Capítulo 2: Stellar Mana Storm
The training facility was a sleek chrome building at the back of campus that you reached by crossing an open hall across a courtyard. Inside, there were open spaces for weapon training, weight training, and magic training. Of course, there were private rooms that you could reserve as well, but those were almost always taken by people at the top of the class.
And when I arrived, the training facility was already packed with students.
That was convenient.
Walking inside, I saw Roland in the weapon training area, swinging his sword against a dummy and gathering data.
I also saw a few other major characters around, but I didn't give them more than a passing glance.
Quite a few of them had keen senses, and it'd immediately tip them off, potentially leading to troublesome encounters.
I'd rather not deal with that right now, so I quietly lowered my head and walked towards the magic training area.
Fortunately, there were a lot of other extras hanging around that let me blend in.
But still, to complete my "I'm not important please ignore me disguise," I did what any teen trying to ignore the world did.
I pulled out my phone and stared at it while I walked.
Of course, I wasn't just doing it to do it.
I actually did need to look stuff up too.
The typical way to get stronger in this world was to fight monsters and/or clear gates.
Obviously. This was a typical academy story, so that made sense.
The lore reason was that the first Rank 10 mage modified the world's laws to allow humans to absorb mana from slain monsters and the gates, but the practical reason was to give an easy out for my characters to get stronger.
It was also something I planned to abuse later when we could schedule expedition trips around mid-terms.
But anyway, that was the shortcut to getting stronger.
The 'proper' way to get stronger was the old-fashioned way: reach your limits, recover, and reach your limits again.
There was an unmanned magic training station in the corner of the facility.
Making sure to pointedly ignore everyone by staring at my phone the entire time, I made my way there to claim it.
For the magic training stations, there was a control panel, a floating magical target that you attacked, and then a big screen to show your results.
...I think the setting was to induce rivalry in students by having that displayed, but I couldn't be sure. That particular detail wasn't important anyway.
To reserve the magic station, you had to either scan your ID, or scan your hand on the control panel's touch screen.
Since the only thing I had on me was my phone, I held out my hand.
There was a brief chime as the scanner did its magic (literally), and some information about me popped up on the control panel's display.
---
[Alexander Smith]
ID: 1789
Combat Proficiency: Solmage (Rank 1 Mage), 1-Star Swordsman (Rank 1 Warrior)
Talent: Average
Class Rank: 89/500
Current Predicted Career Path: Auxiliary Support
---
That was interesting.
I didn't expect to be in the top 100.
Considering that the entrance exam used to decided the rankings were split 50/50 practical and theoretical, the fact that I was rank 89 with my initial stats meant I had to have done close to perfect on the theoretical session since there was no way I could earn more than 25 points on the practical portion.
From what I remembered, Roland should be rank 50 due to scoring an even 40 on both portions. The top of the class should be Marisa Sagewind who got a perfect in both. And number two should be the Imperial Princess Evelyn vi Eternia who happened to miss a single point on the theoretical exam.
In short, although an extra, Alexander Smith was an extra who was a theory monster.
It was a good thing then that I was the author, because that would have been a giant red flag. Didn't want to get expelled for cheating or anything.
Anyway, information gathering done. It was cool that they had the made-up names I made for the ranks though. Solmage (rhyming with fromage in the ol' phrase "omelette du fromage") and 1-Star Swordsman...
...Okay. Maybe it wasn't that cool.
I sighed and then looked up at the floating magic target.
It was a floating bullseye, just like you'd see in an archery range. From what I knew, it worked by reading information from the spell that hit it, analyzed the results, and then displayed those results on the big screen up front with a grade.
In short, a perfect tool and accomplice in breaking the magic system I designed.
But before then, I needed to see if I could even use magic in the first place.
Closing my eyes, I focused.
For a split second, nothing happened. But before worry could even start to set in, I saw a faint glowing circle in my mind's eye.
Focusing on that, I felt my body warm as the circle revolved, sending out mana.
Alright. Confirmed my ability to manipulate mana.
Then, to cast a spell...
I opened my eyes.
For people with affinities towards a certain branch of magic, they could just will it into existence.
I didn't have any of those, so I had to do it another way.
Fortunately, the privilege of being this world's author finally came into play.
Currently, it wasn't common knowledge but magic primarily operated based on the 'image' you have of the result and the 'logic' you applied to get there.
Right now, people understood magic to be the result of incantations. But the truth was that incantations were just a shorthand by giving a clear image and natural logic.
