Ch. 3 Innate Mana

Sharleen looked outside and looked at her seatmate with a worried look. "Sir Clove, it's been over an hour since Paskha ran. Shouldn't it be twenty laps at his speed already?"

"Hmm?" Sir Clove stopped using his cultivation aura to demonstrate how to form cultivation energy with one hand upon hearing one of his disciples' questions.

The teacher looked down, and even though a wall blocked him, he could still see his student running at a steady pace.

'This kid is gifted. Now he can manage the division of his stamina to run. No, wait a minute.'

Sir Clove's brow furrowed as he realized something. He walked quickly towards the open window to see his running student directly. His eyes, initially black, turned purple, and now he could see the flow of soul force throughout Paskha's body.

'He can already control the flow of his soul force? How could that be? I have yet to teach him that!'

It explained how Paskha could run continuously for an hour without stopping. The number of laps wasn't twenty anymore, but thirty or forty seeing how fast the boy was running.

Feeling a pair of eyes that seemed to enter his soul, Paskha looked up and saw his teacher watching him. Like a child, Paskha stopped running and smiled broadly at his teacher.

"Sir Clove. Is my punishment over?"

"Hmph!" Sir Clove folded his arms across his chest. "If you've finished circling the field twenty times, your punishment is over."

"Hehehe…" Paskha scratched his head awkwardly. "I don't know how many laps I've run."

How could Paskha count it when he was thinking about this and that? In addition, by relying on his memory, he controlled the flow of his soul force not to drain his stamina to keep running without stopping.

His soul force could provide new stamina without overdoing it and relieve fatigue and tiredness instantly. Practicing this kind of control would take two to three years for an ordinary person. However, Paskha was a genius since childhood, so he only needed one year to master it and another year to open his nerve points and let the spirit-filled air enter his body.

This was one of the reasons why Paskha was never tired, and his wounds healed quickly on the battlefield. While the others were exhausted and heavily injured, Paskha could still fight and had a much longer time than the average human.

"I think... I've been around the field twenty times." giving a sweet and innocent smile, Paskha repeated his answer.

"Hurry back here."

"Okay!" Without wasting any more time, Paskha immediately dashed into the school building, climbed the stairs as fast as lightning, and arrived at the classroom in a very short time.

"Wow, that's fast!"

"Don't you feel tired?"

"Hehehe…" Paskha just laughed in response to his classmates' questions.

Very weird. He had memories of the past and experienced many things that made him unable to smile―especially when he knew he had to train the troops he led to fighting against the royal forces of West Chester; Paskha couldn't relax or smile at all.

But now… he could smile as if what happened never happened.

Was it because he could see Sharleen's face again?

Casually, Paskha walked to his seat and sat next to Sharleen. His gaze never left the face of his beloved, but it seemed different from that girl.

Sharleen turned her head and refused to look at him for some reason.

'Did I make a mistake?' Paskha couldn't help but wonder. As far as he could remember, Sharleen never looked away and would often act fierce if he accidentally offended the girl.

No matter what it was, Paskha now felt sure... his current feeling was so relaxed and peaceful because he could meet Sharleen again.

He would protect her at all costs this time, and that's his decision.

On his way home, Sir Clove called his student to find out where Paskha had learned the technique of controlling the soul force.

"Paskha, did you secretly learn the soul force-control techniques without my knowledge?"

"Ah?" Did his teacher notice it? Of course, this old man would. "Teacher, I just finished reading the book on how to control soul force last night and was about to put it into practice, and it turned out amazing." Paskha gave a thumbs up with a distinctively proud expression.

"You got the hang of it in one night?"

"Aren't I a genius?"

Even if this boy is a genius, no one could master this technique overnight! Sir Clove could not believe it but decided to believe it.

"A few more days will be the day of emergence to find out what level your innate mana is. Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?"

Paskha wanted to be a general in his previous life, but now… "I don't care what I become but I want to reach the Eternal master level."

Sir Clove had not expected this answer but was delighted to learn of little Paskha's ambition. "Do you know what are the levels of a soul master?"

"A soul master is divided into ten titles. When someone reached level ten, they would be given the title of Iron, then Bronze for someone at level twenty, and Silver for level thirty. The next ones are Gold, Platinum, and Great masters for levels forty, fifty, and sixty."

"Good. Did you know Great master is the highest title for a mortal, but there are other titles above it."

"I know. Holy, Divine, and Eternal are for soul masters who have reached levels seventy, eighty, and ninety. However, only a few managed to reach this level because the absolute requirement was to have tier-eight innate mana. Below that, let alone Holy master, reaching Great master would probably be extremely difficult."

'Ho? This kid even has this kind of knowledge? How many books has he read?' Sir Clove couldn't help but wonder.

"That's right. So… you will never become an Eternal master if you have innate mana below nine. If your innate mana is only seven, the highest level you can reach is Great master. But I will tell you first. Of the twenty children who had innate mana seven, only one child managed to reach the Great Master level, while the rest only ended up at the Platinum level."

Paskha knew it too. It took strong willpower and training twice as hard as others to reach Platinum master if one only has seventh-tier innate mana.

'But, master… my innate mana is ten.' Paskha wanted to tell his master the result in his memory, but he decided to keep it a secret.