NOVEL FROG 54 - Breaking A Monopoly
Chapter 54
Breaking A Monopoly
After the discussion with Mr. Thompson I decided to get started immediately. I went out and found a building that was actually between the merchant guild and the rechargers guild that was for sale and purchased it with the mana jewels that I had. Next I had some thinking to do. I had started to wonder about a few things during and after the discussion with Mr. Thompson. The biggest thing I was confused on was why were there enchantments for weapons and everyday items that were powered by mana jewels, but no enchantments to fill up power jewels.
This was really bothering me. If you can have an enchantment that transfers mana from a jewel to a weapon, streetlight, or even an oven, why can’t the process of filling mana jewels be automated? There should be a formation or enchantment that would allow the ambient mana in the air and surroundings to be drained and put inside a jewel. It was an easy and logical conclusion, but I have never heard anything about it. Time to experiment.
First up in my experiment was did I have the ability to teleport back to Planet Braxis. This may seem strange to some, but I did not want to experiment here on deity world where people were watching, powerful, and more sensitive to mana. Also I never did find out if I had what it took to transfer worlds. This is an important bit of spell casting that could save my life and also be potentially devastating in battle. So back to the old spell creation. I focus on an image of myself and other intelligent beings moving from one world to another. I lock this image in my head and then bring out some pink creation mana, some purple void mana for traveling through the void, and a touch of yellow lightning for speed. As soon as the mana got near my image I received a message.
You have created the spell World Teleportation.
Inspect World Teleportation.
World Teleportation: A spell that allows the caster and others to move from world to world. Cost is 1,000 mana per intelligent organism moved.
Well that was much easier than I imagined. I return to my room in the inn and cast world teleportation with my very first woodland hideout as the destination. The world shimmered around me and I appeared in my first tree house on the Planet Braxis. Everything was covered in debris and a little run down, but the spell worked. Well that is one thing out of the way. Now how can I transfer mana without my intervention? Can I cast a spell on something? I mean I can make something burn or glow so can I make an object gather mana? Wait that won’t work by itself. I would have to cast the gathering mana spell on every jewel. I might as well just transfer the mana at that point.
So what I need is multiple layers of spells. One to gather mana, a start and stop, and a transfer spell. Can I even create multiple spells? I don’t think that I have ever tried. That’s not true. My exploding spikes are multiple spells. I create a spike, throw it, and have it explode after it pierces the target. It is doing multiple things without me even thinking about it. So maybe I can use my sorcerer class to combine everything I need into a symbol, no it would probably be better to enchant an object. That way it would be portable and couldn’t be disrupted as easily as scratching out a line on the ground. I use plant shaping and create a simple box out of wood.
Now I need to place an empty jewel inside. I place an empty 500 mana jewel and was about to create my new spell when I realized I had made a mistake. I was back on Planet Braxis, I had to transfer 10,000 mana within an hour for it to stick her due to mana density and some weird universal law that I do not understand. I replaced the 500 mana jewel with an empty 12,500 mana jewel. That should do it. Even if it doesn’t fill it completely it should be partially charged if it works. Now to create the spell. This time I focus on an image of the rainbow of mana flowing from the surroundings into the box. I add a bit where a mana jewel is placed inside the box, if there is no jewel inside then there is no flow of mana. Finally, I imagine the mana being collected by the box entering into the mana jewel. I lock this image in my brain and bring the entire rainbow towards the spell I am imagining in my head. As soon as the mana got near my image I received a message.
You have created the spell Mana Vortex.
Inspect Mana Vortex.
Mana Vortex: A spell that allows any container to draw all the nearby mana into it and recharge mana holding items.
Ok that sounds like it should work. I guess the only thing to do is test it out. I cast the spell on the wooden box I created and suddenly a large amount of my mana is ripped painfully out of my body. The entire area surrounding the box has turned grey and ashy also. This thing could have killed me. I approach the box and find a mostly charged jewel inside. I crush the box destroying the spell. That obviously did not work like I wanted it too. If this is how it has been in the past no wonder there have not been any spells to do recharging automatically. The spell ripped all the mana it needed from every source within a certain distance and it hurt me and killed part of my tree. If I had used a larger mana jewel it could have killed me and probably wiped out a large portion of this forest.
I obviously need to modify the spell, but I am a little wary now. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I mean I have created a killer spell when I was trying to just recharge a mana jewel. Wait, killer spell? I could actually use this spell as an ultimate move. If I cast it on a box and then drop a large empty jewel from a height and then teleport out of the area before it enters the box and triggers the spell. That would mean I would be safely out of the radius of the spell and everything close by it would be killed by the mana being forcefully ripped out of it. This is something that I can use but never tell anyone about. It is my own personal nuke spell.
Maybe I should try again, but how can I limit the incoming mana? Maybe just the right set of images will do it. I experimented with failure for another two to three hours before finally getting something that would work. Even better it will only work on deity worlds or higher due to transfer restrictions. The spell was called trickle charge. Inspect Trickle Charge.
Trickle Charge: A spell that allows any container to draw no more than 1% of the nearby mana into it and recharge mana holding items over a 30 minute period. Man drawn cannot exceed 1,000 units in the 30 minute period.