Like, you wanted a fireball, you chanted the spell for a fireball, boom! Fireball!
But it didn't HAVE to work like that.
If you had good visualization skills, and if you really understood the logic of the phenomenon you were trying to activate, you could cast magic without having a proper spell incantation and even do unintuitive stuff like a fire that burned and froze (by causing an endothermic oxidizing reaction).
I wanted to try it out... but now wasn't the time for that.
Maybe in private.
Right now, I had to stay lowkey since I was in public. And also since the story hadn't even really started yet.
So first...
"Wind, gather in my hands and attack my chosen foe. Strike, <Air Blast>."
Aiming my hands at the target, I spoke a roughly accurate incantation and waited.
Immediately, half the mana stored in my mana ring faded.
But at the same time, an invisible ripple shot forward and struck the target.
The moment it did, the display lit up.
---
Spell: Air Blast
Rank: 1
Efficiency: 50/100
Damage: 75/100
Control: 75/100
Grade: C-
---
Mm... mediocre. But I was expecting that.
Since I lacked affinities, my efficiency would be low. And since I used a generic incantation, the control and damage would just be average.
Personalizing the incantation and tweaking the flow of mana as it turned into the spell could improve the spell's stats, but both of those were things you could only do with experience.
I clearly didn't have that. But I had something else I could do.
Now was the fun part.
My mana circle was half empty now.
The normal way to accumulate mana was just to rest. A better way was to meditate, focusing your attention and mind on your mana to restore it. And the quickest way was to drink a mana potion, or consume a mana crystal.
Those were the ways I wrote into the story, and right now, I could only use the two least efficient methods of resting and meditating.
But those weren't the only methods that could work.
I took a quick look around to see if anyone was paying close attention to me.
Thankfully, my relatively average appearance and lackluster results meant no one cared.
The very few benefits of being a weakling with an average face. Nobody bothered staring at you too long.
But okay. Let's try it out then.
This was the method that I had designed, but didn't get a chance to fit into the story.
Mana was energy, but it was moldable into different states of energy, like liquid, gas, solid. It also had a certain mass or weight to it that attracted more depending on that 'weight'.
The way humans recovered mana was by breathing in the ambient and gaseous mana, which was abundant in this world due to the constantly emerging gates.
However, everyone's natural recovery rate was different. It depended on a particular person's size, physique, total mana, and a bunch of other various factors.
Anyway, since humans recovered mana by breathing, you could increase the mana recovery rate through different mana breathing methods. Meditation increased the mana recovery rate too, since it naturally tuned the body to be more receptive to mana. And again, although unintuitive, the more mana you had, the faster your mana recovered.
That was part of the reason why reaching rank 6 was such a breaking point. When you reached it, either as a warrior or mage, your mana reached a critical point of recovering faster than you spent it if you used a rank 5 or less Spell or Art.
But back to the mana theory.
Mages stored mana in their mana circles, while warriors stored mana in mana stars.
For mages, mana was constantly in a liquid form, easily molded. But for warriors, mana was stored in a solid state, with usage being done through mana radiation and ignition.
A mutually exclusive system... on the surface.
Mages ran out of mana by draining their circles, while warriors ran out of mana by having their stars lose their light.
And just like how you couldn't pour light into a cup, you couldn't light up a room with water.
Of course, this was mostly true only after you passed rank 1 as either a mage or a warrior.
Just starting out, both systems didn't clash. But once you passed rank 1, the flow of the mana circles couldn't be stabilized while there was radiation from the mana stars.
People had tried in the past and died for it. Sometimes literally blowing up.
So the common sense was that it didn't work.
But of course, I had the privilege of knowing the truth as the author.
It wasn't that the systems were mutually exclusive. It was just that they were complicated to sync up.
But if you started early, due to the human body's tendency towards equilibrium, it would eventually find a way.
It was just a bit risky at first if you didn't know the logic behind it.
Basically, you slowly seeped the mana from the mana rings into the heart to turn it into a mana star and then hooked it up to the mana rings.
This would strengthen it enough to not blow up and kill you.
After that, you made channels to connect to each mana star and flowed the mana through the embedding rings into each star and back.
This would create a looping circuit that would work even amidst the radiating mana, and effectively mirror the circulatory system.
Again, not complicated or dangerous if you knew what you were doing.
And I did. So, once again closing my eyes, I focused on my mana circle. Then I teased out the mana and slowly moved it to my heart, carefully connecting it.
There was a slight pain, but nothing major.
