Spending my retirement in a game

chapter 54

Eisen grabbed the book 'How to control your inner mana' that Morrom gave him before and flipped it open to the chapter where he couldn't continue the last time he started practicing with its help.

"How to infuse elements into your mana, huh? No wonder I had to wait until I got Mana Manipulation higher." The old man muttered to himself after starting to read the different steps.

First, Eisen needed to create a base that would be infused with the element. Usually, you would do it without such a base, and then simply expel the pure elemental mana. But for now, Eisen had to use all extra steps to get used to how the element felt. This way was also used if you wanted to create complex constructs of a certain element since pure mana was much easier to form and control than elemental mana.

First, Eisen needed to find the source of the 'Flame of the Earth' element inside of him. It was supposed to be similar to the way that his mana had such a unique feeling, as if both hot and cold at the same time while it was moving around his body similar to his own blood.

So, Eisen tried to close his eyes and feel his mana. He followed it back to its source, the same place where his heart was. While it was the source of his bloodstream, apparently it also was the source of his mana stream.

But at that place, Eisen found something new that wasn't there before. It felt to Eisen like a small flame, but at the same time somehow had the solidity of earth. It felt weird and just as contradictory as his mana, but Eisen knew that this was what he was looking for.

It was the source of his new element.

Now Eisen could actually do what this chapter of the book was supposed to teach him: Infusing his element into mana.

After forming a small sphere of mana above his palm, which he was able to do nearly instantly at this point, Eisen concentrated on his element again. He moved it slowly throughout his body, from his chest to his hand, and pushed it out through his skin similar to the way he would with his mana.

Without actually forming anything on its own, Eisen could feel that the element was instantly absorbed by the small sphere, and the old man could have his first look at this new substance.

It behaved completely like a flame, moving around slightly with the air current and Eisen's breath pushing against it, but it seemed to be completely made of dirt.

Slowly, Eisen placed his finger against the 'Flame'. It felt warm, but not hot, and there was a certain amount

of density to it. It wasn't as dense as normal dirt, rather very loose sand that was floating around.

"This is interesting... Something like this can only exist here, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself and

continued reading the instructions in the book.

The next step was to control its state. Meaning, the water element could be frozen or turned into dense

steam and the flame element's heat could be controlled and changed, or the Earth element could be changed

into dust or rock.

As for Eisen, he figured he would be able to at least change if his element would be a flame or dirt. So, he

tried to concentrate on the flame of dirt in front of him as was described in the book. He imagined it turning into a pure flame, and soon enough the dirt caught fire and disappeared as if burnt away.

It was a mostly dull red flame, with the hottest area only burning a deep orange, rather than the white or blue that Eisen expected.

The old giant-dwarf halfling thought about whether it would be possible to change the heat of this as well like for a normal flame element, so he thought about its heat rising. And slowly but surely, the center of the flame turned a clear orange closing in on white. But this was about the hottest that Eisen was able to get it for now. Maybe that would change at later ranks of the skill connected to his element?