This is… quite severe, huh?
I sighed as I looked down at the village reduced to ruins.
“Krrrr…”
A wild dog tearing apart a corpse whose breath had ceased. No, it’s a monster since fire is seeping out from its fur.
The small pioneer village in the mountains, which once housed about 30 people, has now become the lair of these so-called flaming beasts.
Even though there were only around ten of them, they were still a terrifying threat to those humans.
I let out a quiet sigh and casually cut off the head of the largest flaming beast that was preoccupied with devouring the corpse.
As one of them lost its head, the other flaming beasts began looking around nervously, but none could find me who was hiding my presence.
After placing my hand on the body of the decapitated flaming beast, I rummaged through it with magical power.
I then discovered something resembling a tiny crystal near its heart and extracted it with magic.
A stone with a reddish hue, like congealed blood. This stone is found inside monsters, creatures that manipulate magic.
It was what you might call a mana stone.
After examining the stone from various angles, I took out a black diamond I had tucked away in my embrace and compared them.
But nothing happened.
“Hmph, another dud.”
I thought this big one would be it, but nope.
Letting out a small sigh, I glanced around again.
Due to the loss of one of their companions, the flaming beasts were now in a state of alertness, ready to flee at any moment.
Let’s see. If so… I might as well just gut all of them to find out.
I flicked my finger lightly, and simultaneously, blades of magic swept across and severed the heads of the flaming beasts all at once.
Though, did one survive? It seems to have sensed danger and is already running away.
“This little pest managed to escape? Looks like it’s the one we’re after.”
After muttering to myself, I flicked my finger again while keeping an eye on the fleeing flaming beast, and it was pinned to the ground as if crushed by an invisible hand.
“Kwaang!!”
Hmm… Was that a bit too strong? It’s completely crushed.
I sighed and approached the flaming beast that had been reduced to nothing more than a smudge of blood, using magic to search for a small mana stone, fortunately finding one that hadn’t been shattered.
I worried it might have broken when I pressed too hard, but thankfully not.
Using magic to wipe off the blood covering the mana stone, I placed it against the black diamond, and this time, it seemed to be the right one as a tiny fragment of darkness seeped out from the mana stone and flowed into the diamond.
A minuscule fragment of darkness, nearly imperceptible unless closely examined. Phew, glad I didn’t waste my effort.
After searching the remains of the other flaming beasts for mana stones and checking if any contained fragments of darkness—none of the rest yielded anything.
Hmm. Finding one is better than nothing. There are usually plenty of duds, after all.
I placed the black diamond and the mana stones into a pouch and continued on my way.
First of all… let’s head to the human city.
—
The appearance of monsters was a great crisis for humanity, but at the same time, an opportunity.
The rapidly increasing population of monsters provided humans with various resources such as meat, skin, teeth, and bones, far surpassing other creatures.
Among these, the most valuable were undoubtedly the crystallized magical power of monsters—mana stones.
At first, these crimson-hued stones were discarded without knowing their use, but now their application is widely understood.
If someone holds one of these stone fragments and focuses strongly, even those incapable of manipulating magic can use it.
Of course, since it uses the mana within the stone, powerful spells cannot be cast, but things like firing small fireballs or illuminating darkness with a faint light are possible.
Thus, mana stones began to be highly regarded as a new resource for humans.
Though, in my eyes, it looks like they’re wasting most of the mana stone’s power.
Assuming the mana within a mana stone is 10,000, it seems they only use about 1 of it.
If I were to create a fireball using the mana from the mana stone I just extracted, it would be mansion-sized, but if used by humans, it might only be fist-sized.
Well, given their crude methods, it can’t be helped.
Even with such inefficient usage, humans remain interested in mana stones.
Of course, I am too—for entirely different reasons.
Among the monsters’ mana stones, very rarely, a fragment of darkness is discovered within exceptional ones.
Naturally, a shard of Erebus.
Thanks to this, I’ve ended up hunting even monsters I wouldn’t normally bother with—it’s incredibly annoying. Really.
Should I outsource this? Or buy the mana stones at high prices and just inspect them?
However, the problem is that monsters containing shards of Erebus are invariably elite monsters—exceptional in some way.
Currently, with human strength alone, capturing such monsters is difficult.
Even the flaming beast earlier managed to evade my blade of magic once—it probably had some sort of danger-sensing ability or perhaps foresight.
It seemed rather intelligent; humans wouldn’t have stood a chance against it.
Thus, here I am, traveling around, slaying particularly strong-looking monsters, and checking their mana stones.
Truly… it’s annoying. Really.
Ahem. Let’s return to the story of mana stones.
Humans started using mana stones for various purposes.
To create light and illuminate the night, to start fires, to enrich agriculture, to purify water, among many other things.
And this wasn’t much different for other races either.
Firstly, beastmen, who live closest to humans.
They used the power of mana stones to enhance their physical abilities—strength, senses, durability, etc.—to an extent worthy of being called enhancement magic.
Of course, humans could do the same, but due to the inherent difference in strength, the efficiency wasn’t comparable to that of beastmen—a minor detail.
Next, dwarves.
Dwarves couldn’t get enough of mana stones.
Even an ordinary iron sword could gain special powers with the use of a mana stone.
For example, flames could erupt from the sword, or areas touched by it could freeze, or electric shocks could be induced upon contact—there were roughly three ways to bestow such powers.
One is permanent enchantment. Though its power is embarrassingly weak compared to the other two, the effect lasts until the item is nearly destroyed.
Like a lantern with a subtle glow or a cushion that’s slightly warm.
Of course, the effect becomes stronger depending on the size of the mana stone used, but anyway, aside from being permanent, it doesn’t have many advantages.
The second is temporary enchantment. The power is quite strong and imposes no burden on the user, but it consumes the mana stone.
It operates by having a slot for the mana stone installed within the item, where the mana stone’s power is consumed to activate the effect.
Naturally, the drawback is that it consumes the mana stone.
The third method draws on the user’s own magical power. Though weaker than the temporary enchantment, it doesn’t consume the mana stone.
Since the user can replenish their magical power over time, it can be used indefinitely as long as the user has magic.
The issue is that when the magical power runs out, it loses its meaning, and overusing it without magic could endanger one’s life.
Anyway, that’s how the dwarves used mana stones.
Elves… used the mana stones to absorb their magic power, similar to a magic recovery potion.
The only concern… is whether they might inadvertently absorb fragments of Erebus.
Well, if problems arise, Yggdrasil will handle it somehow.
Lizardmen… unfortunately, due to their inability to resonate with magic, they couldn’t use mana stones directly. Sad, isn’t it?
Still, they gifted them to their elemental friends to increase their favorability.
It seems elementals can grow slightly by absorbing the mana from the stones.
Thankfully! They aren’t entirely useless!
Giants? They probably don’t even know what mana stones are.
Given their size exceeds even that of houses, it’s impossible for them to tear open monster bodies to find mana stones.
Although sometimes they do manage to catch giant-sized monsters… I’m not sure about the mana stones from those.
I’ll have to check next time I visit the giants.
In this manner, various races began adapting to the sudden emergence of monsters and started utilizing the new resource, mana stones.
And the ones who utilized these mana stones the best were… humans instinctively capable of manipulating magic.
Mages.
