VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 120: Gamer girl bath water

Valerie hurriedly wheeled herself into the bathroom with her helpful man servant Jinu trailing behind her with an entire case of D-fuel in his strong, robotic arms.

Unfortunately he was the only assistant she had in this endeavour, as the ever loyal Sebbie had betrayed her by revealing himself to be a picky eater. The little blighter turned up his nose when she offered him synth food.

He made very clear through a series of demanding and irate taps that he would only accept real food, not the synthetic slop, and honestly she didn’t blame him in the slightest. It was called synth slop for a reason.

Thankfully he still accepted the ’Cruelty Free’ stuff as real food, but that stuff was expensive and she didn’t have much to spare. At the very least talking to him was free.

So, with just Jinu helping her, she plugged up the bath and started to crack open can after can of D-fuel and poured them into the bath. The greenish-blue liquid bubbled slightly as it steadily filled the bath, creating the worlds most unappealing Jacuzzi experience.

Once the bath was filled, and a pile of half crushed cans sat in the corner, Valerie had Jinu help her undress down to her underwear before lifting her into the bubbling bath. She winced slightly at the ice cold liquid, and the way that it tickled as it fizzed against her skin, as she repeated in her mind that it was just a normal bath bomb in an attempt to make it a slightly less uncomfortable experience.

Although that couldn’t remove how sticky it felt. Now that was gross.

Once she was as comfortable as she could get, Valerie scooped some of her bath water into her hands and immediately gulped it down. Just like at the lake, she had to consume the mana to activate her mana lobe.

But the lake was Dragon Tears, which was literally liquid mana from the sheer purity and density of it. This was no Dragon Tears. This drink had just enough mana to induce the activation over a long period of time, such as daily consumption.

It was closer to the other players consuming copious amounts of magic beast meat, to absorb the mana directly from that.

It just meant that she needed a lot of it, and that was just to form the lobe. A source was even more effort which is where the bath came in.

Gulp after gulp, and with Jinu constantly topping up the bath with her Beta test supply, Valerie slurped down nearly twenty cans worth of D-fuel until her stomach was ready to burst. It gurgled it protest, begging not to be put through any more of this torment, but she just silenced those protests with more bath water.

Her headache grew from red hot needles, to a butchers knife hacking into her skull to her entire brain trying to compress itself into the size of a pea, until finally the pain immediately subsided and a sense of relief flowed through her body.

The cold and sticky bath suddenly gained a strange warmth, and not for the usual reason that baths grew warm. Instead she could feel something new in the liquid. Beyond the sugar and the caffeine, beyond the stickiness and bubbles.

She could feel the mana.

Valerie allowed herself a soft laugh of complete and utter disbelief, still unable to process that everything she was experiencing was actually real, before she took a deep breath and plunged herself under the water.

Surrounded by the liquid, and the traces of mana within it, Valerie stretched the muscles of her new mana lobe and started to stir the mana. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

She had improved since her first true time attempting this. Previously, upon awakening, she had been grasping at sand with clumsy hands, only making up for it by the value of each tiny grain of sand.

That was no longer a luxury she had, every grain of sand now had that much worth, but she had better tools to grasp at it.

Drawing it in as if she was breathing, Valerie drained the D-fuel of every single drop of the mana within it, until not even a single grain was left, and poured it into her chest. She concentrated it all between her lungs, right where her source should be.

But even with her improved skills, she couldn’t make up for the lack of quality.

Valerie sat up quickly, gasping for breath and coughing a few times as she wiped the sticky juice from her face and turned her face up in disgust at how it clung to her hair.

"Okay... That part probably wasn’t the best idea... Now I really do need a bath." She muttered to herself idly as she glanced over to the D-fuel she had remaining. Her months supply, as well as the extra cases she had gotten from the Beta test, were almost completely gone.

There were just a few sparse cans left, and yet she was nowhere close to forming a source. Just from this session alone, she assumed that she was sitting somewhere between 10% to 15% of the way there.

Her supply from the company was not due for a while, considering she shouldn’t have been anywhere close to finishing this lot normally, and asking for more could raise some serious suspicions.

Still, Valerie raised her hand, letting the juice dribble through her fingers as she turned her hand over and inspected it. It looked no different than it usually did, but she could feel the power tingling in her finger tips.

Her eyes drifted to the cans sitting in the corner and, with a slight smirk, she held out her hand out towards them and steadied her mind.

Unlike in the game, her magic was not confined to her body. She could feel it flowing out of her freely and dancing through the air like seaweed waiting to be turned into ropes. She sent out this seaweed energy, wrapping it around one of the nearest cans and then clenched her hand in a gripping motion before raising her hand slightly.

Her eyes opened slowly and nervously as she peeked at the results and immediately broke out into a wide smile and laughter of pure amazement and disbelief as one of the empty drink cans floated just above the ground and wobbled slightly in the air.