Dispensing knowledge

James led Vance through corridors hitherto unknown to him. The classroom was at the back of the college grounds, accessible only from the main rectangular building via a small hallway that put nearly 40 yards of open space between the two.

According to James, the college only had the one classroom.

"You'll see why." Was all he was willing to reveal on the way.

When they arrived, Vance noticed a few peripheral things. First, the ambient mana here seemed to be more highly concentrated the closer to the classroom they got. Vance guessed they must be using some sort of large scale gatherer construct.

Secondly, he could hear the sound of conversation from within, it looked like he'd be joining a full class.

James pushed open the doors and entered. He heard the scraping of two individual doors against the stone.

Vance held off on pushing out his mana sense to get a feel for the place, just in case he needed his focus when he got inside. By now, he'd reached a point where he'd sense most mana sources in the same room as him without having to try, it was only natural mana sources that were trickier for him to pin down, low concentration as they were. For now, that would do nicely.

When he stepped inside, he immediately sensed a few powerful sources of mana in the room. Six, to be exact. When he stepped inside, the room went silent.

"Mr. Kalliea, you made it." Master Noelle's voice rang out from the far side of the chamber. It sounded like a large room, her voice carried a lot of reverb, there might've even been a little echo. Tall ceilings, most likely.

"Good morning, Master Noelle." He bowed politely and took a step forward.

"Everyone, this is Mr. Vance Kalliea. He will be joining us from time to time in class. As you can see, Mr. Kalliea suffers from a form of blindness. Please do us all a favour and be as accommodating as possible."

Vance was taken aback when she finished speaking. He could swear he'd heard a chuckle from somewhere in the room. To his left, forward a little. He zoned in his hearing and sure enough, some asshole was giggling very, very quietly. A woman? That wasn't a laugh he recognised.

Vance went a little red in the face. Honestly, he was angry, but fortunately the circumstance gave him plenty of reasons to be flustered so it didn't look too abnormal. He decided to swallow his anger and try and get into the swing of things.

"Master Noelle, would you be so kind as to tell me where I can find my seat?"

"No seats in here, Mr. Kalliea. For now, I'd like you to go with James, he'll show you where to stand. Oh, and be ready. Your special circumstances might become relevant quickly."

He didn't exactly know what she meant by that, but James led him over to a specific spot on the right hand side of the room. He stood in place for a moment and the floor beneath him began to heat slowly. He felt the mana core in his left hand begin to stir a little.

An unfamiliar voice rang out from somewhere between Vance and Noelle. It was a woman's voice. She sounded sort of familiar.

"You're standing atop an dispenser construct, quite an advanced one, actually. The premise is simple. While you stand on top of it, it will constantly release a stream of mana of a certain aspect. The purpose of these constructs is to help students immerse themselves in a mana of a type they're yet to achieve the shift for. Right now, you're standing over one of the two fire aspect dispensers. James is next to you, on the other one."

"Thank you, Naomi." Noelle added. "Naomi is one of our third year students. She's an exceptional young Arcanist and is present to assist us in making sure nothing in these lessons goes awry."

"A pleasure to meet you, Naomi."

"Likewise, Mr. Kalliea."

"Yes, yes, Introductions are wonderful. Down to business. Mr. Kalliea, I know that you have already achieved a fire shift. Therefore, I will offer you the choice to remain on that construct, or swap with someone else. Typically we rotate them, but this is a special occasion."

"Actually, I'd like to stay here for now, Thankyou." He replied, immediately.

"Very well."

Vance knew enough that forcing somebody else to switch out with him on his first day was not a great way to make a first impression.

"Mr. Kalliea." Naomi's voice rang out, quieter this time, she was obviously just talking to him. "Let me know if you would like the intensity of the construct increased or decreased. I have the controls."

"Increase it, please." He whispered to her. "How high can it go?"

She looked a little surprised, though he didn't know that.

"Let's see how half goes, shall we?"

With a rush, Vance felt the density of the fire mana leaking from the floor skyrocket. Before, it was like the gentle dripping of a faucet, in contrast, now it was like someone pouring an endless bucket of water on his head.

The feather is his core went absolutely wild and started to pump out fire mana at a much increased rate, more than he'd been able to achieve with just his candles and a little ambient mana.

Fortunately, he'd been preparing for exactly this.

"Perfect. Thanks." He said through slightly gritted teeth.

"It seems that Mr. Kalliea has already done a beautiful job of demonstrating a fundamental aspect of mana adaptation. Tell me everyone, why has Mr. Kalliea not begun to suffer burns from his exposure to that much fire mana?"

Come to think of it, why hadn't he been burned? His attention was suddenly split between battling the fire mana, a battle he was currently winning, and Master Noelle.

