Farmer or Cultivator? Why not both?-Chapter 38: Mana imbuement

"Enoa?! But... you died" He mumbled, eyes wide-eyed at the sight of a creature he was sure had received the holy wrath of the gods. Seeing it appearing cheerfully so was not in Ren’s bucket list for the day.

"But how?" He followed up, and the creature merely craned its neck to the side, seemingly oblivious to what has shocked him.

"Hello Ren! What do you think?" The white furry creature swiftly drifted to his side with a whoosh, hovering right above his shoulder, it had its short arms crossed and maintained a countenance of seriousness.

"I know I should not question the gods, but I think I would be a cooler messenger if I was huge, ugly and had about four arms. You agree too, don’t you?" Enoa turned to Ren.

The young man was dazed for a moment.

’It is acting like it had not said that and was uprooted. It is weirdly more energetic too.’

But certainly this was Enoa, even over their brief moments together, Ren had known this creature enough to decipher that it had changed.

"I think you look great just the way you are, and the gods seem fine with it, isn’t that what matters the most, the will of the gods?"

"You are right, I am perfect." It said with a mildly detached tone that could be easily dismissed but Ren picked it on.

"The gods send their greetings, they have their eyes on you, and they are quite invested in your exploits, the goddess of compassion extends her appreciation for the compassion you showed for the dying children, you truly were kind. The god of trade and intelligence bids you more wealth and exploits. You have earned a number of skills in respect to your class, the system would explain this better to you, but you should know that these skills can get leveled up to at most level five using the favor points given by the gods should you not intend to keep them for luck. Although less efficient, using the skills regularly accrues experience points which accrues to eventually level up the skills."

After the long-winded talk about the so-called message of the gods, Enoa’s mouth curved widely into a smile that sent shivers down Ren’s spine.

’What have they done to you?’

"And I am gone to the rest of my duties." Enoa announced, and it spun about like a doll-sized tornado into a cloud of purple dust and disappeared.

Once Ren was certain it was gone was when he felt at peace again. Although it has been quite clear that the gods were watching him, it was only when Enoa was present would he feel their belittling gaze, like they were giants watching the actions of a worm.

He let out a sigh of relief, and pulled out his information tab.

Name: Ren Hanaki

Race: Human(Earthling)

Class: Farmer/Cultivator 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Favor points: 276

Titles: Dino killer, Defender of sheep, Farmboy, Class Wielder

Strength: 57

Agility: 31

Dexterity: 16

Mana: 20

Charisma: 77

Skills

General Language Understanding, Hunter’s Sense 50%, Mana Sense, Mana Perception

"I have not improved by a lot." He noted, the sight of his growing skill set did make him feel good.

’I could use an increase across stats. I have not gotten a quest in ages.’ The gods handed out these quests based on the situation Ren found himself in, if handing out a quest would incentivize their summon and make things interesting then surely it would be done for the sake of keeping things entertaining.

It was a new day and Ren wasn’t going to let the appearance of what could have been a ghost upset his plans for the day. He had fed the cows and pigs, he had milked the cows with young calves and the few that were pregnant, and he had included the secret ingredient into them. All that is left was to go down to the market and sell, but the market would have to wait, too many providers had died, many of them whose hands brought about the goods and items to be sold. The depressing atmosphere was also a factor to consider. He needed to wait for the right moment.

"Imbuing mana into objects and living matter." He read aloud from the tome. He understood the mechanics of transferring mana into objects, he did so every time for reinforcement, however on the page he read, instructions about how mana could be imbued permanently or semi-permanently was written. For Ren to transfer mana from his mana vessels and into an inanimate object, he needed to be in constant contact with it, the enerhy dissipatinv immediately he let go, but Mahābodhivān had a trick for having mana settle into the object.

"It also utilizes the idea of convergence."

He found a small twig, a perfect material to anchor the energy, and he flood it with his internal energy like he usually does. Usually, even Ren was not capable of seeing the flow of mana on objects he reinforced with mana unless he utilized a large amount of it that it would be visible even to the normal person. However, with mana sense and mana perception, he could see even the littlest change in the appearance of the energy, he could tell whether the energy had a coarseness to it, whether it was warm, a skill that took even the talented cultivators years to develop, only mages grew that exponentially, but Ren hanaki was no mage.

As soon as he dropped the stick, and it fell on the ground, all the mana Ren had provided disappeared. Special as he was, he needed multiple trials. He tried once again, doing what he just did, and again, he got the same result—his mana did not retain itself.

He tried again, and again, totalling his trials to nine times before he gave up with the twig, and moved on to a different object, this time, a piece of rock. The rock was about the size of his hand, and he wrapped his fingers around the smooth surface, flooding his internal energy on the rock. Unlike the twig however, the rock had no pores for the energy to pass through so that it could get further inside, his bright blue mana coated the stone but it dissappeared as soon as he stopped supplying it with mana, like a flame suddenly snuff. With the twig, although mana dissipated quite quickly too, it was not as fast as that of the rock, the twig’s internal structure still held on to the energy before gradually disappearing.

Feeling the extent of his exertion, he thought to rest, and take shade under one of his apple trees. He looked above to the red fruits hanging off the tree, they were large, and juicy, but most importantly was that they also housed a modicum of mana. The energy bathe the fruits like a warm fire.

With precision, Ren flicked a small amount of mana from his finger, hitting the fruit stalk abd having one fall on his hand. His mouth was opened, agape in. surprise. He had flicked the energy without thinking, and he had not been confident about his level of precision, but he struck exactly where he wanted.

The apple now laid on Ren’s opened palm, under his improved mana eyes, he noticed the mana dim slightly.

’Are fruits usually containing if this much mana or is this an affect of the fountain? I should look more on this.’

Living matter more readily held mana much more than the non-living, and because of that, mana imbuing training begins with imbuing living matter before moving on to the nonliving.