Another half a month passed as Damien moved to ponder the structure of his mana circuits.
Mana circuits were ethereal but still tethered to the body. If he wanted to design an intricate circuit, he needed to plan it well. Being interlinked with the body means that any small injury could disrupt his entire circuit.
It was the same idea as removing a small cog from a huge machine and causing its downfall.
To solve this problem, Damien decided to design his circuits in quadrants pertaining to specific areas of his body. This way, if his arm ended up getting severed, the overall system would only slightly weaken, rather than shutting down.
This was solely for the ethereal aspect of his mana circuits. The corporeal structure that he was creating was different and didn't possess the same flaw. It was essentially a new body part and would qualify to regenerate through his skill, so he didn't need to worry about it.
Damien had done many experiments over the past half a month on how he should structure the physical aspect of his circuits, and he had finally decided.
The mana core he had created would be placed in the center of his chest, essentially becoming a second heart, and he would form veins that scaled his entire body connecting to that heart. He also decided that a set of meridians were necessary to facilitate the flow and blockage of energy.
These would be smaller variants of his mana core that carried only a portion of its functions.
The creation of this corporeal system would be a long and grueling process, and he didn't even have enough mana to complete what he had now termed as his "mana heart" so he once again tried something new. Rather than devouring corpses, he targeted his skill at the atmospheric mana around him.
Surprisingly, it worked. He couldn't increase his mana capacity this way, but refilling his tank at a rapid pace was child's play.
Luckily, he would be able to move around fine during the process and wouldn't have to complete it all in one go. After all, his mana circuits wouldn't have negative effects on his internals even while they were incomplete, as their functionality would be null until he completed their ethereal counterpart.
The final thing he had to decide was the basis of his ethereal circuits. It would be most logical at this point for Damien to optimize them towards his spatial affinity, but he opted against that. He didn't want to be limited to just that much.
However, he couldn't make circuits that accepted everything, as it would limit his potential due to having too much freedom. Instead, he decided to keep it broad but not too expansive.
He wanted his mana circuits to focus on destructive power. He decided to block off all routes he had towards external healing and more positive powers. Naturally, this wouldn't disallow his own regeneration and similar skills, but he wouldn't be able to utilize such practices on others.
During the month that had passed since Damien began, Malcolm had visited weekly to track his progress. However, every time he came, Damien was deep in thought and didn't even notice his presence. What surprised Malcolm was that Damien hadn't even started construction of his mana circuits yet.
For a genius like him, it should be easy, so Malcolm figured that Damien was aiming for something greater. He naturally supported this, but he hoped that Damien wouldn't try to do too much and end up failing.
There were only 4 months left until the Nexus Event officially began, so Malcolm once again decided to check on Damien. Reaching the mountain peak, he saw Damien standing up and playing with an amethyst marble.
This was the first time Malcolm had seen a change in Damien, so he was pleasantly surprised. Sensing something peculiar about the marble, Malcolm analyzed it, only to be shocked by what he found.
The marble was made up of pure crystallized mana, something he didn't expect to see from someone who was working on mana circuits. "Damien, what are you planning to do with that?"
Malcolm was a bit suspicious since that marble had the potential to be used as a bomb, but Damien's answer left him even more surprised.
"Hm? Ah, old man you're back. This is nothing, just a slight experiment I did while I was contemplating the mana circuits I'm going to make. I have the base idea down now. All I need to do is implement it."
Hearing this, Malcolm decided not to ask too many questions. Damien's choice was his alone, and as long as he didn't plan to use those mana beads as weapons, he didn't care.
"Alright then. You have 4 months left until the start of the event, so make sure not to waste too much time."
Malcolm was about to leave once again when Damien stopped him. "Take me with you this time, old man. I'm going to take a little break before I start for real."
Malcolm nodded. It wasn't a bad thing to take rest every once in a while, especially during a big project like Damien's.
