Chapter 145: Rain! I
On a certain night in a forgotten corner of the Lands of Stone, the sky wept blue.
This is not embellishnt crafted by storytellers seeking to make their tales more morable. The clouds themselves burned with sacred fire, and from those burning clouds fell rain unlike anything the Lands of Stone had witnessed since the Ancestors first walked upon the earth.
The droplets were clear and vibrant, carrying within them Mana so pure that it glowed as it descended. They fell upon a small region spanning only a few miles, painting the darkness with radiance that turned night into sothing resembling dawn. They landed on stone and soil and flesh without discrimination, soaking into everything they touched.
And when they touched the bodies of those in that region, sothing miraculous occurred.
The flesh of thousands began to blaze and awaken.
To understand why this matters, one must first understand how rare Warriors truly are. Mana Sensitivity, that gift allowing a being to sense the energy saturating the Lands of Stone, manifests in perhaps one of every hundred births.
Of those hundred who can sense Mana, perhaps ten possess the talent to actually draw it into their bodies. Of those ten, perhaps three can reign it in rather than being consud by its wild nature. And of those three, perhaps one successfully bathes their flesh in energy long enough to achieve the First Circle.
Flesh Awakening is not rely difficult. It is the barrier separating ordinary existence from the path of power, and most who attempt to cross it fail. They spend years in ditation and practice, struggling to coax wild Mana into flesh that often rejects it like a body rejecting poison. Many die in the attempt. Many more simply give up, accepting that the path of the Warrior was never ant for them.
Pure Mana that the body would willingly accept is the rarest substance in all the Lands of Stone. Shamans spend decades learning to refine energy into forms their disciples can absorb. Sacred sites accumulate such purity over centuries, jealously guarded by those who control them. Wars have been fought over springs and groves and mountains where Mana flows clean enough to accelerate cultivation.
And yet on that night, such purity fell freely from the sky.
It landed on the old and the young. It soaked into the bodies of n and won and children who had never dread of becoming Warriors. It touched the flesh of Dross farrs and refugee mothers and orphaned sons huddling in newly built huts, and it did not ask permission before transforming them.
Thousands...experienced Flesh Awakening in the span of a single night.
Not dozens. Not hundreds. Thousands.
The phenonon would co to be known in later years as the Rain of First Flas, a na that captured both the blue fire burning in the clouds above and the awakening blazing through the bodies below. Those who witnessed it would speak of the event with reverence usually reserved for visitations from Ancestors themselves. Those who experienced it would carry the mory until their dying breaths, the sensation of Mana flooding through flesh that had never known such power.
When anyone was asked about that night in the years that followed, their answers were remarkably consistent regardless of who spoke them.
That was the day the Tokoloshe began to share his blessings.
That was the night they understood what he truly was.
That was when the Lands of Stone changed forever.
---
Damian truly could not put into words the sensation he was currently feeling as he watched everything unfold.
One of the more critical things he could say was that his vision had expanded far beyond what it used to be. His consciousness painted within the burning clouds gave him a perspective that felt far too grand. He could now simultaneously see the surrounding miles of the Purple Stone Tribe and the Roaring Stone Mountain, could perceive the lands stretching outward in every direction as if looking down from a height no physical body could achieve.
But this expanded vision was one thing. The storm of extrely pure Mana raging within him was another entirely.
The Mana felt even purer than when he had initially sparred with Uncle Adam on that mountain, purer than anything he had generated through Persevere before. It all seed to be getting produced within his body, within those clouds that were now part of his existence. The process was automatic and overwhelming, rivers of refined energy accumulating faster than he had ever experienced.
As the rain fell down below, even though it was night, everything was being bathed in a stellar blue afterglow. The landscape shimred beneath the descending droplets, darkness pushed back by radiance that had no business existing in the hours before dawn. He felt like he was painting the Lands in colors of his own making.
He felt this rain land on his massive beast form resting on the mountain below. He felt it touch the astonished figure of Serala. He saw these drops descend upon Uncle Adam and Grandmother Essun and the tribe mbers who had gotten out of their huts, all of them looking up at the radiant glow surrounding them with expressions mixing wonder and confusion.
He was initially worried due to the high concentration of such pure Mana. Energy this dense could damage ordinary bodies, could overwhelm those not prepared to receive it. But he felt it flow into the bodies of those down below, and it was not destructive at all. The rain sank into flesh gently, almost tenderly, as if asking permission before bestowing its gifts.
When he affird this, he breathed a sigh of relief and focused on himself.
And what he found was sothing that truly made his Second Doctrine obscene.
He ca to understand that everything conducted Mana differently. The body of a human conducted Mana at a certain pace, channels guiding energy through flesh in patterns established. The body of a beast conducted Mana differently still, larger systems and denser flesh creating pathways that allowed greater volus at faster speeds. In his form where he was maintaining the Land and Sky Physiques of multiple beings, Mana raged in an even faster and rougher and more glorious manner.
And now his consciousness occupied a vast cloud.
The conductivity here was beyond anything he had imagined!
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