The Evernon Saga - The Journey Of Ascension, A Struggle For Godhood.

"W...iam!

"Wa...up!"

"Don...ie...o...us!"

Slurred, distorted voices drifted across the perception of a fatigued mind.

William drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness. His eyes were two slits, only a few millimeters open. His vision was blurry, as if he was under water and looking at the sun and sky. Anything that he heard, sounded like it originated from hundreds of meters away. He could barely feel the presence of his mind and mental faculties, let alone the rest of his body.

All that he could feel across his body was cold.

William tried to inhale, but found that he couldn't. It was at this moment that a burning sensation in his c.h.e.s.t began to register. If he could move his face, his eyes would've widened in surprise.

Why can't I breathe?

Due to the pain, William's perception was pepped up slightly. He began to notice a slight pressure on the left side of his c.h.e.s.t. It was...recurring?

There was a pressure on the left side of his c.h.e.s.t that kept disappearing and reappearing. It was different from the constant pressure on the entire back side of his body. William identified this as the floor. He was laying on his back.

However, this pressure he was feeling was different. It was going and coming back repeatedly. Furthermore, every time he felt the pressure, a warmth spread into and throughout his torso from the area where he felt it. The energy began to wrap itself around William's fatigued mind, nourishing it. William tried to speak, but all that came out of his slightly agape mouth was a bubbly gargle.

Gargle?

Wait...I can't breathe, I heard a watery sound when I tried to speak, and my lungs are burning.

Are they full of water?!

William mustered what strength he could, and used up some of the energy that was pushed into him to support and strengthen his arms. Propping himself up on his elbows, William achieved a half sitting position where his upper body was raised about 40°.

"He's up!"

Another blurry voice.

Where are you? Who are you?

Opening his eyes fully, William found himself partially blinded by the sun. He saw two blurry figures in front of him, talking to him. He didn't recognize where he was.

Suddenly, William's organs began to spasm, as a powerful reflex took control of him, making him retch and cough uncontrollably. Seawater flowed out freely like a waterfall, as William looked like a sorry sight. There were liters of seawater flowing out of his mouth, as more trickled out of his eyes, nose, and ears.

After a few minutes of retching, William sat up while supporting himself on his right arm, with his left leg propped up and his right leg straight. His left hand was on his forehead, as he massaged his temples, with his eyes squinted, gathering himself and his thoughts. The events that transpired began to come back to him. The more he thought about it, the more confused he was and the worse his headache became.

What was that strange energy?

William was too tired to think about it. He opened his eyes, his vision gradually focusing, as he identified Magnar and Joseph kneeling in front of him.

"Are you alright, lad?" implored Joseph, whilst Magnar simply had an expression of concern.

"Yes, I am. I am confused as to what happened though. It's all a blur, and when I try to recall, I get a head-splitting headache." replied William slowly and exhaustedly.

"Come, let me help with that." said Joseph as he put a hand on William's shoulder, sending a flow of energy into William's body, lessening his exhaustion by around 70%.

"That's simply due to your body hungering for Mana. Mana deprivation comes in the form of a few stages, with varying severity. Complete Mana depletion leads to 'Animus Zero'. Listen well, both of you. I'm about to unveil information that would otherwise be taught to you by your instructors in the Royal Army. However, they might not know as much as I do. Only the top figures of the Human race can compete with my wealth of knowledge. I have lived long, and seen much. Are you prepared?"

William and Magnar nod their heads simultaneously, focused on what Joseph was about to say.

Joseph cleared his throat, with a slight smirk on his face as prepared himself to school these boys.

"Our minds and bodies need Mana to function on a daily basis, albeit in very small amounts. Your Mana is usually replenished after a night's worth of sleep. What is Mana? It is the energy in you, in me, in the animals, and the air. It permeates everything, everywhere. The concentration of Mana in the air around us determines the clarity we feel. For example, have you ever been in a room for so long, that eventually the air feels stale, and you can't think straight?"

William and Magnar thought about it for a moment before their eyes shone and they nod furiously, eager to suck up all this new knowledge.

"That is because you have expended most, if not all of the Mana in the air of that room. Therefore, you open your window to let fresh air in, which in turn, allows for the spent Mana to flow out, and new Mana to enter the room."

The duo looked at each other, absolutely astonished. They had never considered this simple daily action in that manner before.

"Likewise, when the concentration of Mana in the air is high, you would have a completely clear and focused mind. Optimal for learning, and to grasp combat techniques in your training more efficiently. Needless to say, you can then also react faster, see clearer, hear more, smell more delicately. Essentially, increasing the surrounding Mana concentration can give us an overall sensory boost. I can show you how it feels, although this is usually what Mages are good at. It is possible, however, for anyone to learn to control Mana. How well you can sense and then begin to learn to control it, depends on your talent with it."

Standing up in front of a puzzled William and Magnar, Joseph spread his arms out high above his head, and closed his eyes.

"First, you sense the Mana in the air around you. Then, you project your own Mana into the air, and make it guide the Mana in the air towards you and around you. You cannot feel it as you would with a gust of wind, but if you were capable of sensing Mana, you would see it. I personally gather Mana in the form of a spiral, as that works the best for me. Some gather Mana in a cylindrical shape around them, like the shape of a log. Others do it in a perfect sphere around them. Few even do it in the form of a condensed Mana 'river' that circles around them. There are countless variations."

Invisible to William and Magnar, the air around Joseph seemed to birth hundreds and thousands of tiny, blue dots of light. They shined like fireflies, but if they were blue and twice as bright. It was truly a remarkable scene, for those who could perceive it.

