'Mana exhaustion?'
How?
I had only been channeling my Mana for, like, barely a minute and a half or less. How come i was out already? And for a simple pebble.
Thinking this, i tried to remain calm as my vision continued to swim uncomfortably. I didn't need a system notification, or a status bar to show that my Mana was tanked out.
Yet amidst all the discomfort and nausea, my heart and mind still felt curious and fascinated by what i was experiencing.
'So this is what Mana exhaustion feels like.'
It didn't feel good. At all
In a few seconds more, i recovered enough to barely move from the floor and unto my bed without puking. It seemed like it would take a lot longer for me to recover properly.
That deep lethargic feeling gnawed at me more aggressively now. I felt starved and drained, like there was a gaping hole in my stomach.
This was really unexpected; i never thought I'd be out from just one experiment like this. I had a bunch of things to do, but now i couldn't even move.
My Mana capacity was really nothing to write home about. I made a quiet note to look into doing something about it, adding it as an item to the long mental list of things i needed to do.
I guess I'll have to postpone looking into the Eastern Nightmare Region a bit again... My thoughts trailed, drawling on as they slowly faded. I would pass out any moment from now, i could tell.
No, the moment my head hit the soft pillow sealed the deal. But maybe passing out wasn't so bad, as long as it meant i could get rid of feeling like crap when i woke up.
'But... let's try not to stay out too long...the day is still early... and lots to do...'
My consciousness dissolved halfway through that line of thought. It was around early noon. I ended up sleeping till the next morning.
The next day, i woke up feeling ravaged. A savage type of hunger like I'd never felt before consumed me from inside. It truly felt like there was a hole in my stomach.
Perhaps from passing out and sleeping much earlier yesterday, i woke up far earlier the following morning. The sun had barely risen and the morning sky was still just greying out.
The expansive manor was quiet, asleep. Sneaking out of my room, i found my way to the kitchen and ravaged it for food. It was only once i satiated my hunger i recovered enough state of mind to realise my Mana had recovered completely.
In fact...
====
Mana — 0.026
====
It had risen slightly.
"Hmm... curious." Staring at my reflection off a silverware against the kitchen counter, i hummed thoughtfully.
If i wasn't mistaken, which i doubt it, weren't the initial digits of my Mana the other day '0.025'? Could using up my Mana and pushing me to the very brink of exhaustion had caused my Mana capacity to increase?
If that was so, then this was a surprising, yet good discovery. It seemed my experiment yesterday did bore fruits aside from making me nauseatingly exhausted.
It meant I've figured out a plausible solution to increasing the amount of Mana i possessed. Could Ramiel have known of this, or was this also counted as common knowledge? It did seem a bit fair when i thought if it, but i would still have to look into this later.
I decided.
Then paused. My expression scrunched up the next moment, remembering the repulsive torment that came with using up all of my Mana in a single go.
Did this mean I'd have to go through that again just to increase my Mana by barely a fraction?
I shuddered.
Looking at it more closely, Ramiel's stats were fractional. That means they weren't even complete and whole numbers. I guess that explained the '[Tier] 0' when he was supposed to be an Awakened.
From what i knew, every Awakened typically started off at [Tier] 1 and progressed higher as they broke through Tiers and got stronger. But my status screen was showing something entirely different to the common standards.
It's like Ramiel's Awakening...was half-assed.
What did that mean?
Sigh. I shook my head; there was still too many things i didn't understand.
After finishing up with my late dinner and early morning breakfast, i cleared my plates and quickly returned back to my room. Day was already breaking and streaks of sunlight were slowly starting to break the sky.
The Maids and Servants were just about to get on with their day, and from there the manor would wake. Since i was already up and now had my head full of all sorts of different thoughts, i couldn't go back to sleep even if i wanted to.
So i decided to do a little something.
Journaling.
I found an empty, usable notebook in my desk locker and deliberately began to pour out my thoughts. In retrospect, i should have done this way earlier before now, but things had been so messed up during the earlier days of me possessing this body.
There was so much i didn't know, and a bunch of things that didn't make sense. It was hard to keep track of it all. And the best way to try to do that and create a decent enough structure to my thoughts and thought process was to write and record them down for later.
Plus, there were some useful bits of information and knowledge in the memories i inherited here and there. Things like common trivia and knowledge of this world, habits, significant memories, and other important points.
Despite how messy and discordant the inherited memories were in my head, if i wrote them down now, they could become useful in the future. Plus it saved me the risk of forgetting or having to dive again into the wild, messy forest that was Ramiel's twisted mind each time.
Of course a lot of the memories or thoughts were messy and incomplete — some too scattered and in bits to even make proper sense. But i still wrote them down right now anyway. Maybe later i could actually make sense of them, or recall more things as i progress.
It took me easily more than an hour of downloading as much of the contents from my brain unto the the journal before i could place the quill down and say i was satisfied for the meantime.
Plus my fingers were already cramping.
I set down the quill pen and leaned backwards against my chair, letting out a deep and long sigh. By the end of it, i felt good about myself. It was like my head was now less cluttered and my heart was no longer as heavy.
That feeling that came with finally sharing with someone something you've been holding on to for so long. Except, instead of sharing to an actual person, you just write down your own autobiography; a journal with your own personal thoughts and perspectives here and there.
'Damn. Why didn't the original Ramiel do something like this,' i mused. 'Journaling would have really helped declutter that crazy mind of his.
Maybe he wouldn't even have ended up as crazy, who knew?
I stared at the flipped open book before me. Quite a lot of its pages were scribbled with messy writing and even messier thoughts only i could make sense of. Probably.
I flipped it closed and placed a palm on it.
Going forward, this would be my guide.