Coop was having as close to a spiritual experience with mana as was possible for someone like him. He wasn’t the kind of person who would consciously delve into contemplative meditation. In fact, he was much more likely to end up taking a nap if he tried.

Seeking inner peace or universal truths was of no interest to him when he could lay in a hammock on the beach and just relax, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of a thoughtless trance or two. Narrowing his focus to concentrate on a simple series of physical actions was actually a routine occurrence when it came to the Champion of Ghost Reef.

Paying attention to the way each of his muscles were incorporated into his actions, the careful timing of his footsteps and breaths, and the steady beat of his heart resulted in a similar enough experience to qualify as meditation. It was so routine, even the system generated a skill to try and codify the sensation of entering the zone as he set off on the Path of Aloneness with the Lucid Dream.

The catalyst, of course, was the grind. Within the Ark, he was on the most extensive grind imaginable. Naturally, once he got going, his focus transformed his consciousness.

Coop defined a level on the Ark Tower as one full revolution around the vortex of mana that flowed up the center. Each level included at least one platform for the four different forces of mana present on Earth. Demons, angels, dragons, and parasites appeared consecutively as they rotated around the spiraling path. He was fighting them in an uninterrupted rolling assault that blended itself into one extremely long skirmish.

At first, there was a clear distinction between the masses of monsters, but as he led Lyriel and Palisteon further up the tower, the divisions among the enemies started to break down. All of the fights blurred together until it was one extended session of combat.

In that sense, it was a perfect grind. He was able to condense all of his stresses and concerns into simple actions that chained one after the other without pause. It was dynamic enough to not be overly repetitive, introducing a dozen different variants for each of the forces of mana, but they were organized enough to avoid collapsing into true chaos. He couldn’t dream of any way to improve his selection of opponents.

Closer to the base of the tower, the rising path that linked the larger hexagonal platforms was distinctly empty, letting the actual platforms serve as clearly designated battlegrounds. He and Lyriel had deliberately skipped the climbing hikes by jumping to the start of the next level rather than progress through vacant space.

As they journeyed further upward, even the empty portions were filled with increasingly dense groups of enemies. The crowds overflowed from the main platforms until there was no more distinction between any portion of the tower.

The Ark was pouring monsters into their path, but the creatures barely hindered his progress any longer once he was so firmly in the zone. If anything, their presence encouraged Coop’s clear state of mind. Without such an ordeal, he just wasn’t the type of person who would successfully or deliberately formulate his own evolution. It had to happen spontaneously through his personal demand for incremental progress. Once he exhausted the limits of his physical body, he naturally turned to his control of mana to squeeze out fractional improvements.

In the intermediary sections, the forces of mana ignored their differences and bled together until the whole tower was a singular mass of monsters for Coop to run his blade through. Angels and demons fought side by side while dragons and parasites complemented each others’ strengths and weaknesses only to be met with a tsunami of cold-blooded destruction at the hand of the Revenant.

The actual composition of monsters ebbed and flowed, with the more advanced forms of each variant establishing their own vanguards among the hordes. They dominated individual sections, but didn’t break away from the broader mass.

For Coop, the monsters on the tower were like a sorbet swirl, providing distinct flavors side by side with surprising changes that he could only briefly sample before moving on. The experience was almost as refreshing a treat as ice cream for someone as freakishly devoted to progress and the grind. He couldn’t sing the praises of the Ark enough.

The individual monsters were inconsequential, but the forward motion that led him higher and higher, giving him the opportunity to refine his actions indefinitely, was excellent. He was fully dedicated to the process, finding satisfaction with every minor improvement to his ability, and with every kill, he was reducing the invasion of Earth by one.

Of course, different combinations of enemies further complicated the fights, but the constant challenges only stimulated Coop to dive deeper into his grind. Stepping into the flow state that pushed his physical limits was an addictive sensation that was difficult to put down. He hadn’t ever held back from it, ever since the assimilation forced humanity into its treadmill of experience, and he was already thoroughly hooked.

