For the fifth time, Jack focused on the sensation of mana on his skin and locked in the frequency in his mind. He adjusted the pressure with his mind and felt the second beat (that he had started to call his mana heart) slow down to match, the flashing sensation flowed through him again as he felt the connection to the mana around him. He took a deep breath and pulled in.

  The flow seemed to start from his extremities, being pulled in through his fingers and toes and being directed towards his mana heart. The mana raced along the pathways that it had already etched deeper, through those it flowed smooth and fast, causing no pain. Once it reached the end of that path, it slowed down and the pain ramped up. This being his fifth time, he knew what to expect and endured for much longer; he even managed to almost finish his chant before his body shut down on him.

  “No Pain, No Ga...” Monty caught him as he collapsed.

  A short time later Jack’s eyes started to open; he had a vague sense of Monty doing something with mana and then a cold flush of energy washed over his body removing the last remnants of his physical fatigue.

  “Wakey Wakey Jack, I think we can speed this up a little bit now as there is enough mana in the room for me to do a little more now. How do you feel?” Monty asked curiously.

  Jack slowly sat up and assessed his body; physically he felt fine. If anything, he felt amazing, almost as if even old and forgotten injuries were gone; his body was in peak condition. Mentally, however, he was putting up a front. A part of him desperately wanted to impress Monty for some reason so he had powered through, committing to enduring pain for the sake of his pride.

  So far his pathways seemed to be etched in fairly well, from his fingertips through to almost his elbow was completed and to just over his knees in his legs. From their previous conversations he was pretty sure he was about 40-50% done. He could understand how this process could take so long, he was sure most people wouldn't be excited to experience the level of pain that was causing him to pass out. To have to heal from that like normal and then willingly put yourself back into it, no, it made sense.

  “I feel amazing. Just up to the elbows now, I would say almost halfway, right?” Jack responded, trying to keep up the appearance of strength.

  “Hmm and your mana, that feels ok? There was no pull or discomfort you felt just then?” Monty asked as he stared intensely.

  Jack thought back, other than the pulse of cold that he had come to associate with healing. There was a slight tightening on his mana sense as it went out but nothing noticeable.

  “Not really, I felt a big rush of healing and a slight pull, but nothing that I would have thought worth mentioning, no pain or anything else. Why do you ask?” Jack responded, starting to squint his eyes a little bit as he stared at Monty. He was ok being part of some experiments while they worked out what was happening, but he wanted to be a part of it not be the experiment.

  “Haha, well I decided we could maybe change things up a little to relieve some of the tension that you are building up. The mana in the area allowed me to put a much stronger healing weave together, I then attached that to your pathways so you can power it. Honestly being able to sustain this is one of the most impressive things I have seen… and I have seen a lot Jack.” He walked over and sat down next to Jack.

  “I wasn’t sure exactly how this would work, I thought it might help speed things up and it has definitely done that. Life mana is great at healing, but it can’t heal something until there is damage. When there is damage there will be pain. It is obviously reducing the pain you would experience slightly as it is not lingering but you are still experiencing it.” He patted Jack on the shoulder.

  “I understand pride more than I think you can appreciate so I understand where you are coming from, but it is ok to take a few minutes and get your mind sorted before we continue. This weave is modified a little, it should have a slight numbing effect which is normally not worth the additional mana expenditure but if that is not a concern… well it should help speed things along when you are ready,” Monty said as he leaned back, seemingly getting comfortable.

  Jack had hundreds of thoughts running through his mind, but he had simply been trying to keep moving in what he felt was the only direction he could go. He hadn't really had the chance to slow down and think, so he took the chance to ask some questions.

  “How strong are you, Monty? Like, you have a title which is obviously pretty impressive, but at the same time you are here now which implies that you were either bored or not important enough to have other responsibilities”

  Monty huffed a little and turned to look at Jack as he seemed to consider how to respond.

  “Firstly, that was a very rude way to ask that question, I would suggest in the future to be a little more polite and careful around people who are introduced with a title.”

  “I am fairly strong, but in the scheme of everything I am probably around a six or seven out of ten. I do have responsibilities and expectations, but I am not powerful enough to be held captive by them and I am not strong enough to ignore them.”

  Monty waved his hands around in a big circle as he continued.

  “We mentioned your connection to the Origin, and how normally your Tier 1 modification is only completed when you obtain a rift shard and are connected again. For each tier after the first the amount of rift shards you need to absorb to connect to the Origin increases, but each time you do connect you are modified a little bit more. Every person's connection is different, and sometimes there is a decision that the Origin presents, it might be a modification to your body to change the way you interact with mana or it might be a trait that allows you to use mana in a special way.”

  Monty held up his hand and slowly held each finger up. Listing off numbers ending with his tenth finger.

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  “I achieved my Tier 10 modification a few months ago. For that I needed to absorb over 1000 rift shards. At that point is where you are given the “Lord” title, there is more associated with it and it will be hard to understand until you experience your first rift, but for now, I am very strong. My body has connected to the Origin eleven times now, and each time I have been made stronger and been given more power.”

  Monty smiled as he stood up.

  “I like the look in your eye Jack, I think it’s time we continued so we can look at getting you stronger as well. I feel that is something that interests you, right?”

  Jack let a smile creep onto his face, his body was buzzing with excitement as his mind raced with visions of heroics and magic. With one connection he unlocked the power to use mana, and achieved the body of a professional athlete in his old world. Imagining what came next pushed the worry of pain from his mind. He stood up as well, focusing once again without having to be told he zoned out and tuned his mana heart to connect to the mana around him and took a breath to pull it in.

