Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

While crossing the canyon, I was testing to see how far my trait |integrator| could get me. The first thing I wanted to do was to grow a spine, like a warrior! Without any bone structures, my physical attacks were just too flimsy. A punch had to be a punch, not a light tap.

"Mother, do that later."

"I'm too excited!"

"Don't try to make your body too heavy. You won't be able to fly."

"I know but I can just make my wings bigger, right?"

"I suggest fighting with abilities and magic instead of physically. You have more than enough mana for that, no?"

I definitely don't want to be a jack-of-all-trades fighter.

"I guess you're right. By the way, teach me how to compress mana!"

She nodded.

Instead of giving up on |integrator|, I decided to put it off for now. I could try synthesizing chitin, the protective material worn by insects. Those things were tough. If I could find spiders or silk worms, I'd steal their creation too. Intellectual properties? Non-sense! It wasn't like there were copyrights or patents or anything in this world.

After the sky became too dark for travel, we took shelter underneath a palm tree north of that grand canyon. Trees on this side was sparsely populated with little to no covering for us. However, we couldn't be picky here. There was a good chance we might not get to rest under a tree for the next few days as we crossed the arid desert.

"Do we really have to go this way? The whole point of going north was to help Haelley. Now that she's no longer with us, shouldn't we head to somewhere safe?"

"We'll definitely meet her soon."

"How can you be so sure?"

"[Soothsayer] said so."

Strange, I thought it couldn't give private information. I hope she has a good reason to hide stuff from me.

"Fine, I won't ask any more. Teach me mana compression."

"No." She flatly stated.

"Why not?"

"You can't feel it, no?"

"Uhm... No."

"Exactly, so I have to teach you how to feel it first."

"Oh, you should have said so instead of scaring me like that."

"Teehee!" She stuck her tongue out mischievously.

Cheeky brat!

"So, how do you feel mana?"

"You just feel it."

"Seriously!"

"I am serious. If you can't feel it then imagine it. A fey body is mostly made of mana so you're technically a lump of mana with tons of impurities."

"I just have to feel my body?"

"That should work. You have |enhanced spiritual| trait. That should help you with condensing mana later."

"What does it do exactly?"

"It's quite versatile with many functions which includes boosting your spiritual related stats. Anyway, when you have super condensed mana, the mana figure will still only read the quantity of your mana instead of quality and quality. This is super useful when you reach the maximum 499/499 spiritual stat. This is also why I said once you reach a certain stage, reading just mana and health stats will no longer be useful."

This trait, too amazing in theory, too hard to realize, but who cares? A win is a win.

"Oh snaps, so by having this trait early, I can hide my potentials from enemies even now?"

"Yes! Except many of them will be able to see that trait as well. However, they won't know how much is hidden until you display your abilities."

If I remember correctly, De Planck had |limit breaker| along with all those insane stats. Taking this into consideration, I'm again super far from ever making him submit. Ugh!

"Oh! I better master this technique soon. Please, teacher, I'm here to learn!" I bowed down to my new teacher.

"What a respectful student! I shall impart my knowledge to you. Learn well!" She too bowed.

"Pfft," the two of us burst into laughter.

After we settled down, I shared some of my memories to help her teach me to feel mana quicker.

"Hmm... When Haelley sang, did you feel anything?"

"Yes! I was like, 'power, so much power!'" I chucked.

"Right, that was mana."

Oh, so I felt mana before, you lied!

She continued, "Her abilities restructure mana to flow much more freely in addition to boosting your stats. Actually, I have an idea, hold my hands."

She held her both hands in parallel while facing me.

"Awh, how cute of you."

"Mother, I'm serious! Do you want to learn or not?"

"I'm sorry, teacher," I reached my hands out to connect with hers.   

"That's more like it! Now, I'm going to try circulating mana from my left arm into your right arm, then come back to my right arm. I will increase the flow steadily so let me know when you feel it."

"Okay!"

I closed my eyes.

I wasn't feeling anything other than a bit of warmth, then came a gentle breeze flowing through my arms.

Oh, isn't this the same when I was absorbing stuff from trees?

I waited a bit longer as the speed of breeze circulating increased, generating heat within my arms.

"I think I got it! You can stop now."

"Oh good. I was just wondering if you were too stale to feel it."

"Rude!"

"So?"

"I think I understand it now. It was a breezy feeling."

"Mmhm. That's as far as I can condense my mana. Any more would be challenging."

"I see. How dense should I make my mana?"

"Ideally, it should feel something like a super dense fluid."

"Got it."

With that in mind, I began my mana training.

When I was using [absorption] on trees a while back, their mana was much denser than hers. Despite being able to drain condensed mana from others, I couldn't even condense my mana to that degree. That was super frustrating for me.

Patience, young trainee!

"I believe imagery and mental strength are the key to success," Smoothie stated.

"I can do this, no worries!"

"I'm not. Just don't overdo it and explode."

"Wah? Explode?"

"Yeah, bam!" She suddenly expanded her arms with a serious expression.

"Don't scare me!"

"It's a possibility if you compress mana more than you can hold. Please be cautious."

I definitely wouldn't want to pop like a balloon.

"I will."

"In the future, I want to participate training with you!"

"Sure? What's the benefit?"

"I like the warm and fuzzy feeling when you pour your mana into me."

"Buh. Denied!"

"Pretty please!" She displayed the adorable puppy eyes look.

No. Way. You can't be seriously using this trick again!

I just couldn't. She was too cute! I fell for it again.

"Ugh. That's playing unfair! Fine, fine, you win."

"Thank you!" She gave me a big hug.

Seriously, compressing mana was tough. The more I tried to compress mana, the more that mana pushed back like trying to shrink an air balloon without accidentally popping it.  

Together, we practised compressing mana for the next few hours. The training itself consumed a small amount of mana but it was nothing compared to my mana pool managed with [conglomerate].

Again, thinking back how I was able to absorb dense mana from trees, I asked,

"Can I store condensed mana in my clones?"

"Yes."

Sweet! If I can store condensed mana in thousands of clones, I'll be super powerful! It'll be like unlimited mana pool.

"Ehehehe..."

"Mother, you're being a creep."

"Huh? I was just thinking of something good."

"Whatever it was, we should get going now. I want to start our desert trip before the sun rises."

"Ah yes. How about you fly under my shadow? I can change the colors of my wings to be reflective to keep us cool."

I'm such a role model parent.

I heard a soft mumble, "As expected."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. I love you!"

Once I had modified my wings from dark to pure white, we continued our journey north, across the arid desert littered with rocks and dried shrubs.