Coop had the impression that the Ark wasn’t consciously acting when it awakened the monsters hidden within the hexagonal chambers it carried. The resistance was more like an autoimmune response to the presence of intruders. Otherwise, surely it would simply manipulate the mobile platforms and mana membranes in such a way that progress was impossible. Thankfully, it was no more than an object, if an important one to the overall structure of the galactic community. It was just a tool used to spread the influence of the system and nothing more.

As he climbed higher and higher, the immunity response became more extreme. After Coop and Lyriel had already conquered tens of thousands of levels, a stream of monsters actually rained from above. At first it was just one or two, but that was just the start.

After ten times as many levels, the monsters were constantly falling past the platforms. They were shoved from overloaded bridges and upper levels, scraping and clawing at the edges as they went down. The interior of the tower shifted into the safest section since they were marginally less likely to have overpowered creatures crashing into them from above the farther away from the edge they were.

The gap between the spiraling central tower that wrapped around the flowing mana and the first ring of hexagonal cells was filled with skydiving creatures. Few managed to scramble back onto the tower in time to confront the intruders, but most landed on lower bridges, causing chaos as they joined parades that squeezed the layers of the tower beyond capacity. As they landed, they shoved others off the edges, perpetuating the shower of monsters so that Coop expected it to reach all the way to the bottom.

It was like a curtain of fire, scales, feathers, and chitin isolated the tower from the rest of the Ark. Even if Lyriel could keep jumping, skipping levels of the tower had already become physically impossible. They would only end up in an aerial battle that would send them backwards rather than saving them time.

It was thanks to the steady escalation of his opponents that he could dig so deep into the zone that he started to optimize beyond his footsteps, his breathing, his grip, and his sight so that not even a blink was wasted. The whole time that Coop was fighting, he felt a subtle reverberation in his mana pool that slowly drifted to the forefront of his mind as he perfected the other aspects of combat, giving him a new place to seek progress.

He had started by jumpstarting the Lucid Dream with the principle of Rage, but had immediately let go of the intoxicating fury in favor of focusing on his internal reservoir of mana. As he fought, he investigated how his mana interacted with his efforts, the sensation like he was setting fire to his blood, and contrasted it with the icy chill of the principle of Calm in his gut.

What would happen if he activated both at the same time? Would that improve the grind? Normally, it would have been impossible. The guardrails of the system skill clearly delineated the Principles provided by the Path of Aloneness, but Coop had been expelled from the system.

When he followed the rules established by the system he was only imitating the sensations it had revealed to him. With mana still present and under his control, he thought it was about time he took what he had practiced and made something of his own. Instead of following the path of least resistance, he tried forming more efficient channels.

The reverberation of his mana was his growing conscious connection with the energy, one that many other humans had already experienced. People like Charlie, Gibson, and Madison had all taken firm conscious control of their personal mana pools long before Coop even thought about it, but none of them had started with a reservoir quite as excessive as the Mind stacking, stat multiplying Revenant build he had cooked up.

His levels might not have caught up to the standard set by Lyriel, Vronk, and Caisalya, but his actual mana pool exceeded all of their resources. Like a faint hum beneath the static of biological life in his cells while he fought, he could sense the energy within his body as he exercised what was essentially a new, sixth sense for humankind. The reverberation wasn’t an actual sound, but a feeling that he intuited through repetitive practice and adaptive learning. With mana there was more to the world than what was directly in front of them.

As Coop broke through a hundred thousand levels in the Ark Tower, he forced the Dream to unhand his own power, then tried combining the Principles as he manifested his aura. When he succeeded in moving past what the system had exposed to them, the background hum became a roar of potential.

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It started subtly, a tingling sensation in the palm of his hand where he was connected with the conduit of his system-designed skill: the ethereal short sword manifestation was being flooded with abyssal energy. Over time, as he experimented, the tingling spread, washing over his arms until it resonated with his entire body while under his conscious control. Energy leaked through his pores, giving his whole body the glow that was sometimes visible through his eyes like they were a window to his soul as he wielded power beyond his own.

Every nerve ending was firing, his bones practically vibrating as he properly awakened to wielding his mana pool by himself. Rather than expending it in a blast of power, like he would have if he was possessed by an Inheritance, he focused on holding it close, dreaming of its empowerment filling every cell of his being so that he could grind more and faster.

