I Hate Systems

"Thieving bastard, return my world!" Magister said in anger as hundreds of magic circles flashed behind him, powering up in response.

In response, his opponent, a white-robed individual calmly condensed a sword, making a gentle slash to sever all the magic circles, "Give up, Magister. Cultivation is supreme. Magic is inferior."

"Delusional!" Magister said as he spun his cane once, condensing a gigantic magic circle with a dozen concentric circles inside, filled to the brim with runes as he unleashed a beam of mana onto the nearby world.

Immediately in response, the Spiritual Energy that had encroached upon that world was devoured by a tree that had appeared, converting it into Mana.

The tree grew to a height of ten kilometres, capable of absorbing any form of energy and converting them into mana, the latest creation of Magister.

With that, the world resumed its operations as its inhabitants that were previously struggling with the change recovered, resuming their original lives.

Though, damage had been done to the world as Spiritual Energy had reacted differently with the people, objects, and the rest of the world. And majority failed to adapt to Spiritual Energy, dying in the process.

But now, once the mana returned, those that had endured and resisted the change brought by Spiritual Energy became more attuned to mana, growing stronger in response to further fuel the world's development.

It was as if the Spiritual Energy and the cause that generated it had been turned into fuel that nourished the world. And the World Tree had been created to result in exactly that.

Moreover, it was protected with a mystical spell that ensured it was an exclusive property of magical worlds.

Upon seeing that his hard work had been taken advantage of by Magister, the white-robed entity, Immortal spat out in anger, "Courting Death!"

"Your mother is courting death!" Magister roared in response and sent out a planet-sized fireball at Immortal.

"Puny tricks." Immortal waved his hand, unleashing a similar-sized fireball that slammed into the opponent's attacks. But suddenly, the essence of his fireball morphed, turning into a fiery creature that began to devour the opponent's flames. "My Essence Flame rules over all fire."

"Well…" Magister smirked in response as the fireball unleashed by Immortal suddenly broke free of his control, transforming into a homunculus that was capable of wielding the power of Essence Fire.

A stream of mana flowed out of Magister and into the homunculus that launched fire attacks at Immortal.

But immediately in response, a sword beam diced the homunculus into thousands of pieces, erupting with a corrosive power that destroyed it entirely.

The two entities began battling in a flurry, unleashing world-devastating attacks with every flick of their fingers.

"Stop!" A child wearing a trench coat arrived at the scene, twisting the space to form a barrier between the two, "Please stop fighting!"

"Why do you care, Mystique?" Immortal snorted in disdain, "Your worlds have nothing going for them. If I wasn't interested in such weak worlds, you would have ceased to exist by now."

"As representatives of tens of thousands of worlds, shouldn't you focus on bettering the conditions of your worlds…" Mystique said in a hurry when he stopped speaking, staring in shock as his monocle shattered and vanished while his clothes aged rapidly, becoming tattered.

"Don't overstate your limit." Magister said, expressing his annoyance as Mystique was rendered helpless by a single attack of his, "You're the reason your worlds are batshit boring."

"Wait a second…" Magister's eyes lit up in surprise upon seeing the shards of Mystique's monocle rejoining to become whole once again. He waved his hand, catching hold of the monocle before Mystique could retract it, staring at it as he observed, "Interesting…"

"There's both Mana and Spiritual Energy in this item." He then looked at Mystique, "How did you create this?"

"T-That's…" Mystique hesitated, lacking confidence as he said, "One of my worlds have people deriving power from the Gods they pray towards. And somehow, they figured out the identity of you two and have been praying to it ever since. So, both Mana and Spiritual Energy exists in that world."

"What a shitty world." Immortal mocked, "With multiple energies engaging with one another, things would be a blatant mess. No wonder your worlds never manage to develop beyond the embryo stage."

"And this monocle is a representation of those…prayers?" Magister asked, twiddling with the monocle. Considering how powerful he was, he didn't even sense that an entire world's habitants were harnessing his power. Though, it was because the extent of power they drained out of him was that insignificant.

The same was true for Immortal too, who was even stronger.

'Hmm wait, how can they drain my powers even without my knowledge?' Once the question popped into his mind, Magister was unable to control his curiosity, 'Once I figure out the cause, I'll be able to use it to steal Immortal's power.'

With that, Magister held the monocle and teleported to the world Mystique had talked about, arriving overhead a statue of himself as he observed a group of people kneeling before it.

"To the Deity of heavens, the manifestation of mana, the symbolisation of authority, we beseech you, protect us!"

"Protect us!"

Magister noticed a strange energy condense from the heads of the praying people after a couple of hours had passed. The energy was barely a trickle as it seeped into the statue and then moved into his body.

It then carried a trace of mana and retreated into the statue before branching out into various streams of mana that gushed into the praying people, causing their bodies to brim with mana.

"Good, we'll be able to battle for the next two months." The one that seemed to be the leader of the group said, leading the believers as they donned their armour and rushed out of the building, leaving the city to engage a beast that was oozing out Spiritual Energy.

'This is damn inefficient.' Magister frowned, 'Instead of all this, they could simply cultivate mana. They'll be dozens of times stronger for the amount of time they spent praying instead of training. And, it seems their power is only temporary. They would have to pray in regular intervals.'

Magister then moved to other such temples, noticing statues belonging to the rest of the entities like him. All along, he observed one thing, 'This energy they are harnessing is damn weak. It takes ages to create a decent sum that doesn't do much.'

"But…" He muttered, expressing interest, "Since it's able to harness Mana, Spiritual Energy, Qi, and a variety of energies and power systems, it's damn efficient, not to mention that it only takes an instant to travel from anywhere to its destination."

He then smiled, stating, "Since this energy is being produced from the thoughts of the people, I'll name it…"

"Mental Energy!"