A Very, very familiar voice rang out from the far side of the room. Mariah.

"It's because of two reasons, really." She paused for dramatic effect. "First, he has a fire mana core. This inherently gives him a little tolerance for fire mana, his body has to tolerate it inside, so the outside adapting over time just makes sense. Secondly, he makes extensive use of fire mana externally, even if he didn't have a core, this would help his internal mana learn to deal with exposure to it. Essentially, he's built up a resistance to it. It'll take a lot more fire mana in a more concentrated dose to harm him."

"A Textbook answer, Ms. Veil. Excellent work."

Another new voice. Manly. It was a similar distance away to Noelle, another Master? This man did not introduce himself. Perhaps this was the mysterious Master Hodson that Thomas had told him about.

"Though, If I might make one minor alteration to that answer." Naomi chimed in. "There's a very significant piece of information that is relevant here. It is not the body that has adapted, it is his will. His will is subconsciously protecting him from dangerous portions of the fire mana by moving, shaping or shifting it as required when it comes into contact with him. If his will was exhausted, he'd burn like anyone else."

"Right as always, Sister." Mariah said with a tiny bit of spite in her voice.

Wait, Sister? Oh, so that's why she sounded so familiar. Huh, Mariah never mentioned a sister.

"I have a question." A deep, bold voice spoke out from the other side of the room closer to Mariah. It was Brad.

"Does this mean he could stick his hand into a fireplace and be unharmed?"

"In theory, yes. Providing his control over fire mana reached an incredible level. I do not suspect that he would be able to do so now. Natural mana is harder to contend with on a subconscious level due to it's inherent invisibility." Naomi was the one to answer him.

"Ta." Brad was silent from then on.

"That level of skill is rare. I do not suggest any of you try this. Even those of us who claim the title of Master are often unable to subconsciously protect ourselves from natural mana, we burn ourselves on our candles just like you." The man who Vance assumed was Hodson added.

"Please also note that elements that are naturally adverse to one another can also protect you, somewhat, from each other. For example, James has a water core, therefore he has a little extra protection against the heat, not to quite the same degree as Mr. Kalliea, but enough to be useful." Noelle finished the point with this and moved on.

She allowed the whole room to spend thirty minutes uninterrupted focusing on the dispenser constructs. Vance had Naomi turn it up as far as it could go. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was keeping up, all that practice really paid off. He could tell he was making much more progress this way. He was able to maintain a much higher level of mana is his core and set more of his will to the task of shifting it.

A half an hour passed in the blink of an eye. Vance wanted to stay here for hours. He frowned when all of the dispenser constructs were disabled.

"The last thing we will be going over today will be related to mana cores. Once again, this might be information some of you already have, so I'll try to make it interesting for beginners and advanced students alike. We all know by now that the creation of mana cores requires using transference to bring external mana into your body, then using your will to cement that mana shell in place. Once complete, your will and body begin the process of integrating the mana within the core into your body. This can take a little time, but usually not more than a few hours."

Vance had been wondering why his hand had been burned so badly after he obtained a fire core, which was supposed to offer him some protection. Now he knew. His exhausted will at the time probably didn't help.

"So, what are the prerequisites? Why don't we just spend all of our time making mana cores? First, you need excellent mana control. If you're not ready and you lose your grip on your will the mana will attack you from the inside. You don't want that. Second, you must be able to perform the associated mana shift with a sufficient level of proficiency. This one should be obvious." She paused to let some of the more attentive students make their notes.

"Third, and this is for the more advanced students. To obtain more than one mana core, you must be able to manipulate multiple types of mana at once. Specifically, you must be able to do it without the use of one of your existing cores. For your second core, you must be capable of handling two types of mana, for your third, three. You see the pattern. Naomi!" At the end of her sentence, Noelle suddenly yelled for her.

"Yes, Master Noelle?"

"I think you can tell us why?" Her voice had a hint of chastisement to it, like telling off a naughty child.

"Yes, Master. From experience. When you integrate a core after your first, your pre-existing cores will rebel. This is one of the few behaviours of mana we don't fully understand, but we believe that your body will interpret the new mana type as invasive, like a virus. It will react to try and destroy the invader, you need to hold off your pre-existing mana cores using your own manual willpower until integration is complete, otherwise your attempt will be met with failure. Painful failure. For this reason, many Arcanists choose to expend most of the mana in their cores before attempting to take in another."

"Very good. Mr. Kalliea, I can see that you're about to explode with your question, so spit it out."

He blurted it out straight away, without thinking. "Is there a limit to the number of cores you can have?"

The class went quiet for a second.

Master Noelle produced a wide, hungry smile.

"One of each mana type. Other than that? No."