Damien only felt his shoulder be grabbed before the wind started whooshing around him. The next thing he knew, he was back at the academy.
Bidding farewell to Malcolm, Damien headed back to his abode where he was once again greeted by Katherine. Since the last time they had met, she decided that she'd stay at his house. She claimed that the dorm she was staying in was too stuffy compared to it.
He would usually be against it, but he honestly doesn't stay at the house much and Zara seemed to enjoy her company, so he agreed.
Speaking of Zara, she hadn't been with Damien since he left for the mountain. He told her to stay home when he left and realizing that he'd be at the peak for a while, he told her to hunt and increase her strength. He'd only be back for a day, so he decided he wouldn't disturb her training.
Once again, Damien plopped down on the couch as Katherine went to the kitchen to make food. If anyone else saw them, they'd think the two were dating, but the two of them were too oblivious to even make the connection.
"You could've told me that old man was the headmaster, you know. I mean, I guessed it easily but still."
Katherine giggled in response. "Well, I thought it'd be more fun to surprise you. Oh yeah, did he take you as his student?"
Damien rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the old man is helping me fix some things that I was being stupid on. What about you? With your talent, there has to be an elder who wanted to teach you."
Katherine smiled. "Yup! It was one of the Grand Elders too! Her name is Elder Monique and she specializes in illusion affinity as well. Hehe, I can't wait to beat you up in the tournament."
"Sure sure you'll be the one beating me up. You have to be careful though, if you lose I might just have to spank your butt as punishment." Damien replied with a sly smile.
"Shameless!" Katherine muttered as a rosy blush covered her face.
The two continued chatting as they ate dinner with each other. They were growing closer at an abnormal rate that would be weird by anyone's standards. After all, the two have only had close relations for around 2 months.
However, it wasn't surprising. Katherine was a sheltered girl with an adventurous personality that quickly got attached to anything she found interesting. As someone who didn't have many close friends, she gravitated towards Damien often.
Damien was similar as well. And him being terrible at talking freely with anyone besides her, he also gravitated towards her. The two had a slight amount of co-dependence, but it wasn't unhealthy.
If two people only had each other in the same age range that they could freely speak to and were also extremely similar in their personalities, it'd be weirder if they didn't get close fast. But they were both dense as a lake, so neither had noticed this in the slightest.
Night soon fell and the two retired to their rooms. Damien, however, warped back to the mountain peak. It was relatively close so he didn't need to use too much mana.
Talking with Katherine for a few hours honestly made him much more refreshed than sleep did. He didn't know why that was but just assumed that it came from the synergy between like-minded people.
Spending a few hours to recover his mana, Damien ended up falling asleep. He woke up the next morning with a wide smile on his face.
'There are only 4 months left for the competition to start. If everything does as planned, it'll take 2 months to develop the corporeal system and 2 months to develop the ethereal one.'
Without waiting, Damien began the process. The first step was the mana heart. Just like he did previously, he gathered mana in a ball shape. Only, this time it was at the center of his chest, directly next to his heart.
This was a step Damien needed to take extra care with. He gently used his spatial affinity to compress the swirling ball of mana in his chest. As time passes, the ball became smaller and smaller, and at this time Damien started devouring the atmospheric mana.
Rather than a marble, he wanted his mana heart to be at least the size of a golf ball. The mana kept compressing as even more mana was added to it, creating a semi-liquified ball whose mass kept increasing.
He lost track of time and even of the functions of his body as his sole focus was compressing his mana heart. Mana roared and his body protested the foreign mass that had intruded on its structure, but Damien didn't care.
He had already run many simulations and figured out the perfect positioning for each piece of his new organ. The strain was only present due to the large portions of mana that were still being liquified.
Damien continued like this for an entire day and a half. Every time his mana capacity lowered, it was regenerated by the ambient mana he devoured, and this mana went directly into his mana heart.