I was pretty sure this would work. It would also crack the monopoly on the recharging guild without destroying it. This spell would only recharge slowly and use lower level mana jewels. This means that the recharging guild will still be able to make a profit on speed and larger recharging transactions. It should also stabilize the price of 500 mana jewels so there are no fluctuations in the market. I had not tested it yet, because it should only work on a higher level world and I was currently on Braxis. I had come up with a couple of other ideas while working. If they worked out then my ascension into the God Level was assured.
While working I wondered if some version of the spell that I was creating was responsible for the draining of worlds like Earth. Whatever actually caused the drain had to be slow enough that it allowed people and other organisms to adapt to a very low level of mana environment without outright killing them. Once I realized this I thought that if they can do it, why can’t I. I would just use less of a drain. However, even a tiny amount of mana drained on a world-wide basis would add up quickly. If I could get this spell to work then I could draw upon that mana and ascend whenever I wanted. Time to experiment with a God creating spell.
I focus on an image of a world. Surrounding and penetrating this world is a rainbow of mana. I imagine that a very tiny percentage, just ½ of 1% of this mana is slowly drawn off leaving everything on the world still happy and healthy. This drawn off mana is absorbed and utilized by myself. I add a bit where I imagine myself getting stronger and stronger until I no longer had any equal in the universe. Finally, I imagine the mana continually being drained unless it would harm me. If the amount of mana was dangerous to me the excess would be sent to a planet of my choice. I lock this image in my brain and bring the entire rainbow towards the spell I am imagining in my head. As soon as the mana got near my image I felt a great pain in my head and I passed out. I woke up to a notice.
You have created a Universe Level spell Mana Shift.
Oh my head, what the heck happened there. Universe level spell, what is that? Did I succeed or not?
Inspect Mana Shift.
Mana Shift: A spell that allows the user to impose their will in defiance of universal law and move mana around as they will it. Spell will be locked until the user reaches a level that will support the spell without damaging the user.
Oh wow. I have done something either amazing or horrifying. I am not sure which. I can’t even test it out because it is locked right now. I am already level 304 with absurdly high stats. What level do I need to get to exactly? It never said. I guess I should just keep grinding away until it unlocks. When it finally does I should be ready to cast it and power up. That will be the day of my vengeance. I need to get back to deity world and rest. Then I can test out my recharging spell and if it works give it to Mr. Thompson in exchange for some help traveling and leveling up. I don’t want to be tied down managing a store.
After a brief rest and recovery period I teleport back to my room in the inn on deity world. I check the time and realize that I must have been unconscious longer than I thought. It is evening here and soon to be dark. I wanted to talk to Mr. Thompson tonight, but I guess I would be better off finding him in the morning. I can use tonight to fashion as many of the mana recharging boxes as possible. I go downstairs and have a quick dinner before heading out of town to a visible cliff face in the distance. I decided that making the charging containers out of stone would mean less accidental breakage.
I spent the next 6 hours in a monotonous round of creation. Shape a box, cast trickle charge, put in 500 mana jewel to test it, place in inventory, repeat. It may have been mind numbing but I was able to churn one out every five minutes or so which left me 70 charging boxes at the end. This should be enough to get proof of concept across and start chipping away at the recharging guilds monopoly. I will take these to Mr. Thompson tomorrow and demonstrate and then we can talk about the payment. I am thinking free teleportation to different worlds so I can learn them for my own teleporting. Also they have to put together a team to help me power level in dungeons for 6 months. Finally, if I have any monetary request that is less than 1% of what they make off of the rechargers they need to fulfill it.
After a good night’s rest I headed off to wheel and deal with Mr. Thompson. I was led straight to him at the Merchant’s Guild by Alan once again.
“Good Morning Mr. Thompson.”
“Good Morning Mark.”
“I have something for you that I think you are going to like.”
“Oh really a surprise. It is hard to surprise someone the older they get you know.”
“I guarantee this will be a surprise and you are going to like it.”
“Very well young man show me what you have.”
I took out one of my charging boxes from my inventory and placed it on the table between us.
“If you would can you have an empty 500 mana jewel brought in.”
Mr. Thompson signaled Alan to go out and get one. A few seconds later he brought the empty back in.
“No don’t hand it to me Alan give it to Mr. Thompson so you both know that I have not tampered with it.”
I could see the intrigue in both of their eyes.
“Yesterday when I left my original idea was to just refill mana jewels myself and then over time that would destabilize the situation and more and more people would go independent. We had discussed this.”
“Yes Mark, are you saying you have a better way now.”
“Indeed I do Mr. Thompson. As I was thinking about it I wondered why there was no enchantment to automatically fill mana jewels.”
“It is because it kills everyone and everything nearby by sucking up the mana.”
“Well I did not know that and performed some experiments that almost killed me. I actually solved that little problem.”
“Are you saying that in one night you solved the automatic charging problem that has been plaguing us since mana was discovered?”
“Well you make it sound more special than it actually is. In front of you is an enchanted box that when a mana jewel is placed inside will charge slowly and safely. No death or draining of mana. The only downside is that it will only work on higher worlds like deity world and it charges rather slowly. About 500 mana every half an hour. This means while it is possible to leave a large mana jewel in a charging box and have it fill eventually it is not very practical.”
Mr. Thompson understood immediately.
“You mean you have just provided us a way of stabilizing the 500 mana jewel price and leave the recharging guild the higher level recharges so they shouldn’t protest.”
“Exactly. I did not want to be tied down to a store or one area. Now I won’t have to be. All we need to do now is discuss price.”