The air around him visibly shimmered, but without mana sight it was extremely subtle. Someone with activated mana senses like Lyriel saw him like a torch, burning with spectral and abyssal light so bright it drowned out the surroundings. His mana was influencing the ambient energy that existed in everything in an uncontrolled blaze.

Coop hardly noticed the visual changes himself, simply feeling the connection growing stronger, like he was rebuilding an imitation of Presence of Mind from scratch. The sensations created by Drowning Darkness, which specifically consumed his mana to give him a damaging abyssal aura, was key in keeping his mana under control. He didn’t want to waste his energy, he wanted to wield it like the sword in his hands, so he didn’t let it drift away in the manner that skill pushed. Instead, he applied it to his weapon, as he had with the Principles, and poured his purpose into his movements.

The active, conscious activation of his mana was overwhelming, slamming him with a storm of sensations that he couldn’t quite process all at once when it really hit, but he was anchored by his actions. He was still fighting, sweeping up the Ark Tower like a tidal wave, swinging his blade through the mists that followed him as he refused to provide any relief to the forces of mana that stalled them. His physical actions kept him from losing control, maintaining the focus that put him in the zone countless times before. If he had been sitting cross-legged, meditating, he would have already failed.

He was fighting two battles. One external, with all the overpowered monsters, and one internal that was something akin to the pressure in his chest that might come from something as simple as nerves. It wasn’t painful, but it was constant. Rather than being in his blood, breath, or his bones, where the individual Principles might have been concentrated, the sensation was in everything at once, threatening to explode from his body.

He struggled with it for a long time, just trying to hang onto the power, but once it finally snapped into place and he grew more comfortable with maintaining the sensation, he felt like he could cut anything. The Axe Demons and Giant Parasites had no defense against the pure mana to mana contests Coop was forcing even though they had been impossible to cut with an unempowered sword. He was literally surging with his own power. It would take a fully empowered Icon of Mana to stand up to him.

The humming and the tingling sensation was the actual mana he had under his control. They were the evidence of the mysterious element that resonated with his being, present in every atom of every molecule. Though it was omnipresent, the activation was limited to his own capacity. His mana pool was ‘only’ over a million at the start of the Eradication Protocol, but that was a significant font of power for an individual being in the galactic community.

The color of his aura shifted as he layered the different Principles, transforming the Lucid Dream skill from its original purpose. By the time it was done, he was wrapped in a cloak of darkness, his ethereal blade enchanted by mana with the flavor of the Abyss.

It was only possible thanks to his gradual understanding of the Lucid Dream skill across so many levels of the tower. If he were to break it down, the Path of Aloneness was about drawing power from within and manifesting it as an enhancement for the sword. Each of the Principles were the kinds of feelings Coop could reasonably expect to feel in a state of total isolation. Rage, Calm, and all the others were the medium used to manifest his mana through his Abyssal affinity.

With his aura finally solidified, he accomplished something Lyriel had never seen. The creation of a new skill without the aid of the system. Though it had no name, it was clearly something other than the skills that had been granted to him periodically during the assimilation. He manifested his power so that it bolstered his blade and his body as if they were one.

In a similar fashion, Inheritance of the Mists did the same with his mana through the spectral affinity. The apparitions were fueled by manifestations of his personal mana pool. That’s why the cost was a reservation of his total rather than a true expenditure of the resource.

Breaking down the system one step further, and he could even understand the secondary cost of Legacy of the Mists a bit better. Every phantasm reserved a portion of his weapon’s durability because the weapon was a manifestation of his mana pool that they went on to utilize themselves. It all came back to the physicality of mana.

If he was correct in his grasp of the mechanics behind his skills, that meant he should be able to summon phantasms independent of his weapon or better utilize the apparitions from Inheritance. If he could really take control of his mana, the possibilities were practically endless. The only limitation was the physical pool he could draw from, but his was already enormous compared to any reasonable assessments.

He experimented by deliberately breaking the rules. While still clinging to his manifested aura, he swapped weapons, utilizing his spear when the temporary enhancement brought by the Lucid Dream was specifically for swords and it worked. His most reliable weapon was fully empowered by the abyssal aura, just like the tools that were most closely linked to the Principles.

