Excerpt from The Profound and Pretty Princess' Ultimate Guide to Cultivation, Captivation, Cuteness, and Carving Your Way to the Top, English Edition (the worst-selling guide in the history of Putijama)

Note: Yes, everyone has four essence-absorbing cores: physical, magical, Innate Capability, and bloodline. This section is only for the magical core.

On Magical Core Cultivation and Allocation

While some people are foolish enough to allocate no essence to their magical core, those looking to delve and/or fight for a living generally follow the 30% rule: at a minimum, 30% of your essence should be allocated to your physical and magical cores. Allocating less than that will make you overbalanced in one direction and thus underbalanced in the other. The less-followed version is always go 70/30, whether that is 70% to magical and 30% to physical or vice versa.

But 50/50 and any 60/40 splits make sense too. People are too focused on specialization!

Since balance is important, most of the math here is provided with 70/30 or 50/50 splits.

If people allocate any essence to their bloodline or Cap cores, the standard advice is any essence not allocated to those other cores should still be split using one of the 70/30 ratios. But again, feel out what's right for you!

Allocating essence to the magical core has three potential aspects to strengthen: mana regeneration, mana pool size, and mana affinity. Typically, most people allocate little to none to mana affinity and follow the same 50/50 or 70/30 splits between regeneration and pool size, though mana pool is usually where people focus early in their careers.

Mana Regeneration – Strategy

Mana regeneration is something most people overlook early in their Tiering up journey as the ability to cast more skills or power more enchantments now is 1) far cooler, and 2) far easier to grasp the importance of.

That's what you get when you Ignite thirteen year olds!

Most delvers, especially physical attack-focused ones, allocate between 30% and 50% of their magical core essence to mana regeneration. The thinking is that while the wait to regenerate mana gets longer, having a bigger pool means they have the mana when they need it and they can simply stretch out how long they wait between delves if they need more time to regenerate.

That also means heavily rationing their mana in a delve so they don't falter just when they need it.

Of course, with a mana pool at 6x the size of your daily regeneration, which is not as uncommon as it should be, you really start to slow down your delving pace. And if you need to regenerate inside a rift, you either need to bring very expensive rechargeable mana stones or potentially wait days in the rift. And a Tier 1 rift instance often expires before that, shooting you back into the real world.

Basically, don't overlook regeneration.

Most delvers skimp on mana regeneration early and then start shoving more and more essence into it as they see how challenging life is when you have to buy your mana or wait so long both inside rifts and between delves, at best annoying teammates.

Then there are people who frequently need to use small amounts of mana. It may be smarter to focus on regeneration over mana pool size if you need to constantly use mana all day but have no major expenditures, like a big spell. If you are regenerating fifteen mana per bell, that can power a lot of small enchantments, especially in service or crafting industries, where frequent small bursts are necessary.

Mana Regeneration – Math

A freshly Ignited Tier 1 usually has a mana regeneration of about 50 mana per day. That means with the typical 100 starting mana pool size, they can regenerate their entire pool every two days.

As always, everything depends but, if someone is allocating 50% of their essence to their magical core and using a 50/50 split to mana regeneration and mana pool size – so 25% of total essence is allocated to mana regeneration – that person's mana regeneration will grow by about 3x in Tier 1 to around 160 per day or eight per bell.

The general math is to take the percentage of total essence allocated to regeneration and cut that in half. That is how much mana regeneration grows in any sub-Tier. So mana regeneration grows about 12.5% for each sub-Tier you put 25% of your total essence into it.

If you put in 20% of your total essence, regeneration grows about 10%. 50% is about 25% growth. You get the idea!

Why each sub-Tier? No one really knows.

If someone does 70% essence allocation to the magical core and 70% of that essence to mana regeneration, that is 49% of total essence. If they do that for all of Tier 1, their mana regeneration at the peak of Tier 1 will be nearly 9x a typical newly-minted Tier 1 at almost 450 mana per day. On the flip side, 30% and 30%, so 9% of total essence, only leads to a bit under 80 mana regenerated per day. Think hard about your regeneration needs!

And again, these are all approximations!

Mana Pool Size – Math

Look at the mana regeneration math section and double the starting amount as the average mana pool on Ignition is 100.

25% allocation of total essence is 325 at peak Tier 1, 49% is nearly 900, and 9% is a bit over 150.

Mana Pool Size – Strategy

It's pretty obvious that having more mana is better. But focusing exclusively on pool size is only good if you don't care how long that pool takes to regenerate.

A typical strategy – though not great in this Princess' opinion – is early, at least if you have the scratch to buy good items, put essentially all of what you allocate to your magical core into growing your mana pool. That way, you can power the enchantments on your fancy items. Most younger delvers are on a once-a-week schedule anyway to start – letting the kids run wild leads to deaths – so the regeneration issues aren't a huge deal at that point.

If you have someone that is focused on creating a true 'professional delver', they will often say allocate almost nothing to your mana pool early as relying on anything but yourself is a liability, a crutch.

But those people are weird and boring!

Outside of delvers, many people who do major crafts, such as enchanters or smiths, will focus on mana pool size because they need to be able to shove a few hundred mana into something all at once. They usually buy mana to recharge themselves instead of waiting days as their mana regenerates naturally to make their next item or enchantment.

