My Life In A Fantasy, Women-Dominated World-Chapter 61: Mana Trance

"Cough!!"

"I win! Cough up the money, bitch!" Jaq cheered the moment I coughed at my first puff, buckling at the strong taste of the greens.

I felt tears run up into my eyes, as I felt the smoke mixing with my blooding and rushing across my body like a virus.

If I focused on its trail, it appeared like a huge circuit that was interconnected throughout my body.

Something that I had noticed every time I activated my skill, but when activating skill, the mana rushed quickly and disappeared just as fast.

I didn’t get any moment to examine this circuit throughout my body earlier, but as smoke rushed into my veins, I felt myself getting a little light headed.

"Told ya, one puff and he down." Jaq was scoffing, mumbling in Claire’s close proximity to irritate her even more.

"Fuck off, I will send the money later."

Jaq took out her phone, opening the calendar app, "Later when? I will mark the date, if you don’t mind."

"Jaq..."

"Hush, Clay. Threaten me 2 weeks later~"

"I won’t need to. Keep this up and 2 weeks will be the amount of your total lifespan left." Claire hissed.

"So scary~~" Jaq teased back without a tint of fear, but I didn’t have the focus to worry about the two of them anymore.

I felt my heartbeats rush faster, and I could hear their voices in slow motion.

It felt as if I had gotten a superpower, but it was anything but that.

"Aaron, look at me," Eva suddenly said beside me.

She was sitting next to me.

Huh?

When did she get so close?

I glanced at her as she squinted into my eyes, "Yep. Red." she stated.

"That was the expected result, he doesn’t have the tolerance for it like us." Claire nodded calmly, "But it doesn’t matter."

Her voice became softer, slower and sweeter, "Love, do you feel the mana and smoke in your veins or something like that?"

It was getting hard to focus onto her words, all the while keeping the track of rushing smoke, but I did it.

I nodded to her words, struggling to keep myself upright.

"That’s good. Try channeling your mana in the same way, this time intentionally?"

"Hwo?" I fumbled on my tongue, coughing again, "How?"

"Give a firm thought to your brain. Feel a pull from your inner strength. Order the mana like you order your skill, but don’t turn on the skill. You need to simply channel the mana, not manifest it."

This time the answerer’s voice changed, but it didn’t matter to me.

I applied what I heard, reaching to my brain and ordering it to release mana in my veins, but the order failed.

Nothing happened, and thus I changed the order.

I asked it to start channeling the mana, and this time, it worked.

Very subtle and quite frankly, a very small amount of energy began to circulate in my veins along with the rushing cloud of smoke.

Of course, not the actual smoke was traveling in my veins. It was how my brain projected it. A cloud of smoke.

And behind it, I imagined a bright shimmering cloud of blue energy, trailing after it as if it was a race between the two of them.

Surrounding noises and sounds merged into the background, my head felt empty and swirling with everything blending together perfectly.

The walls that should have been stationary began to shuffle back and forth, the floor appeared to be shaking and my heart felt on steroids.

It was beating so loud and fast that I thought I may die from a heart attack.

And if that wasn’t enough, throughout my body, I could feel cold sweat pouring out.

"Close your eyes and focus on mapping out the mana pathways, Aaron." someone said, "Take a small puff if it feels like the smoke is getting too thin to follow."

On a reflex, the joint was brought to my lips, taking a small breath as I coughed again.

"Eyes close." Someone else remarked, and I shut my eyes close, my ears ringing so much that surroundings felt warped.

I was sitting straight, yet I felt like my whole body was wobbling wildly.

Despite that, the small shimmering ball of energy kept following the smoke at a moderate pace, they were making a long loop across my whole body.

In between a loop, I felt someone take something from my fingers, but I was in no condition to open my eyes and check.

Even their chatter sounded like an incoherent background noise.

Thus, I ignored it. I let them take whatever I was holding, as they left me alone after that.

Loop after loop, the mana was retracing the paths and the smoke was fading away, getting smaller and smaller until my mana didn’t need to follow it for guidance anymore.

I tried to stop actively ordering it to keep channeling and yet, it stayed in the motion, flowing in the veins constantly.

And I had the feeling that it would stay in motion until I ordered it to stop.

Something like the law of inertia on Earth.

"Welcome back to the realm of living, Aaron Cross~" Eva’s teasing voice drifted into my ears as I finally opened my eyes after god knows how long.

Somehow, I was laying on the bed now, head on a pillow and a comfy blanket covering me cozily.

Claire sat with her back pressed against the headboard of the bed.

Her eyes were closed in a meditative posture, similar to the postures of Jaq, Katie and Lia.

It seems only me and Eva were not in meditation now.

"W-What just happened?" I asked with a faint shiver running down my body.

I just had a few small puffs... and this was how I ended up?

"Heh, there’s good news and bad news. What do you want to hear first?" Eva winked.

"Bad first." I shrugged.

"You were out for nearly 3 hours, we have already smoked like 3-4 more joints after that. But in hindsight, it was probably the passive smoking that caused your trance to last so long."

I could only blink in confusion and speechlessness, sighing, "And good news?"

"You learnt how to channel your mana. You were in a trance for 3 whole hours!"