Rivers of the Night

Theron's eyes snapped open.

For once, he left the blood lake without feeling as though he was on the verge of death. And almost the instant he took a breath, the waters jetting around him seemed to be sucked into his pores.

Theron had only been able to breathe underwater when he was in Veinsong in the path. The same went for his ability to heal from water as well.

But right now—at least for these precious few seconds—it was all happening naturally, as though these had always been his abilities and he hadn't been able to truly touch them until this very moment.

Mana thrummed through his body, and every breath seemed to be taken with his entire soul. Every inhale, every exhale came not only with a beat of his slowing heart, but also an opening and closing of his pores and a flickering of his soul.

It was a feeling of true, unbridled euphoria, such an intoxicating experience that Theron felt mere moments away from moaning.

At that moment, Theron felt the changes to his body that had occurred during his sleep in the assassin's guild more clearly than ever before.

Back then, Theron had vaguely sensed that something had happened to him, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. When he tried to focus on it, it felt like trying to catch wind in his fists—and he was certainly no Wind Mancer. Then, he had been distracted by the assassin guild's platform, and the subsequent appearance of Scholar McIntyre.

But right now, those doors had opened for him once again. In this state, a peculiar sort of Veinsong that wasn't quite Veinsong, and yet felt so very close, he sensed it.

Had he really become a Manaborn Beast?

He had all the telltale signs the books told him to watch out for. His body was like a passageway from his Core to the atmospheric Mana and then back again. His every movement came with a natural wellspring of Mana fluctuations, as though he wasn't just using his mind to interact with the energy in the air, but his flesh and blood itself.

And yet, even in the midst of this euphoric feeling… Theron couldn't help but wonder…

Why?

Wasn't his Resonance at Runebound? Why did he feel so much more like a Manaborn Beast? And also, where was the sense of feeling like an Imbued Beast?

It was like he had the ability to interact with Mana as a Manaborn Beast would—and yet lacked the actual Mana integration that an Imbued Beast would have, despite an Imbued Beast being of a weaker grade.

Imbued Beasts had true bodies of Mana. This gave them great control over Mana—though not as much as Manaborn Beasts—but what truly separated them were those powerful bodies that seemed chiseled out from Mana.

Their speed, their reaction times, their casting agility… it was all immaculate, and somehow Theron felt like he had skipped over them without gaining any of the benefits.

It was… odd.

Theron refocused again as he felt the euphoric feeling slipping away in his distraction. It seemed that this wouldn't last forever, so he had to take advantage.

And he had already thought of the best way to do that.

Those Water Laws.

There was no way he could get those arrogant Gold Water Laws to listen to him right now. But the Bronze ones… he should be able to look into at least some of them, right? Maybe he could start building toward his own Mandate Plaque.

The moment Theron had the thought, he was cast back into that familiar world—the world he had sensed on the platform.

Sparkling water of all types and shades of blue danced around him, each one with its own mysteries that felt just out of his grasp.

But then, in a shocking change, there was a pulse at his heart and they… organized?

It felt like the slab was rearranging them for Theron. Though Theron was firm in not wanting the slab to actually help him comprehend something he hadn't discovered himself, this felt different. It was almost like a teacher was clearing out a path for him, and Theron was more than sharp enough to grasp it.

Complex matrices of Runes and various Laws fixed themselves before his eyes, dividing again and again into more and more unique and specialized piles.

Flashes of color warped Theron's eyes. More and more Laws flashed by, and for a moment, Theron was almost certain that there were more than just the 999, 99, and 9 that had supposedly been the total before. And after being almost certain, he became entirely sure.

Maybe that number represented the foundation, but there were so many different tweaks, various paths, and shifting changes between them all that it was just impossible to limit them to that number alone.

And then suddenly… there were two.

Theron saw them stacked out—two separate, almost "skill trees," one that continued to a bright blue at the very top, and the other that continued to a bright violet.

Almost instantly, Theron understood that this was the Mandate hidden in his blood—the two paths of Laws that he should be comprehending if he wanted to extricate his greatest potential.

Staring at them, he finally understood what the slab was for. It was for directing one toward the truest essence of this bloodline.

But what was interesting was that… obviously this wasn't the only path. If it was, why did it register Laws that didn't perfectly fit into this path at all? He had managed to activate this with the Laws of Vibration, Concentration, and Density. But from what Theron could tell, Density wasn't even part of these branching paths—at least not directly.

Vibration and Concentration were, but not in the way Theron had learned them. Those two Laws had come from Wren, and they were designed purely for attack—or at the very least, they leaned toward it.

But this… this felt different.

Honestly… Theron felt a bit overwhelmed.