Chapter 3 - A Short Lesson on Mana

Long, green hair flowed beautifully down the woman's back. This woman was the mana and history teacher, as well as being an awakener.

"Welcome class, I hope you had a good break over the semester. Today we are going to quickly return to our previous subject and see how much we can remember." The highly esteemed professor stated. "I assume everyone remembers what an attribute is" she wrongly asked as there was always one student who forgot everything he learnt. "I guess we will briefly run through the subject then" she stated.

"An attribute is what allows human's to use their mana. All humans contain mana, but without an attribute can never train it or use it for any practical use."

A student, known as the teachers pet to all (even the teachers) blurted out, "Why can't humans use their mana without an attribute?"

The professor annoyed, responded "As I was going to say, humans can't use mana without an attribute due to our higher mana density dissipating any pure mana used. Theoretically you could all use pure mana yet it would show no results and instantly be reabsorbed back into your core as if it was never used. An attribute acts as a medium, allowing any mana used to turn into a physical object that can interact with things." taking a breath the professor went on to lecture the class about how seventy percent of modern day people awaken an attribute at around sixteen to eighteen years old, and also went on to say how most modern day attributes were simple ones like water, wind, fire, energy, earth, and the only rare attributes were nature, and lightning. No other attributes had survived to the modern era due to the peace from monsters

"Furthermore, there are also mana signatures that distinguish a person's race and possible attributes, although the majority of that subject is too advanced for your age. All you need to know is that it is possible to artificially change a person's attribute or even allow for an additional attribute." The professor finished.

The teachers pet again spoke out, "How many attributes can a person have?" yet this time the class were excited by the clever question.

"Currently the most attributes someone has is five, known as the greatest asset to the country's military, Okamoto Rie. She has the wind, energy, fire, water, and nature attributes. It has also been proven that with our current technology, it would be impossible to change a person's mana signature to have more than two attributes, and anyone with more than two attributes can not have their attributes changed due to the sheer strength of their mana signature." the green haired teacher proudly explained.

My hand rose as I had an important question to ask. "Would it be possible to naturally gain an attribute if you don't have one or increase the amount of attributes one has naturally?"

With pity the teacher looked down on me, but eventually said, "There have been very rare cases of people naturally increasing the amount of attributes they have through sheer determination at the brink of death, but never gaining an attribute if they don't have one."

Brbrbrbrbrng. The school bell rang signaling the end of first period.

...

I Jumped out of the couch, exasperated at my weakness, and inability to survive. I struck my hands to my chest, hyperventilating at the impossible thought of death. I fell to the floor and pushed my back against the sofa. Dragging the sheets that were lying on the couch over me, I couldn't tell warm from cold. I was so hot and so cold at the same time. My eyes flickered around the room, looking for a potential threat. I felt claustrophobically trapped in my options, and figured that none seemed to be a great plan of action in my panic. I unconsciously started counting, fearing the bed's shadow. How long till it appeared? My head hit the wooden floorboards as I pinpointed my vision down to the bed, whilst every so often looking around the room, fearing any other supernatural threat that could appear.

The creak of the floor spooked me into head-butting the cold, hard wood making the world shake, and my mind spin. The room flashed and returned to darkness, as the atmosphere grew eerie. I slowly rotated my head and looked through the corners of my peripheral vision. Nothing there. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I looked up, further backing my head into the wall, almost perpendicular. This pattern continued on for roughly thirty minutes however my sense of time was incredibly warped.

Darkness hung on the wall to the right as it condensed into a claw, and then a pair of hands. The wall adorned by only defective lamps, now extruded a creature the size of a armchair. A runny gloppy liquid, fell down the wall as the creature slowly pulled itself out the shadow and took form, making a thud on the floor as it fell. This time, I ran. I don't want to die again. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. The door crashed open, more powerfully than I could ever exert in a normal situation. My legs scraped at the floor as my ears burst from the speed at which I was running.

I reached the main entrance without even paying attention, and to my dismay found the place different than the last time. The opposite wall still ravaged, however the main entrance was left undamaged this time, with the velvet rug in one piece. Assuming the nicer condition of the stairs meant more safety, I slowly took step by step up the stairs. Halfway up the stairs, I was perplexed with another choice. Follow the pattern and turn left, or anew right into a new side of the mansion. After a minute of deliberation, I turned left again and decided to stay firm in my original choice of left.

At the last step, the air froze and and my breath contained a cloud of minuscule, condensed ice and water droplets. Despite the air's temperature, I sensed no change in the world around me, and continued walking. I quickly came to a door on the left and right of me. To the left, the door was frozen solid and I could tell was what emitted the air chilling temperature. I went to grab the metal handle, yet thought better of it at the last second, and decided to kick the door in. Crash, and the door shattered in multiple pieces, lying on the icy wood floor inside. I stepped over the door and examined a large spherical object emitting a large amount of ice attribute mana. A sub-attribute of water. There were also many other spheres, yet none exuded any pressure.

I slowly walked around, holding my hands out trying to keep my balance, and observed the objects and spheres around the room. On each wall, many large bookshelves towered up to the ceiling, yet the books were un-access able as they were all frozen to the shelves. My eyes then darted to the spheres that conveyed mystery from a single glance. A podium sat in the middle of the room, with a book opened on top. I made my way towards the book and noticed that the words were somewhat legible.

"Attribute Infusion, experiment #7." it read on the first line. Looking around the room, I noticed seven spheres, each a different size and colour. Reading further, "Experiment #7 was a success, showing signs of acceptance as an artificial mana core." I looked up in amazement. My previous fear completely overpowered by awe, I stuttered "This is incredible, I wonder how much this is worth?" In disbelief, I read faster and saw how experiments six, five, three, and one were all failures, with experiment two being a success and experiment four inconclusive.

"Attribute Detection, experiment #2."

"Experiment #2 has shown success allowing a being to infuse pure mana into it and the orb will shine a colour depending on their future or current attribute/s."

"Core Integration, experiment #4."

"Experiment #4 was inconclusive as subject used died shortly after operation process. The operating room still holds it's body on the table for further experiments."

Having finished reading, all that there was to read, I went over to the second ball on the right, the opposite side of the larger, frozen sphere. I anxiously exerted pure mana after many seconds, and saw the orb glow a dark blackish purple. Confusion perplexed my face, as I couldn't correlate the colour to any obvious attribute. In disbelief and anger at my attribute, I stormed across to the other door, and decided to see what awaited me. In my excitement at the topic of mana, I had completely dismissed the cold, oblivious to having left my jumper with the shadow.

The door barely moved at my full force, but as I opened it I shivered at the stench from inside. Lying propped against the back wall was the upper half of a body, exposing the trail of dried blood that painted the room, and most prominently led to the other half of his body behind the door. The head was disconnected from the rest and lay on the floor by another podium, exposing a cracked brain, and two missing eyes.