Chapter 6
Mana stones.
A crucial resource in the Hunter era.
An energy substitute.
An item enhancement material.
A material for magical experiments.
An ingredient for making elixirs.
And so on.
Since they’re used in so many fields and are valuable, they’re an expensive resource.
You could even call them gemstones.
They’re just not purely ornamental.
Something like that.
“It was around here.”
They existed in Yeoulrim, too.
I’d often observed the sea while raising Little Squirmy, and once saw raw stones on the seabed that looked a lot like Earth’s mana stones.
“Found you, you little rascal.”
I’d found the culprit right away.
Raw stones were scattered here and there, embedded in the rocks on the seabed.
One question came to mind.
“Do mana stones occur naturally?”
On Earth, the only way to obtain mana stones was to kill monsters and collect a small amount as a byproduct. Unlike in Yeoulrim, they didn’t exist as ore.
“And they’re pink?”
Their color was different, too.
Earth’s mana stones were purple, while Yeoulrim’s were pink.
Maybe they weren’t mana stones after all.
But when I checked, that wasn’t the case.
[Would you like to absorb the mana stone?]
[Absorption efficiency is low. You can obtain 1pt of World Power.]
As you can see, the system treated them as mana stones.
The amount was even twenty times what I’d get from an Earth mana stone.
It was still a little disappointing, but I could tell they were mana stones.
Fwoosh!~
I surveyed the seabed.
Here, I could travel just by thinking, or survey all of Yeoulrim at once.
I couldn’t examine every detail all at once, but I could skim the area to look for mana stones.
As a result.
“There are more than I expected?”
I found a mana stone deposit.
When I looked further, I found quite a few deposits on land, too, not just underwater.
Also.
Some yielded 2pt.
Others yielded 0.5pt.
I could even gauge their quality by how much World Power I could absorb from them.
“About 1pt on average, then.”
The efficiency was lousy, but they might come in handy as an emergency source when I was short on World Power.
Then could I improve their efficiency?
I’d find out by processing the raw stones.
[Would you like to refine this raw stone?]
World Power was the power of miracles.
Of course, I could use it to shave away just the impurities in a mana stone.
Besides, a pink mana stone?
Even if I failed, I wanted to try shaving it down.
What differences were there between it and Earth’s mana stones?
How much World Power would I get by processing a raw stone?
All right, show me the answer!
[Removing all impurities from the mana stone.]
[The mana stone’s arrangement is becoming distorted.]
[The mana stone’s crystal structure is being damaged.]
[The mana stone’s purity has increased as impurities were removed.]
[The mana stone’s efficiency has increased slightly.]
[5pt of World Power has been consumed.]
Tap!
The mana stone spat out its impurities.
But the result was inconclusive.
The process of shaving away impurities and combining them damaged the mana stone’s arrangement and crystal structure. Only the necessary parts remained, so its efficiency increased slightly.
[Would you like to absorb the mana stone?]
[You can obtain 3pt of World Power.]
“So World Power isn’t all-powerful after all.”
That was quite a shock.
I’d spent 5pt to increase its value by 2pt. What kind of creative economy was this?
“I need to study… don’t I?”
In the end, it came down to knowledge.
It wasn’t enough to simply remove the impurities.
I needed to know how to use my power.
I needed to research the structure of mana stones and how to process them.
The game hadn’t explained any of that properly, so I’d have to study it in the real world.
Since I was at it, I might as well dig into it properly.
*
Mana stone arrangement.
Mana stone purity.
Mana concentration.
Crystal structure.
“These determine a mana stone’s quality. In theory, a perfect mana stone could replenish its mana endlessly, but in reality, that’s considered impossible.”
I returned to reality and studied.
I studied mana stones until the sun set and the moon rose. I still didn’t know the precise processing methods, but I understood a little more about their properties.
If I refined it again, the result should be better than before.
However.
“That’s enough.”
Click.
I closed the research paper window on the computer.
This wasn’t something I should be digging into at this stage.
No matter how hard I tried to make them now, I’d spend more World Power than I gained. Maybe it would be different if I summoned one to Earth just to play around with it.
Of course, that couldn’t possibly be-
Ding!
[Would you like to summon the mana stone you refined yourself?]
[Due to the increased cost, 1,000pt of World Power is required.]
“Huh.”
Blink, blink.
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
The system message had responded to my thoughts. Apparently, I could summon a refined mana stone.
“Th-then, could I bring it over and sell it?”
Expensive mana stones went for hundreds, even thousands.
If I could make even one of those, my life would be turned around.
For a moment, I let my imagination run wild.
A car worth hundreds of millions of won.
A pink mana stone necklace.
A luxurious villa overlooking the sea.
Me, living in luxury.
Ah~ Just thinking about it was thrilling.
But.
“A thousand World Power…”
It was a pipe dream.
The summoning cost was insane, and there was the practical problem of how to sell a mana stone.
Pink mana stones.
