Spirit Tomb Albion's Ore and Cursed Body

Serim Zolgen's Research Notes:

February 12, 1795, cloudy.

Failed.

I was exhausted last night, so I went to sleep after writing my research notes. I had no idea what happened.

But when I woke up this morning, I learned what had happened last night.

Number Zero had collapsed.

And it had been an unprecedentedly massive collapse. The released mana not only caused Number Zero's body to collapse, but also triggered a mana explosion that injured my only remaining research assistant, Ruslan.

The servants at the secondary estate told me that after discovering Ruslan injured last night, they came to notify me. But I was sleeping too deeply to be woken no matter how they called. By the time I learned the news this morning, Ruslan was already lying in bed, though he was still unconscious.

But it was not all bad news.

I performed an autopsy on what remained of Number Zero's corpse and discovered that mana was still contained within its remaining crystalline flesh. This surprised me.

Without magic circuits to restrain it, mana dissipates extremely quickly. Engraved magic circuits that have lost their activity undoubtedly lose their binding power as well, and the same applies to crystalline flesh. Since it had already "died," it should no longer have been capable of restraining mana.

Yet the mana that had dissipated so rapidly still remained within the dead mana-flesh, even as it continued to leak away. This indicated one thing.

At the moment of the explosion, for some reason, the mana had not completely volatilized. A portion of it had remained and had continued dissipating until now.

This shocked me. Just how enormous would the amount of mana have to be for it not to have completely dissipated even now? And how great must the amount of mana released in