[Manipulation]? Get away from me with that crap! I want [Mana Infusion]!

As we awkwardly sit there with Sophie touching my hand and infusing my body with mana, I continue to observe it, and the more I watch, the more I like her [Mana Infusion].

She is directly infusing my muscles and organs with mana and then, with the help of her [Manipulation], makes them stronger. Can something like that even be seen as manipulating something? I don't know.

I just know she can infuse my muscles and organs with mana. When I'm strengthening my body, it's more like I'm coating muscles with mana, some kind of power suit or layer if you will.

BUT!

If I learn her skill, I'll be able to infuse them directly with mana, and as more time passes, I should be able to learn to permanently infuse, and change them instead of just temporarily quasi-strengthening them.

Wait a moment, does that mean I can remake my body to be mostly made from mana sometime far in the future?

Oh boy, let's rather not think about it, that sounds too far even to me. Step after step!

And being as irredeemable as I am, I'm already thinking that it might allow me to circumvent the system and strengthen my body without needing to put stats into it.

Sure, I'm doing something similar with Reinforcement construct and Symbiotic transference, but they can be canceled, I need to permanently increase my stats.

Huhuh. I'm stupid, am I not? Well, I'll think about it. Future problems for future Nathaniel, screw that jerk!

Now then, how did she infuse her mana inside my muscles and organs? How is it possible that this skill allows her to partially ignore bodies' natural resistance against external mana? Did she move it like this?

"What are you doing?” annoyance is noticeable in her voice.

"I'm testing something, can you try to infuse my right hand with your mana for a while?" I ask and she does so with a sigh.

And I watch the movement of her mana, movement of my mana. How it passes through my skin, and how it reacts when touching my mana. There is a hint of [Mana Manipulation] in this skill.

I stop strengthening my body and leave it up to Sophie and pull all of my [Focus] into observing her skill, ignoring slowly ramping up pain and the state of my body.

I ask her multiple times to do some changes, to try it on my shoulder, to use more mana, to use less mana, move it faster, move it slower.

I ask her to try doing it while I defend myself, and I ask her to observe my tries.

And it's as I thought. Sophie's [Manipulation] is a higher version of the manipulation series skill. For example, [Mana Manipulation], or if there are such skills as [Fire Manipulation], [Mind Manipulation].

It works in a similar way as I did evolve my [Mana Perception] into [Perception] that allowed me to perceive not only mana, and I still am not sure of the limits of what I can perceive.

The same goes for Sophie. Her [Manipulation] should include all sorts of manipulations, and it's only up to her what she decided to master or is more inclined to master.

But even as she is now, her mastery over mana is really amazing. Probably the best out of our group if I'm not counting myself.

That would usually make me think how unfair it is that others started with so powerful a skill, but as of late, I have been thinking over [Focus] a lot and I think I underestimated the skill and I'm not using it to its full potential - not helped by my wrong pick of upgrade that "weakened" it.

But no worries, I'll fix it.

Then a notification rings.

Congratulations, you have acquired a new skill!

[Mana Infusion]

Good, it looks like I was right and my good handling of mana helped me to get this one, I just needed a little bit of push and observe the skill a bit as I tried to do something similar to it a lot while on the second floor.

As always the system doesn't give explanations to active skills, but I'll learn it on my own, now then, how is she using it?

I grab and move my mana, infusing at first something simpler with my mana. My wounded left arm. I send mana inside the muscle and it's not as straightforward as it sounds. I infuse the muscle with mana, its entirety, and then cautiously I move that mana, trying to strengthen the muscle but from inside, taking some inspiration from Hadwin's [Strengthening]

[Mana Infusion - lvl 1 > Mana Infusion - lvl 2]

[Mana Infusion - lvl 2 > Mana Infusion - lvl 3]

[Mana Infusion - lvl 3 > Mana Infusion - lvl 4]

Huh? That's easier than I thought it would be?

I finally open my eyes and look at Sophie, who probably felt what I'm doing, and her mouth is slightly agape, and then she closes it and says nothing.

One hour later, my [Mana Infusion] is at level 7, and I walk on my own, infusing and strengthening my body in a similar way Sophie was doing up until now.

To be honest, I was a little bit worried that others might be a little weak. Yes, I know, I know. There is no way Tess would be weak, yet there was still this small hint of worry.

And now as I gracefully jump from roof to roof together with others, I watch her obliterate monsters.

The weaker ones are dealt with by her lightning attacks that she sometimes imbues into pieces of stone from the houses around and throws at the monsters. It looks like she needs something to imbue them into for longer-ranged lightning attacks.

As for stronger monsters? I barely get a chance to see them. Tess has a skill called [Farsight] so she sees them sooner than I can perceive them, and in these cases, the spear that she told me is of Uncommon rarity, flies into her hand to be imbued with white and red lightning and thrown by her and further boosted by her [Psychokinesis].

The spear is flying so far it's hard to track with eyes only and leaves behind itself a trail of white and red light only to usually obliterate the monster it hits. A few Gargoyles flying in the air die like this, and even I'm impressed by her accuracy.

The only problem is that she often has to move a bit closer to get the weapon back, so she only uses it on the monsters she can't finish with material that is around.

Aaron is really fast and with a skill that confuses the monsters he sneaks up on them to stab them a few times before repeating it. Really annoying fighting style.

As for Sophie? She is controlling all the weaker monsters, mostly Rottenfang vermin, and there are already a few dozen of them. Without hesitation, they fight as she wills them to do so.

What I also noticed is that she is infusing them with her mana with [Mana Infusion]. She first connects and manipulates them with [Manipulation] and then through that link, she sends her mana to them, to boost their physical capabilities by a tiny bit.

I could take them on. Yup, I'm totally sure I would win in a 1v3.

I just can't help myself and have such thoughts. It's fun to theorize, so I'm already planning the fight in my head as we move towards the other group that we told to stay in the hideout.

It's confirmed that the bigger the group, the stronger the monsters appear so we don't want them to move around with so many people. We can do that after we regroup.

Now that I think about it, we're only missing Hadwin, Maya, and Dennis and the band is back together? Dang it, so many people, but hey, Hadwin will take care of it, we have a deal right? And as for me, I can go hunting, this time maybe even with Tess. The same as on the first floor - good old times.

It takes us quite some time and it's not because of slow me, yup, totally not because of me. Bad weather or something.

But when we get there the others clear out the surrounding area and Sophie releases her hold on the rats they then quickly kill them and I graciously let them without trying to kill steal from them.

After making sure we are alone we enter the hideout that is bigger than the ones before and located under one of the houses, a massive underground area, looking more like a cave than a cellar. There are a few mana stones imbued here and there leaking a little bit of yellowish light. The hideout, as ever before, is covered in an intricate web of mana that I'm still unable to fully comprehend.

But before I have more time to observe it I hear a happy scream that I identify as Lily and a petite black-haired girl comes running towards us with a big smile on her face. I notice that she is still missing her arm under her elbow.

Her eyes land on me and her smile becomes a bit less cheery and with every step she takes towards me it becomes less and less of a smile. When she finally stops in front of me, the smile is gone from her face.