Mana Control Training

Nadios sneakily got up and grabbed some clothes from the wardrobe before teleporting to his waypoint beside the Atalant River. He ran through the Atalant Forest in high spirits, his every step leaving the ground giddily. After he got home from making chants, he had dinner with his family before he retired to his room.

There, he meditated a couple of times which resulted in his mana core changing from its vibrant red gleam to a dark, dull yellow. Nadios was ecstatic; How could he not be? Every stage he broke through effectively multiplied his power by dozens, maybe even a hundred times. If he only factored in the base mana capacity upgrade and the mana quality increase, it would only be roughly 20-25 times.

However, with the increased mana quality came an increase in his mana veins and mana vessels. They could hold more mana, mana flowed faster through his veins, and it took a lot less time for his mana to gain an element. Furthermore, he could use some new attacks that he had been thinking about. He would still have to practice them to master them as well as think about a chant for them, which would be even harder than his previous chants.

Something that puzzled Nadios though was that when he broke through, he felt no barrier or anything holding him back. In "Magic", it had stated that even the biggest geniuses out there experience some kind of thing holding them back when they are about to break through, although the difficulty is much less the bigger a genius they were. That time he advanced to the red stage, Nadios had also felt no hurdle in his way, however he just dismissed it as maybe he was too young for the hurdle to form.

When Nadios left the forest behind him, he was slightly surprised by his speed. He had exited the forest almost 50% faster than previous times. Then, he remembered that over time, mana flowing through the veins will permeate occasionally and strengthen the body. Thus, it caused him to entertain a thought: What if he purposefully let his mana flow into his body and temper it, as well as his core and vessels?

Nadios reached the base of the Iringor mountain range and put that thought in the back of his mind; He'll ask Cynthia about it later, after he apologized for his rude departure yesterday night.

'I wonder…' Nadios concentrated on the mountain wall, staring at a ledge a couple hundred meters upward. Before, he could really only vp a hundred, maybe two hundred meters. However, that would drain Nadios of pretty much half his mana. With his recent boost in strength though…

Nadios' body flashed, reappearing on the ledge. Checking his mana vessels, he found that he only lost around 5%. A quarter of what he lost before for a teleport a couple times larger. Nadios grinned. He activated vp several more times, before he stopped in front of the concealed cave entrance.

"Hey!" Nadios yelled. "I'm back!"

A growl was his only reply. Nadios shivered. Although he could keep his cool in front of Cynthia, hearing a menacing growl coming from a pitch-black cave was terrifying in and of itself. Nadios created a quick waypoint beside the cave entrance before making his way through the dark. The first thing Nadios noticed was that he could see clearer in the dark.

The next thing Nadios noticed was that there was a yellow eye the size of his head glaring at him menacingly from the darkness. "Please don't glare at me like that, Cynthia. No, Master Cynthia. It was a mistake, an honest mistake. I didn't mean to teleport all the way to my house, alright? I'm sorry."

Like last time, a multitude of bright flames appeared around the circumference of the cave. Cynthia was once again lying down with her tail curled around a blue orb. Nadios noticed that the blue orb was much less vigorous; Its luster had waned slightly, its color dimmed, and the transparency was much stronger.

"You have a lot less time than I originally assumed." Nadios attributed this dimming of the time orb to a decrease in Cynthia's mana quality and quantity.

"I used a lot of mana to create that magic circle on your mana core and vessels," Cynthia replied. "I've also prepared a training room for you and Cynthia once you save her. Now, I've only got about 15 days left."

Nadios internally rejoiced. Cynthia didn't sound angry at him at all, which was good news. "15? How many days did you have before?"

"Oh, I don't know. A month or two?"

"Huh."

"Now, if you're done. Come over here." Cynthia used her head to point at a flat spot a couple meters away from Nadios. Nadios complied with her order and as soon as his right foot touched the circle-like flat spot, the world around him seemed to suddenly stop.

"Woah!" Nadios said, retracting his foot. "What was that?"

"Where you will be spending most of our remaining time together," Cynthia said. "Step back in it and sit down."

After Nadios, hesitantly, crossed the circle and sat down, Cynthia rested her head in front of him and spoke. "This is a certain spell that creates a field in which time moves slower. Five seconds in that circle is one second out here. It's perfect for training, combined with another spell I'm about to use."

Cynthia then closed her eyes, which told Nadios to not bother her; She was in the process of activating that spell. Something then occurred to Nadios.

'I'll ask her after she completes her spell,' Nadios thought.

Five minutes later, Cynthia opened her eyes. Nadios was about to ask her the question on his mind when suddenly, his vision swam and he started to feel light-headed. "Uhhh, Cynthia? Is this part of the spell?"

