The Runic Alchemist

Soon, everyone got to work. Damian took the opportunity to copy the runic circles for the giant water hands. The black chain was already conjured, so no runic circle was available for that.

This task would test his limits. Small beasts and monsters were manageable; he could surround their entire bodies with his mana threads. But this? A giant monster? Even if he managed to envelop its huge chest, Damian would only have a few minutes before his mana was exhausted. There wouldn't be much time for a contest of will over the monster's core.

Damian was weaker than the emperor-ranked monster, so resistance was inevitable. But if the others could intimidate the creature into submission, it might not care whose mana infiltrated its body.

"Okay, kid, what now?" asked the lady knight, Brightshield, once everyone had left the room.

Damian dispelled the two spells surrounding him to conserve mana. He pulled out six large parchment rolls, each stitched together of high quality parchments and containing five-inch-thick air blades modified into rectangular shield walls. He laid them out on the stone floor before turning to face the others.

"I'll head for its chest. All of you need to release your full aura and mana to intimidate this monster. Those who can fly should stay with me to draw its attention away, and those who can't, focus on restraining its movements while I go for its core," Damian explained concisely.

"Fly with you? You can fly?" Soulfella asked, bewildered.

"How will you survive the pressure?" Worldscribe posed a valid question.

"Even if it's just using mana threads to reach the 'core' you're talking about, that's no small task against such a massive creature, your mana can't handle it." Lifewarden added, offering a mage's perspective.

"I can take one person with me. Lifewarden or Worldscribe can shield me with their mana. And no, I can't fly, but I have something that will work for a short while. I know it's not easy—if it were, someone would've done this ages ago," Damian replied, addressing all their concerns. Then, turning towards the monster, he asked, "So, who's with me, and who's on restraining duty?"

For a moment, silence filled the room as the group exchanged glances. At last, Lifewarden stepped forward.

"I'll go with you. Worldscribe can fly better than I can and fight midair if necessary."

Damian nodded and activated all six runic rolls, burning them simultaneously. Bright green runic circles formed on the ground, and Damian seized control. Activating five, he reserved one. Three of the shields were positioned to the front, right, and left of him, one overhead, and one beneath his feet.

Walking on the faintly blurry window like a horizontal air blade, Damian glanced at Lifewarden, who quickly joined him. Among the group, Lifewarden and Worldscribe were likely the only ones who could discern what he'd done through their advanced mana sense.

The two ascended, encased in solid air shields made of the modified air blades. The Scorch Titan's struggles sent fragments of stone and lava raining down on them, but the shields held firm. Worldscribe employed the same flying spell Damian had once seen Vidalia use, hovering beside them and emitting her full mana presence. Lifewarden and Brightshield also released their mana and terrifying auras. Brightshield's mana and aura both were immense, but it paled in comparison to Soulfella's aura—a true aura master, perhaps even stronger than Bonecrusher.

It was ironic; Soulfella appeared to be a skinny, middle-aged man, yet his power spoke volumes.

As Lifewarden shielded Damian with mana, the monster's resistance slowed, and its glowing red eyes radiated the sheer terror it faced. It was almost amusing—an emperor-ranked monster cowering in fear. But fear and survival instincts were not the same.

Just as Damian began threading over twenty mana tendrils into the monster's core, it thrashed and screeched uncontrollably. Lifewarden tightened his black chains, while Soulfella and Brightshield restrained it further, scaling its rocky body like the searing heat was a minor inconvenience. Meanwhile, Damian continuously cast cooling spells to endure the furnace-like intensity, rapidly depleting his mana. He had to act quickly. He couldn't hold such mana expenditure for long.

When Damian fully enveloped the monster's mana core, he detected four distinct sections within, each pulsing with varying intensity. The mana flows were so bright and chaotic that discerning their function was nearly impossible.

He shouted, "Can you all block the mana flow in its body using mana threads? If you slow its mana recovery system, I can get a clearer look!"

