Cyril Sarnath
patreon
Chapter 212: Mana Storage
🕑 Added 2024-04-26 19:24:55 +0000 UTCHey everyone,
Regarding publication the first book, I stumbled into a wall. Amazon doesn't want to publish my book because I cannot give them proof I hold the publishing rights. Which is fucking bollocks and the worst part is I feel like I am talking to a literal wall.
All because some prick had stolen my book earlier... this is absolutely fucking demoralizing.
------------------------------------------------
Lack of pushback surprised Keynes. He had expected others to disagree with his nearly authoritarian structure but they went along with it without protest. His speech on the planet must have had a profound effect on them. He was glad it worked because he would hate to argue with them on this subject. Despite his reservation about the visage, which he hadn’t told the others about, he saw merit in an organisation that was aligned with his vision.
It—kind of—opened a pandora’s box of what his vision actually was. He didn’t muse about his vision as that entitled a grander outlook and that wasn’t something on his mind right now but he thought much about his goals after he’d learned about the spaceship’s precarious position.
And his goal was simple: survive.
The next topic would help him reach the goal.
“How are we going to proceed regarding the blue iron ore?” he asked, moving away from the topic of organisational structure.
The question hung in the air for a couple of seconds before a conversation slowly resumed. It was another few minutes before they lively discussed the topic.
The issue was more complex than they had anticipated. To build a sustainable storage of mana they needed at least 100k mana. If they assumed the same haul of 2k mana worth of ore per mission, it would mean 50 missions. Each mission required 50k mana to run the shuttlecraft for a single day, which in turn meant two days of charging.
A hundred days to build 100k mana storage aboard the spaceship.
Too long, albeit, 100k wasn’t something set in stone.
“We don’t know if two thousand is the final number,” Kora noticed.
“Indeed,” Jedd added. “And don't forget that Trisk didn’t take part in the mining of the ore.”
That was a very important point, which naturally led to another subject.
Items.
Rell and Natalia believed that they would stumble across better mining tools. It wasn’t just a wild guess. Natalia had seen everyday tools as rewards from rifts to be quite common.
Keynes wasn’t comfortable with relying on a lucky reward when their lives were at stake. They needed a more reliable method. It eventually boiled down to a question if Trisk could use his Talent to mine the blue iron ore. He was their best shot at mining the ore, so they decided to start with a plan involving him.
“What’s the maximum load on the shuttlecraft?” Rell asked aloud, the question was directed at the AI.
“Considering the measurement unit you were using during this conversation, the maximum shuttlecraft’s capacity is 20 thousand units worth of upgrading the spaceship’s mana space.”
“What if we go on an expedition with only five crew, could we extend our time on the surface?” Kora asked.
That was one of the questions that Keynes had been musing but each time he had asked the AI it was overly vague or elusive. He wondered if anything changed on that front.
“You would not extend time on the planet with fewer crew. However, you would gain extra room.”
“But we still have to feed you the same amount of mana,” Rell countered.
“The mana cost of operating spacesuits is miniscule in comparison to the shuttlecraft cost.”
“Can we use the excess mana down on the planet?”
“This is impossible. Once mana is in my system, it is converted into a substance that cannot be converted back. There is a short delay before mana is converted by extending that period to make it usable would decay the entire stored mana.”
“Sounds like there is nothing you can do to help us down there,” Rell said in a sour tone.
“Not in the capacity you are looking for. Mana as a resource is subject to extreme decay and the System laws.”
Keynes and Kora exchange glances. They had the same thing on their minds.
Plants.
During the second dominion, they had cultivated mana-generating plants. It meant that mana can be generated by other entities than ascenders and glyphs. Keynes didn’t know what to do with this information but he felt like there was clue in it.
Rell didn’t give up on interrogating the AI.
“Is there no way to extend the shelflife of this mysterious substance?”
“The mysterious substance is my unique internal resource, which doesn’t have an equivalent outside the ship. I am not permitted to disclose any details regarding this substance but this knowledge wouldn’t have any use for you anyway. To sum up your questions, ones that you asked and ones that you consider asking; the spaceship’s operating capacity is limited by its structural design. Without upgrades the limits are very clear and final, 50k mana for one day for operating the shuttlecraft. It can be extended by fuelling it with more mana as the time goes by but the one day limit is a hard cap and cannot be currently extended regardless of how the shuttlecraft is operated. The similar thing applies to spacesuits, albeit using them in a more excessive manner requires extra mana. Neither the shuttlecraft or spacesuits have capacity to store mana or essence. For that you need upgrades.”
“Which requires essence besides other resources,” Keynes noted.
“Indeed, but you currently have no means to transport essence.”
Yeah, they needed essence orbs for that. Keynes turned his attention to the group.
“I think we should tackle one issue at a time.” The other issue was food, but there was still time for that one. “We bring in Trisk. If his Talent works on the ore, we mine the rift either completely depleting the ore or reaching the shuttlecraft capacity.”
Everyone agreed, although Natalia shared an interesting thing.
“During an expedition, Willow Croft mentioned something about enlarging rifts. According to him it unlocks extra resources, some that are not available in the primary version of the rift.”
“We still don’t know how much ore is inside that rift and how much mana it would cost to mine it. For all we know, there could be a hundred thousand units but Trisk can only mine ten percent of that or less,” Rell said. “We need to start testing otherwise all of this is just theorycrafting without any substance.”
