The Reverse Mana System

"What do you mean that you still can't find my boy? It is already so late and there are no signs of him or that punk Dirren. I swear Edward, if you don't bring my Thomas back right now, you will have hell to pay." A middle aged woman dressed in dark blue clothes yelled at a man standing in front of her. The man standing in front of her was her husband, Thomas's father.

"It's your fault that he has not yet come back. I told that fool to act decently. Now that my brother is no longer an Apostle, do you know how much the family's influence has declined. Yet you two mother and son insist on acting like you own the world." The man yelled back.

"Oh! So it's my fault that your family lost power. Are you even a man..." The woman wasn't going to back down.

"Fine, since you insist, I'll go back and look for that brat. But mind you, if he offends someone he shouldn't have, don't blame me if he comes back missing a limb or two." The man roared as he walked towards the door to their room.

His wife's expression was giving him chills, but being a man, he couldn't exactly back down or so he thought at least.

Just as the man was about to turn the knob, a push came from the other side and the door was flung open.

A gloomy looking young man in early twenties was standing there, looking at the two people inside the room with a lost expression.

"Kyle, did you find your brother?" Both the man and woman immediately ran to the new arrival and asked.

Despite the conversation that had just ended, their expressions only showed concern.

"The gatekeepers said that they haven't seen him leaving or entering the city. There weren't any shifts early in the morning, so if he left the city at that time, there are no records available. But...."

"But what?" The mother asked, gripping his arms.

"When I was returning, I met Lord Achelen. He told me that one.. of the imprints of Lord God from....our family has-has...disappeared."

"What do you mean that the imprint has disappeared? And who is Achelen to decide whether the imprint has disappeared or not?" Edward tightened his grip on Kyle's collars and shouted in disbelief.

"Lord Achelen is the second most powerful Apostle of Lord God and he oversees all the matters regarding faith and religion in Lightwell city. And he also has good relations with all other Apostles. I doubt that he would say something so serious without any confirmation. Someone or something has...killed Thomas." Kyle replied.

"No way! You bastard. Tell me the truth, where is Thomas?" Edward pushed Kyle so hard that he was flung back into the corridor and slammed against the wall.

Kyle slowly stood up and adjusted his glasses. He wasn't much affected by this. Thomas had this coming, but ....but there was an inexplicable rage and sorrow in his heart.

'Booommmmmm!'

Rumble!

Kyle and Edward turned towards the room only to see that all the things inside had been blasted to smithereens and two of the walls had collapsed. Traces of an explosion could be seen and everything had been turned to scraps.

"Who did this?" Cecelia asked in a deep tone while tears flowed down from her eyes. These weren't tears of sorrow, but the tears of rage.

"I asked ..who...did....this! Which son of a wh*re has the guts to harm my son?" Cecelia asked in a deep resounding voice.

Kyle and Edward felt chills down their spines looking at Cecelia who was burning in rage and hatred.

"There..there were n...no records of him lea....leaving the city wi...th someone e- else, so we...we...we can't find out who did thi-this." Kyle replied while shivering in fear.

" I want the name of the bastard who killed my son. If the two of you don't bring me his name, you two can stop coming to this place forever." Cecelia walked past the two of them who stood there frozen by her tier 6 pressure.

The father and son duo rushed out of the building and immediately began walking towards the city gates.

At the same time, Cecelia walked past two corridors and reached a big room at the centre of the mansion. She pushed open the door and entered, closing the door behind her.

Inside the room, a man was resting on his bed. The sound of the door woke him up and he was greeted by the sight of a weeping Cecelia whose bloodshot eyes were dripping with tears.

"What happened? Why are you weeping?" The man asked, getting up and looking Cecelia in the eyes.

Cecelia fell on her knees while sobbing.

"Master Klarinon, my son was killed by someone today. You are the best friend of my brother and also the head of this family. I just want the corpse of the culprit. Please uphold justice for my son for the sake of your friendship with my brother. I only want the corpse..." Cecelia cried.

If Alex were here, he would have identified this man as the former Apostle who had tried to forcefully imprint him at the city gates and who was flung away by Verenia's imprint.

"I have just temporarily lost the status of an Apostle and some stray dog already came biting at my family. They have really got some nerves." Klarinon smashed apart the table with his hand and got up in rage.

"You can go now. I will make sure that the murderer begs for his death in front of you. Just wait for some time, I won't let my best friend's sister be wronged." Klarinon pulled Cecelia up in his embrace and consoled her. Surprisingly enough, she didn't resist and continued crying while holding on to his clothes.

Kyle rushed out and immediately headed towards one of the city gates. He went to the sentry guards and inquired about the passage of his brother. Since Kyle worked in the city administration, he was able to see the records, but to no avail.

He checked and rechecked, but was unable to find out even the slightest traces of the carriage that Dirren owned.

Since there were no records of the carriage going out, he went to Dirren's house for the second time, but there were still no signs of Dirren or his carriage returning.

Dejected, he decided to return back home and continue the next day, but he wasn't very optimistic.

The carriage couldn't have vanished in air with two people. Something was amiss about this complete incident which he couldn't point out.

**********

After returning from the adventurers association, Alex immediately went back to his room, took out the [Basic Inscriptions book] and began reading.

He had gathered two-thirds of the material required for his weapon and would soon be able to procure the remaining material.

But it was no use if his inscription drawing could not reach satisfactory levels.

Inscriptions had to be drawn very precisely and the various components had to be connected by veins which in themselves were very complex. It usually required years of hard work and experience for one to memorize the uses of various complex symbols and learn to precisely draw them.

Drawing Inscriptions was also another hurdle because it required a precise control over the mana flow. If the mana infused with monster blood was even the slightest bit different than that in another symbol of the same inscription, the efficiency and power of the inscription would be considerably reduced.

But this was not a concern for Alex who could control the flow of mana in his body as easy as breathing, and to solve the problem of memorizing symbols, he had already used his skill learning card to buy a special skill that the system had suggested to him.

This was priced at 25 skill points and was used for the purpose of symbol alteration. With this skill, Alex didn't need to memorize any symbols.

Instead, he could draw any random symbol and assign it a meaning. The only requirement was that he had to remember this symbol and its use for the rest of his life because once he assigned a characteristic to a symbol, he couldn't change it in his entire lifetime, but it was no problem to Alex. He already knew an entirely different language and how to write it. He could replace the symbols with English words and no one would ever be able to tell what exactly this inscription was. This was exactly how those higher level inscription masters kept their works from being copied. They would often use various self made symbols in the main parts of the inscription so that no other person could copy their inscription.

The only problem that he would be facing was the systematic integration of his inscriptions and mana supply.

The weapon that he was making required five different mana cores. Four for basic functions and one exclusively for mana supply. The consumption of mana was also very high and he had to integrate the functions of the inscriptions centering those mana cores so that two or more mana cores could be used at the same time.

This was like a complex circuit that required very high precision and knowledge of the flow of mana throughout the entire blade.

While Alex was still contemplating on this, the window of his room was flung open and an obscure figure stepped inside his room.

This person was using their mana to completely block the senses of anyone in the surroundings, and a veil of mana covered their entire body, making it impossible to see what they looked like.

The obscure figure drew out a dagger and charged at Alex while pointing it at Alex's forehead.

Alex didn't even budge an inch and the dagger stopped just millimeters away from his forehead.