Leveling through Lust

However, before delving deeper into the question of why my storage was better, I first needed to suppress the sudden flicker of doubt on the face of the headmistress.

Unfortunately, I had no option but to be honest. “I have no idea, ” I answered as I looked at her sharp eyes, doing my best to convey honesty. Though, amusingly, I used Speech and Charisma the same way if I had been trying to trick her.

The irony was hard to deny.

Luckily, the irony of my actions didn’t prevent it from working. “How can you have no idea? It’s your own spell,” she asked, delving into the operational details of my explanation rather than rejecting it.

I shrugged. “Hey, I have discovered it only yesterday. Pardon me if I don’t have a working theory about the exact performance of my spell.”

She frowned, but considering the validity of my excuse — albeit a lie — she didn’t have any right of pushing me on the subject too much. “Watch me create one, and see if you see any mistake,” she said with a frown, and created a copy of my simplified storage with great care, using her mana.

“It seems solid enough,” I said, frowning. Yet, the moment she put the smallest sliver of Divine Spark, it collapsed. “It should have worked, there’s no difference I can detect,” I said. “Maybe you should try again using the ordinary mana. It might be clashing with your unique mana,” I said. It earned a frustrated glare, as it was clearly something she had tried before. Yet, she repeated, only to explode again.

“Explain,” she said.

I frowned. “May I use the external mana to create one,” I said.

“What difference does it make?” she asked. “The mana provided by the system is perfectly uniform, there’s no compatibility difference.” Yet, she said nothing as I reached for the wards she had used, pulling some mana from the storage of the school, and fashioned another cage.

It also exploded.

“How,” she gasped, her frown much thicker, and she wasn’t the only one that had that particular expression. Because I had deliberately used nothing but pure mana to construct the cage, no Tantric manipulation, no Biomancy tricks, no Arcana enhancement. I didn’t even push the mana density to the limit to allow it to be copied easily.

Yet, the external mana shattered like a dry leaf.

“I have no idea,” I answered, though I had some suspicions, like the unique needs of my System and the constant demand for Divine Spark. Since I wasn’t able to replicate it, it didn’t seem to be a part of my abilities, but directly about the nature of mana.

A nature that was supposed to be uniform for everyone.

“Maybe we should experiment more to make sure we find the reason for it,” I offered before the headmaster could, showing a sudden enthusiasm for the idea, more to convince her that I had no intention of hiding anything. “A few hundred experiments should be enough.”

“We’ll continue tomorrow,” she said decisively, intimidated by my enthusiasm — though only with the help of her obvious exhaustion. And, since she had to supply the divine spark for every attempt, even if I was the one building the storage wards, it was more exhausting for her to test. “I have more important things to focus on first, we’ll do it tomorrow,” she said.

“As you wish, boss,” I said cheerfully, doing my best to ignore the temptation to poke fun at her excuse, and left her, ready to conduct some experiments on my own.

Of course, the headmistress was not stupid, but from her perspective, I wouldn’t be able to experiment alone, blocked by my lack of Divine Spark, unaware that I had managed to swindle her enough to conduct that experiment alone.

As always, the lack of information was the killer of sound decision-making.

The only frustration I had was that I needed to suppress the desire to question her more about the planar structure of the dimensions once more, but considering even if she had a method of easily traversing the primordial aether, which wasn’t likely, she wouldn’t just share it dismissively. I couldn’t even rely on Janelor for that. If she had that, she would have used it to leave this plane.

And without a surefire method of traveling, I couldn’t reach Aviada.

I decided to focus on the nearest problem. When I left the headmistress’ room, I didn’t dally around, and left the school as well, traveling back to the same spot I had absorbed the Divine Spark to empower my body, once again riding an air elemental, ignoring Janelor’s warning about the elementals once again.

I found myself on the same opening that I used to absorb the Divine Spark, the wards still in place to dissuade any monster that might decide to act adventurous — though, at this point, it was more about avoiding a momentary annoyance rather than trying to survive against the deadly threat they had consisted just weeks ago.

It was experimentation time.

The first thing I did was to create another storage, the simplest I could manage, with absolutely no unique mana involved, before using the headmistress’ trick to inject some mana for it to contain. It managed to hold, which was not a surprise.

Nor was the notification I had received.

[Divine Spark Identified! Please absorb it to continue to support the operations of the System]

Yet, the difference with the notification I had received when I was with the headmistress was notable, burning with an urgency that lacked despite saying the same thing.

It was the difference between a dispassionate whisper and an urgent battle cry.

Interesting, I thought even as I created a larger cage around, using my own mana but keeping it connected to my soul space, not wanting it to waste by letting it evaporate. The ultimate destination was the same, the System, but one of them would be through my soul space, which seemed to be the smartest option.

After all, either my unique version of the System and the general System used the Divine Spark was completely independent, making the general system’s consumption a waste, or they shared the same source, meaning it would make no difference other than crediting me with its collection and giving me higher level cap — at least that was what I assumed due to my limited inference based on evidence.

Either case, there was no point in not letting my soul space absorb the Divine Spark that would escape.

Of course, I could try to capture and stuff it back into the storage, but I didn’t want to deprive of the System after it detected Divine Spark, just in case it had the ability to punish me for it. I had no idea whether that was possible, but it seemed smart not to poke that particular point.

It was one knowledge I was happy living without.

While my mind was idle, considering the implications of the System, I continued to feed the storage with mana, until it finally exploded, and my soul space greedily consumed it once the outer layer of my wards dragged those pieces back into my soul space.

[-682 Mana]

It took much less mana to burst the storage than the headmistress’ attempt, which was interesting considering I had tried to make it exactly as strong, but it didn’t take much to understand the difference. The System was once again trying to devour the Divine Spark, showing a much greater appetite than it showed toward mana without the headmistress’ darkness ward there to block its detection capabilities.

No wonder she didn’t go out casually. I doubted the added pressure would help her already-strained capabilities to contain the Divine Spark.

I focused on the experiment once more, this time creating the storage cage from Arcana mana, only for it to shatter instantly, not even able to contain the smallest spark, just like the headmistress’ cage, or the one I had built up from the school’s mana reservoir.

The result didn’t surprise me, as if Arcana — the single most common magical proficiency — was the answer, I doubted the headmistress would miss the answer for centuries.

Just to make sure, I replicated the test, adding some elemental nature. I started with Earth, considering it was the one easiest to mix with ordinary mana due to its stable nature.

Yet, it failed spectacularly.

This time, it wasn’t just the shattering similar to Arcana, followed by a containment failure, but a violent reaction, one that reminded me of the wild dance of the Elements — although not in nature, just in impact and explosiveness.

It would have been really convenient if those wild elements were a result of unlimited Divine Spark, but that was not really realistic. I doubted Divine Spark would have been such a valuable commodity if it could be just extracted from the wild.

Decisive, I had repeated the experiment again, this time trying to exert my craft skill, even though it was less of a mana nature, and more of a skill. It had worked, but not at a significantly better level than my initial attempt.

I had moved to the last part of my experiment. Tantric. Yet, when I created the Tantric cage, only for it to hold the Divine Spark without an issue, a sigh escaped my mouth rather than elation.

Success was good, but somehow, I couldn’t help but feel that things got even more complicated…

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 6720 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]