"You're asking a lot of us, kid," Lifewarden muttered.

"Just cover one section near you. That's all I need," Damian pressed.

After a few seconds, the others followed Lifewarden's lead, halting the mana recovery in different parts of the monster. Worldscribe, Brightshield, and Lifewarden worked on suppression while Soulfella continued restraining the increasingly desperate creature. Gradually, the core's chaotic flow slowed.

And then Damian saw it—no, sensed it. The elusive mechanism of the mana core became clear, its design straightforward yet brilliant. It wasn't just an organ; it was more like a heart—a true center of life, refining the environment's mana into its own.

He had succeeded.

The mana core was divided into four sections.

Damian focused, stretching his mana sense toward the massive creature. The monster's mana core came into sharp focus—a colossal presence deep within its chest. It pulsed steadily, like a heartbeat, but its rhythm carried a strange, heavy power that made the air feel alive.

The first thing Damian noticed was how the core drew in raw mana from the surroundings. Mana flowed into it like streams into a lake, disappearing into the core's first section. There, the wild mana condensed, transforming into a thick, glowing liquid—dense and brimming with potential.

In the second section, he sensed a shift. The liquid mana lost its calm, shedding its positive charge and becoming something sharper, more volatile. This was no passive force—it was raw power charged with negative energy, like a storm waiting to explode. Some liquid mana was lost in this process, rendered unusable, and seeped back through the veins into the environment.

Then came the third section. Damian's senses tingled as he detected a fragment of the monster's spirit—a sliver of its very being, its aura—melding into the swirling negative mana. This spirit fragment carried a faint positive charge, something deeply personal to the creature. Its instincts, rage, and dominance—everything that defined the Emperor-ranked beast—flowed into the mix, making the mana unmistakably its own.

Finally, in the fourth section, the reaction began. amian felt it clearly: spirit and mana colliding in an eruption of energy. What emerged was different. This wasn't just charged mana anymore; it was unique to the monster, its own personal power. Every pulse of the core radiated its identity, leaving a mark on the world around it.
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Damian exhaled slowly, canceling all his mana threads, the weight of what he'd sensed settling in his chest.

"No wonder it feels so overwhelming," he muttered. "That's the core of an Emperor-ranked monster."

"You're done?" Lifewarden asked.

Damian nodded, pushing his air blades away from the scorching heat of the beast. The others understood and finished off the creature in seconds. Damian, however, was too busy catching his breath and casting cooling and water spells to notice the others' actions behind his back. Though his body was occupied, his mind wandered, grappling with the revelation he had just uncovered.

The core was something out of the physical plane, yet mana and aura could reach it. And it was undeniably tied to the creature's body—severing it always resulted in the host's death. That complecated things a bit though. Since it wasn't entirely physical, the core seemed to have its own set of rules.

Natural mana, no matter how condensed, would never become liquid. But in the core, it did. Was the lack of atmosphere responsible? Or something about the spherical shape of the core and the peculiar properties of its material?

Then came the challenge of separating the liquid mana from its positive charge to access the more volatile, negatively charged mana. The final step, though difficult for many, was the most comprehensible: adding one's own aura—an aura thread to be precise—into the negatively charged liquid mana. And that was all, the liquid mana of the user was ready.

The most critical aspect of the entire process was the medium. This was a highly sensitive procedure where even the slightest disruption—whether from ambient mana, wind, or a speck of dust—could ruin everything.

This was going to be a puzzler.

"Did you get it? Did you understand it?" Worldscribe asked once the monster was dealt with and everyone gathered around him and Lifewarden.

Lifewarden was still shielding him, and Damian was still recovering, yet a smile was plastered on his face. His eyes teared up from the scorching heat as he looked at all four of their faces.

"Yes," he said, his voice steady despite his exhaustion. "I have it. I understand how a person or a monster creates their own mana."