My Bugged System Made Me Too OP!-Chapter 17: Increased mana reserves
Not physically empty, but the completely barren of the mana he was absorbing earlier.
His extended senses reached outward once more, searching for even a single faint speck.
There were none.
He slowly retracted his awareness.
The circulation within him continued smoothly for a few more cycles before he gradually allowed it to settle into a calmer rhythm.
Then, Noah opened his eyes.
The dim interior of his small room came into view.
The narrow bed.
The faint moonlight slipping through the window.
Everything looked the same as before.
But he felt completely different.
The mana within him felt denser, and heavier.
When he focused inward, the golden flow seemed brighter than it had at the start of his meditation.
His core felt fuller, more substantial, as though its internal volume had expanded.
He estimated it silently.
At least twice as much as before.
The absorption and refinement had not merely replaced what he used earlier.
It had multiplied it.
A faint exhale left his lips.
Before he could dwell on it further—
A panel flickered into existence before his eyes.
Then another.
And another.
[Daily Quest: Channel your mana through your mana veins]
[Status: Completed]
[Reward Granted: 20EXP]
His gaze sharpened.
Another soon appeared.
[Daily Quest: Channel your mana through your mana veins]
[Status: Completed]
[Reward Granted: 20EXP]
More followed immediately.
[...]
[...]
[Daily Quest: Channel your mana through your mana veins]
[Status: Completed]
[Reward Granted: 20EXP]
Noah blinked.
The notifications did not stop.
They kept appearing one after another, stacking in front of him in a steady stream. Each one granting the same reward.
Twenty EXP.
Again, and again.
He had only focused on circulating his mana.
He had not been counting.
But clearly, the system had been.
Eventually—
The stream slowed.
Then stopped.
The final notification faded slightly, leaving a single, larger panel hovering before him.
[You have accumulated 300EXP!]
Three hundred.
He inhaled quietly.
That meant—
Fifteen completions.
The system was calculating based on the number of full channeling cycles he had performed.
Fifteen cycles.
Each one counted separately.
Fifteen times twenty EXP, giving him three hundred EXP in total.
His heart began beating a little faster.
Another prompt appeared beneath the first.
[Do you want to level up?]
[Yes / No]
The offer was very tempting and enticing at the same time.
For a brief moment, his finger twitched slightly.
He wanted to select "Yes" immediately.
Why wouldn’t he?
Leveling up had already pushed him from early to mid Apprentice Magus earlier. The benefits were clear—stronger core, wider veins, greater control.
Three hundred EXP was not a small amount.
It was an opportunity.
His breathing grew shallow for a second as excitement rose within him.
But he did not move.
He held back.
He had just absorbed a significant amount of refined mana.
His internal flow was strong, and more stable than it has ever been.
Instead of selecting an option, he turned his attention inward once more.
The golden mana flowing through his veins was visibly denser than before.
When he first began circulating it earlier, the current had been steady but modest.
Now, it moved with greater weight and presence, filling every of his mana vein with a powerful rhythm.
He observed carefully, tracking the flow as it left the core, passed through the affinity orbs, split into lightning and ice, then returned again in perfect harmony.
After a brief pause, he spoke softly in his mind.
’Status.’
A translucent panel immediately appeared before him.
[Supreme Magus System$&@?!]
[Host: Noah Whiteheart]
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 300/100$&@?]
[Rank: Apprentice Magus (mid)]
[Elements: Ice, Lightning]
[Mana: 100/100]
[Health: 70/70]
[Strength: 3]
[Agility: 4]
[Stamina: 4]
[Endurance: 2]
[Sense: 2]
[Supreme Points: 0]
His gaze moved down the panel slowly.
Then it stopped.
Mana: 100/100.
His eyes widened slightly.
A hundred!
It had been sixty before.
He remembered it clearly. After leveling up earlier, his maximum mana had been sixty. That number had already felt like a major increase from his previous capacity.
Now—
It was one hundred.
And it was full.
’I was right.’ he thought.
The mana he had absorbed from the room, once refined by his core, should have been enough to push him toward another breakthrough.
With the amount he had drawn in and purified, a normal mid–Apprentice would have felt their core swell with pressure.
They would feel the strain.
The resistance.
The signal that they had reached the limit of their current stage.
But as he focused inward again, Noah noticed something strange.
His mana core did not feel pressured.
It did not feel swollen to its limit.
It felt... stable.
Full, yes.
But not strained.
Normally, when a mage absorbed mana to a certain extent, the core would begin to swell.
The sphere of condensed energy would enlarge slightly, pushing against the internal boundaries of the body. That swelling was uncomfortable.
It created a tightness in the chest and abdomen, a sensation like being overfilled.
That was the sign.
It meant the core had reached the capacity of its current stage and was ready to break through to the next.
The mage would then attempt to compress the mana further, forcing the breakthrough.
But Noah felt none of that.
His core had expanded earlier when he leveled up from early to mid Apprentice. He had felt that clear surge and restructuring.
Now, despite having a hundred mana points stored within him, there was no sign of hitting a wall.
His case was clearly not following the conventional pattern taught at the academy.
Though he had already known he was bound to be different from other magi when he first got the system, he still still amazed by it.
Instead of filling up and pushing against a boundary, it felt as though his internal capacity had quietly adjusted alongside the increase.
And yet his core felt like it could handle more... a lot more even.
That realization made him even more curious about selecting "Yes" on the level-up prompt still waiting patiently before him.
