I continued my investigation, the rank up helped me interpret what I sensed, and increased the resolution of what I could see. It might have also increased my radius of magical perception, but I wasn't sure about that last one. It could have just been my imagination.
Moving on from inspecting the ambient mana, I looked at myself. My entire body was glowing brightly to my mana sense. It was much denser than the ambient levels. Unlike the unaligned ambient mana, my body's affinity was almost exclusively Holy. Okay, so Aasimars were innately magical. Did all life have mana inside them? Or was my species special?
I focused on my neighbouring cells. There was only one other person I could see in my perception range. I couldn't tell who or what it was. It was merely a blobby humanoid shape made of mana. This one had a different affinity. It was a combination of four elements: Earth, water, air, and fire. The mana seemed to combine to create something new. It… made me think of forests, oceans, mountains, sunlight… It was nature and life itself.
It reminded me of Chloe's viridian life magic a bit. Oh wait… our cells were ordered by arrival time. My neighbour reminded me of Chloe because it was Chloe.
I would try to say hello, but my sense of the ambient mana told me there was at least two feet of stone between us. I doubted any sound could easily travel through that wall, and if I started shouting, men would no doubt appear to beat me until I shut up again.
Still, it was good to know she was still alive, for now.
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 3
Oh, this Skill was ranking up quick. It shouldn't be too hard to max it out if I just kept it active for a day or two. It was a little bit distracting, but it didn't seem to cost me anything to maintain it.
With another rank, the resolution of what I could sense improved. I finally focused on my slave collar. It was intensely magical. Hardly worth comparing to the ambient mana, and far stronger than my Aasimar magic aura. I tried to fine tune my sense, turning down the 'gain' on my magical sensor, for lack of a better analogy. I stopped being able to sense the ambient mana, and even my own aura was barely noticeable now. Yet, I could start to pick out little details of the collar's inner workings.
I expected something arcane and incomprehensible, what I got instead was something almost familiar. I'd done half an electrical engineering degree, before being Isekai'd, and this collar's enchantments reminded me a bit of my basic circuits courses.
There were discrete blobs of magic, likely magic runes, or some sort special material that produced an effect. Then, there were channels of mana connecting them, acting like wires. If I traced the flow of mana through these wires, I might be able to gleam some knowledge of the collar's inner workings.
So that's what I did. For the next few hours, I had no idea how many, I lay on the hay and focused intensely on my collar. I kept meditation active as well. It helped me push away my nervousness and frustration. I focused only on observing the function of my collar.
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 4
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 5
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 6
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 7
[Meditation] Skill has reached rank 8
[Meditation] Skill has reached rank 9
[Meditation] Skill has reached rank 10 (MAX)
As the hours went by, I gained a whole bunch of skill ranks. A quick check of my skill shop told me maxing out [Meditation] didn't grant me any special 'get Tyler out of torture-jail' abilities, but the extra ranks would help with resource regeneration at least. At rank ten, [Meditation] now boosted my mana and stamina regen by an additional 200%, instead of 100%. Basically, my regeneration tripled while meditating. Not bad.
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As for the collar. Every rank of [Sense Mana] helped me see more detail. I came to a few conclusions. First of all, the effects were generated by runes. I could see the fuzzy outline of the shapes themselves. My mana sense wasn't sharp enough to make them out in detail, but I could tell they weren't intuitive or easily understood. I decided to treat each rune as a black box. The inner workings were unknowable, but I could still analyze the inputs and outputs.
I discovered the function of two runes. One, I dubbed the 'Source.' To draw upon an electrical circuit analogy, it was the equivalent of a DC voltage source, like a solar panel or battery. I could sense ambient mana flowing into the rune through the steel material of the collar, and denser mana flowing out of the rune through the single mana channel connected to it.
The second rune was connected directly to the source, in series. I dubbed it the 'Capacitor' rune. The 'Source' rune's output fluctuated randomly. It spat out more, or less mana into its channel, depending on fluctuations in the density of ambient mana around me. This second rune took that fluctuating input, stored mana when it was too high, and spat out mana when it was too low. It created a constant stable output. In other words, a smoothing capacitor.
From there, the channel split, and there were six runes of unknown effect, connected in parallel. Each of them accepted mana from the channel, but had no output. These were probably the enchantments themselves. I dubbed them 'Loads' to keep my engineering analogy consistent.
Unfortunately that was where my electrical training broke down. Circuits needed a return path, but not enchantments. There was only a single line connecting Source to Load.
So, how to break this?
Well, shorting out the voltage supply was a good way to create some smoke when you were playing with circuits. Unfortunately, without a return path, there was no way to create a short circuit. Still, messing with the input seemed to be the way to go.
I poked and prodded the mana inside the enchantment, and grumbled with annoyance. The mana inside the collar resisted my attempts to mess with it. It was no easier to move than the suppressed mana inside my own body.
Or was it?
I tried to form a spell shape, watched it fail, and then tried to prod the collar's enchantment again, noting the differences.
Hah! There was a difference… an important one! When I moved the mana inside my body, one of the six 'Load' runes activated, suppressing my mana control. But when I poked and prodded the collar, the rune didn't activate. I wasn't being suppressed when manipulating mana outside my body, it was just really super hard to manipulate the mana inside an enchanted item's channels.
But super hard wasn't the same as impossible. If I grinded up my mana manipulation skill a little more, I might stand an actual chance of fucking with the enchantment. There was also something else to try.
I used my mana manipulation to clear away as much ambient mana as I could around my neck. I tried to create a dead zone. Nope. I couldn't do it.
Manipulating external mana was incredibly difficult, taking every ounce of my Willpower to affect even a tiny change. I felt my ability to manipulate the mana drop off sharply with distance as well. But distance wasn't the problem in this case, I only needed to stop ambient mana from reaching my collar until the Capacitor rune drained itself of stored magical energy. That only needed a tiny strip of zero ambient mana surrounding the collar. Sadly, I couldn't even accomplish that much.
I searched the skill shop for some sort of 'Extrernal Mana Manipulation' skill, and didn't find one. I sighed. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? I was willing to bet, if there was a skill like that, I'd need to max out my [Advanced Mana Manipulation] skill to unlock it.
Time for more grinding, I supposed.
For the next hour or two, I kept my mana sense active while I pushed and struggled against my mana suppression. I gained some Skill ranks.
[Advanced Mana Manipulation] Skill has reached rank 5
[Sense Mana] Skill has reached rank 8
Sadly, my practice was interrupted when the door to my cell opened again. Standing out in the hall, with a pair of thuggish men and Satan's Butler. I recognized one of the thugs as well, it was my good friend Hair Puller. The other thug didn't have a name yet.
I didn't say a single word to them, having gotten my fill of sucker punches to the gut yesterday. Hair Puller unlocked my cuffs, bound my arms behind me, and hauled me roughly out of my cell. And yes! As expected, he painfully grabbed me by the hair and used it as a handle to move me around.
Did magical healing fix having your hair ripped out? I had a feeling that if this treatment continued for too long, I'd end up bald.
The men roughly shoved me along the corridor and up the stairs, into the playroom for another night of cruel debauchery.