章 163: Mana strings
They barely made it in time. When they arrived at the training area, the others were already waiting.
"Hey Ivan, you are late.", Pia shouted towards him when she saw him coming.
"Hey everyone. And I'm sure that I'm still in time.", he first greeted the others, before answering Pia.
"Everyone else is already waiting for you, so you are late.", she insisted.
Seeing that he couldn't win the argument, Ivan just accepted the accusation. "Alright, if you say so."
Having won the short argument, Pia nodded in satisfaction.
"Hey everyone.", Celine who had smiled at their antics greeted the others as well.
"Hey Celine.", the others greeted her back and Irena asked, "How come you are here?"
"What? Am I not welcome?", adopting Pia's style of bantering, Celine joked.
"Of course you are. I was just wondering since we enter as a five-man group and you wouldn't fit in."
Although Irena's words may have sounded unpleasant if heard by the wrong person, Celine understood her correctly. "So you already guessed that I came to train in the dungeon together with you. But you are wrong that I wouldn't fit in. Technically my status is the same as Vlada. I count as a part of Ivan's strength, so I can enter.", she told her.
"Is that so?", Irena asked in surprise.
"Yes. Just like slaves and pets only use up the slot of the master, servants like me do the same.", Celine explained.
"That's great.", Irena exclaimed. "Then can you maybe teach us some things?", she asked eagerly. She too knew that Celine was much more experienced than they were.
"Of course, that is one of the reasons I am here.", Celine agreed happily. She truly liked Irena and the others, so she was really happy when they accepted her so readily.
Hearing her response the others cheered as well. This was just like having a private teacher just for themselves.
"Then did Ivan already tell you what we have planned to do?", Irena asked. As the team leader, it was her job to make sure that everyone was on the same page.
"Yes. We already talked about it. For now, we should go into the entrance hall for the dungeon and then we can change our gear and talk some more."
She then entered the dungeon and the others followed her lead.
After appearing in the entrance hall of the dungeon, Celine mentioned for everyone to sit down on the floor.
"Sit down first. I'm going to teach you a formation first."
"Really?", Greg exclaimed. Until now he had been uncharacteristically quiet, but hearing this he got livelier.
"Right, why were you so quiet? Are you still tired from the training?", Ivan poked fun at him.
"The better question would be, why are you so energetic?", Greg shot back.
"Because I had a great relaxing massage.", Ivan responded smugly. In response, he got envious looks from everyone. "Alright, let's start learning.", he hurriedly changed the topic.
Celine repeated the background story for the formation, she had told him before, so the others knew it as well.
"Such a useful formation and the school doesn't even teach it.", Serge sighed.
"That's because it isn't free for them to do so.", Celine explained.
"Then we have to pay for it?", Greg asked worriedly.
"No.", she laughed when she saw his worried face. "Although the school can't teach it for free, I can."
"How come?", Greg asked curiously.
"Because schools teach all skills to such a large group of people, they require special licenses for it. Some of them are free and those are the ones you will get thought. The better the school the better the skills thought since they can pay for the licenses.", she explained to them. "But since I'm just a private person and don't teach many people I don't need such a license."
"I'm surprised that nobody has found a way around it."
"Well, since it is the System that is responsible for this rule, I reckon that there is no way around it."
She told them how to activate the formation and then explained its function in more detail. "After you activate the formation it will create a mana-field, that will interact with your cells and strengthen them. For each additional person, the effect will strengthen, up to twenty, and the consumption will decrease."
"How does this work? Do you know it?", Irena asked, eager to learn more.
"I'm not sure about how it strengthens the cells but I know the number of people in the formation influence the effect and consumption.", Celine answered.
"When mana flows through your body, then it will barely interact with it if it comes from your source. That is because its characteristics are highly compatible with your body since it comes from the same person. Normally that is a good thing since it reduces the consumption while casting spells outside of your body.", she explained. This was something that hadn't been mentioned in class before since it was something that everyone just accepted as normal. So why would one talk about it?
"But while it is normally a good thing, it is counterproductive while trying to influence the cells. More
mana is needed to get them to interact well."
"Then the mana in the field has its characteristics changed when more people enter it?", Serge guessed.
"Correct. With each additional person, the characteristics of the mana in the mana-field will change slightly, making it better able to interact with the cells, while being close enough to still be able to break the skin barrier."
The skin barrier was a natural barrier that everyone possessed. It stopped mana and other tainted energies from entering the body, or else someone could be killed by just destroying the brain or some artery without the need to destroy any more.
"So the upper border of 20 people is so the characteristics aren't too far off.", Pia said while nodding in understanding.
Seeing that everyone had understood her, Celine looked satisfied. She enjoyed teaching them since all of them were intelligent and would pick up new knowledge fast.
"Ok. Now let's try it out. Since Irena is the team leader, she should start. After she has created a stable mana-field, the others can then join it."
"Ok, I'll try.", Irena said and then closed her eyes to better concentrate.
Following the pattern, Celine had told them before, she let the mana flow out of her, trying to establish the field.
Only by fully activating his spiritual sense could Ivan feel the mana-field slowly taking form around them. The mana formed strings that formed mysterious patterns, which were like those Celine had shown them. But he could see that the strings weren't uniform and the patterns were slightly off.
*I guess this will fail.*, he thought while concentrating fully on how the field continued to expand. After all, this was the best way to learn.
Just as he had predicted, once the field reached about two meter in radius, it broke down. The deformed strings of mana weren't capable of supporting the patterns and the deformation destabilized it additionally.
Irena exhaled. "Damn, this is hard."
"Take your time.", Celine told her. "You did very well for the first time.", she then praised her, before pointing out where she had to correct the patterns and where she should be more careful to make the mana strings more uniform.
After explaining all of this she then said, "Alright, try again. This time focus more on what I told you. If the pattern is stable, then you can expand it further."
Irena once again closed her eyes and focused on trying to form a stable pattern.
"As for you.", Celine turned towards the others, "Come with me." She then stood up and went towards the far side of the hall, so there was the maximum possible distance to Irena.
"While Irena is trying to form the pattern for the formation, you should also practice forming uniform mana strings.", she advised them. "Although you won't have to form complicated patterns with it, she will have to wave them into her formation pattern and the better the quality of the mana strings, mean the higher the uniformity of them, the easier it will be for her."
She then formed a string of mana and made it shine red. "Not only is this useful for the formation, but it is also a great way to practice your control.", she told them while manipulating the string. She changed its thickness and its form. She changed its color and even created patterns on it.
"If you can control the mana strings like this, then it will be a huge boost for you."
Everyone was impressed by her control over the string. And this awe got even stronger when they tried it themselves.
Although Serge and Ivan both were quite good at controlling their mana, because of them learning pill refining, what she had shown was something else entirely.
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