Unfair

As the Bass Boost effect dissipated, Mutya and Dean immediately whipped their heads toward Max, looking at him with their mouths agape. The two astounded teens began to wonder, if those were the cranked down version of the actual skills, then how much more damaging they would've been in their original state? No, more importantly, was that how much progress a new mage could make in just a week of cultivation? Could one learn two techniques simultaneously in that short amount of time?

Mutya hadn't even noticed the oddity about the fact that Max was controlling sound energy so easily, without using his Wand, while being a force mage. In her mind, she was already imagining herself wielding all kinds of skills within a week after that day. If the lazy dude was able to improve that fast, surely, she could do so much more!

"You're very creative," Brody finally spoke up, commenting on Max's ingenuity for creating those two sound attacks all on his own. The man figured his student must have devised them long before he had become a mage, which further proved his natural ability for invention.

Well, not invention in its literal sense, of course. It wasn't as if those two skills were anything novel; it was just that Max was able to come up with them and store them in his repertoire without having to learn from another mage. At least as far as Brody had heard from Dylan, Max hadn't even known about the existence of mages a week ago. So naturally, no mage had ever paid him any mind, let alone teaching him a technique.

"I can see they still need refinement, and you need to be able to speed up the casting time. But you're already on the right track," Brody added.

However, the man soon frowned when he saw the excited expression on his two other students. He sighed, feeling bad that he had to crush their hopes. "You two better not be thinking of anything ridiculous. This one," he pointed to Max, "is a bit of an anomaly. I've heard of some weird things he could do from Dylan—he's a close friend of mine, in case you haven't met him.

"So if you saw Max as an initial benchmark you have to reach or even surpass, you'd only be setting yourselves up for failure. Just focus on improving yourself and try not to compare your progress with other people's. It can be a productive method when you do so moderately, but don't do it too much.

"You're racing against yourself, first and foremost, before anyone else. When you finally reach a certain height, that's when you can start competing against your peers."

Sadly, Brody's words of wisdom flew over Mutya's head. All she had heard was the first half of his speech, but her brain then tuned out the latter half. Moreover, she couldn't help but feel slightly offended by her new teacher's advice. 'Is he telling me I can't win against that guy?'

However, the look of determination in her eyes didn't fade; in fact, it only grew more intense. She was definitely going to surpass him! Losing was never an option!

At that moment, Max could practically feel the heat of competitiveness emanating from her, making him wonder since when this had become a competition. He surely hadn't signed up for any of that!

Meanwhile, Dean could see why Brody had mentioned that Max was an anomaly. The boy did notice the incongruence between Max's status as a force mage and the fact that he had just performed two sound-based skills. Something didn't add up, but apparently Brody wasn't going to pursue that issue.

The teacher then focused on the two younger students. "Now, let's begin the actual lesson, shall we?"

He then crossed his arms and maintained an amiable smile. Slowly, everyone could see his body starting to float up ever so slightly. Their eyes darted downward, and they noticed his feet weren't touching the ground anymore.

Brody was levitating!

Which wasn't actually that much of a spectacular sight; they had seen people with kinetic magic Talent using high to crystal quality mana stones to fly over a short distance between point A and point B. However, most of them lacked control and ended up crash-landing. In Brody's case, he wasn't using any mana stone and was definitely able to skillfully stabilize his body midair.

This proved that even if they didn't have a Talent in a certain type of mana, a mage could still perform much more than a normal human could. Brody's mana reserves were certainly way larger than a normal human's, and his level of control was clearly born out of a long period of repeated practice.

His body continued to float up before it started gliding forward. He made a full circle around his three students, enjoying the mesmerized look in their eyes, before landing his feet back on the ground. "So, that was a demonstration of how even a non-force mage can still fly. I've got to be honest, though; doing only that much has made me expend a great amount of mana, and it required my laser focus just to keep myself from toppling over. Certainly, it would've been easier if I had a kinetic mana conductor in my hand. But like I told you, we're going to get ourselves used to not relying on those stones.

"Also, that demonstration was mostly for Max and Mutya. That's what you're going to learn today. Dean, don't worry. I'll get to you once I'm done with these two, okay?"

After a nod from Dean, Brody instructed Max and Mutya to create more distance between each other.

"Alright, the thing you need to focus on is how your mana flows inside your body. I'm sure this is no stranger to you, since practically anybody with a Talent can feel how mana moves inside their body. However, this time, you need to concentrate on how to better control that flow, and how to redirect the kinetic energy produced once it's outside your body. The point is, you need to apply that force into your own body, and not anything else outside of it. Can you follow me so far?"

