Weapons of Mass Destruction-Chapter 519: Cyclist Destroyer

It’s early morning the next day when I wake up from my usual few hours of sleep. Ever since the body upgrades and everything that came with them, going days without sleep hasn’t been a problem. Still, I’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping 2-4 hours most nights whenever I can.

I’ve noticed that I’m less irritable, make fewer mistakes, and even find training easier when I get at least some sleep. Surprise, it’s just like how normal people feel when they get enough rest.

Still, when I wake up, I bring a few of my evil pyramids into existence and start working on my usual mana-shaping exercises. Another part of my mind checks over my body and Mana Cycling, only to ramp it up again.

I know some Champions like to talk a lot of trash about the mark Lissandra left on me and on Mana Cycling as well. They even call her a fossil. An ancient being, As if she were just some old grandma insisting on driving a 50-year-old vehicle while other people use electromobiles.

My thoughts pause there, and I give it some consideration. Did I come up with the perfect metaphor?

Mana Cycling is dangerous, even I’ve noticed that. The technique was clearly created by someone without the proper knowledge and time. I strongly suspect Lissandra created it during that war she was born into. She probably spent her youth on the battlefield, without the benefit of the time and knowledge to refine it further.

For a moment, I imagine her at Isabella’s age, constantly fighting for her life and hoping that some Champion-grade being wouldn’t just come along and squash her.

The technique feels like a true remnant of those times. Far, far from perfect, and I don’t think it’s as simple as a lack of skill, no, nowadays she could easily make it better. Mana Cycling’s drawbacks were left there on purpose, requiring effort many times greater than that of a more refined technique.

It’s just like the car metaphor: Lissandra’s car would be a 50-year-old, rusty wreck—a cyclist-destroyer held together by wire, duct tape, and a few prayers. Like the kind of machine that takes every trick in the book just to keep it running.

Meanwhile, modern electric cars have features to keep you from running over cyclists. They give you warnings, sometimes they even park themselves, and come loaded with GPS and all manner of other fancy features.

In this metaphor, my body is the cyclist. Mana Cycling allows me to harm my own body, sometimes even unintentionally. When I’m not careful, it turn all by itself to run over a cyclist biking on the side of the road.

Amused by my own silly metaphor, I lie in bed for another 30 minutes, waking myself up and preparing to interact with people. I try to drain as much energy as I can from the bed to endure the day.

The tent isn’t very big, so I share the “room” with Min-Jae, who is already up. He has his eyes closed and sets his metal orbs to float around him on a strange set of erratic trajectories. After watching them for a while, I can see the rules of their movement. Just a slight mistake in positioning would probably cause the orbs to collide.

For a moment, I release a burst of mana to scare and test him.

He opens his eyes quickly and identifies the source. I’m satisfied to notice that even then his orbs continue to move without being affected. Nice.

“It’ll take more than that to affect my training!” he says.

Not wanting to cool his excitement first thing in the morning, I nod and say, “You really have gained a lot of muscle. You used to be so thin.”

He’s currently sitting on the edge of the bed with his shirt off. Even though he’s still slim, his shoulders have gotten wider, and he’s even begun to develop some tone in his abs. Looking closer, I even begin to notice that the contours of his face seem to be getting sharper.

“I know, right? I asked Maya for a training routine and, even though she grumbled about it, she gave me some pointers! Plus I’m always using [Gravity Well] on myself, so that helps. Did you see that anime where the character took weights off his ankles and then moved incredibly quickly? That’s what it’s gonna be like when I finally deactivate my skill!” РἈƝȎꞖƐⱾ

“Possibly,” I say, turning to Biscuit sleeping on the bed next to me. “What do you think, will it be like that?”

The silly corgi, the best corgi of the six, no, now the 7th floor! He still pretends to sleep, and I sense his ear twitch as I talk to him. But he doesn’t answer, choosing instead to continue… pretending.