  The sensation flowed once again through his already etched pathways, and this time when it hit the unetched lines the pain hit but was slightly muted. For a moment at least he managed to get his full chant out and a laugh to follow before it all got too much and the embrace of darkness hit again.

  Turrel Karg (POV)

  Turrel deactivated his mana crystal seeing that it was at half capacity. He absorbed all of the water mana that had leaked into the environment around him and stored what he could back into the crystal. He went through each item in his mental checklist, he nodded as he marked each one off. Only when he checked the last one, confirming that there was no mana in the room and the extraction was turned off before he relaxed. He released his hold on his trait [Parallel Processing] and felt his mental capacity shrink as it returned to normal.

  It pained him having to leave Jack with Montarg with so little training or information but he knew he was better placed to assess their options than Montarg was. Montarg was a man of action and prone to jumping at the first solution that looked as if it could work, he on the other hand liked to think through all of the possibilities before proceeding. As he thought about it he realised that Jack seemed much more like Montarg than himself and he might learn more with a slightly more direct approach.

  He exited the testing chamber as he headed towards where Montarg and Jack should be, he was interested to see how much progress Jack had made. It had been less than an hour, so he was likely about to work out how to connect to the ambient mana, that would likely shock Montarg a little but Turrel was expecting it due to Jack’s prismatic body and the high level of sensitivity it had. Jack was probably going to have very good control over his mana heart. That would be important to confirm as it would have a major impact on the plans that he had come up with.

  When the two had left, he had almost immediately activated his trait and started running through all of the possible scenarios that could occur when news of Jack’s abilities got out. To muddy all of that, Montarg had to let his curiosity overtake him and interfere. He now had to somehow consider how to hide or explain Jack’s completed Tier 1 body as well.

  After running through all of the options and the different scenarios it all boiled down to a few options.

  Flee: They—being Jack and Turrel due to his use of the orb and actions so far—would have to leave. They would likely be fugitives for a little while and would have to hide out in one of the more seedy outposts for similar individuals on the run. Turrel assumed after a few decades they could slowly return after Jack’s planet had undergone it's induction and he might be able to assume the identity of someone that failed in a rift. Not a great option and plenty of things could go wrong. 3/10.

  Fake a Death: Pretend Jack is dead, the story could be plausible, they might want to send someone out to inspect but with Montarg's help they could make it look like there wasn’t anything left to investigate. There was no real out there for Jack though, he either would go back to his home world and would be picked up in two years' time. Then he would need to go through it all again, with even more questions asked. Or he would get dropped off somewhere with no identification and no way to support himself or survive. Maybe Montarg could pull some strings and get him on a rift expedition and work something out from there but it was not a great option. 4/10.

  Stop the result: There are a few ways the machine could be tampered with to ensure that the result doesn't get sent back to the centre. Jack would eventually need to undergo the test and if the machine failed they could send out someone else to assist. All this would do is give more time to work out if there are any other options, which there aren't. 1/10

  Send the result: This one was the safest for everyone other than Jack. They just would do nothing, tell everyone what they did and send the test back. Researchers from the centre would be sent out and Jack would be tested, there was a high chance that someone would interfere and due to his and Montarg's involvement they could be at risk of being collateral damage in an effort to ensure that information didn't spread. Less likely now with Montarg's involvement as a Shardlord but still a possibility. Too much unknown for the level of risk involved, 1/10.

  Fake it: This seems to be the option with the best outcome for everyone. It is a bit of a combination of the last two and will depend a whole lot on Jack and how quickly he can progress and control his amplification. If they could manage to somehow have Jack amplify enough to damage the machine during the second half of his test, the result wouldn't get sent through. He could report the error in the test and send the damaged machine back. They would get a bit more time during which Jack could try to learn to lower his amplification, which from what Montarg said he saw already should be possible. If he could then take the test with a low amplification he would have attention on him yes, but nothing dangerous. Montarg would have to sort out the Tier 1 side of things as that was his fault but he could just guide him through a low level rift and they would be back on track. 5/10.

  None of the options were great but he had a plan, now he just needed to get an idea of where Jack was at sensitivity wise and they could start to work out the details. He took a breath getting ready to explain the situation to the two men as he stood at the door to the training room they were in. He could see that the room had a low reading of ambient life mana on the screen in front of him, reinforcing his decision to help Jack. If this is what he could do with no training in such a short timeframe the potential here was massive.

  He activated the lock on the doors behind him and then opened the doors in front and stepped into the room with Montarg and Jack. He managed to hear Jack speak in a strained voice.

  “No Pain. No Gain. haha I did …”

  He saw Jack faint and as he fell into Montarg’s arms he glanced at the man who had a huge smile on his face.

  “Don’t get mad, we started his Mana Etching process. After that one I would probably hazard a guess that we are about 70-75% done. Massive improvement over the last five attempts” Montarg explained as he slowly laid Jack down on the ground.

  Turrel felt a headache coming on, but was already re-evaluating his plans. Ignoring the reckless methods that were being used, the progress was frankly insane. He revised the Fake it plan up to a 7/10, Jack obviously had a high level of sensitivity to get to this point. He was also demonstrating the resolve that would be needed if they were going to pull this off.

  As he looked over at Montarg one last time and saw the childlike excitement on his face as he watched whatever was happening inside Jack’s body, he knew that Montarg would do what he needed to in order to observe Jack longer. He revised the plan's score again 7.5/10.