Urban Ascent

Chapter 19: The Mana Matrix

Just a couple of days left until the day the old man at the flea market mentioned. He said to come look for him back where I met him, on the first Sunday of November.

It's hard to believe it's already been nearly a month—I don't really know if my progress in that time can be considered "good" or not, at least by his standards. But hopefully, he'll think I'm worth training.

Either way, I'm proud of what I accomplished. Not only did I manage to step into the world of cultivation, breaking through to the first stage of the first realm, but I also reached the second stage. I'm already a half-step towards the third stage—my cultivation feels stable, and I've managed to clear away all the blockages from before.

I feel better than I have in a long time. My mana flows smoothly throughout my body now. I successfully refined some rings—which apparently counted as low-grade spiritual treasures according to that old art dealer who "took them off my hands," I remembered with a frown. I even created fire—well, heat anyway, enough to light a candle—and had some success with charm spells, both casting them directly on people and inscribing them onto rings.

But perhaps the most significant discovery was the space laws of that brooch. Not only did I net a spirit stone (before the rest vanished—quite literally, I'm starting to believe), but I also developed my very own variation on the storage space law. I'm calling it "Karmic Exchange," which is going to be very handy if I ever find myself stuck in a desert with nothing but a handful of cash and no water. It also turned out to be a great way to make money!

I even took down a would-be mugger. They may have been a regular person without cultivation, but at least I proved I could defend myself—my first real fight as a cultivator.

Still, I regret not grabbing more of those spirit stones when I had the chance—they were far easier to pull mana from than directly from the air. It's too bad I can't make one of those spirit-gathering arrays I've read about in novels... wait—why can't I?

There's the minor problem of not actually knowing what an "array" is, I suppose. I think people set up an intricate pattern of spirit stones to power these "formations" or "arrays," right? But if I had spirit stones, I wouldn't exactly need an array to gather energy, now would I?

I wonder—could I just draw out an array with mana? Sort of like how I inscribed spells onto those rings. Well, it's worth a shot, right? With absolutely zero creativity to speak of, I focus on inscribing a plain circle onto the table in front of me, about six inches in diameter—the size of a fist with an outstretched thumb.

I guide mana into my arm and to the tip of my pointer finger, slowly tracing a circle on the table. I imagine the mana leaving a "trail" behind, as if it were ink. It's faint, but it seems like it's doing something.

As I trace with my hand, feeding more energy into my finger, the outline of a circle becomes more distinct, a faint ethereal shimmer with a slight purple hue. Eventually, I'm happy with what I've inscribed onto the table. It's faint, but it's definitely visible—I can practically see the energy radiating from it.

But there's a problem—it's leaking mana and will eventually run itself dry. Well, it should last a while longer before that happens. For now, let's focus on giving it a command. I've done this before with the rings, and it's starting to come naturally. I just need to share the intent to gather, and... it does.

Hmm—it's definitely gathering energy, but not nearly as fast as I can. Is it because of the size? It's pretty small, after all. Not only that, but it's also losing energy, practically at the rate it gathers it. Maybe I just need to think bigger.

So I repeat the process, this time with a circle double the size of the first, a full twelve inches in diameter. Like before, the slow and repetitive circle I trace with my finger comes to life with a dull purple glow. This time, it gathers energy at nearly twice the rate as before, but it also loses energy at twice the rate.

Is my understanding of the intent to gather energy too shallow? Perhaps if I understood better, I'd be able to gather more energy than it consumed—or maybe it's due to the simplistic design of this "array."

So I keep experimenting with different shapes, sizes, and concepts. I even try mimicking my cultivation, dividing the array into six parts to replicate the six minor cycles I perform. The result is interesting—it turns out I can use an array to refine energy, just as I would during cultivation. But it doesn't stop the leak—if anything, it burns out faster since some energy is lost during refinement.

Then my eyes catch the glint of the remaining stack of silver rings. I don't remember having any leaks when I inscribed those with the intent to charm. Sure, they slowly used energy while the spell was active, but nothing leaked into the environment like this.

Wait—is it because of the material I'm using to make this array? Or rather, the lack of material—I'm not inscribing the wood with mana so much as drawing on top of it. With nothing to hold the mana, of course, it would just leak back into the environment—like expelling it directly from my body.

I chuckle to myself, a wry, self-deprecating grin forming on my face. I don't know why I immediately set aside the idea of using formation materials. Just because I don't have spirit stones doesn't mean I have nothing usable.

Though I'm not thrilled about refining each material and charging it before use in an array, I don't see another way. While experimenting with different shapes and patterns, I stumbled onto an important concept. Array formations are much different from the magic I inscribed on the rings. I can only write so much information to such a small object, at least at my skill level. Complex instructions on a single ring just aren't possible for me yet. But if I break up the instructions into smaller chunks, each formation object can do its part, and together, they'll create something much more complex and efficient.

Do I use the twenty-odd rings I had left over from my jewelry shopping spree? Or... maybe those, I think, glancing over at the small pile of silver coins I'd been using for arbitrage. I still have 37 coins after converting three of them to gold once I found it was a quicker money maker.

Pure silver is probably better—but if that's true, gold is likely even better, I realized with a sigh.

Sure enough, after removing a single gram of gold from its cardboard sleeve, it didn't take much effort to refine. I guess I'll need to exchange some cash for more one-gram gold bars.

After a day of exchanges and mana-recovery breaks, I finally have ten one-gram gold bars—and I'm $770 poorer for it. That doesn't bother me, though. I have time to kill these next couple of days, so I can exchange the rest of those silver coins for cash now that I know gold is a better mana conductor.

With ten bars and my mana reserves fully topped up, I have a plan for the exact array I want to make. One bar for each cardinal direction—north, east, south, and west—forming the outermost circle. The remaining six bars form a rough shape of a human: the head, arms, legs, and core.

Each bar is refined to hold mana, with the central bar refined to hold double capacity. The idea is that the four outer bars act as part of the "gathering" portion of the array, distributing energy to each minor circle of the inner array for refinement, and finally completing its last cycle in the core, where the energy collects until I'm ready to gather it.

Or, theoretically, I could prepare additional "core" bars to swap out when one is full, slowly accumulating a neat stack of golden bars of mana, my makeshift spirit stones. After using up the energy inside, I could recharge them, creating a cycle that accelerates my cultivation.

With everything in place, I trace a circle along the outer path of four bars and make an additional formation with the six bars in the interior.

Then I realize something, and my face freezes. I can't believe I didn't notice it sooner, and I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Somehow, I ended up making the most stereotypical "magic circle" you could imagine—a pentagram.

Sigh. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What's important is that it's working. I try to console myself, ignoring the heat spreading across my cheeks and feeling thankful, for the umpteenth time, that I live alone...