This was the Mana in the air, that were normally equally distributed into minuscule particles of Mana that were impossible to discern with the n.a.k.e.d eye. Their minuteness was also the main barrier for individuals who seek to learn how to sense Mana. By condensing Mana into spheres that were many times larger than atoms, to the point of being visible, the difficulty of manipulating them would decrease exponentially

A whirlpool of Mana in the air, of a dim shade of blue, took shape around Joseph. The violent whirlpool and its currents were intangible to William and Magnar, but they could see the sand around Joseph's feet being stirred up in a circular motion around him. This alarmed them, for there was no wind that could have done this. There was only a slight ocean breeze, but nothing more.

"The second step, would be to condense the Mana you've gathered into a small sphere between your hands. This allows for all of it to conveniently be in one location."

Joseph then fell silent as he focused slightly. He held his hands out in front of him, palms facing each other.

The whirlpool of blue dots of light around him began to spin even faster, whilst splitting off into small streams that gathered to form a sphere of light, multiple times brighter than the individual spheres of mana condensed from the air. This was a sphere of concentrated Mana, which then grew in size and brightness as the whirlpool shrank until all of it was condensed. Joseph now had a gr.a.p.efruit-sized Mana sphere between his hands that was blinding in how much light it emitted, and seemed to writhe.

The clueless duo saw none of this, but they did notice that the sand around them ceased to move, and that there seemed to be an area between Joseph's hands where the air seemed to distort. It was only a slight distortion, easily dismissible as 'just seeing things', but they could definitely see it.

"Captain! We can see something wrong with the air between your hands!", William reported.

"You can see something? Very good. Now comes the third step, which is to claim ownership of the Mana! You see, the Mana in your body, is owned and controlled by you. It is strictly, your Mana, and is also called 'Personal Mana'. However, the Mana permeating the air has no owner, therefore one must lay claim to it after having gathered it, in order to use it for your own purposes. It is like asking another village's farmers to help with your fields, when they have nothing to do with you. They will not do what you ask of them!"

Upon saying this, Joseph closed the distance between his hands slightly, applying pressure with his own Mana. After around five seconds, the Mana sphere underwent a sudden qualitative change. Those who could sense and perceive Mana would sense that this Mana had traces of Joseph on it.

The only way to describe this would be to compare it with the fact that a piece of clothing owned by someone would smell like its owner. That would be how normal individuals sense who the owner is, whereas those capable of sensing and controlling Mana would be able to sense the owner of the residual Mana left on an object, or in a location, from its structure and nature. Everyone's Personal Mana has its own identity, similar to a fingerprint.

Joseph then thrusted his hands out on either side of him, palms facing outward, as the Mana sphere grew and formed a dome that encompassed an area of 400 meters in diameter. Within the dome, the Mana in the air began to thicken and condense, raising the Mana concentration by around 50%.

William and Magnar immediately felt their minds become clearer, and that the air became fresher. They each took a deep breath and felt satisfied and at peace. The air felt especially pleasant in their lungs all of a sudden.

"Do ya feel that lads? I just created an area with gathered Mana from around us, that attracts and traps the Mana from outside, inside here. I only had to use what would be a single breadcrumb of my Mana to achieve this. This is just one, of the many uses of Mana. As long as you have sufficient mastery over Mana, and a colorful imagination, you can create just about anything."

William and Magnar were shell-shocked at this point. Their minds had gotten blown too many times in the last 10 minutes. Their jaws were hanging open, as they stared at awe and wonder at this old man in front of them, who just showed them another part of life that they didn't even realize existed.

Seeing their blissful and shocked expressions, Joseph smirked. He shrunk the Mana dome by half, doubling its effects. William and Magnar seemed to go even crazier at how good they felt.

Joseph shrunk it once again by half, causing the dome to be a quarter of its original size, and making the ambient Mana three times thicker than normal.

William and Magnar felt like they were on the top of the world. They felt so charged with energy, and were under the impression that no one would be their equal in a fight right then, as long as the difference wasn't too outrageous. They began to experience hallucinations and fantasies of glory, riches, and power as they shuffled around aimlessly, as if in a drunken state.

Seeing the two being drunk off of the excessive ambient Mana, Joseph shook his head whilst forming a skin-tight layer of Mana around himself. It was time for them to know a bit of strife.

Utilizing a small portion of his own Personal Mana, Joseph flipped the script and made the air inside the Mana dome reject and drain itself of all its Mana. He had formed a Mana void.

Or as we would know it, a vacuum.

William and Magnar's hallucinations shattered like glass, as their Mana-induced illusions ended abruptly.

Their vision was blurred even more severely than being underwater, it was as if they were blind.

Their hearing had seemingly been switched off. To them, it was so quiet that they could hear the blood pumping and flowing through their heads.

Their bodies became numb to the point where they couldn't feel the clothes on their bodies, or the ground they were standing on.

However, the worst part of it all was much more unpleasant than that.

They couldn't breathe.

They tried to inhale the air, but it gave them no relief. Doing so just made them spasm slightly as their bodies vigorously tried to inhale air reflexively. But they couldn't.

Their thoughts were muddled, and their minds were basically blank. They could not even think up the two words, 'What happened?', and instead just felt that something was wrong. But they were too dumb to think any deeper about it.

Slowly slipping away...

Sinking to their knees...

Thoughtless...

Silent...

Alone...

Into darkness.

Animus Zero.