By the end of the second day, Damien fell to the floor exhausted. His consciousness started fading due to the intense concentration and mana depletion he had felt over the past 2 days, but he held a wide smile on his face.
Within his chest, he could feel it. Although it didn't beat or pump anything, he could feel a second baseball-sized heart made entirely of mana, just waiting for him to give it function.
The next 4 months passed without any unexpected scenarios.
In the time Damien wasn't training either by creating his mana circuits or getting lectured about lightning by Malcolm he was constantly with Katherine.
They made a point to at least have dinner together every night, having idle conversation about their days and what they were doing with their respective teachers.
Naturally, they left out the most important details so they could surprise each other when they actually fought, but everything else was shared. When Katherine heard that Damien had never heard of mana circuits until Malcolm explained it to him, she almost fell out of her chair laughing.
Inwardly, however, she became even more curious about his identity. Not having a method to create them was natural but not knowing of their existence in general was mysterious. No matter how many topics they spoke about throughout the past few months, his past was never one of them.
The two had grown much closer over this period of time. Especially with them essentially becoming roommates, they spoke to each other constantly. Sometimes they would get close enough for even they themselves to suspect their relationship before awkwardly brushing it off.
Neither of them dared to bring up the topic. They had only known each other for around 6 months in total, which was hypothetically more than enough time for something to develop, but with neither of them saying anything, their relationship slowly became filled with palpable tension.
This tension wasn't bad, though, they just had moments where they would become awkward around each other and act like normal teenagers, blushing and unable to make eye contact.
His relationship with Katherine wasn't even close to the only thing he had improved over the past 4 months. His control over lightning had seen a drastic rise after he gained an expert like Malcolm as a teacher.
He even developed a fun ability where he could call down lightning from the sky to smite his opponents, the same one that Malcolm had used on him during their first meeting.
Though, the scale was much smaller when Damien used it. The ominous black color of his lightning also carried different properties than Malcolm's crimson kind, making the effects differ.
None of these were the greatest improvements, however, as Damien's main focus wasn't there. Rather, it was on his mana circuits.
Unlike his original plan, it took almost 3 months to complete the corporeal structure he had created. After his mana heart was finished, he spent 2 months completing the intricate system he built that covered his neck down to his toes.
This system was honestly a work of art. Thin purple strands now layered Damien's entire internal body, as rather than a circulatory system as he had originally planned, he structured it more like a nervous system.
And nerves were much more intricate than arteries. They snaked through his body, coiling around each other and forming patterns as they filled his body.
8 quadrants made up this system. One for each extremity and 4 for his torso alone. He figured that there'd be times when he'd be run through, and he couldn't have the whole upper body portion of his mana circuits be jeopardized by that.
Another change he made was his heart. After extensive thought, he connected his physical heart with his mana heart to stabilize the mana circuits' position within his internal body. Now, they had become a true part of him.
When his body evolved, they'd evolve along with it, and like legos, they could be taken apart and put back together as he pleased.
The final month he spent on his corporeal circuits was when he made another drastic decision. He decided to link his brain to the system as well, creating a feedback loop that spanned every part of his body. Since he didn't want to end up brain dead, he took 2 weeks studying its functions before even attempting this step.
This part was by far the most dangerous, as he had to put his complete focus on every movement he made. That week, he wasn't even able to move an inch from his spot on the mountain. When Damien finished, a faint purple hue seemed to emanate from his skin as his newly created "meridians" shone.
They weren't the same meridians that cultivators had, but he named them like that anyway.
And once that was done, Damien began working on the ethereal system. Once this system was finished, it would be anchored to its corporeal counterpart to complete his mana circuits.
This process was much easier for him than the previous one.
Creating the corporeal circuit was like creating a new body part, altering the base structure of his body. But the ethereal portion was similar to comprehending his affinities. He drew the pathway in his mind and focused on the "concept" he wanted to imbue in them.
He only had to trace the already existing parallel within his body.
