According to Doh, the lake stretched for hundreds of miles, making it even larger than the Thirsty Valley.
‘Should be called the Mirror Sea, really…’
It was impossible to see the other end of its tranquil waters even after climbing the colossal trees in its vicinity. Percy would have loved to try anyway, to get a better look at it. It wasn’t every day a mortal got a chance to visit an Elemental Source – and of their own affinity, no less.
Sadly, that wasn’t possible.
Fuelled by his mana, the heating enchantments formed an invisible bubble around his body. One that the swarm of fiends dared not trespass. This allowed him to relax a little at last, after the long and arduous journey. But it didn’t do much to improve visibility.
Thus, he and his companions could only examine their immediate surroundings.
The lush forest stopped a dozen metres from the shore, giving way to tall grass reaching all the way to their knees. The blades were smooth and silver like all the other plants he’d seen on Melodia, resembling shards of glass more so than leaves. The soil was soft and wet, their boots sinking an inch deep with every step. It transitioned sharply into mud the closer one moved to the water.
As for the lake itself?
Well, it hadn’t earned its name by accident.
At first, Percy wasn’t sure if it was due to their ethereal nature that they failed to interact with the fluid, but he received his answer soon enough. Even when the occasional leaf landed in the lake, it simply floated without the faintest ripple. Picking up a pebble, he tossed it in, watching it sink silently, without as much as a splash.
‘What even is this? Is it divine mana?’
He’d long learned that a god’s mana was dense like a liquid, allowing it to be stored even outside its owner’s body for a prolonged period of time. This had been the case for the mind mana he’d absorbed to repair his second core, as well as the stored mana the Vault provided him as per his deal with Metatron.
Yet, that didn’t seem to be it.
The lake did appear rich in soul mana in both his Soul Vision and Mana Sense, but not quite at the level of a deity. Various mortal colours ranging from Red to Yellow swirled chaotically in its waters, the lower ones more common. Sol appeared no less confused than him, clearly not as knowledgeable about this place as the others.
“It’s just normal water. Feel free to drink it.” Doh said.
As if to demonstrate, he cupped some, bringing it to his lips.
Once more, the action had failed to perturb the surface. Oddly enough, there was no mana left inside the water by the time he took a sip. Whatever cosmic miracle allowed the Mirror Lake to produce soul mana, it was tied to the place – not the substance.
“What a bummer…” Percy sighed.
He’d considered storing some in his seal to bring back home, but it didn’t seem there was a point.
Shrugging, he drank some too, feeling quite parched by now. The countless beasts they’d slain along the way had ensured their rations never came close to running out, but the trio had been more frugal with the water, since they couldn’t replenish it as easily. It hadn’t rained in weeks.
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After quenching their thirst and washing some of the grime off their exhausted bodies, Percy turned to the others.
“Alright, so how does this work? Are we supposed to train while swimming, or do we just drink lots of water?”
“Neither. Merely being here is enough. Practice your spells as you normally do. You should see an improvement before long.”
Percy nodded. Pushing the Dance to its limits, he allowed his focus to sink into the ever-shifting whirlpools pumping mana into his soul. Granted, he and Sol had kept the technique active almost constantly over the past few days, but they’d devoted most of their attention to dealing with the spectral fiends. They hadn’t had the mental capacity to spare on uncovering the spell’s mysteries.
Sure enough, it took less than an hour to notice a difference.
‘This isn’t anything like the Wiseman’s Dust…’
Upon learning about this place, he’d thought it would function in a similar way. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Rather than opening his mind, providing him with endless inspiration, the Mirror Lake instead affected the behaviour of the soul mana itself. Everything still happened in response to his own actions – the more he concentrated on the silver motes, the more they appeared to resonate with him. They grew lively, exhibiting a will of their own, apparently bestowed to them by this magical place.
Initially, he felt it was counterproductive.
The mana rebelled against him. It refused to stay in line, slowing down their progress instead of accelerating it. Of course, he and Sol could always just break their focus to restore the mana to its original state, so they didn’t have to subject themselves to this. But wasn’t the lake supposed to make training easier? The erratic behaviour of his mana seemed to hinder them, more than anything.
It was only a couple hours later he understood this was actually a good thing.
‘The mana… I think it’s revealing its nature to us!’
Normally, a mage had to spent countless years slowly uncovering the unique properties of their affinity. In many cases, they never did. Most pure users in the universe seemed oblivious to the fact they could crystallize their mana, and most beasts had no idea they could supercharge their passive Circulation to strengthen themselves.
The only way to cheat was to ask somebody more experienced to share their insight. Percy had received a lot of help from the Melodians in that regard, but Sol and Mi’s lessons were still limited to certain topics. It was another thing entirely for the mana itself to actively assist him in mastering a complex spell.
Now, they just had to figure out what it was trying to tell them.
‘Is it me, or are the whirlpools fighting against us?’ Sol suddenly asked.
Percy creased his brow. It was true. The ever-spinning maelstroms forced them to constantly move the silver ribbons along their skin, trying to keep the technique going. They’d improved at this over the past few weeks, but the lake further complicated things.
The more they focused on the mana, the more it resisted, struggling to drift away. Bending and twisting, the silver flows collided with one another, throwing their control off. No matter how hard Percy and Sol fought to separate them, they kept getting entangled, forming chaotic structures that resembled balls of yarn. The balls barely floated a couple seconds by their side before collapsing, depowering the spell to good old Circulation.
‘You’re right. Maybe we should just let it do whatever it wants.’ he nodded.
She was the one who’d taught him to listen to his mana, after all. And there was no better place to do that than here.
Over the next several hours, the two kept at it, trying to understand what the mana was trying to do. Once they stopped holding it back, the yarn balls started to last a little longer before dissipating. They absorbed the ambient mana even faster, growing from the size of cherries to about as big as tangerines, swirling rapidly.
Yet, there was clearly something missing.
The yarn balls were no longer attached to Sol’s body, so the mana had nowhere to go. The constructs weren’t stable either. The bigger they got, the harder it was for Percy and Sol to maintain them.
‘Well… it feels more natural than the whirlpools, at least… but we still need to absorb the mana somehow…’
The technique wouldn’t be complete until the internal and external flows linked seamlessly with one another.
He and his host weren’t the only ones training. Latt was trying to get a grasp on Circulation. His channels were already tempered, and he knew the pattern for it, so it was just a question of putting everything together. Meanwhile, Doh had started working on the Dance too, though it would be a while until he even reached Percy’s level, let alone surpassed him. Still, they all intended to stay here as long as possible, unwilling to waste the precious chance their fallen comrades had bought for them with their lives.
Days passed. Before long, the first week was over.
The group continued to improve rapidly – several times faster than they had on the way here. The effects of the Mirror Lake had seemed subtle at first, but the Elemental Source proved worthy of its reputation. It appeared they weren’t destined to spend their time here in peace, however.
On the ninth day, the Melodians finally got discovered by a herd of ravenous beasts. And it was a nasty one, capable of threatening even them…