Mushoku Tensei: Life and Strife.

“Let the vast and blessed waters converge where thou wilt and issue forth a single pure stream thereof—Waterball!"

I yelped as purple blood sprayed out of my hand. Well, not literally. Mana sprayed out of my hand, turning into a water ball. The problem was that I never had mana before, so the sensation reminded me of being stabbed and bleeding. It was a really weird feeling. I feel like a lizard shooting blood to scare away predators.

Whatever the case, I can cast magic. It helps when moving mana is new, like suddenly having a new pair of wings. A little bit of practice and controlling mana was a lot easier. Fun fact, I realized something as I kept casting. A shot-out water ball would always fall straight down. Naturally it was gravity. The question was why some water balls floated in circles while other water balls fell.

After experimenting with water balls, I came to the hypothesis that mana is not affected by gravity. Hence, when the water ball remained unfinished, it was still made of pure mana. On the other hand, once the ball is completed, it becomes a true ball made of water and therefore is affected by gravity and falls down. This theory was also confirmed by Orsted’s Disturb Magic to disrupt the spells’ form before they could manifest.

Now, here lies the question. If you know how magic can be disrupted, can you, theoretically, not have your magic disrupted? The answer is both yes and no.

To explain this, we have to go and talk about magic. The basis of magic is built on the foundation of intent, form, and energy. Of course, it is just my assumption; however, I came up with good evidence.

First is intent. After testing both the magic circle and spellcasting, I’ve noticed that the total amount of mana used while spellcasting differs more depending on how I use magic. The conclusion to that was the intention of how the spell was specifically cast would change the nature of the spell, and therefore the total amount of mana would differ in each cast, unlike that with the stable, unchanging magic circle.

Second was form. Literally, in what type of magic and how it was cast. It can be considered the code of the program. No further explanation was needed.

Third was the energy. Normally I would use mana, but I wasn’t sure there wasn’t any sort of thing like lifespan, blood sacrifices, or any of that sort, so I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Now, can you disrupt someone mid-spell casting? The answer is yes. If one of the three above-mentioned things were to be disrupted, then the spell would stop without question. The second question: Can you not get disrupted while casting? It depends.

To defend against something, you need to know how the attack happened. For example, if someone kicks you from below the belt, then crossing your arms to defend isn’t going to do shit. Hence, you need to know which among the three was disrupted.

Intent could be handled with a strong focus; the form could remain if it was a magic circle and energy… Energy is energy, I guess. I mean, what else are you supposed to do? All magic requires energy, so nothing’s going to work if you don’t have any… I really need to be a magical knight, huh?

Plop. The water ball fell. Oops, it seems I’m out of mana. Tch. Now I’m envious of Rudeus. He could cast more than twenty water balls, while I could only cast ten or something. Is there a way to increase my mana regeneration? Probably not considering Orsterd can’t. Tch, I wish I had that much depth in me. Can’t I just take some… from him… for myself? I-uh… can?

I stared at the boy who was tired and sleeping on his bed. Muddy and flowing, it reminded me of the bottomless ocean floor. Right now, that layer of muddy water has only a few drops in its depths. I thought to myself, if I can absorb mana externally, can’t I do the same thing with Rudeus?

This time, I couldn’t bite him, obviously. Still, I tried to do the opposite of casting a spell. It left me in quite a shock.

I stared at the drop of muddy mana from Rudeus entering my body. It worked. And it helped me confirm two things. One was that absorbing mana was a real thing. The second was intent was a thing. And I’m not even joking. Hell, that muddy drop fell into my mana core and painted my purple in the shade of mulberries.

I fell to the floor, gagging as I wanted to puke. I felt like I swallowed mud. It was the same feeling as when I started swallowing darker mana when I was younger, but it was much worse. Worse, I tell you. But I wasn’t giving in. Hell nah.

Who am I? I am Laurel. I am the bastard who escaped death; I am the one destined for greatness. I refused to lose to a drop of mana… And so, as I rolled half gargling and crying, I fainted and got sick. Terribly sick. That was the price for refusing to spit out what I can’t swallow.

Whatever the case, after spending days trying to cleanse myself off that mud mana, I managed to refine one tenth of the original drop. And in exchange, my total amount of mana had increased by tenfold. Not two or three times. Tenfold.

“…”

Should I do that again?

I stared down at my mana core. Unlike the shard that used to be my core, it had grown to the point where it looked like an actual crystal, with deeper colors of purple, as if it were an amethyst gem. It was beautiful. And I had grown stronger, far more than the speed of stupidly crawling around and chowing down on the mana-filled atmosphere.

And hence, I decided that I was going to practice mana drain and mana refinement by taking a drop from Rudeus every single day. I’m not going to die, so let’s push the limits and grow. Yay!

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