Aethernea : Soulbound [Book 1]

Episode 22 - To take a single step

Thank you, everyone who nominated Aethernea for thefictionawards , because of your efforts, everyone can enjoy an extra episode!  

I want to especially thank these 4 heores that rose to fill up the missing votes and bring you this chapter: Mexmum99, JERAMIELEE,  IcelyJohns, and pippapun. Thank you guys so much <3

This episode is dedicated to peacelovecats who was so very awesome (even more so than usual), not only did she nominate Aethernea but she also went and told all her followers to go vote for Aethernea in thefictionawards too. Don't know what to say -> Happy tears T^T 

Hmm, hmm, I might be an easily moved idiot. I always cry when sad stuff happens on the news. But I can't help but be moved and flattered when you guys spread the word about Aethernea. <3

Thank you peacelovecats!!

In the previous episode:

Kiel starts practicing magic (especially multicasting) to prepare for the exams, he notices that he has improved in all areas. Elaru is spellcrafting a mysterious enchantment spell that she claims will be useful for Muni exams. She calls her notebook "a compendium of her research". However, she does not reveal what she is researching.

* * *

Kiel sat down cross-legged and concentrated on feeling their soul. He could no longer feel his own soul, it had blended like a ball of clay into Elaru's, and now, that giant blob belonged to both of them. He couldn't tell which part was his and which part was hers. Their control over it wasn't separated into regions. All of it belonged to them both.

He could tell that the mana pool within the soul was filled to the brim with mana, but he couldn't tell how much mana was in it. That was the thing with the mana pool, one could feel the percentage of it being full, but to know how much mana that percentage signified one would need to test it out.

It was just like the stomach. You could tell if you were hungry, full, almost full, or even so full you would burst if you ate more. But you can't tell the volume or weight of the food inside your stomach.

Kiel exhaled slowly, before starting to draw mana from the soul into his body. It flowed down the countless tendrils into his flesh, continuing to travel through it until it exited to form the aura.

Mana flow speed, as defined by the Association of Magic, was a standardized metric that described how much mana a mage could pull into his aura in a single second. It could be used to calculate minimum possible casting time for certain large spells and even determine the max number of spells the mage could cast in a certain period of time.

Mana flow speed greatly depended on the amount and quality of the soul tendrils, the availability of mana in his mana pool, and was also influenced by the composition of the cells in the body, as half of the trip was from the body to the aura.

Mana was energy. In a way, it was similar to electricity. What happens when an object is hit by lightning depends on the properties of the object. If it hit a block of ice, the composition of the ice would be destroyed, and the ice would melt into water or even directly disperse into steam. However, if the same amount of lightning hit a copper coin, it would pass right through, not impacting it at all.