The main limitation of boosting False Stars like that was that regaining that much Mana over time was going to take a VERY long time, even with my default Mana Regeneration rate. A point per second was less than one High Emperor Point per hour...

But my Mana Renewal rate was at just over one hundred Mana per second. That meant I could start making, then restoring, Highpoint Mana at the rate of a hundred points an hour, which was certainly better than nothing!

It was a GREAT problem to have!...

“YOU HAVE DISCOVERED SOMETHING,” Flowing Silver discerned gleefully. “I HAVE ANOTHER OBSERVATION.” He really liked being able to suss out things I overlooked from the side. “YOU HAVE OTHER ENERGIES YOU WIELD THAT WE DO NOT. CANNOT THOSE ALSO BE THE FOUNDATION OF FALSE STARS?”

I blinked once again.

I had... an Arcane Pool. Of Valences, Ki, and Bardsong Uses, even Channeling uses and Alchemist Bombs, although the former were earmarked for Dawnstopped and Duskstopped Spells.

My Valence Pool of sacrificed bonus spells from Stats to Raise my default Valences via Burned Rings was currently at 767 Valence-equivalents.

My Ki was at... 78, which was impressive, but much less than I could develop it to, as some of it was committed to Way Feats, and I’d not gone after multiple Dragons or Disciplines as unnecessary. One point of Ki could be used to Cast one or two Valences of magic, as desired. It was the basis of the Valence recharge mechanic in a world with no Mana Renewal. Still, 156 potential Valence-equivs was more magic for me.

My Heartsong was at... 71 Minstrel, and 31 Bard uses, the latter of which counted as two Minstrel uses. One Minstrel Heartsong round was equivalent to one Valence. So, another 133 Valences. I generally kept the Bard uses free to use for the active Sublime Chord, as they didn’t have a duration, unlike the Minstrel uses.

If all those points could be used to anchor HE False Stars, well... that was over a thousand more False Stars, potentially.

At 9.6 million Mana per False Star?...

If it could be done, my Mana problems were officially over. It only remained to take the time and effort to construct everything properly.

I highly doubted I could make mixed False Stars at various levels. I’d have the basic ones, and then the next tier of Compressed ones, working towards completion, and then going back and doing it again, just like Beasts did, not mixes of each stage... unless I really wanted to be making trouble for myself.

I also considered that fact that Compressed Mana represented a lot more energy than a normal Mana point. It should be able to provide the energy of a ki expenditure, Soul Essence empowerment, or Heartsong. If I was right, it would just mean I would commit enough Mana to replace the energy of the Essence, allowing the Essence to keep the Configuration intact. If it was something that could be expended, then that Slot would simply be burned from the other side until it was Renewed, or the connection could be remade through various Renewal mechanisms, including the ki exploit.

It was going to be an absolutely hideous amount of work. The numbers I was looking at were really, really big.

But with Waking Meditation and multiple thoughtstreams, I could be working on the problem literally ALL THE DAMN TIME.

“Oh, Heavens, Your Majesty,” I muttered back to Him. It was true, an Inspired Genius I was not. But once the road was pointed out to me, figuring out everything around it wasn’t that hard at all, and I could totally grind at inconceivable levels at the problem.

Tedious Rep Counts were my bitch! I had like three thoughtstreams salivating at the thought of getting to work on building this mountain!

“IS THIS SOMETHING OTHERS OF YOUR TRIBE CAN FOLLOW?” Flowing Silver asked reasonably.

“I... to a limited extent, Your Majesty.” Ki was the only other energy normally available to the natives here, but how much did you need if you could Compress the Mana far enough? Ten points could be 96 million Mana, which was way up in Emperor territory! “The Soul and Song resources I can wield are somewhat unique.” As was the Wrath that empowered Reynard with such breathtaking speed, but that was a different issue, and with no true Gods, Channeling was nigh-impossible without a Pact connection to the Alignments workaround.

Going from Warrior to Emperor in under ten years was the equivalent of a Godly Bloodline, and Reynard was almost there. Taking a Bearded Marmoset from Warrior to Monkey King in six years was as good as any Imperial Bloodline out there. As long as I wasn’t using my Wrath or Matrix Regen, I dumped it on the two of them, Plant Mana on my Roses, and they all grew and grew and grew.

If I wasn’t using any other Mana, I also dumped Summoning Element Mana on all of them constantly via its own Reserve!

I really should have had another three Contracted Beasts, just to maximize everything I could do for them. It sometimes amused me to think I could have had an Undead and a Shade Contracted to me, too, and they would have been deliriously happy to serve me.

Being able to access millions of Mana, and spell multipliers that high...

Okay, I MIGHT be able to contest with a Realm Lord, which would totally be the stupidest way to go about it.

I should really be able to call in the forces of Heaven sooner, since I would be able to solo-cast a spell that would normally take a massive Ritual to execute. Combine the two, and we could definitely get the gods here sooner...

That really provided a nice buffer to our efforts here. Even if we had to cut and run, eventually we’d be able to contact the gods and bring them in to address the situation. The world would be in complete ruin, the Beasts we didn’t succor would likely all be slaughtered, but at least we could rebuild.

I didn’t know if I could do ALL of this, if there were limits on how much I could do, or wield, or anything else... but damn, I knew at least part of it was going to work, and that was good enough to start exploring and finding out the mechanics while I pushed the limits and found a way forward!