It’s incredibly silly, everyone knows he’s awake. I’m sure he’s even heard us talking about it, and yet…

With a groan, I reach out and pull him closer, gently tapping his soft belly.

“I refuse to listen to your belly rumble. Just. Stop. Pretending. To. Sleep. Go and eat something,” I say, tapping him after each word.

Finally, he opens his eyes and nips at my fingers as I pull back. He sits on my bed and barks softly at me.

“Sure, sure. You did very well, I didn’t notice until just a moment ago,” I tease.

I notice his tail start wagging, so I reach out to pet him, prompting him to push his head into the palm of my hand. “So sneaky, you got me there.”

He barks again and then pushes my hand away, lifting himself into the air, probably in an attempt to surprise the others.

“Have you tried lifting anything really heavy?” I ask Min-Jae.

He nods and, after a moment of thought, increases the speed of the orbs floating around him. “For a while, I trained by lifting a bunch of really heavy stones and holding them in place for as long as possible. That was a few months ago. If I had to do it again, my max would be something like a small apartment building. Tess is better when it comes to raw power, so it’s nothing impressive compared to her.”

“Want to bet it's already better than what most Hard difficulty participants will ever manage?”

“Do you really think so? In the next three years, the right person from Hard difficulty could get pretty strong.”

“Not like us. We’ll be like the apex predators when we make our return to Earth.”

Min-Jae giggles, nodding seriously as I stand up, “That has a nice ring to it. One of the few hundred most powerful people on Earth. Angry Kitten Island might not be a dream.”

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“I hope you mean a floating island; otherwise, I’ll be disappointed with your small thinking.”

“Sure! We’ll also put one in orbit and then get to work on your Moon base.”

I nod in confirmation. "Gravity Emperor Kim Min-Jae, with his fleet of floating islands," I tease.

His smile widens even further, and I can see just how much the thought delights him.

With a dismissive wave, I settle down and focus, preparing to enter my mind space before heading over to workshop number three.

Like the day before, the twins, and Sophie head for the shoulder guard. There’s a damaged section where the inscriptions have been removed. Other technicians restored the metal, and our job is to connect the new section to the rest of the shoulder guard.

We have blueprints, and this part shouldn’t even be all that difficult. The problem is that inscriptions of this scale tend to behave differently.

Sophie came up with a temporary structure for us to work and comment on through the twins’ connection. All of us have access, but she’s responsible for maintaining it relative to all the changes and modifications we’re making as we prepare for the inscription process.

“There has to be a simpler way to do it,” Aaron notes. “It’s fine for this part, but what are we going to do when we need to handle bigger, more difficult structures?”

“Maybe there isn’t,” Sophie says, shaking her head and gesturing toward the structure in our minds. “What we’re doing is a lot like creating a template for a tattoo, and the tattoo in this case is the inscriptions. You can store some parts of a template to reuse later, but you still need the skill to ‘tattoo’ it, to make it permanent, and even before that, you still have to modify it for each person.”

“Damn, Nat’s ‘explain like I’m five’ mentality has really rubbed off on you,” Dennis remarks, provoking her, as he is wont to do.

“How did these little trolls survive six months with you?” Sophie asks, looking at me with a sigh before turning back to Dennis. “What we’re dealing with is essentially a framework for mana inscriptions. The framework acts as a schematic—a preliminary construct outlining the mana pathways and nodes. Portions of this schematic can be stored for later integration, but permanently inscribing it requires precise mana-weaving techniques to anchor it into the target’s unique mana lattice. Moreover, the framework must be meticulously recalibrated to harmonize with the individual’s mana resonance before it can be stabilized.”

Dennis smiles even more. “Perfect. So anyway, wanna try a practice run? Me and Aaron are ready.”

“Are we sure? Leth said to wait for him,” Sophie says.

This is where I join in, “It will be fine. Let's do it for real. There isn’t any need to waste that much time.”