Keynes agreed with Rell’s opinion, there was no point dragging this out. They had a lot of work ahead of them. Jedd was responsible for organising interviews, which would take a lot of time.
“Before we go,” Kora said. “We are forgetting an important thing. Levelling.”
“And drops,” Rell added.
Keynes sensed that Jedd also wanted to say something and so he nodded to him
“The egg.”
In truth, Keynes didn’t try to hide the information or neglect levelling, it was just these things had slipped his mind despite perfect recall.
“Drops first then.”
Keynes listed all the drops from the three rifts: a spear, four unidentified skill shards, two Poor Man’s Pouches, unidentified boots, two scrolls of identification of which one had been already used on the spear, and finally the egg.
“Why won’t we identify one of the skill shards?” Rell asked, drumming his fingers against the table in anticipation.
Skill
[Toxic Shot]
Level 1
“It doesn’t sound useful,” Rell said. He didn’t have any combat experience but Keynes somewhat agreed with his assessment. The skill was underwhelming, at least on paper. Using [Toxic Shot] on most monsters might spoil their meat while inedible monsters could be resistant to it.
“What are we going to do with it?” Jedd asked.
After a short discussion, they decided to keep it for later. They didn’t have any immediate use for the skill. Other unidentified items weren’t worth a discussion so they left it with Jedd for safekeeping. Keynes and Natalia held onto the spatial pouches.
Also, Natalia kept the spear as neither Kora nor Keynes needed it.
The egg was a more delicate matter as Keynes made it a bit personal thanks to Alice’s insistence to save it at a price of jeopardising the mission. On this ground alone, others were owed truth and explanation.
“Alice said that the bonds are extremely rare, though she hasn’t explained why.”
“Didn’t one of the dominion contenders have a bond?” Kora asked.
“Theodore.” Keynes nodded. Alice had never highlighted the importance of the bond back then.
Because I wasn’t aware of its value yet. I told you I have grown. As for the explanation of why the bonds are important. I do not actually know, it’s more of a gut feeling.
Really, a gut feeling? Keynes asked bewildered.
Yeah, a gut-wrenching, gut feeling. Trust me on this one, she said with confidence.
Keynes relayed her confidence which once again wasn’t met with much pushback from the gathered ascenders.
That left levelling.
“I say we level up Trisk to Level 5 as soon as possible, regardless if he can mine the ore or not, we need him for building the base.”
“Any other candidates?”
There were none.
***
Their next expedition commenced 2 days later with a crew of 5. Keynes, Kora, Natalia, Trisk and Persephone returned to the planet with a single purpose, mining the blue iron ore. Trisk wasn’t sure if he could directly affect the ore but he assured them that it wasn’t necessary. He still could affect the rock around the ore.
Keynes, Natalia, Trisk and Persephone cleared the three opened rifts, while Kora checked on the moss. The planet’s toxic atmosphere didn’t kill it but its growth was severely stunted. Kora’s trait of nature compelled her to sort out the issues with the moss but she was limited without tools and raw materials.
The essence gain for anyone was miniscule and only amounted to 4% for Trisk. They were careful to not overload him with essence though.
Trisk liquified the rock around the ore as he had said before the mission he would. More than that, his Talent let him remove some rock out of the external layers of the ore.
This gave Keynes idea and he tried [Purify] on the ore, which WORKED, further purifying the ore. For both Keynes and Trisk the biggest limitation turned out to be mana. Both men ran out of mana halfway through the expedition. Trisk required Natalia’s healing to ease mana headache.
But mana headache or not, they didn’t mind. A half a day of work mined around 40% of deposits within range of the scans. With much higher purity of the ore, they didn’t even use the entire space offered by the shuttlecraft and still come up with 22k units worth of mana space. The downside was that the spaceship needed over 100k mana to process the ore without available essence. That was four days of charging as they had around 25k mana available per day. On top of that, they found three scrolls, a slab of metal, a shovel and another skill shard. They identified the remaining three skillshard from the first mission and they turned out to be [Fireball], [Wind Kick] and [Cooking]. The last one was a saviour as it elevated another person to cook monster meat without a ritual of purification.
A debate erupted over whether they should bring more ore, which would extend the charging time or just wait until the upgrade was finished. Keynes sided with the first option as he wanted Trisk levelled up. He was going to open more rifts as well this time around because 4% per expedition was too slow.
The next expedition was crewed with the same people as the second one. Its goal was to open another few rifts, then mine the ore before their time was up.
The fourth rift was a common variable one. A pain in the ass as they weren’t able to prepare for it in advance. The rift was a shallow swamp with snakes and large mosquitos. The reward was a scroll of identification and the Orb of Rift Enlargement, which was exactly what they needed. Keynes also found a blueprint for a sword in the hidden compartment.
The fifth rift was chosen by Persephone and was one of the farthest ones in the cluster but she assured them that they needed its reward. It was a rare volatile one. A very dangerous place for a Level 1 but inside the spacesuit, Trisk was safe, according to the AI at least. Unfortunately, the spacesuit did nothing to lessen the pain of essence absorption and the man was rather slow learner when it came to cultivating essence. Nonetheless, the rift was a godsend as it gave Trisk 8% toward progress to the next Level, putting him at 16%. The rift had given them the Orb of Relocation and the Lesser Orb of Insight aside from the third spatial pouch and another skill shard.