I brought up a Soul Essence False Star matrix in front of me, 2401 Mana wrought into a shrunken version of a proper Starry Heavens spell configuration, a much larger rendition of the Portal spell that I used, Void Magic being one of my favorites to work with since it was all about Will.

Refine the Mana, Compress it, apply it...

Okay, three rounds to do a 2x Compress. That was quite unacceptable by my standards, especially with three thoughtstreams working on the problem, so I started doing them all concurrently.

There we go. Once I figured out the rhythm, I should be able to do this at once per six seconds, or one/round, which would be 600/hour, 14.4k per day.

As I started on the second, I could immediately feel the resonance between the new False Stars, and knew I’d a) have to develop some kind of holding pattern for these things, and b) whatever energies I was devoting to this, I’d be much better off if I did as many to begin with as I could, as I’d have to balance all this out if my Pools grew bigger... something I was most definitely going to do.

If Flowing Silver was right, I had 72 Soul Essence, plus 78 ki, plus 133 Heartsong Bardic uses, plus 383 Valence II uses available, each of which could hold a 2401-pt Starry Heavens. 666 times 2401 was 1.6m of extra Mana, just to start out with.

At 600 per hour, and 14.4k per day, that was well over three months just to complete the first cycle!

It would take twice as long again for the x4 Compressed Mana, a full six months more. Reaching the x10 stage of a Low Emperor? That was going to take two and a half years, because I had no idea if the process could get faster as I went along.

Unless, of course, I was sucking down the Heavy Mana to begin with, and didn’t need to Compress it, which was going to be the slowest and hardest point of all this... at least until I was doing a LOT of Mana in one shot, in which case Mana Regen came into play. Heavy Mana would save me at least some time...

Well, I could see why Emperors liked getting Heavy Mana directly now. It really did save a lot of time...

Four, five, six profound energies aligning into one purpose. A Syzygy of internal Mana.

I think I had the name of my supplementary Mana Pool now.

Flowing Silver Emperor looked on with keen interest as I built False Stars of Soul Essence, two Valences, Ki, Bard-class Heartsong, and even belatedly added in Alchemist Bomb uses and Channeling, because why not. It wouldn’t change the rate of accumulation, only the potential maximum cap.

My Syzygy started to grow, and with it my Mana Pool, slowly and surely.

==========

Mechanics of Compressed Mana

Commanders and Rulers of Beasts, in addition to having a greater Mana Capacity than lesser Beasts, also begin the process of Compressing their Mana, which has positive effects on their body and Bloodlines, preparing them for the next level of their evolution.

The standard method is to purify the Mana point, Refine it, Compress it, and then Apply it to Mana Reserves. Each stage generally takes about a minute to do, with the base DC being a check against Control Element X of 30 (10 Ranks).

For every -20 penalty, the Beast can double its speed of doing this. If it is not working on existing Mana Reserves and is instead attracting new Mana, the Beast must also be in Waking Meditation, which applies a -20 to the results of the check as Mana is drawn in to be worked on. Most Beasts simply accumulate a supply of basic Mana first.

Beasts generally gain or regain Mana at a tenth of the rate of Humans or less. Use of the Summoning Element or similar Contracts gets them access to not only rapid Human Mana gains, but directly input Mana without needing to Meditate themselves!

The Control Element DC for the 4x Ruler Mana is 40 (15 Ranks). The DC for the 40x Low Emperor Mana is 58 (21 Ranks). The DC for the 400x True Emperor Mana is 76 (30 Ranks). The DC for the 4000x High Emperor Mana is 100 (40 Ranks).

Note this is a true Skill Check, so only Skill Ranks, Stat (Int, Wis, or Cha), and typeless bonuses from a Class or Feat/Mastery bonuses apply. Bonuses which affect speed, like Sacred, Insight, Competence, Luck, Morale, etc., do not apply towards the base check, although they DO apply towards any modified speed checks.

Since Typeless Mages do not have a Primary Element, they instead use Concentration for this check, but Spellcraft must also satisfy the normal Control Element Rank requirement.

Each stage must be repeated for each upgrade, there is no going from normal Mana right to HE Mana. You convert ALL your Mana from one type to the next, in stages.

Most Beasts have large numbers of Hit Dice and thus large Skill Rank limits, along with prodigious Wisdom or Charisma, Mastery of their Elements, bonuses by Bloodline to their Elements, and Feats of Elemental Control both normal and Legendary in power. As they become more intelligent, they gain more Skill Ranks and are thus able to put enough Ranks into the Control Skills at higher Tiers to comprehend what to do.

The False Stars approach of Lady Fae creates an internal array of assorted Starry Heavens, ‘false Valence’ Sage spells whose only function is to hold Mana, very similar to Valences, stored in the area ‘around’ the Matrix, like a solar system surrounded by False Stars. Each False Star must have a new and different Starry Heavens as its form, however, so increasing your internal Syzygy (Celestial Alignment) also means knowledge of a great number of Sage spells!

Having all your Sage spells pre-drawn like this also is an auto-succeed on drawing the Starry Heavens involved for a Sage spell, and grants a Competence bonus equal to basic Caster Level towards the speed of completing it, since you have the proper pattern Right There to go from.