Lament of the Slave

Chapter 102: Loose Mane

Wishing I had more control over my mana, I sat cross-legged on the ground.

Moving mana back and forth, from one place to another, wasn't hard. The tricky part was getting it to go to several locations at once. Not much has changed in that regard since my fight with mossbear. Such fine control was still, let's say, challenging for me and downright impossible during combat.

So right now, I was doing the best I could to heal my injuries while I could. There was the almost healed sword wound on my shoulder, the pierced thigh, and now the burned kidney and muscles in my lower back. By some miracle, Meneur's magic missed pretty much anything that adjoins the wings.

My healing was fast, damn fast. But even with the mana boost, it simply took a while for my regen to do its job. Don't get me wrong, that wasn't a complaint. I'm just saying I wasn't Esu.

Fortunately, treating the wounds this way didn't require me to have any medical knowledge. All it took was to saturate the place with mana, and my regeneration did the rest. As I said, it wasn't instant, still fast enough for me to go to bed at night untroubled.

Not counting the blood in the piss, as the healer mentioned.

The issue wasn't the healing, it was the concentration. Splitting my focus into three places was reaching my limit. Four if I counted the fire-resistant mane I wanted to test was the limit. Something I was able to achieve when fully focused, not in the middle of a fight.

It would be so easy to have a skill like [Tail of Poison Empress]. All it would take is to activate it. Unfortunately, there was no such skill among my General Skills. I checked. Either it didn't exist, or I simply haven't met the requirements to get it.

From what I've learned in my year here, that meant, in most cases, mastering that particular ability. My guess? The sudden appearance of my mane didn't count. So, what were my options? Send mana into the skin or directly into the roots of the hair itself. Honestly, if it required controlling each hair separately, there was no chance I would ever master it.

Baby steps first.

I moved some of the mana into my head to test whether it will be enough to spur hair growth, only to gasp in bewilderment. The increased density of mana in my brain felt like I'd just had a strong coffee or energy drink. An exciting discovery that left me wondering why I didn't find out sooner.

Easy to find answer. I was too careful.

While practicing, I never moved the mana into my head for fear I might burn my wits or something. Thinking about it, it was a good question for Aspen.

Anyway, the little bit I fed the moss was so minuscule that it hasn't affected my brain in the slightest. On the other hand, healing the wound required a lot of mana. I must say, thanks to my rather brute approach to suture the injured area with it.

That said, I didn't suffer any significant head injuries so far. For some reason, the line from the description of [Never-Dying] stuck in my head: 'As long as the brain is not damaged.' So I did my best to protect my noggin in the struggles.

Wasn't it common sense, an instinct to protect one's head, though?

Well, the amount of mana I moved into my head did nothing but stimulate my musings. So in my brute style, I dumped more into my skull, pushing it all the way through to my skin, and this time, I felt dullness, even a little dizzy.

That was more like what I expected from the mana in my brain. Was I burning my circuits right now, becoming dumber?

It felt that way because finding what concentration of mana my brain could take wasn't why I was sitting here on the ground surrounded by waiting city guards. That reason was the stupid mane that resisted any attempt to comb it.