effect to one percent.

Leaving the spell active reduced the chances that everything around him would destabilize, but it would also reduce the damaging effect of the spell on the surrounding area.

He had done what they came here for. And now he could rest.

But first, he should explore this Tiny World. There might be more valuables and ancient relics hiding here. They would be accessible now that the spell effect and deadly miasma of undead energy were fading.

Cara spread her wings, immediately going from sprawled on her back on top of Karl’s draconic head to crouched and ready to pounce, then she raced off to explore.

On his behalf, of course.

Not even Tian bought that line.

The little Divine Fox did come out to explore this strange place, though. His big sister had already checked it for hidden dangers, and it had strange mana in it that might help him understand something about what it took to reach the Mythic Rank.

Unlike humans and most other species, an innately Divine Beast would naturally understand the Fundamental Rule that they had highest affinity for as they grew and approached the Immortal Rank.

So, Tian didn’t see much need to study.

But, the Karl was doing it, and Sister Cara was doing it. Even Hawk and Opal did it in their own ways. So he felt that he should too, or he might get stuck waiting for his tiny body to mature.

He didn’t need to be big. Being powerful while still small and adorable was good, too.

There was no holy energy here at all. Not even a flicker of the divine existed.

But the Unholy Energy was strong, and by analyzing what it was not, he could determine a bit more about the nature of what holy energy was.

So, there was no responsible person present to remind Karl that he was supposed to be joining Dana for the evening, or even that an entire day had passed with him and the beasts simply meditating on the truths of the Universe.

The only reason that he did finally snap out of his deeply focused state was that a hunger pang hit, and he was reminded that he hadn’t eaten in some time.

There should be food in the Tiny World house’s pantry, and now that he was paying attention to the time, he was quite sure that he had been neglecting his bride.