VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 20: Source Devouring Constitution
The nameless Wizard raised his eyebrows curiously at the thick, murderous rage that was pouring off of the young woman in front of him. He felt like he was staring at some rabid beast that was ready to go wild. Clearly, things had gone wrong with her sale. Perhaps she had only gotten 5 Regil for a single cut and was enraged at the loss.
Such a shame, but it was good to see she still had the vigour of youth. He just had to channel that in the right direction. Clearing his throat, he quickly continued on, hoping that it would distract her from her murderous thoughts.
"Since you have gone to the trouble of collecting this already, it means we can skip straight to developing your own source. Crystalline Sources such as this are wonderful materials for consumption and absorption.
Skilled Alchemists can brew them into potions to assist with mana regeneration or cultivation, amongst other things. If you grind them up and mix them into ink, they can be useful for writing spell scrolls and other enchantments."
He rolled it in his hand with a satisfied expression, staring at it with wistful eyes as he was reminded of his younger days, hunting such objects for use in his magical studies. He let out a morose sigh, before tossing the crystal back to Belladonna,
"Those are just a few examples, of course. They are a marvellous base for all sorts, but for your purposes we will be needing its raw form. You will be consuming it to help develop your own source.
It contains more than enough mana to assist you, and it will be a good lesson for the future. After all, not everywhere will have mana as rich and plentiful as this meadow. So consider yourself lucky.
Now... onto consumption, you see there are a few methods to it that..."
The wizard continued to drone on, continuing with his lecture as he completely lost himself in the sound of his own voice. However Belladonna had zoned him out and was instead staring at the crystal resting in her hand.
She was reminded of what the system had told her after that horrifically painful experience. ’Source Devouring Constitution’. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her race was based around devouring blood to sustain, heal and empower itself had also gained a constitution around devouring source.
Source was just another way of gaining power, as the wizard had lectured her on. Why she needed a specific constitution for it, she had no idea, since he had mentioned consumption a few times. Perhaps she was just able to filter more power out or something.
Really, there was only one way to find out. It was a good thing that it was already the perfect size for it. The crystal resting in her palm was like a piece of candy, calling for her to eat it. So she eagerly answered that call.
Tossing it into her mouth, Belladonna felt it melt like ice the moment it touched her tongue. It tasted strangely sweet, like she was drinking melted ice cream, as she eagerly gulped the sweet liquid down.
At the same time, she turned back into the wizard to see what the next step would be.
"... Don’t worry though, I will teach you the right technique for cultivating it. After all, if used incorrectly they can be highly..."
The Wizard’s gentle smile melted from his face as he turned back to face her, his brow knitting into a frown and his eyes filled to the brim with a mixture of panic and concern as they darted over her empty hands. It was clear he was searching for the source, before his eyes shot up towards Belladonna’s face.
The way he was staring at her was practically screaming ’What did you do?!’
She smiled nervously and let out a soft, half hearted chuckle. "So uh... I ate it, now what? What’s the next step?"
"You... ate it? You put that in your mouth... and ate it?!" He stared at her with an increasingly incredulous expression, before all of his excitement melted away in one fell swoop. He pressed his finger to his temple, circling it just like he had taught her.
"The next step is that you die an incredibly painful and dreadfully unpleasant death. As I was about to say, in their raw form they are incredibly toxic. So a proper absorption technique must be used to consume the mana within."
If Belladonna’s face could get any paler, it would have. She had already had the dreadful experience of this game’s pain system when it came to certain things, so if he made sure to emphasise how awful this death was going to be, then she might have been better off killing herself first.
However, before she could even think about getting her knife, her hands clamped onto her stomach as it gurgled and grumbled loudly.
"It’s a good thing you enjoy the taste of blood young graceless, because you are about to be puking some up in a few seconds, along with the rest of your insides."
The wizard’s words did very little to help her rising panic as her stomach gurgled more. It growled like a caged beast as something started to build up within her. It pressed against her stomach from inside, desperate to get out, until it finally found her throat.
The bulging pressure forced its way up her throat, her panic growing with every inch it moved until it finally reached her mouth and-
BUUUUUUUUURRRP!
Belladonna clamped her hands over her mouth, giving the wizard a shy smile after letting out an echoing belch that could rival an ogre.
"Oh, uhm... Excuse me, hehe."
She blushed deeply as she pulled her hands away from her mouth and sat on the ground awkwardly, now wishing that the violent death would take her as it was probably better than the utter embarrassment she was facing right now.
What was worse was that the wizard was staring at her with an expression of disbelief, as if he too was shocked that a woman could make such a horrifically disgusting noise.
Instead, however, he was shocked at what he was sensing inside of her. He had backed away, so as to not get blood on his robes, but now raced over to Belladonna and took his place behind her. He grabbed her shoulders, yanking them back so that she was sitting up straight as he began to bark out orders.
"Sit up straight, straight I said! Head high, shoulders back. Cross your legs and put your hands on your knees, palms up. Eyes closed! Hurry up! What are you waiting for? Do it now! And for gods sake don’t forget to relax!"
Belladonna panicked slightly, but quickly followed his orders. Fixing herself into a meditative position and clamping her eyes closed. She tried her best to relax under the barrage of barking orders, but it wasn’t exactly something that came easy when you were trying to force it. It was funny like that.
"We’re going to have to rush this... Your body somehow managed to survive the toxins and, even more miraculously, has started to extract the mana from the Source Remnant. We need to act fast otherwise all of that mana is going to go to waste. Now, follow my instructions and do exactly what I say, and only what I say."
Belladonna nodded softly, listening to his instructions carefully and actually paying attention this time. At his instruction, she extended her new mana sense into her body, feeling for the mana that was rapidly being released into her stomach and was gradually flooding her system.
She took hold of it, dragging it into the centre of her chest and began to compress it into a singular point. It felt like stuffing a sleeping bag back into its carrying case, because there was just far too much mana to fit in the pin head sized sphere he was telling her to make.
Yet just like the sleeping bag, she simply kept grabbing and stuffing. Forcing it in whether it fit or not, as the pinhead rapidly filled up and started to compress. If she had her eyes open, Belladonna might have noticed the small azure light glowing on her chest as it steadily grew in size.
However she was far too deep in her concentration to notice such things, even when the light got bright enough to peak through her closed eyelids. It was also for this reason, that she did not feel the slight warmth spreading across the back of her neck in the curious style of a runic symbol, which glowed brightly against her pale skin.
Nor did she hear the wizard muttering under his breath, causing the rune to pulse slightly and glow ever so slightly brighter.
What she did feel, however, was the mana inside her starting to slip away. Both what she had already stuffed into the pin head, but also what she was trying to funnel into it. She had no idea what had caused this sudden slip and simply chalked it up to her strange constitution or her poor use of the magic.
Yet despite that, she didn’t allow herself to panic. Instead Belladonna extended her senses outwards ever so slightly. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and a river of sweat formed down her back, as Belladonna started to pull the rich mana in from the air around her.
Her pores opened up, eagerly accepting the energy in through her skin. With every steady, controlled breath she sucked in air filled to the brim with mana. Her clumsy mental hands grasped at what she could absorb, once more clutching at those grains of diamond sand, and began to stuff it into the pin head. All the while it slipped from her fingers, some of it drifting back into the air while a tiny portion disappeared to somewhere else entirely.