When he thrust his spear, he directed his mana from the point, extending his range two-fold, three-fold, then split it into multiple points so that the damage fanned out. As he threw the spear, he let the mana explode as it flew, causing it to repeatedly destroy swathes of enemies before ultimately reaching his target. He manifested cluster projectiles that impaled entire platforms of enemies, then mistjumped to the next.

He summoned a phantasmal spearman while he played with his spear, then swapped to his mace and started smashing while the spearman kept fighting by his side. Then, he dismissed his weapon altogether and the spearman continued to battle. When his unarmed punch sent a wave through the air that evaporated the nearest demons, generating a fist of energy that was akin to the strength of an apparition, he couldn’t help but feel genuinely powerful.

Some of the downsides were already clear. It was the same as the corrupting effect brought by the Eradication Protocol. By wielding his pool of mana like a weapon, he risked destroying his vessel, or losing control of it forever. But that was a danger he was already completely familiar with. His experience with Inheritance of the Mists and the apparitions possessing him had been extensive training toward understanding his physical and metaphysical limits.

After something like 500,000 levels of testing and optimization in the tower, Coop had developed enough mastery to become a true monster. And that’s where the grind finally stopped. The endless tower terminated with an enormous vault door separating the open space of the Ark from whatever was above the ceiling of patterned hexagonal cells.

Waking from the conscious dream was a bit jarring, but Coop came down from the excitement to focus on the task. They’d successfully climbed the tower. He just needed to get them inside.

“I’ll hold them off while you figure out how to get through.” Lyriel suggested as he stared at the door.

Though there was a huge gap between the three of them and the monsters they had skipped, the enemies were still in pursuit. Lyriel figured it would take Coop a long time to figure out how to get through the door, considering his lack of sophistication when it came to using the key and communicating with the Ark.

For five seconds, Coop was frowning at the door, his hands on his hips, before he put his palm on the surface. “Open.” He tried, and to both their surprises, the vault pivoted so that they could continue inside.

“That easily?” Lyriel wondered, flabbergasted by the continual evolution she was witnessing in her human companion.

“Huh.” Coop grunted, almost as surprised, though he figured he had just stumbled on the original way to manipulate mana before the system was in place. With the key, he really could behave like an administrator.

Though Lyriel didn’t say anything else, she had been constantly bewildered by what she was witnessing in Coop. He could tell just by her expression that she was feeling out of her depth the same way he had at the start.

Together, they crossed the last section separating them from what they hoped would be the final chamber in the Ark. They had gone from the bottom of the tower, which potentially buried itself all the way into the core of the Earth, to the top, which was extending beyond the lower atmosphere. It was a grind that had covered thousands of miles and billions of enemies. If Coop hadn’t continued to evolve, just traversing the tower through all of the enemies might have taken thousands of years, assuming they survived the escalating fights all the way to the end.

Inside the upper chamber, the nearby flow of mana provided the only source of dim light as it finally reached its own destination. Through the floor connection with the tube of mana, they could see the rings of hexagonal cells extending down beyond sight, the color indicating that the vast majority were still directed at the surface of the Earth. It was insane, but even after defeating so many monsters, the Ark’s total reserves were only marginally affected.

Coop shook his head as the enormous vault door closed behind them, sealing them inside with an airtight hiss and the locking of dense alien materials sliding in place. It was time to search for the alternative solution that Lyriel had promised.

But before he looked for a place to interface with the ship, his attention was drawn to the center of the chamber. Where the massive mana stream was funneling into a giant cylinder cap that was shrouded in darkness and tiny bubbles, an aura practically screamed for their attention.

Inside the current of mana, a large shadow loomed. Coop immediately sensed something dangerous inside, similar to that of the hexagonal cells that held the forces of mana.

“What’s that?” He asked, naturally anticipating a boss battle at the top of the tower, but hoping Lyriel still had better detection abilities than he did.

She had stopped as soon as the cylinder entered her line of sight, feeling the same threat he did. “That’s an Icon of Mana that I’ve never heard of before. It’s called Final Judgment.”

“Of course it is.” Coop affirmed.