People would definitely find them strange.
Would this cause trouble?
Could I end up being investigated for no reason?
“……….”
Shake, shake.
I shook my head.
I couldn’t handle something like that.
It’d be better to process low-grade mana stones from Earth and resell them instead.
Maybe this wasn’t a bad idea?
There might be a way.
“Ugh~ My head hurts.”
I’d think about this later.
After studying all day, my brain wasn’t working.
I wasn’t the type to enjoy studying, and I’d been at it all day, so of course I was exhausted.
Flop!~
I lay down on the bed.
I closed my eyes and thought of Yeoulrim.
A little time playing in Yeoulrim should help me recover from my fatigue. Just being there put me in such a good mood that my tiredness melted away.
Fwoosh!
Connected to Yeoulrim.
It was time to look after Little Squirmy again.
*
[Accelerated time by 10 days.]
[A feeding organ has formed.]
[A digestive organ has formed.]
[The locomotion organ has evolved.]
After connecting to Yeoulrim.
I focused on evolving Little Squirmy.
I accelerated time in one-day increments, observing Little Squirmy’s changes and guiding its growth.
First, the goal was to become a fish.
Make a mouth.
Thicken its tail.
In between, I returned to reality to study, and spent all my remaining time looking after Little Squirmy.
I didn’t know how many days had passed.
Before I knew it, I’d lost all sense of time.
By the time I’d advanced Yeoulrim’s time by roughly half a year.
[The connections between cells are growing stronger.]
[Cells are sharing signals through stimulation.]
[The individual is beginning to remember repeated stimuli.]
[The individual’s perception is developing.]
A neural network had appeared in Little Squirmy.
It had taken its first step toward intelligent thought.
Little Squirmy still couldn’t think properly, but someday, it would gradually think and move intentionally more often instead of simply acting on instinct.
Little Squirmy would still face countless dangers, since it didn’t yet know what was dangerous.
“Run, Little Squirmy!!”
That, too, was part of growing up.
Just then, I spotted a wild fish about to eat Little Squirmy and watched.
Little Squirmy sensed something approaching, but didn’t run.
It had no experience. It didn’t know how dangerous a hostile creature charging straight at it could be.
Ah.
It couldn’t be helped.
Little Squirmy was still a baby.
Yeoulrim might have no civilization, but its diverse native species formed a vast ecosystem.
And Little Squirmy had grown into a tasty morsel for Yeoulrim’s native fish.
Countless dangers were about to come its way.
“Little Squirmy! That way!!”
[Stimulating the individual’s instincts.]
[Stimulating the individual’s survival instinct.]
I helped Little Squirmy escape.
I could have burst the fish, but what mattered in the end was experience. I had to make Little Squirmy remember this dangerous experience and increase its chances of survival.
Swoosh!!~
At last, Little Squirmy realized the danger.
It finally moved its tail to dodge the fish that had rushed right up to it. Its speed was nowhere near enough to match the fish, which had already built up momentum, though.
[Generating a faint telekinetic force.]
[1pt of World Power has been consumed.]
Smack!~
In moments like this, I used telekinesis to shove the fish away.
Thanks to that, Little Squirmy survived the crisis, while the fish that had been pushed back trembled in confusion before chasing after it again.
Thus began the chase.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Smack!
The fish was definitely fast.
It caught up to Little Squirmy several times, and each time, I shoved it away. After I repeated that a few times, the exhausted fish eventually fell behind.
[The individual’s perception is developing.]
[The individual’s survival instinct has increased.]
[The individual is beginning to distinguish danger.]
[The individual is seeking greater speed.]
[Inducing the development of a dense neural network in the individual, consuming 40pt of World Power.]
Level-up complete.
Little Squirmy had learned to be wary of approaching fish. Its nerve cells would develop even faster now.
“I’ll have to do it this way from now on.”
Danger = faster growth.
It was an excellent formula.
So whenever Little Squirmy was in danger, I helped it escape.
[Accelerating time.]
[The individual’s growth instinct has been strengthened.]
[A visual organ has formed in the individual.]
Two months later in Yeoulrim’s time.
Little Squirmy had survived dozens of chases, and in a few of them, it had survived by hiding from the fish on its own.
Its survival rate kept climbing.
Its neural network kept developing.
Then, little by little, changes appeared.
Little Squirmy thickened its tail into a fan shape on its own, grew fins, and even developed eyes to recognize stimuli.
But maybe it was because its head had grown a little larger.
At some point, Little Squirmy began acting strangely.
[The individual’s perception has developed significantly.]
[The individual’s neural tissue has generated a powerful stimulus on its own.]
[The individual is certain that something has been helping it for a long time, and is questioning what it is.]
Little Squirmy was resting somewhere.
It suddenly shivered all over.
There was nothing around it, but its nerve cells had stimulated themselves. It had probably realized that I’d saved it with telekinesis many times.
In other words.
“Huh, could it have noticed me?”
It had thought for itself.