After that, drag out a thin thread like a wire to hook up to the first mana star, located just below the belly button...
And done.
*bzzt*
The moment I finished, I felt my phone vibrate. And when I pulled my phone out to read the logs and my stats in the RPG app...
---
> The Trait <Stellar Mana Storm> has been acquired. From now on, all physical stats will increase by 10% of your total mana stat. Physical attacks may now be imbued with magic. Your stamina and current mana pool are now combined.
> You have expanded on a detail left untouched in the original story! +10 SP. Your current SP is: 110.
[Status Screen]
Name: Alex Smith
Age: 18
Strength: 11.1
Agility: 11.1
Vitality: 11.1
Endurance: 11.1
Mana: 11
---
Good, good.
I felt like it worked, but I could confirm that it did with the status updates.
Now for testing.
With each breath, my body felt lighter and I felt more clear headed. And also, with each breath, the mana in my body rapidly refilled.
The combined systems created a stronger attractive force than either alone due to the synergy, allowing me to both breath and process more ambient mana.
But that was just the recovery.
Did it also affect the usage?
After making sure my mana was topped up, I raised my hand to aim at the target. Once more, I repeated my incantation without changing anything. And the result...
---
Spell: Air Blast
Rank: 1
Efficiency: 100/100
Damage: 100/100
Control: 100/100
Grade: A
---
A qualitative difference, completely mastering the spell. And the cost-
"Fuuuuuu-"
I immediately doubled over, feeling like I got the wind knocked out of me. "Okay... Maybe... not the smartest idea..."
With each breath, I felt better. And in just a few seconds, it was like nothing had happened. But still.
"Do I need to start doing cardio?"
I didn't think about it before linking the two, but obviously, if they were linked, when one was being used, the other would also be used.
That little note about stamina and mana pool being combined was really important.
It wasn't necessarily a BAD thing. After all, it effectively meant that my stamina would keep up as long as I had mana, and my mana would keep up as long as my I had stamina.
If I controlled it right, I could practically have infinite stamina when doing physical stuff and infinite mana when doing magic stuff.
Of course, if I didn't I'd be immediately punished like I just was.
In short, I had suddenly become a "cast from HP" mage. Which was good, since HP was much easier to recover than MP.
But anyway.
I wiped off the sweat from my brow and said, "Let's keep this up, me."
It'd be exhausting, but it'd be worth it.
...Anyway, I started blasting.
---
Evelyn vi Eternia was training her magic in the training facility.
Her golden hair was tied in a tidy bun while her silver eyes were focused on her magic target.
As the one blessed with a natural <Mana Body> that allowed her to utilize mana and arts with ease, it was her duty to hone it as best as she could.
That was why she stood at the magical targets in the training facility and practiced her magic while the other students made merry and interacted with each other.
And so she trained.
One hour. Two. Three…
Even as most students left the training facility, she continued training.
And soon, there were only two students left.
The first was a relatively handsome young man with crimson hair. Holding a blunt steel blade in his right hand, he diligently swung it against the target. And when he was tired, he sat down and used healing magic to recover before immediately standing up and continuing.
The second was an average looking young man with brown hair. …Well, 'average' in her standards was already above average for the norms.
Like her, he was training his magic.
Standing in the corner of the magical target training area, he casted a single spell, doubled over out of breath, read his results, and then repeated when he caught his breath.
At first, she noticed it as an idle curiosity and kept training. But after he stubbornly repeated the process for over an hour, she couldn't help but watch.
It would have been painful. Even if he had a rapid recovery rate, such constant usage of mana should strain his heart.
But he didn't show any pain.
Simply coughing a few times to catch his breath and wipe away a few flecks of blood, he continued casting.
And, although it was rude, Evelyn found herself staring at him.
First, wind magic. Then water. After, earth. And lastly, fire.
Running through the basic elements, he stubbornly practiced the Rank 1 spells until they were mastered. And then until they were refined beyond mastery.
A fact that even Evelyn wasn't aware of.
110 in efficiency, damage, and control.
Through squeezing out everything he had, he managed to surpass the limits of a Rank 1 spell.
Only slightly. But even then…
The young man suddenly stopped.
Evelyn flinched and went back to practicing her own magic.
Focus on the image in your heart, channel your mana, and will it into being…
Forget about the strange young man. Focus on your efforts.
As if hypnotizing herself, Evelyn repeated those thoughts and went back to training.
…But it would take a long time until she regained enough focus to return to her routine.
Estado de energía semanal
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