Upon seeing the life leave the twins’ eyes, Sophie gives me a confused look, right up until Aaron explains, “Something always explodes when he says that.”

Putting away the blueprints, I jump onto the section of the armguard we’ve been instructed to work on and give it a tap. The cool hardness of the metal feels nice under my knuckles.

Then I reach towards the structure and “pull” it closer, stretching it over the surface. I find the points connecting the section to the rest of the structure and check the blueprints again. I also make a set of preparations in the back of my mind and let mana collect inside my body.

Sophie scratches out some of my changes and makes her own. I do the same, replacing them. She does it again, and this time I just modify them. She changes them again, and I modify them in turn.

Each version gets better and better. I test it by sending a few pulses through the structure, nearly breaking it, but the mana still flows well.

Then, using the twins’ [Connection], we start work on inscribing the improved structure, using [Connection] to make everything work in harmony. There are a number of ways we could do this, but we’ve decided on this method for now.

After a few days of working in the workshop and plenty of preparation, the actual inscribing goes smoothly. As expected though, it requires a lot of mana to inscribe it into the section.

There are also locks that prevent the inscriptions from fully connecting to the rest of the structure - something only a level 8 technician can handle. There are protections in place to stop tampering, and even the section we’re working on had to be unlocked and stripped of multiple safeguards. It’s fascinating. The more we work on it, the more I learn about how it all fits together.

And we succeed, quite easily too, and earlier than Leth expected, judging by his face when he checks over the result.

Ever in a good mood, he smiles and says, “Great job! There are a few tiny missteps here and there, but that’s fine for a replacement part. You guys did well. Still, I’ll have to come up with a suitable punishment for your refusal to wait for me.”

He hands us a few blueprints. “Tomorrow, you’ll be working on a section of the inner plating for the war armor of one of the Lord Champion’s disciples.”

When we get back Min-Jae is off training somewhere else, and I head back to our room, close the door, and take a seat on my bed. One last time, I stop and take a look at the trait that’s been part of my build for all this time. Level 10? Or something like that? Time really does fly.

Mana Circuit –Integrates a network of mana channels throughout the user's body, optimizing the distribution of mana and amplifying the power of their mana-based abilities without additional mana consumption. This enhancement allows the user to draw upon their mana more efficiently, resulting in more potent abilities while reducing overall mana expenditure.

It shows its age though. Even strengthened, it’s nowhere near as high-tier an option as Mana Wavelength Iris.

So yeah, the decision is simple. I’ve also been considering combining some of my active skills, given the way some of them are starting to lag behind, like [Mana Domain], which I’ve been using to keep control of my mana. It’s still very useful, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as [Eclipse] and a few of the others. The same goes for [Bone Knitting], but that one is relatively new, and I always planned to use it as a foundation to create something better in the future.

Evolving skills? I can handle that myself if I really really want to. But combining passive skills to create a unique passive? That’s very enticing.

The main reason I’m going for the trait, though, is simple: so far, I haven’t seen any options for trait evolutions. Not in the Floor rewards, not in side quests, not even once. I strongly suspect it’s only possible through the advancement of my Primary Class. It even makes sense.

Plus, the trait will likely stay with me for as long as I live, while I can always replace a passive with something stronger within a year or two, perhaps even while I’m still in the tutorial.

I claim my reward and a notification pops up:

Your trait Mana Circuit has been evolved!

The evolution has been influenced by your performance up until now and by your Primary Class: Mana Weaver (Unique Arcane).

The number of trait strengthenings has been reset to 0.

Mana Physique - The user's trait evolves into a tightly woven network that resonates perfectly with their mana wavelength, transforming their entire physique into a finely tuned vessel for their mana. Mana circuits seamlessly integrate into every fiber of the user’s being, amplifying the potency of their mana manipulation and enabling precise control and immense output.

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Let’s see how much this is going to hur... I black out before I can finish the thought.