Infinite Mana in the Mage Academy

In the grassland, I could hear a slippery sound ringing in my ears. The F-rank Slime dungeon is one of the hardest F-rank dungeons. It is one of the fewer casualties dungeons yet the hardest one.

The slime here is slow but has great regeneration. Its core is its weak point but its slimy thing is acidic. A single drop of slimy liquid can penetrate the hardest metal.

But hunter's armor dripped from dungeon could defend against those liquids but those are temporary too. They will melt after some time.

But as the rank of these armors rose, the less effective the slimy liquid will be. And it can't even scratch rank C armor.

I cast mana defense and a golden light surrounded his body. Hovering an electric ball and firebolt around my back, I moved ahead. I activated swift and my legs felt light.

My speed increased, and I moved faster.

As I encounter slimes that crawled at me, I fired an electric ball at them. As the electricity zapped them, their body exploded and the slimy liquid scattered.

I was far from them, so the liquid didn't reach me but I could see them melting the ground and forming a small hole.

The corrosive acid is dangerous, and seeing its effect gave a chill on my spine.

I moved around and killed the slime I met. The electric ball hit them and exploded them while the firebolt pierced their body and destroyed the core in one go.

Cause they could die easily as the core is destroyed, mages who have long-range ability could easily kill them after some trial and error.

The first floor took mere 5-6 minutes to clear, and I proceed to the second floor. As the sound of electricity echoed, many slimes came to meet their fate. Their death was profitable for me as I found cores dropping often.

This dungeon had 20 floors and I reached the 19th floor in 20 minutes with 200+ cores in my backpack and 3 items too.

One item was not suitable for me and two were very good.

[Speedy Boots: Increase speed by 2 times]

[Ring of Mages: Increase casting speed by 1.5 times]

The two items were equipped. An exclamation mark appeared on the corner of my eyes but I ignored it. The exclamation mark disappeared after some minutes.

I walked toward the boss's room. The door this time was made up of woods and the craving looked very detailed. Two skulls were used as door handles and it gave up very eerie vibes.

As the door opened, a big slime greeted me. Its huge size wasn't a problem, but the cores inside it are harder to shatter. Its skin is more acidic and not even rank c defense could endure it. Not to mention, the placing of the core is random, and piercing its body up to its opposite side isn't easy.

The slime jumped at me the moment it noticed me. I easily dodged it as my speed was increased by 4 times. I could take 10 steps in a second.

I started casting my spell. I wanted to know how many spells I could cast in a minute. With the gloves of a mage, my casting speed indeed increased. If I know it right, it took exactly around 2 seconds for the skill to appear, but now it appears in 1 second. I always track times as it is one of my habit.

With a deep breath, I looked at the slime charging at me. I was in the corner of the big empty room. I raised my hand and started casting.

"Electric Ball...Firebolt"

1, 10...50...not even a minute has passed and more than 90 electric balls and firebolts hovered around me. As a minute passed, the amount reached 100.

As those skills fired at the slime consecutively, I was amazed at myself.

100 cast per minute. 100 CPM...I broke the local record. Well, I searched how many times casting per minute is the world's highest and it showed me around 582.

They had fast skill casting and they had more things in their place and I only had a glove that increase my casting skill.

Well, let's not care about it.

While I was lost in thought, the slime faced those attacks head-on. When I saw the slime, it had many holes and one attack had surely found the core. The core had some damage but was not destroyed. The slime also was going to regenerate completely.

But, I cast firebolt and continuously spammed it. The holes of the slime got bigger and bigger. Around 200 firebolts and its hole was big as my head.

The core was shining brightly and the final firebolt took care of it.

The slime glowed and exploded, I immediately used my defense skill and cast an electric ball around me. 100 electric balls surrounded me and I cast more and more.

The slimy liquid landed on the ball and somehow I survived.

"Phew."

This was the reason why it was one of the hardest F-rank dungeons. Not many could handle these liquids, so the people entering here are around 100 only and that entering boss room is only me. Yeah, not many F or E or even D-rank hunters come to the boss room.

Well, not clearing a boss room is some problem, so there is a team which deals with the boss once a week. And they need B-rank defensive skills and equipment.

Though I only needed like 150 skills...Anyway, let's return.

I return to the entrance after talking about the shiny skill book. This time, the skill book was not something that I thought it was.

[Fiery Arrow: Cover your arrows with fire, and deals fire damage to the enemy.]

Well, it was a skill that was useful to archers and not to my taste. So, it's going to be sold at the market.

After clearing the dungeon around 10 times, I was satisfied with the gains.

4000+ cores, 10 items, and 2 skill books. Though all of them were F-rank. Obtaining skill book and items are harder already, it would need the blessing of the heavens to get E-rank things in an F-rank dungeon.

I returned to my house and sat on the bed in a meditation position. I placed around 100 cores on the bed ahead of me and started absorbing the cores.

The cores disappeared as I sucked their energy. After sucking them dry, the cores dissipate in the thin air.

"If my estimation is correct, it's 1 point per 5 cores."

The F-rank cores are very unfair, it takes 5 cores to receive one point. As the rank of cores goes up, the less core it takes to receive cores.

B-rank cores give you 1 point per core and S-rank core gives you 10 points per core. And not to mention, every rank cores have a limit of absorption.

100 F-rank cores and 20 points are the limits, E-rank has 90, D-rank has 60, C-rank has 50, B-rank has 45, A-rank has 30, and S-rank has 20 core limit. There hasn't been an official reveal but it is said that there is even SS and SSS rank monsters, and their cores. And from the limit of cores, SS may have 10 limits and SSS may have only 1.

Well, coming back to the present, I don't care about these points as my mana is already the amount that I couldn't imagine. It says infinite, but how can I believe it?

Mana needs a source and we store mana inside our hearts. It is said that mana creates a whole room in the heart and expands as we level up the mana. But, is my mana heart that large, or is it even possible to store unlimited mana?

Is my mana have a different source, or does the skill I cast don't need mana?

The deeper I think, the more mysterious it becomes, so I just stopped thinking.

Let's not waste my brain cell, shall we?

I opened my status window and it has changed quite a bit.

[Allen]

[Strength: 10]

[Vitality: 10]

[Mana: ∞]

(Unused Points: 20)

[Skill(s): (D-Electric Ball |40||). (F-Wind Blade |8|), (F-Mana Defense|2|), (F-Small Heal), (F-Firebolt |7|), (E-Swift |11)]

[Equipment(s): (F-Mage Glove), (E-Magical Ring), (F-Speedy Boots), (F-Ring of Mages)]

I put all 10 points on strength and another 10 points on vitality.

I wanted to add more, but I decided not to as I wanted to sell this core and increase another 10 points with rank E core.

Deciding that, I slept on my bed. The next morning, I packed my stuff, the things I need and did not need were separated.

I put all of them in a bag.

"I need to buy a storage ring."

I murmured while carrying the bag. I have around five big bags lying in my house as I needed them for my work.

After using two bags, one bag for my items and another for cores, I left the house. One bag was carried in my bag while another was put on my head. The cores were on my head and normal stuff was on my bag.

I moved to a hotel since I won't be living in a place for a long time. After buying a storage ring, I won't need to carry bags.

I booked the top room which cost 1 thousand credits for the night. It was expensive as heck as a normal family earns around 500 credits per month.

A top professional like a doctor, engineer, and other important professionals earn 5000 credits per month. In a word, hunters earn 10 times more than these important professions. Hunter profession has many profits, and not many people risk their life for a small amount of money.

Staying for some time and eating top-class foods, I spent the day lazily in the luxurious room.