As he formed these ethereal circuits, his mind wandered to various forms of destruction. Nuclear explosions that instantly incinerated hundreds of thousands of lives and the nuclear winter that reaped those who survived, the collision of celestial bodies that formed planets and galaxies, and even more complex forms of destruction like mental breakdowns and wrath.
All these thoughts of destruction fueled his creation as an ethereal reddish-black construct formed within his body. He started from his lower extremities and worked his way up, purposefully evading his mana heart as he built.
And then, on the final day of its creation, he linked the core of his ethereal circuits to his mana heart.
In that instant, the world lit up and Damien could swear he heard something akin to a car engine revving.
His body emitted a blinding amethyst glow as mana began cycling through the circuits he had set up.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
His mana heart started beating as it pumped mana through every part of his body. Since it was connected to his actual heart, it functioned in a similar fashion.
There were also benefits to connecting to his brain. Damien felt euphoria as the mana in his body followed the pathways he created as he flicked a casual bolt of lightning to test his gains.
It was instant.
Not only was there not even a microsecond of delay between his thoughts and actions, but the power of that simple flick was also enough to drill a small hole into the ground. Damien almost leapt with joy.
He honestly couldn't see anyone defeating him now, but he quickly calmed himself by thinking about how Malcolm toyed with him all those months ago.
'That's right. My strength has been optimized and slightly amplified, but it hasn't been raised an insane amount. I need to keep my wits and not get conceited.'
And as he brought himself down from his momentary high, another unexpected event took place. A system window popped up in front of his eyes.
[You have begun pioneering a new realm of mana circuits. Although many have built them in either corporeal or ethereal form, very few have chosen to interconnect both. As your path continues, you might even be able to unlock mysteries pertaining to the soul. Through this monumental achievement, your legends have been enhanced]
[Your mana circuits have been listed as a new 'Trait']
[You have been granted the trait: [Ananta Matrix]. Your legends have been enhanced.]
Damien's eyes widened. It seemed the system truly was omnipresent. It had even realized the grand intent he had behind the creation of his mana circuits and granted him rewards based on it.
He had no idea what the 'Ananta Matrix' was or what it had to do with his mana circuits, but for it to be classified as a trait, it had to be good. All he had to do was continue forward as he always did.
As he finished up, Damien got up and stretched. It had been 5 months since he'd last seen Zara and he was curious what she was up to.
During these 5 months, they had communicated constantly through their mental connection, and Damien could feel that Zara's thoughts had become more coherent.
Even though she couldn't speak yet, her thoughts were basically complete sentences, rather than the bundles of emotion he had received when they first initiated their pact.
The Beast Territory wasn't far from the Zenith Academy, as it was situated in a place easily accessible by all races.
Damien didn't understand why it was necessary to be close to the beast domain as well, since beasts without their 4th class couldn't take human form, but he had learned from Malcolm that it was a sign of goodwill.
After all, if the academy was in the center of every race's domain besides the beasts, what kind of message would it give off?
Anyway, Zara had traveled to the beast domain during the first month that Damien had been training and had spent her time there evolving.
Although the inner areas of the beast domain were developed and not much different from human territories, there were plenty of beasts that preferred roaming free and hunting as it was truest to their nature. This was even more so for 2nd class beasts as their intelligence was still budding.
Zara was a special case, and Damien mused it was due to her bloodline that her intelligence had been high enough for her to understand his words when they were mere 1st classes.
Now that their preparation period had ended, Damien called her back. He didn't mind being separated if he was stationary, but with him going to the tournament, he couldn't bear being too far.
Zara shared this sentiment. The two had been together through many rough experiences and had forged a bond thicker than even blood. Regardless of anything, if someone asked Damien who the person he was closest to in the world was, it would undoubtedly be Zara.
Damien warped back to his house and had his nightly dinner with Katherine as they excitedly talked about various things. However, the topic for today was mainly on the upcoming Nexus Event.
After all, its start was merely a week away.
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