CH410 Mana Recycling
***
As soon as the order dropped, the unit charged straight at Alex.
However, unbeknownst to them, Alex had not come alone.
A ripple of shadow stirred behind himâso subtle that not even the ranked officers noticed it.
Udara stepped out from Alexâs shadow, silent and unseen, taking her place as his Shadow Guard. To the lower-ranked and unranked soldiers, her existence might as well have been a hallucination.
The fortress officers, for their part, were shrewd. They let the ordinary soldiers rush ahead to encircle Alex while they themselves slipped behind the formation, waiting for the perfect opening to strike down the âdrained sorcererâ.
But Alex, naturally, would not give them time to enact their plan.
He moved first.
[Abyssal Conquerorâs Steps: Ghost Step]!
His body flickeredâthis time not as a burst of speed, but as a distortion through their blind spots. One moment he stood in front of them; the next, he glided past the leading soldier like a shadow slipping through cracks.
His mana-coated baton thrust cleanly into the heart of the soldier behind the first man. Without pause, Alex shifted his mana from the concentrated tip to a thin layer along the full length of the baton.
The weapon spun.
A single circular sweep decapitated two soldiers at onceâincluding the one he had just slipped past. Their heads flew before their bodies even registered they were dead.
Something trembled behind himâan axe swing.
[Ghost Step]!
Alex vanished from the attackerâs line of sight, reappearing at their flank just outside peripheral sight.
Mana thickened across the baton.
Bam!
He smashed the soldierâs weapon apart, sending shards scattering. Alex raised the baton to crush the manâs skullâbut thenâ
Whsssh!
An arrow screamed toward his neck.
[Ghost Step]!
Alex blurred.
He didnât evade the soldierâs line of sight, instead, he evaded the arrowâs path, letting it pass harmlessly through his fading afterimage.
Then, without looking, he snatched the arrow out of the air.
Then, with one fluid pivot on his toes, he redirected the arrow straight into the disarmed soldierâs eye, driving it deep into his skull.
[Ghost Step]!
He vanished again, slipping out of the collapsing encirclement and into a new angle of attack.
The soldiersâespecially the Bronze-ranked archer who had firedâstood frozen.
The Silver-ranked unit leader, who moments earlier had been daydreaming of the glory that would come from killing an exhausted sorcerer... felt a cold shiver crawl down his spine.
[Shadow Dash]!
A shortsword burst from the darkness, stabbing toward him.
He jolted in alarm, scrambling to intercept the strike with his longswordâbarely succeeding.
But the moment steel met steel, his eyes widened.
Crack!
There wasnât even much power behind the blow, yet his longsword fractured under Udaraâs strike.
Before he could understand what had happened, Udara withdrew her blade and spunâher heel smashing into his midsection. The Silver-ranked officer flew backward, colliding into the Bronze-ranked archer standing behind him.
The last Bronze-ranked officer stared in disbelief.
How could a young woman conjure the force to send a fully armoured Silver rank flying?
That single second of hesitation sealed his fate.
Udara did not stop moving.
Backstab!
She vanished, reappearing behind the distracted Bronze rank and driving her shortsword clean through his heart.
She withdrew her blade and disappeared againâonly to appear before the Silver and the last Bronze-ranked officer just as they scrambled to their feet.
A cold premonition of death seized the Silver rank. Instinct took over; he hurled himself sideways to escape the thrust he felt coming.
Udaraâs strike missed himâbut still plunged deep into the abdomen of the Bronze-ranked archer behind him, piercing through armour and flesh in one smooth motion.
The Silver rank had earned himself no more than a heartbeat... and then that heartbeat ran out.
Seemingly tired of playing with him, Udara ripped her blade free and pivoted sharply.
Rather than channelling her internal energy for movement, she poured it into her sword.
A crescent of blade-light flew from her strikeâ
âand the Silver-ranked officerâs head flew with it.
Meanwhile, Alex was already finishing his own foes.
A sudden surge of energy poured into his body from his chestplateâthe Plate of Happenstance. He guided that energy into his left fist.
[Dragon Kumite: Blast]!
Boom!
A blast of condensed fist-light erupted outward, punching through three enemies in a line.
Again, energy streamed back into his body from the armour. Alex channelled it into his legs.
[Abyssal Conquerorâs Steps: Ghost Step]!
He flickered across the battlefield in several instant bursts, eliminating the remaining soldiers in a fluid sequence of blows.
Moments later, only two figures remained standing in the clearing...
Alex and Udara.
Alex lowered his gaze to his chestplate and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
The hidden ability of the Plate of Happenstance was indeed absurd, especially for himâ
Mana Recycling.
According to Jared, the crafter of the Plate of Happenstance designed a magic armour set to help a Mage fight like a warrior.
Or something along those lines.
At first, Alex had thought it was a bold âperhaps impossibleâambition.
A defensive armour, no matter how sturdy, didnât justify such a bold claim.
But nowâafter witnessing the chestplateâs hidden abilityâAlex finally understood what the crafter had intended.
When a mage casts a spell, not all manaâwhether drawn from the mageâs mana heart or gathered from the environmentâgoes into powering the spell.
A significant portion is wasted as runoff; excess heat, sound, light, shockwaves and so on.
This loss is part of what scholars describe as a mageâs casting efficiency.
No matter how skilled a mage isâat least below the Legendary Realmâsome portion of wasted energy is inevitable.
The Plate of Happenstance recovers that wasted mana, converting it into either an energy shield for defence, or a physical enhancement, temporarily boosting the wearerâs physical attributes.
In theory, with enough absorbed waste mana, the Plate could elevate a mageâs physical abilities to that of a warrior of equal rank.
Part of the reason Alex had survived the templeâs collapse was precisely because of this.
The chestplate had taken the massive runoff of mana from his extremely inefficient delayed [Quadruple Fireball] spell and projected a protective barrier atop his Dragon Kumite shieldâkeeping him alive beneath the falling rubble.
This time, however, the chestplate had returned the collected mana directly into his body, converting it into a form akin to Internal Energy.
While this energy could not circulate back into his mana heart to cast more spells, it could fuel Dragon Kumite techniques.
And Dragon Kumiteâdepending on the techniqueâwas similarly inefficient, releasing even more waste energy.
Energy that the Plate would reabsorb and cycle back into his body as power.
A continuous loop!
For Alexâwho walked both the path of mage and warriorâthe Plate was nothing short of a perfect bridge between the two ascension routes.
He exhaled sharply, pulling his thoughts away from the chestplate.
There was still a battle raging.
Through Senuâs shared aerial vision, Alex saw the shift immediately.
The enemy had begun concentrating their assault on Fen and Eleanor.
No doubt the fortress commanders had finally realised just how crucial the healer was to the survival of the expedition party.
***