Both teens nodded.

"Good. So now I want you guys to practice how to redirect kinetic energy produced by your mana. Normally, the energy's orientation is outside, with a focus on an object. This time, though, the object is yourself. So the energy will have to make, sort of like a U-turn. At the same time, you've got to maintain the outward mana flow the whole time. So, you have two things to focus on at once. Tall order, I know. Which is why we're going to take this slowly."

Brody then raised one hand, palm up. "Your goal now is to move your own hand not with muscles," his hand suddenly flipped upside down, "but with kinetic force applied on it. And make sure to always pay attention to how much mana you're using. Try to be efficient. And for that, you need great control. You're going to attempt this once, and I will have you take a short break to replenish your mana after. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" Mutya shouted, which startled the teacher.

"I-I appreciate your enthusiasm, Mutya. Also, we're not the military. You guys don't have to call me 'sir'."

Mutya immediately started focusing on the ring foundation around her heart before taking a little bit of mana out of it, sending it out of her body and into her extended hand, before converting it into kinetic energy. So far, there was a confident smirk on her face; this initial step was so easy she couldn't help but expect that she would be able to get the whole process right the first time.

And as if fate had to give her a reality check, the kinetic energy wasn't behaving as she wanted. It remained unmoving—which was ironic since it was technically motion energy, which governed, well, motions. This was due to the fact that she kept failing to redirect the energy. At the same time, she couldn't stop pumping out more mana to maintain a stable amount of kinetic energy, since part of it would always be lost in the atmosphere.

Currently, there was a battle going on around her hand. Her mind kept forcing the energy to move, yet the only way it did was outward, when it should be the reverse. And every time it started to move further from her skin, she retreated and stopped pushing it. To then begin applying another push, before she felt it going outward again. And so she took yet another step back. This went on and on, slowly driving her crazy.

'Why can't you just turn around, goddammit!' she mentally shouted.

About six minutes later, the girl's face had become pale, with beads of sweat running down her head, causing her glasses to slide down her nose. Her hand was seen trembling, with frustration clearly coloring her face.

Finally, Brody approached her and gently tapped on her shoulder. "That's enough, Mutya. You can rest now. We're going to try again after you recover enough mana."

The girl's initial reflex was to refuse. She refused to give up. She had come this far while relying on her resilience. She was known as a hard worker, the backbone of her family. She needed to get stronger as fast as possible so she could finally give them a happy life!

Seeing that, Brody sighed. It was clear she was channeling some kind of pent up anger into this one simple learning session. If she would just calm down, she might've probably been able to understand how it worked more easily.

The teacher then put a hand on her back before applying a technique his mage friends liked to call Roadblock. It essentially employed a similar approach to a healing technique. One had to be in close contact with their target to perform this, and therefore there was no need to turn it into a different energy.

He pushed out his own mana into Mutya's body, sneakily approaching her unprotected Mana Regulator—or rather, her ring foundation. There, he created some sort of wall that prevented mana from going out of her ring foundation. This way, no matter how hard she tried to used her mana, the wall, which was built by someone much stronger than her, would be able to easily block it all off.

It took a few seconds for her to realize this, and that was when she finally relented. Her shoulders slumped and she felt extremely exhausted. "I…I don't know why it wouldn't work…" she weakly uttered.

"That's okay," Brody softly said, removing his hand from her back. There was no need to block her mana anymore. "It's normal to fail on your first try. But I'll give you a tip; the key is in your brain. The subconscious minds of those with a Talent in kinetic magic are conditioned to move kinetic energy outward toward a target. That's why you need a clear mind to be able to reverse its direction.

"For now, rest up and stabilize your foundation. Your prolonged mana usage has shaken it greatly. Here," he then handed her a medium-quality white stone.

"Thanks, Brody," Mutya said before trudging to a corner. However, before she sat down, she curiously glanced at the person she had passionately labeled as her rival. She had half-expected him to also fail, but for some reason, deep down she kind of figured that wouldn't be the case.

And sure enough, Max had aced it on his first try.

Dean couldn't help but throw a remark. "Dude, you know that one student who never seems to pay attention in class, whose snoring is always heard from the back, yet somehow always gets an A in every exam? Yeah, that's you."

Witnessing the scene, Mutya practically melted to the floor. Her eyes looked empty as she stared into space. 'This is so unfair.'