She closed her eyes, and her mana circuits started to flare to life. Every single vein in her body was rushed by the surging power. Beneath the deeper layers of a mage lay the mana core, the true heart of their power that processed every single drop of mana running through their body.
Casting a spell required a framework. To create this framework, ordinary mages used chants, relying on ancient words to manifest the spell into reality. Rina, however, was different. She was gifted with a mana core capable of granting the user an imaginative framework. She could skip the chants entirely, calculating the complex formulas directly in her mind.
And thus.
"Formula construct." as she said calmly.
She raised her right arm in front of her and spread her palm downward. "Ah, the cold wind is nice," she uttered.
She opened her eyes slowly. They began to glow with a brilliant blue, resembling the natural color of mana when it was compressed into its densest form. A matching blue glow started to emit from her hand as circular patterns began to form just beneath her palm. Three intricate, overlapping magical patterns spun into place. Mana started to gather within her slowly, building like a storm.
The calmness and poise she held in this state were comparable to the top sniper of the mafia. Not a single distraction reached her. As she took a slow, deep breath, her energy burst outward in a single flash of raw power. It was blindingly bright, but quickly faded into the surrounding air.
"It is time," she said.
When was the last time I used this quantity of mana? she thought. That is right. When I had to kill a person.
"Tattoo Finder," she whispered.
In an instant, her mana shot outward, traveling in a rapidly expanding radius.
"Five kilometers," she commanded.
But the Ashen Bazaar miles below was a ruthlessly large place. Its irregular subterranean landscape made it essentially a maze of concrete, steel, and shadows. Upon realizing that a simple circular radius would not suffice, she adjusted the mathematical framework in her mind. Her mana shifted instantly, traveling alongside the jagged edges of the bazaar and completely mapping the entire underground landscape.
Her vision shifted, overlaying the dark world with a digitalized, high-tech interface. She pulled the exact image of the twisted tree root from her photographic memory.
Analyzing, configuring, she muttered in her mind.
A three-dimensional visualization of the tattoo materialized in her mind's eye. It hovered there, sharp and vivid.
Applying variations, she continued.
The mental image of the tattoo began to duplicate rapidly, running through hundreds of possible iterations. She accounted for human error in the etching process. She calculated lines that might be drawn too long, strokes that could be too short, fading ink, stretched skin, and completely different angles. Every single variable that could differentiate one tattoo from another was factored into her spell. Her mind processed the data with the flawless execution of a truly magnificent being.
Now, she declared in her mind.
Every person caught within the sprawling mana landscape was scanned. If they bore a match to the variations, they were instantly marked, feeding their exact coordinates directly back into her brain.
One, two, three, four, five, six... she counted silently.
But Rina could never bottom out. Viktor Morozov, the strongest mage in Russia, had once described her capacity perfectly.
It is an ocean of mana, he had said.
Rina started to grin. The sheer density of the energy she was currently distributing could only be felt by the absolute strongest individuals in the country. Her spell expanded far beyond the subterranean walls of the Ashen Bazaar, racing alongside the very borders of Russia at an impossible speed. The number of syndicate members pinging on her mental map skyrocketed to an insurmountable figure.
Miles away at the syndicate headquarters, Viktor and Sergei paused. They could feel the heavy, suffocating wave of mana wash over the city.
Viktor threw his head back and laughed. The deep, booming sound echoed through the luxurious office.
Helena stared at him in clear confusion. "You know, it is always weird when you laugh at the most random times," she said, carefully pouring a dark liquor into her crystal glass.
"Well, Helena, I would not question it if I were you," Sergei said. His tone was deadpan and entirely serious.
"Why?" she asked, pausing with the bottle in her hand.
"A bona fide monster is at work," Sergei declared.
Viktor smiled, finally lifting his own glass to the light. "It looks like Rina will not be able to join us for dinner tonight."
High above the Ashen Bazaar, the sheer volume of energy Rina was channeling had become insurmountable. The localized atmosphere violently reacted to the sudden density of magic. A gale-force wind whipped across the skyscraper, howling against the steel and glass.
Rina calmly tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Every single member of The Root was now permanently marked by her magical signature. It was only a matter of time until she arrived at their doorsteps. Every last one of them.
She took a deep breath, bracing against the freezing storm. From her vantage point, the glowing blue threads of her magic stretching across the sprawling landscape painted a breathtakingly beautiful image.
For an ordinary mage, achieving a locational feat of this magnitude would be a once-in-a-lifetime rush of pure dopamine. It was an exhilarating, intoxicating high. For Rina, manipulating this level of energy was just standard mathematics. Yet, as she looked out over the glowing mental map of her prey, she could not help but smile. It was a terrifying, cold thrill that only a world-class ranker could truly understand.
The ethereal blue light radiating from her body slowly faded into the night wind. Her smile vanished, instantly replaced by an expression of absolute, deadly focus.
"Two thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven," she stated flatly.
She stepped forward to the ledge and looked at the bazaar.
"For the next three days, I am going to commit a genocide."
Deep within the subterranean depths of the city, a heavy silence hung over the syndicate's inner sanctum. A massive oak table was surrounded by the highest-ranking executives of The Root. At the head of the table sat the man known only as The Taproot.
Suddenly, he stopped speaking. He reached over and gripped his forearm, his fingers digging into the twisted tree tattoo etched into his skin. A sharp, freezing chill ran straight down his spine. It was a sensation of absolute, overwhelming magical pressure. He had not felt anything like it in decades.
Slowly, a dark, twisted smile crept across his face.
"Is something wrong, Taproot?" one of his lieutenants asked, noticing the sudden shift in the room's atmosphere.
"War has just been declared on our organization," Taproot said quietly, his voice laced with a strange, intoxicating thrill.
A murmur rippled across the table. The executives shifted in their seats, their expressions a mix of arrogance and bloodlust. They were the apex predators of the underground. They had been waiting for a reason to unleash their arsenal.
"Which organization?" another executive asked, leaning forward. "Did the Morozovs finally make a move? Who is marching on us?"
Taproot let out a low, chilling chuckle. It was not a sound of amusement. It was the sound of a man who realized they were in entirely uncharted territory. He placed both of his hands flat on the wooden table, leaning forward into the dim light.
"You misunderstand," Taproot whispered. The room instantly fell dead silent. "We are not fighting an organization."
He looked down at his arm, where the faint, residual trace of Rina's blue mana was still phantomly burning against his skin.
"We are being hunted by a monster."