Supreme Magus novel Chapter 156

- "Are you kidding me?" Lith’s mind refused to accept Solus’ words.

"No, I’m not." She replied. "Do you remember what happens every time you overcome a bottleneck?"

"Of course that I do. The world energy flows into me, because after the transition my mana core is empty..." When Lith managed to put two and two together, his mind went blank, and so did his face. –

"Are you all right?" Kilian couldn’t see through the mask, but Lith’s sudden silence, freezing in place for several seconds, could only mean bad news.

"Peachy." He replied with a hoarse voice.

- "Exactly!" Solus continued mercilessly. "Nature abhors the void, so once we cure them, if their mana cores have degraded too much, when the world energy fills them, the patients may be able to perceive the mana flow, discover their cores and become true mages.

It’s not like it took you much too, right? Your breathing technique is just a crutch to better perceive the energy flow. What if an already powerful core, after being depleted, suddenly goes back from green to blue?

The sudden mana flow would be so intense that only an idiot would not notice it. At that point, discovering true magic would only be a matter of time. Humans and magical beast alike, have a static mana core in their natural state, that grows slowly over time.

But this parasites changes everything, and that’s why I think it’s an unintended side effect. No one in his right mind would ever make his enemies even more powerful."

"Wait, how is this different from what happened to Tista? After I cured her, her core went from deep yellow to bright green, and it’s still evolving. Yet she hasn’t Awakened."

"It’s completely different, you silly." Solus first giggle after days of weeping she had hoped Lith wouldn’t notice, was the only silver lining among the madness.

"Tista had a naturally weak core because of a natural illness. Her body simply couldn’t handle stronger energies, so it didn’t let the core develop for years. After you cured her, the core started to grow, yes, but slowly, over time. Tista’s core was always at full capacity, even if underdeveloped.

For the infected, instead, their core is already fully developed, let’s say it’s blue, but because of the parasites is temporarily down to green. Just like you after a bottleneck, their core will strive for the world energy, getting filled in days, not in years like in Tista’s case.

If I am right, in the worst-case scenario, by recovering their powers, they will experience a ’breakthrough’ on a daily basis."–

"Lady Zeir, are you aware of this odd blue vein?" Lith tapped on her neck, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Yes, thank you for your care." In any other circumstance her smile would have been contagious.

"The previous doctors and healers never cared about it, even after I pointed it out to them. One of my tent mates noticed it about fifteen days after we got imprisoned. The scary thing is that everyone I befriended in the tent has one or more of them."

Lith swallowed a lump of saliva.

"Everyone?

"Everyone." She nodded.

"Captain, how many residents has the tent?"

"A little over four hundred." Kilian replied after checking his notebook.

The thought of having so many true mages pop out like mushrooms after a rainy day made Lith’s head fuzzy.

He was sure not being the only Awakened one in the world, but at least each one of them had gained his powers with constant study and discipline, just like him. Also, according to his theory, those who were deemed to be unworthy or too stupid to wield such power had been killed throughout history.

Sure, maybe not all those four hundred would become true mages, and a good number would be killed by whoever was in charge of the culling. But Lith wasn’t used to plan his life around "maybes" and "ifs".

First and foremost, the infected were humans, and he expected from them to be horrible people. In his experience, power didn’t corrupt, it would just bring out a person’s real nature.

Lith didn’t want someone like Garith Senti having even one more ounce of power, the new world sucked already as it was. Letting a bunch of strangers achieve true magic, was like handing a flamethrower to a pyromaniac.

He wouldn’t allow some madman to go on rampage, for a very good reason.

He hadn’t spent years, hiding his abilities, just to let a group of idiots ruin the fruits of his hard work. Not to mention that if any of them started to spread the secret behind being an Awakened one, he would lose all of his advantages.

His strength, his speed, even his recovery ability would become the norm. The new world would devolve in a nightmarish and chaotic place were might makes right. With his limited talent and knowledge, Lith had no doubt he would meet a foul end.

Lith tasked Solus to memorize the personal details of his specimens, now determined to find a cure as fast as possible, while keeping an eye on them. He still had the advantage of experience. A newly Awakened one would need weeks, if not months to sort out his new abilities and learn true spells.

Lith decided to exploit that knowledge gap to make sure that an "accident" would befall those he deemed too dangerous.

After Lady Zeir, Lith visited as many infected as he could, before running out of mana. Instead of checking for their conditions, he would only take note of the status of their cores and the blue veins.