Zaka arrived with two oblins this time. One was carrying a rolled up lizard hide, with Zaka and the other carrying dried lizard meat. I asked him how lizard hunting has been going, and he said that they've actually started to have to travel for hours before they find any. This left me slightly ed about the popution of lizards as a whole. Although it also probably means that the goblins are much safer than they used to be.

  After making sure that the everyone has full mana, I get everyoo help haul the crystal up to the charging room, where I've made a special i in the wall for the crystal to sit. I ask Zaka if it is alright if he stays ht tonight, si will likely take that long for the crystal to charge up. Thankfully he agrees without any issue, as acc to him, the frequency of lizard hunting has slowed down. They now actually have to pn out a long trip with multiple goblins to haul back all the meat, so they only go once or twice a month.

  Zeb and I do our best to eain uests through the evening. Although Zaka has seen most of the stuff up here, the oblio enjoy a tour.

  In the m we go to che the crystal. It is glowing quite brightly. In fact, pared to other crystals, I actually tell there is a gradient to its glow. The ter actually shines much more brightly than its edges. Everyone seems intrigued by the crystal, but before we move it, I double check that everyone has full mana. I'd hate for someoo get injured just moving it into the tunnel outside.

  As we move it, we all notice ourselves getting a warm feeling throughout our whole bodies, like we're overheating. I check my status, and I notice that I'm actually overcharged slightly on mana. After we set the crystal down, the mana overcharge dissipates quickly, and I no longer feel overheated. After cheg with everyone, apparently it wasn't just me, and everyo overheated from that. Which isn't a good sign.

  I decide that I should probably be the first oo do any kind of test. I have Zeb tell everyohat I'm going to use a very small amount of mana on stone shaping, and then touch the crystal. I use a mere five mana and then brace myself to touch the crystal. I hesitate a few times, getting my hand close, but not quite toug it, partially out of fear.

  When I finally do touch it, it's excruciatingly painful. If I was oh, I'd assume it's probably like toug arical outlet. I winced in pain when I felt it, and lost 25 hitpoints. Zeb, thankfully, was watg closely, and said when I touched it, the bright ter of the crystal seemed to arc out towards my hand in a fsh. It didn't just fill my maher, but it overfilled it again. Well, we said we were going to try using hide as an intermediary, although I'm ly keen orog myself again. The hope is that the animal hide will still be able to trahe mana, like how our own flesh . I'm hoping it will dull the sensation at least somewhat.

  I use five mana again, and this time put some of the hide between the crystal and myself when I touch it. It still hurts... a lot. Maybe a little less though than the first time. I check, and I'm missing an additional 20 hp. Well, it didn't help that mubsp; Also, the hide itself was actually damaged somewhat. While not destroyed, the bit I was toug has ged color. When I go to touch that se, it easily tears. ly a perma solution to the problem, and especially not if I o grow an even bigger crystal.

  Knowing that at least the hide does something means I try to look into other things that might act to transfer mana more safely. Until that point, I think I'll o halt the rest of the crystal researbsp; It just seems a little too dangerous to keep making the crystal rger when I have no way to use it properly. Without much else to do, Zaka and the obli ready to head back to the vilge for the day, and I give them some lightstoo carry back again as well.

  The past three days, I've beeing all sorts of things to act as an iween for mana transfer. So far none have been successful. I've tried copper, the unknowal, various stoerials, and different pnts and wood. The anic materials work t degrees, but they always deteriorate after some use. The inanic materials that I've tried have all pletely prevented mana transfer. I still want to try some more materials, but those will actually need even more prep work to make, so I haven't gotten to them yet.

  Seven days, and I've hit a success, although not a very big one. I went through even more stoerials, all new ohat I made from other rocks from the nearby materials. All of them were failures. So then I moved on to even more difficult to craft tests. The first one yielded the first very minor success, which I then improved on. The first success required I build a rge tank to fill with water and submerge the crystal in. When I tried toug the water, I very slowly regeed mana. By submerging my entire arm into the tank, I regeed mana slightly faster, although still at a very slow rate.

  So I decided to try and improve oer idea. I'm almost out of water to test with though, so I'm going to o collect more water. For now, I'll draiank bato buckets, and start work on a rger rain colle system outside. I'll probably build aerrace, and hollow it out to the yer underh it to form a rge water tank. It probably won't fill up until after it snows again up here though.

  sidering how much of the area around the cave entrance has been developed, I should also make els to direct the rain into the tank when I make it, and then overflow els to safely direct it further down the mountain. While I work on this project, I'll put every bucket I out to collect extra water in case it rains.

  As luck would have it, five days into digging out this colle ta a det rainstorm with heavy rains for a few hours. Not nearly as bad as the massive storm st year, but it filled up my buckets, and there is a det amount of water in the partially pleted colle tank. Enough that I'm going to halt stru and go back to crystal testing.

  I have had some time to think on it, and I have a few differes I want to run, which are going to require I do some setup. What I want to do, is try both soaking, and boiling anic materials in water, and try using those liquids alongside the crystal. These will require me to have tanks to hold the liquid, boil it, and then drain it to move to where I'm testing the crystal. Which means I'll need plenty of the materials as well.

  Of the anic materials I want to try, most are pnts. I want to try soaking wood, and boiling it. I also want to try the pnts that burned my mana before. Both as a boiled, and non-boiled soak. Food measure, I also want to try some random pnts from nearby as well. The st thing I also want to try, which might some people, is my own blood. I have a heightened capacity for mana thanks to Mana Affinity, so I'd like to see how that affects things. I'd like a trol for that, but I won't ask Zeb to do it. If he volunteers I'll accept, but quite frankly, it's crossing a lio ask him to do this.

  It took 3 days to build the boiling and soaking tanks, and to collect the materials for each use. Then we speerday boiling the tanks that hat. Throughout the process I've been bleeding myself a little at a time into oank. When Zeb asked, I expined why I was doing it. He then proposed he should bleed himself into a tank as well. I'm thankful he volunteered, and I'm letting him do it, but I still feel quite bad that he's doing it.

  Regardless, the only tanks ready for testing are the boiled ones. The other ones o soak for longer, or have more blood, before I sider them ready to test. With that in mind, I'm going to start by testing the mana damaging pnt's boiled water.

  I pour the boiled water around the crystal, and the crystal seems to dim as I fill the tank. By the time the tank is filled, the crystal is noticeably dimmer, which I sider could be a good sign. When I try to refill some mana from the water though, I'm greeted by nothing. No mana gained or lost. I pause and evaluate this for a little bit.

  I'm hypothesizing here, but I'm guessing there is something in the mana burning pnt that really wants to absorb mana. However, it only has a certain capacity. So it readily absorbed it from the crystal, and the was full, it stopped. Well, it's a failure for this purpose, but I'll have to mark down this hypothesis for ter. At the very least, if I trate it, it could be useful as a on. Now I unfortunately o not only draiank, but wait for the crystal to recharge before I do any further testing.