'I am hungry.'
'I want to change clothes.'
'I want to take a bath.'
'I want to rest.'
'I want to sleep.'
'But all that is suboptimal. It's time to grind.'
Zephyr closed his eyes after sitting down on a chair inside the village hall. It was the best place he could find to meditate.
As his consciousness drifted into darkness, he found himself returning to the void of mindscape. Two cores, still tiny and cute, were floating inside it.
'Without you, I would have been dead. And as you know, I hate dying.'
Zephyr said before activating the mana-gathering runes on the cores.
The cores flickered and came to life, absorbing mana from the atmosphere.
A few minutes later, the cores were filled to the brim.
As Zephyr got used to activating the runes rapidly, the mana gathering speed increased.
Now, he could refill the cores much faster.
'It's great to know that what limited my mana absorption speed was, in fact, my mind. The faster I can activate the runes, the faster my mana absorption is. I should try harder.'
Zephyr thought and deepened his meditation. This time, he allowed his mind to drift into a profound state of nothingness. His ego, anger, and pain disappeared from his mind, leaving only absolute peace.
Even Zephyr didn't know he could meditate this deeply.
Finally, before he fully lost himself and fell into deep sleep, he grasped what remained of his consciousness to trigger a single thought.
'Activate the runes continuously.'
The thought became the anchor point that grounded him to the system of cores. He became a part of them, his consciousness a guide to channel mana.
Then, with miraculous speed, the cores began to absorb mana.
Initially, when Zephyr had one core, he took a few hours to gather one core's worth of mana. With two cores, he more than halved the time to an hour.
Now, with the improvements in his meditation and familiarity he gained after repeated use, the cores became a mana-devouring blackhole. It gathered one core of mana in just ten minutes.
That was a short enough time to shock Zephyr.
He gazed at the cloud of mana spinning around his core, stupefied.
The mana needed to fill up one of his cores was a very tiny amount. After all, his core was small. But even then, the fact that just two cores with six mana gathering runes in total could gather that much mana shocked him.
What if he had three cores?
What if he had more?
The possibility excited Zephyr.
'I am pretty sure absolute mana control played a great part in it.' Zephyr thought.
And just as his ego and thoughts came back, the efficiency with which his core worked decreased.
'Well, it makes sense. After all, no supplementary runes are helping it activate on its own or enhancing its function.'
'If I can find the right runes, I might be able to run it in an infinite loop. At that time, my loss of attention would have less impact on the mana gathering rune.'
Zephyr contemplated deeply about the future.
Moments later, he snapped out of his thoughts, shaking his head.
While the future was exciting, it was too far away.
'I should focus on surviving the current ordeal.' Zephyr said to himself and gazed at the cloud of mana in his mindscape.
It was time to form it into a core.
He willed for the mana to gather together, compressing it with his will.
Slowly, it grew to a density in which it couldn't stay formless before collapsing into a core.
Again, Zephyr did the impossible, creating a third core.
Then, without rest, he rinsed and repeated the process.
After forming the third core, he had to inscribe the runes on it to use it to gather mana. It took a big chunk out of his mental energy.
Still, Zephyr persisted through all that, knowing there wouldn't be a second chance.
Currently, a necromancer was out there somewhere waiting to kill him.
To survive, pushing through all the pain and suffering was the only option.
The only option…
-
By the time he created the fifth core, Zephyr felt his mind hum.
His consciousness was blurring.
The sleep he postponed for hours was finally getting to him.
Unknowingly, he drifted into the open arms of sleep.
___
At noon that day, Zephyr woke up.
Something was walking nearby.
The light footsteps made him turn towards it.
Even then, his sleep-deprived eyes refused to open. Struggling slightly, he lifted his hand to rub them before slowly gazing at the thing that created the noise.
Just as he opened his eyes, he saw a pale little boy, no older than four years, standing a few meters away from him. Standing alone in the foggy doorway, the kid looked like a ghost.
Zephyr recognized the child immediately.
It was the same boy the woman was holding when she cried. He was the family member of the person the ghoul killed.
'The child is his son.'
'Why did he come here?'
'Does he know what happened?'
While Zephyr gazed at the boy, the boy was looking at him. Their eyes met for a moment, neither looking away.
"What do you want, kid?" Zephyr assumed the worst and asked.
"Sir, do you…" The kid paused for a moment and looked at the ground. Then, gathering his courage, he once again looked up and asked. "...do you know where my father went?"
"Hm…"
Immediately, what sleep was left inside escaped from Zephyr's body. Lucidity returned to him in a second.
He was taken aback.
"Your father?" Zephyr accidentally repeated the words aloud.
This made the boy excited. The gloominess in his face disappeared as he looked at Zephyr with great expectation.
Zephyr, who thought he had forgotten all about the incident, once again felt his chest tighten. The guilt he felt intensified.
He didn't know how to reply.
'Me and my stupid mouth…'
When he saw the child waiting for the answer, he was reminded of his past life.