The Pretty Princess' Advice for Magical Core Allocation

Generally, just allocate 50/50 between mana pool size and mana regeneration until you have a good reason to do otherwise. It will become pretty clear which way you want to go as you develop your general build, and changing your build to match is much easier if you started from a 50/50 split. Don't lock yourself into a path too early; but once you find it, commit!

Mana Affinity Cultivation

The general advice is 'don't'. While cultivating a mana affinity can be helpful – you are able to inject different affinities into your spells – it almost always isn't worth it, not even close.

There is a much deeper discussion of mana affinities later in this wonderful and helpful tome but the general idea is that with an affinity, you can enhance certain aspects of your skills.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

As yellow essence/mana affinity is closest to electricity, so using yellow mana affinity for a movement skill will increase the speed but also usually lower the control. Adding black mana affinity to a stealth skill will make you harder to detect but adding black mana affinity to a [Fireball] will make it less effective, dimming its burning brightness.

Most who cultivate mana affinities are either specialists raised by the military or the scions of noble houses with enough money to overcome the necessary drawbacks and create a perfect build as they can buy the skills that go well with an affinity.

The math behind mana affinity cultivation is long, tedious, confusing, and seemingly contradictory! Thus, I won't include it here.

So, see above to my wonderful advice! Just start with a 50/50 split between regeneration and pool size and zero to mana affinity until you know what you want to do.

Stefania Kopic, Sworn Second Sister of The Church of Unullification, The True Believers Sect

There he is. The defiler of the null. The heretic. Disgusting. Despicable. Kind of hot though…

Stefania was honored to be chosen for this mission. Terry Carver, the heretic, was causing their plans, their carefully laid plans, to go astray.

But no longer. The Kingdom, nay the world, needed cleansing.

And this awful man, entering the 'play nice room' to 'meet' with them, was preventing the natural progress. The world needed to be scoured to be reborn anew.

Anyone with a brain could see that.

The door sealed with a finality.

And so sealed was his fate.

This will be the last room he ever enters. My face will be the last one the heretic sees. Sweet, sweet vengeance.

The plan came together so perfectly. And so quickly.

A source informed The Cleansing Light sect the heretic was in Pitola, but only for a short time, so they partnered with her sect. The True Believers were, after all, the most accomplished and well-resourced sect under the fractured umbrella of The Church of Unullification.

She was going to enjoy this. So much. So very much.

He sat down at the table after shaking everyone's hands. Being a greedy fiend, all it took was offering a potential business deal to lure this monster in.

Upon arriving, the man verified he was the actual heretic via an AAI message. Stefania quickly deleted it, not wanting its taint to last any longer than it had to.

Their plan was perfect. Airtight. No escape.

At two Pitolan government buildings, there were rooms specifically for resolving… extreme disagreements. Many of the enchantments matched those in a fighting arena, though instead of creating fake blood and limiting injuries, they prevented physical or magical attacks from doing any damage at all to those inside. Even spells were useless, the mana spent to cast them funneling into the battery to keep the enchantments running all the longer.

But they couldn't prevent all harm, as the heretic would soon see.

I wish I had a room like this at home. Throw the kids in there and leave for a few hours, nothing changed when I come back. Sounds amazing.

She refocused on the task at hand.

It was all set up perfectly.

The special 'play nice' rooms locked until all parties agreed to open them and only after a set time limit. He couldn't escape before they'd accomplished their goal. The fly was now caught in their perfect spider's web.

A person high in the city government could override the lock but they'd all be long gone before there was any chance of that. Her sect leaders had seen to it.

Stefania couldn't help but smile knowing she was the one to lead them in this task. Her promotion to First Sworn Sister was guaranteed.

She let Lev, foolish as he was, play his part as the supposed leader of their group.

"Ah, Mr. Carter, so nice to meet you. We have a lot to discuss. But before we begin, should we possibly have soup?" the slender man asked.

Idiot! Who starts a meeting with soup?

"Why don't we start with tea?" the heretic replied.

Lev nodded to the acolyte in the corner who began serving tea. Stefania hadn't seen him before a few days prior but the young man seemed eager to support the cause. He had even been the first to suggest poison.

The heretic went back and forth with Lev about some little evil machine he invented. Probably brought from his terrible world no doubt filled with monsters similar to him.

Still, not having to carry coins with you everywhere or worry about the kids taking money without asking would be nice…

Stefania shook her head. This was not the time to get distracted.

With the grace becoming of a rich lady merchant, she rose from her seat, barely making any noise, and walked over to the acolyte. "Yes, I am getting so thirsty, may I please have some of that delicious smelling soup?"

The boy, awkward as he was, quickly started to ladle some of their weapon into a bowl. Stefania hid her actions from the heretic, her back to him so he wouldn't see the small bottle she removed before downing the contents.

The antidote, a strong one provided by The Cleansing Light Sect, would combat any of the virulent poison in the intoxicating-smelling bisque. All they had to do was get the heretic to eat half a bowl and everything would fall into place.

