Embracing Magic - E.M Chapter 91 (Part 2)
“I’ll need to look more closely. Can you tell me how he ended up like this?”
For such a severe mana buildup to occur, the ambient mana concentration would need to be thousands of times higher than usual. In Rodin’s experience, that was impossible.
There are objects like mana stones, but they exist in a crystallized form. Humans couldn’t absorb that energy.
‘Did he eat a mana stone or something?’
He quickly dismissed the thought.
It didn’t make sense for anyone to eat a mana stone, and even if they did, the mana would be excreted quickly. Very little would remain in the body, and even that would dissipate over time.
‘That would mean he was exposed to an environment with extremely high mana concentration for a prolonged period. But does such a place even exist?’
Mana concentration varied across locations. Some places had higher levels, others lower. But even then, the difference was only about two to three times, not thousands.
The “Mana Concentration Magic Circle” Rodin had developed for training could increase the surrounding mana concentration by three to four times, but no more than that.
“My son used to work in a mine.”
“A miner? As in, digging up iron ore or such from the earth?”
“Yes. He spent his days in the darkness, swinging his pickaxe. Then one day, I got a message saying he had collapsed. It felt like the sky was falling. He was about to get married at the time.”
Her son’s sudden collapse caused his engagement to be called off. No woman wanted to marry a man who couldn’t even stay conscious.
“So when you got there, he was like this?”
“Yes. He wasn’t conscious. He could barely breathe, and sometimes even that would stop.”
“You must have used potions then.”
“Yes. If I didn’t give him regular doses of healing potions, he couldn’t even breathe.”
Thankfully, the cheaper healing potions were sufficient. If it had required the more expensive wound healing potions, Margaret wouldn’t have been able to afford them.
“You must have had a hard time. Even if they’re the cheaper kind, those potions aren’t cheap enough to be bought regularly.”
“Yes. I sold our house, sold everything we had. That’s why we ended up here.”
“Is it only your son who is like this?”
“Only my son? Oh, no. Later, I heard that most of the people working in the mine collapsed with the same symptoms. But the others recovered quickly. Only my son remains like this…”
Rodin paid little attention to the fact that the others had recovered. If exposed for a short time, mana would naturally disperse back to its original state. That was normal.
The key point was that everyone had collapsed with similar symptoms. That meant all of them had been exposed to an unusually high concentration of mana, even if only briefly.
“Where is the mine where your son worked?”
“It’s in the Moord Wastelands.”
It wasn’t a mountain but a barren land. An open-pit mine that delved into the earth.
“Do they still mine there?”
“No, they stopped. Too many people collapsed, so the Marquess ordered a halt to the mining.”
“I see. The Moord Wastelands… Ah! I can heal your son. It’ll only take a day, so let’s move him to my house. We have a spare room he can stay in.”
Mana had already made itself at home within Margaret’s son’s body. To the mana, his body had become its domain, so even if he was forcibly moved, the mana would return to him.
Changing this bond would require special preparation, and Rodin’s home was the best place for it.
“Really? You can truly cure him?”
“Yes, I can. And once he’s well, you can ask him if he’d like to work for me too.”
There were too few people at the house. Whenever guests arrived, Rodin had to rush from his room to the front door.
“My son?”
“Yes, so you won’t have to go shopping alone. Teach him cooking if you can. It’d be nice if he could help around the house too.”
“Understood. Thank you so much, Mage. Truly, thank you.”
“Let’s head back then. I’ll use magic to carry your son. Magic Hand.”
With a wave of his hand, Rodin lifted Margaret’s son, Matthew, and began to head home. As he walked, he kept thinking about the Moord Wastelands.
‘An unusual phenomenon occurred, but no one knew the cause. It’s understandable—they can’t sense mana.’
Through his experiences, Rodin had learned that people couldn’t sense mana, only magical power. Even mages couldn’t perceive mana itself.
That’s why no one could figure out why the miners suddenly collapsed. Matthew’s condition had gone untreated because no one realized his body was overloaded with mana.
‘The treatment will be easy. But I’ll need to visit the Moord Wastelands myself someday.’
A mana concentration thousands of times higher than normal couldn’t occur naturally. There had to be a reason behind it.
* * *
As soon as they arrived at the house, Rodin moved Matthew into the training room. Margaret watched her son with a worried expression.
“W-Will he be alright?”
“It will take about two hours. By then, it should be around lunchtime. Could you prepare some food? Including a thin soup for Matthew?”
“Understood.”
Rodin closed the training room door, and after lingering for a moment, Margaret headed back upstairs.
He carefully examined Matthew’s body once more. As expected, excessively dense mana was harming him.
However, the mana didn’t intend to harm Matthew. It was simply doing what mana always did—flowing, gathering, and moving.
It was just that a human body couldn’t endure it.
“Shall we begin? Sleep!”
Rodin cast a sleep spell on the already unconscious Matthew to ensure he wouldn’t wake up during the procedure. When the spell touched him, the mana inside Matthew tried to resist strongly.
“Tsk. These troublesome things…”
Rodin placed his hand on Matthew’s back, carefully maneuvering the mana.
He had moved mana long before he had even formed his circles.
Now, as a mage with five circles, suppressing this level of mana resistance wasn’t a problem.
“But I shouldn’t just overpower it.”
Forcing the mana down could damage Matthew’s body. Rodin needed to keep it as natural as possible, managing the mana without harming the body.
He focused his will and infused his magic power into the process. Slowly, he pressed the mana down from Matthew’s head toward his feet, casting another spell in the process.
“Sleep!”
This time, Matthew fell into a deeper, more stable sleep. Even when Rodin withdrew his hand, the mana didn’t attempt to rouse him.
Unless someone chanted a counter-ritual in the runic tongue, mana wouldn’t intervene with a human’s natural state.
“How efficient will this be, I wonder?”
Though his actions were aimed at curing Matthew, Rodin saw a potential opportunity for himself as well.
“Let’s give it a try.”
Rodin closed his eyes and began chanting in the runic tongue. As he activated his training cycle, he absorbed not only the ambient mana but also the mana within Matthew’s body.
‘This is incredible.’
The concentrated mana within Matthew’s body was far easier to convert into magic power than the mana dispersed in the natural world.
Rodin quickly cycled through his circles, transforming the dense mana within Matthew into pure magical power. The newly converted power filled Rodin’s body bit by bit.
Around one hour and 40 minutes later, Rodin stepped back from Matthew’s body.
“Whew. Unbelievable.”
He had acquired an astonishing amount of magical power. With a few more instances like this, he could even consider advancing to the sixth circle.