“What do you want to do with this?” Lillia was confused. She did not know why Blake was splitting off a portion of the mana with the bacteria in it.

“Because the mana is red compared to the blue hue it should have. What if this bacteria is actually changing the nature of the mana? If we can study the bacteria in more detail, we might be able to see what exactly it is doing to the mana and try to make preparations for how to deal with any future incidents like this.” Blake did not know if the doctors had noticed this or not, but he wanted to take a sample just in case.

Once the mana was split off and sealed, Lillia put it into a special container and handed it to Blake. Blake then stored it away in his space pouch. “Okay, Mike, we will continue.”

“Bring it on!” Mike replied through gritted teeth. The first bit of extraction only caused him minor pain, but he knew that was only a small amount of what was to come.

Lillia began extracting mana again while Blake watched the mana being extracted carefully, checking to see just how the bacteria was affecting the mana itself. Each area where the bacteria was located was red in color. It did not seem as if it was depleting the mana at all, so he was confused as to what the bacteria was doing.

“Blake, will doing this do anything? If the bacteria is in the air, won’t it just feed on the mana in the air?” Lillia did not know if this would help with the fundamental problem if people would just end up sick again.

“For now, we are just exploring all options. Once we get things under control to where no one will die as long as we keep extracting mana, then we can look for the course of this bacteria and try to get rid of it. The bacteria had to come from somewhere. The question is where.” Blake explained.

“That is true…. This is my first time dealing with anything like this, so I have no idea how to handle these things. But it seems humans of your era had dealt with many plagues like this?” Lillia wished she got to investigate the human world longer so she could see all the sights with her own eyes.

“Yes, many times have humanity almost died out due to plagues. It’s almost as if the planet just wants humans dead.” Blake replied with a slight chuckle. “Luckily, I am no longer human.”

“Haha, this is true.” Lillia smiled as she continued extracting mana.

“Can you two stop flirting!” Mike was in pain, and the two people in front of him were flirting away!

“We are just having a conversation. If this is flirting, then what the hell do you call what you and your wife do? Always so touchy feelly in public.” Blake shot back. Mike couldn’t argue back, so he decided to stay quiet.

“Anyway! Now that we were so rudely interrupted.” Blake made sure to give one final jab at Mike, causing him to glare at Blake. “What I am afraid of the most is that my era’s world might produce more than just some bacteria. Like maybe one that will evolve into a new kind of being altogether.”

“You mean a forced evolution that would normally take millions of years?” Lillia asked.

“Well, think about it. Mana changed everything so much over the past few years. Our oceans had bacteria and viruses in them that would could not even count. It also had many species of aquatic life that we had yet to even document. This is also the same for the forests of the Amazon and other secluded places on Earth. If this is just one virus that happened to be in the air that mutated or evolved in a way that it fed on mana than what it normally fed on, then what about the others?” Blake was starting to get worried since it had never crossed his mind until now. His old memories were no longer able to help him now. He could only take things by ear and hope things would work out.

He had to hope they could solve all issues they might encounter in the future. He never thought that once they evolved that they would run into a bacteria that was able to kill people who had mana. It never happened in his past life, but this world and the state this world is in now were much different. He did not know what happened to all the main human settlements from his past life, nor did he care anymore, but he knew right now he was very close to achieving his goal of making a world where everyone could live peacefully together without war and discrimination between races.

“Blake, we have a problem!” Lillia cried out as she cut off the mana extraction.

Blake noticed it to as he saw Mike clutching his chest. His forehead was full of sweat. “We can not touch the mana in the heart or brain…. Shit!” Blake scanned Mike’s body. He had bacteria feeding off both the mana in his brain and heart. “Alright, seal off what you collected. We will need to figure this out.”

Blake walked over to Mike and checked his pulse. “How are you feeling, buddy?”

“Like I just had all the mana in my body ripped out and almost my heart as well. So what do we do from here?” Mike asked as he caught his breath.

“I am not sure the current situation does not allow us to touch the mana in your heart or brain. This will most likely be the same for everyone. I am not sure how dangerous it is to have these bacteria there since they are not feeding on your organs. I think the main issue with the bacteria is the reaction people are having to them in their mana. While some are perfectly fine, even those quarantined had many people who were in contact with those who were severely ill and did not have any issues. But for now, we can at least try to lower the risk of death by extracting the mana from most of the body.”