Chapter 9: Manaborn
Xylos waited several minutes. A big list of his attributes appeared. They were things as simple as height, and weight, but there were other irrelevant information such as hair color, and skin tone. He wanted abstract meaningful stats that represented his current state. The first thing that came to mind was game stats.
"Reduce attributes to health, mana, strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, willpower, and fortitude"
"Please define strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, willpower, and fortitude"
"Strength is the amount of weight that a person can lift or use"
"Dexterity is how well the body is coordinated when performing an action"
"Agility is how fast a person can perform an action"
"Intelligence is how well a person can connect observed information and personal experience to further his understanding and control."
"Willpower is how long a person can concentrate or focus on a task without being disrupted or distracted"
"Fortitude is how long a person can perform physically intensive activities and resist bodily harm"
"Definitions for strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, willpower, and fortitude created," PS000 said, "Compiling results based on memory repository"
"Health: 2678400/2678390"
"Mana: 1000/1000"
"Strength: F"
"Dexterity: D-"
"Agility: D"
"Intelligence: C"
"Willpower: D~C+"
"Endurance: D"
"Race: Manaborn"
The stats clearly indicated his current capabilities.
Scrolling down a reduced list, he found something that piqued his interest.
"What is a Manaborn?" Xylos said
"A Manaborn is a being composed of pure mana. Usually, these beings appear for a few seconds before becoming part of the mana flowing in this world. They can take on any form, have unmatched sensitivity to mana and magic, and can control all the mana in an area. However, the more mana they use the faster they disappear."
The description matched the conclusion he made in the past.
"How can Manaborn increase their life span?"
There was no response; PS000 was a computer, not an AI so it wouldn't have any means to automatically connect one information to another and come up with its own conclusions.
However, based on the description, Xylos felt that if he could identify the mechanism that causes mana entities to disappear and remove or seal that mechanism he would be able to extend his life indefinitely or at least increase it by a notable amount.
"Record me while doing the following actions," Xylos said. As he took a piece of rune paper and wrote <Create light>, <Light.intensity = 0.60>, <Light.shape = sphere.radius(10)>, before circling the words which caused the "Program" to compile and a ball of light with a radius of 10cm appeared on the stage. After some time, a holographic projection of him doing the spell appeared on the stage.
"Remove all data but mana flow," Xylos said and observed the flow of mana in and out of his body.
First, mana, which was represented by a light blue cloud, would be drawn into the center of his body. Once it arrived at the center of his body, it would compress to a single point, change color and then it would take the shortest distance and toward the rune paper and then based on what is written on the paper, generate a ball of light.
Comparing it to a computer, the first step would be drawing power from the power source, the second step would be like the CPU converting the mana and power into a command, the third step would be like passing through a compiler which finally "displays" the magic in the real world.
The moment he arrived at that conclusion everything seemed to become much clearer. In order to extend his life, he needed a way to improve the CPU. The way he can think of doing so is redundancy, heat control, capacity control, and filter/converter.
"Redundancy" can be implemented by expanding the core or duplicating it so that it can contain more mana and damaged components can be removed without affecting the rest of the system.
"Heat control" can be implemented by reducing the amount of active mana that remains in the core after a spell is cast, a way to siphon and expel excess mana.
"Capacity control" can be implemented by creating tiers of activity ranging from low to high depending on how intensive the current activity is.
"Filter/converter" can be implemented by making sure that the mana being absorbed is in its most pure and malleable form.
Looking closer at the core, the moment that the stream of mana moved from the core to the rune paper, something white was dispersed from the surroundings relative to the size of the beam. If he can create something to contain the beam, then maybe he would be able to use mana without losing his lifeforce.
He conjured a replica of himself. Then, he wrote a simple - ball of light - spell on the palm of his clone's hand and completed the circle. Instantly, the ball of light (5s) appeared before fading after 5 seconds. He then tried <While 1> <BoL> <end> and the palm, a ball of light generated every 0.5 seconds until the rune was disrupted.
He thought about drawing runes on himself but the thought of a single line on his body being disrupted and causing all the other runes on him body to malfunction prevented him from going through with it.
The only other alternative is to create an installation file and inject it into his core. The thought of it worried him a lot but with only one month; 12 months if he stays in the book; this was the only option. Better yet, he had a perfect clone to test the "installation package" before trying it on himself.
Every large computer software starts with several small programs and functions.
He first created the "Redundancy" program which would partition his mana core into 22 parts; 22 because he had a feeling that each system of magic would have their own unique attributes, contaminants, and execution procedures.
Second, he created the "Heat Control" program which would periodically scan his core for mana residues and contaminants and then purge them from the core.
Third, he created the "Capacity Control" program which could increase or decrease the cycle time of mana activity in his body.
Fourth, he created the "Filter/converter" program which converts his whole body into a rechargeable mana battery. Passively, mana will be drawn from his surroundings. As the mana gets closer and closer to his core, more and more will be filtered out until only the purest form of mana remains around his core.
Finally, he created the "Protector/controller" program which makes use of the pure mana to create a filter around his core that prevents anything but pure mana from flowing out and allow him to combine the separate programs into one endless loop.
He created a virtual copy of all five components and compiled them using PS000. Soon, a large yellow orb with numerous runes revolving around it appeared.
"Install OS v0 into the clone," Xylos said.
The orb slowly floated toward the clone before sinking into its chest. An installation bar appeared at the top of the clone's head. At 5% nothing happened, at 10% the clone started glowing a little, at 20% it started glowing even brighter. The moment it reached 30%, the clone let out a blinding ray of light and exploded into particles of mana.
Xylos waited for his vision to recover and looked at the aftermath.
"PS000, display installation information," Xylos said as he fell deep into thought.
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