It's all the better that he has a skill that would save him, but it'll be just out of his reach. Watching him try over and over, his mana getting sucked from him while he dies, will be glorious.

As soon as she sat down, Stefania started playing her part as her partner's was soon to come.

It had been a tense negotiation but The True Believers stood pat. If The Cleansing Light brought two people, so would The True Believers.

They really are pathetic to only have one actual sect mate and the acolyte.

Stefania daintily ate her soup. "Oh wow, this is soooo good," she said, her acting to perfection. "You should get some before I eat it all." Her burbling sounds made it clear how delicious it had to be.

Upon reflection, it actually was quite tasty, a nice bisque made with monster meat from a local rift. The included croutons added a nice bit of texture and flavor that offset the creaminess perfectly. The acolyte really did know his stuff.

Lev's back-and-forth with the heretic was dragging on so she nudged her fellow True Believer, Armen, to join her in the soup appreciation chorus.

He jumped like a cat seeing a cucumber, scrambling over to get his own bowl. Armen started nodding appreciatively, finishing his bowl off in the blink of an eye. "Oh my, oh my, this soup is the best thing I've ever had! I think I might already go back for seconds," her sect mate said, standing up to get more.

Stefania pulled on his arm, but Armen continued forward without seeming to notice, the room's enchantments limiting the force she could exert. A second bowl might genuinely kill him, as the briefing message told them the antidote was only sure to counteract one bowl. With AAIs heavily limited, only language translation available, she couldn't send him a message to ask what the hell he was doing.

Armen sat back down and plowed into his second bowl, loudly appreciating the simmering doom for the heretic.

I guess he knows what he's doing, I have to trust the leadership picked him for a reason. The Lady knows best.

Finally, after so much talk about his scheme to siphon money from the poor, the heretic himself took a bowl. He quickly ate enough that it would be his death. The man seemed to sense the air shift as his spoon hit the bottom of the empty dish.

She turned to Armen, the man's face turning red with anticipation and joy. Stefania too would savor this moment for the rest of her life, the moment she served her true purpose.

***

"Wait, the plan is to let them poison me?" I asked, holding the small rechargeable mana stone the Mayor had given me.

Inga Balodis nodded, smiling at my incredulity. "With your skill, you're at no risk. They jumped at the idea – thank you Norbert – and it will hopefully help us immensely in tearing The Church down."

I was all in favor of that, still worried about what The Church might do; they had sent assassins after us weeks prior, assassins that we killed when they attacked. It was just the how of getting back at them I was not so on board with.

Inara looked at Inga, confusion written across her face. "I'm not sure I get it. Why can't he just call for help if he's poisoned? Why is this some 'foolproof plan' on their side?"

Inga explained the enchantments on the 'play nice' rooms, including the anti-magic effects, how no one could harm anyone else, how they purposefully blocked AAI messages though translation was available as the rooms were often used with people from the MM, and especially the locked door.

Pavel asked, "Why can't both parties, if they don't want to be there, just open the door immediately?"

"Timer," Inga said. "We've tested it and by forcing two pissy people to be in there for over half a bell, they have nothing to do but talk. Doesn't always work but it's better than anything else we've found."

60% of the time, it works every time.

I needed to check again. "And you're 100% positive active skills aren't affected by the enchantments? So, if I cast [Poison Resistance] before, it will still be active?"

Norbert said, "Yes, the enchantments indeed behave strangely with spells with a prolonged duration cast before entering. If you are channeling any mana into the spell, the enchantments will feed mana into the spell for a short time, lengthening the duration. We have no idea why. The effect is—" He cut off as Inga glanced in his direction.

I asked another burning question. "And you can't monitor vital signs or anything similar in there? What if something does go wrong?"

Inga said, "They tried but the enchantments block it. Was a major concession in construction. Never heard of anyone getting hurt in one but, with a strong Innate Capability, it's always possible someone might be able to do something. We think it's safe but it's your life, not mine. The poison they're using, they need a Tier 1 to survive it with a basic antidote so it will be no problem for you with your spell. That's why I gave you the rechargeable mana stone, to fill you up." She held out her hand for the empty stone which I reluctantly returned.

"And just to check," I started to a small frown from Inga, "the idea is that at least we'll have people on attempted murder that we can hopefully get to roll on others in The Church. But the hope is that they'll just brag over my dying body? That feels… huh, no that could work…"

Reveling in their supposed superiority and preaching at 'heretics' is something the righteous often like to do…

We went over logistics multiple times but I couldn't really find any fault in the plans. The basic core was pretty simple: let them think they poisoned me and see if I could get them to gloat, telling me everything. No matter what, we would have people to question, but the more information the better.

Dismissing the effect of [Transform Self] truly was twice as bad as the pain of casting, just like I was told. Inga provided me a room to not let the sound of my screaming carry, before giving me a simple disguise to move around the city. We didn't want The Church to know I was using the spell and showing up with a different face was going to tip our hand, so it needed to be done.

As we left the small building where the Pitolan government conducted more clandestine operations, I headed out for some morning shopping with my teammates.

My meeting with the Church assassins – it felt odd to call them that but it was true – was set for one bell past midday so I had plenty of time.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.