Infinite Potential System

At their Cultivation level, anyone could read a page of notes almost instantly. William was no exception. With a sweep of his eyes, everything including the diagram was internalized and sorted in a way that helped him understand.

When he reached the final word on the page, however, he paused. It was only for half a second, but that last word took more time to digest than the equivalent of three pages combined.

William looked back into his memories to ensure that everything was fine, but something surprised him. The page in his hands completely filled out, but the one from his memories was empty!

When he went further back, something completely different happened. He didn't see himself ask Mikaela for help, and she never handed him the notebook. Instead, he continued staring at his hand, channeling Mana into it for some reason.

Even more perplexing, William saw a memory of himself... from two minutes in the future! His hand seemed to emit a different aura, and he could tell at a glance that he was stronger than before.

The memory ended and William returned to his current self, staring at a notebook whose second page was now blank.

"Uhh..." William awkwardly handed Mikaela her notebook, scared to look at another page lest the event from before repeated itself.

Seeing William's expression made Mikaela realize something. "Don't worry about that, it's part of my Innate Talent." she said while storing the notebook. "I imbued my understanding into my notes, then used some Magic to simulate you using them to refine your Mana Circuits."

She narrowed her eyes, slightly jealous at what she saw in William's immediate future. Not only had his Mana Circuits become stronger, but something about the boy was resisting the effects of her Fate Magic. Normally she could view someone's future for just over three hours, but he directly reduced that time to a mere two minutes!

Whatever defensive treasure William was using, it was quite powerful. Little did she know that it was William's X-Rank Resist Fate Talent, one of the few non-Ascended Talents that were still active in the Filem Academy Dimension.

"With how much you're about to benefit from my help, consider this a favor. You owe me big time." she turned away and returned to working on her own Mana Circuits.

William nodded even though Mikaela couldn't see it. If her methods were legitimate, he didn't mind helping her out if she ever needed it in the future.

Just as he was about to follow Mikaela's methods to a T, the System interrupted his concentration.

-There are some flaws in her understanding. These methods are most suitable to her, but you'd only be imitating it. Once you surpass her level, the current state of her notes will become obsolete.

There's nothing I can do about that. You're too expensive to be of any use.

-You've already learned a lot about Mana Circuits. I'll just refine her understanding and remove the major flaws. It will only cost you ten Ascended Points.

Ten! I didn't even want to spend eight before!

William replied, but he knew this was different from last time. Before, it was simply to gain information about his enemies. Now, it was affecting his future growth.

Hopefully I can earn these Points back in less than three weeks. Go ahead, System.

he sighed, spending 10 Ascended Points to fix the major flaws in his understanding.

-10 AP

The System made quick work of his memories, adjusting the information from Mikaela's notes to better suit William's own Mana Circuits. It better explained the purpose of Mana Veins, as well as how to choose which Mana Points should be connected to which Mana Vein.

This information was already nested within Mikaela's understanding; however, she placed specific Mana Points on specific Mana Veins. If William did the same, there would be improvement, but not nearly as much as what he could achieve with the System's refinements.

He sorted out the new information and arranged it in his thoughts, developing a game plan. His Mana Points and Mana Veins were already labeled, but now he needed to adjust how they moved. His twelve largest Mana Points were not always located directly on top of a Mana Vein, and that was incorrect.

Mana Points are like batteries. My Mana Reserve supplies Mana to the Mana Points in advance, so it takes less time for my Spells to cast. This is automatic, but that doesn't mean it is entirely efficient.

William thought to himself.

The Mana Reserve doesn't know which Mana Points are able to store the most Mana, so it disperses the Mana evenly throughout my body. That means the largest Mana Points are only filled partially, while the smallest ones overflow and could damage me if I take in too much Mana at once.

Thankfully, my Mana Reserves are huge, and they'd have to be completely full before the Mana Points could take in more Mana. I would need to absorb a massive amount of Mana to reach that state, but if I'm not careful in the future I could permanently damage my Mana Points.

There was an easy fix to this issue. Mana Points should not be moved unless one really knew what they were doing, but the Mana Veins were different. They were simply pathways for his Mana flow, and if William rerouted them towards his largest Mana Points, he could partially control his Mana Reserve to send more Mana to those Points specifically.

Moving them is the hard part, though.

William's mind worked quickly as he focused on the first Mana Vein, which routed through the thumb.

This Mana Vein only needed to extend a decimeter or so from the base of his wrist to the tip of his thumb, yet there were multiple swirls and knots on the way to its destination, increasing its length to almost quadruple the required distance.
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Almost half a meter to cross the length of my hand is absurd. No wonder improving Mana Circuits has such a good effect, they're so inefficient by default!

William exclaimed in his mind.

William started work by using a bit of Soul Strength to grab at the very end of the Mana Vein, pulling it away from the tip of his thumb and allowing it to bunch up with the rest of itself.

With careful movements, frequent revisits to his memories, the Ascended Mana Dominator Talent to keep his Mana in check, William slowly untangled the Mana Vein like he would an unruly ball of yarn. In the end, he started using the Knitting sub-Talent from Jack of All Trades to increase his efficiency by multiple times.

Less than a minute later, William had fully untangled the Mana Vein, its full length looping like a snake through his hand in a confusing manner. This was only temporary, simply to keep it from tangling once more while he prepared the next step.

Now he needed to shorten the Mana Vein.

While cutting off part of the Mana Vein and stitching the bits together sounded like the easiest solution to the untangling process, this was actually a trap. If William were to do so at that point, the two halves of his Mana Vein would be recognized as two separate Mana Veins, and they would take years to heal and reconnect.

Worse, the System explained that the Regeneration Talent didn't work the same with Mana Veins as with the rest of his body. If he cut his arm off, it would regenerate the Mana Veins along with the arm, in the same state that they were in previously. It wouldn't repair the Mana Veins, since it wouldn't recognize them as damaged.

Since his Mana Veins were already untangled, however, William could simply cut off the excess length and discard it. This was no problem at all, and he didn't hesitate to do so. Using the Mana Dominator Talent once more, William destroyed the excess length, while forcing his body to recognize the remaining tip as the end.

This way, the Mana Vein would regenerate almost instantaneously, since there was nothing to regenerate. He manipulated the path of the Mana Vein once more, until it formed an almost straight line from his wrist to the thumb.

It was now routed closely to the two largest Mana Points, so William took this opportunity to manually control his Mana Reserve, which currently contained about 34 million Mana. He pushed more and more Mana towards the Mana Points, trying to sense the limit of their capacity.

"Ah!" a sudden wave of pain forced William to wince in surprise. It had been a long time since he felt pain, so it caught him off guard.

His resistance to pain was severely dampened within this Dimension, but the main reason was simply the amount of stimulation from his body adjusting to the refined Mana Vein, in combination to the Mana Points finally maxing out on capacity.

How much Mana did I use on that?

William checked his Status.