"Yes," came her reply. "Give it a minute. Although I can chant this spell, I want to minimize mana waste. Just sit and be quiet."

So Nadios did. Not long after, the world went completely black. Nadios kept his calm, although his panic meter was sky-high. His patience was rewarded when, as sudden as his vision loss, Nadios regained his ability to see.

What he found himself in was a field of gray grass, or what Nadios assumed to be grass, that stretched as far as Nadios could see. Above him, the sky was a gray the same shade as the grass while what little clouds there were were also a similar color.

"Where am I?" Nadios asked. He assumed Cynthia could still hear him. She wouldn't send him someplace without communication between the two, right?

"The spell I activated on you takes you into a world where everything is the same as Sucratz, except your physical body is not here. Instead, I have imported your soul into this world. Don't worry, your soul is perfectly safe here, as well as your physical body in the real world."

Nadios frowned. Or, well, his soul did. Or wait, did his soul frown or did his real body frown? Nadios shook his head to rid him of those thoughts. Wait, did his soul's head shake or… Nadios immediately stopped that line of thought. "How is this good for training, though? If I don't have my mana core or my mana vessels, how am I going to use magic?"

"The basic answer is, your soul is you. If you can do something in the real world with your physical body, your soul can do it too. The only difference between your soul and physical body is that third party resources used to boost your mana quality and quantity will not help you here. An outside resource does not count as you, after all."

"Ok," was Nadios' reply.

"Now, what I want you to do is just grab a strand of death mana and mimic my movements." Following Cynthia's words, a thick line of cyan mana appeared in front of Nadios' eyes. Nadios couldn't see it, but by using mana sense to cover a wide area around him, he was able to discover the part that didn't contain his mana.

Nadios took out a string of black death mana, which was slightly bubbly and sputtered every so often. His string was much smaller, thinner, and less bright than Cynthia's. That was only to be expected though, as he was just a yellow core novice while she was a white-core master.

Cynthia waved and twirled her mana around elegantly, her movements smooth and unobstructed. She stopped after creating a figure eight, which slowly dissipated. Nadios followed her lead and copied her movements, but he found out that it wasn't as easy as he thought it was. His mana traveled smoothly, but it would occasionally veer off course making the line go zig zag.

Furthermore, it required his utmost concentration to move the mana in a straight line for not even a minute; He guessed that this training was to clear Cynth's rampant mana and if that was true, it would take probably a couple hours by Nadios' estimates.

Cynthia did the figure eight pattern again, which Nadios copied again. This time, his mana was slightly straighter and when he did go off course, it wasn't by much. Cynthia made the figure eight again after Nadios finished, and the cycle repeated.

This happened back and forth silently for over an hour before Cynthia finally gave Nadios a break. When Nadios asked how long it had been since training started, Cynthia said 13 minutes. Nadios was suddenly reminded of a question he had.

"Hey, Cynthia," Nadios said. Receiving a grunt in response, Nadios continued. "You know how I am in a circle that time moves five times slower in, right? How can you talk to me if I'm talking and moving five times faster?"

"Even if you were moving a hundred times faster, I would be able to detect your movements and speech easily. This is nothing." Cynthia replied. "Now, get another string of mana out again. If you have time to ask questions, you have time to train."

Cynthia's response only strengthened the flames of motivation under Nadios' heart. He could reach that stage one day! So, Nadios resumed training with a renewed vigor that quickly was blown out due to his exercises.

At the 24 minute reality time mark, Nadios was skilled enough to move on to writing larger numbers. One minute later, Nadios was writing equations. After five minutes, Nadios noticed that Cynthia was making him do fifth grade level problems.

'Is she… trying to teach me math while simultaneously training my mana control?' Nadios thought incredulously. 'I mean, I do look and have the body of a seven year old, but I thought that she would just focus on mana control. We only have a limited amount of time, right? Why is she doing this?'

Nadios didn't ask Cynthia why she was teaching him long division and multiplication; there really was no need to. He'll just go along with the flow, if it helps his mana control. At the one hour mark, Nadios had finally graduated from highschool, after Cynthia practically made him write entire paragraphs about the properties of water, do calculus, and... give him a sex talk using pictures?

Nadios already learned most of this in his previous life, so it was a bit boring, but having better mana control was a nice plus that he couldn't really give up. When Cynthia started drawing an intricate wyvern complete with scales, spines, shading, and rows of sharp teeth, Nadios' ears perked up.

After Cynthia finished, Nadios eagerly started to draw the wyvern. Over the last hour or so, Nadios' mana control had been refined to a point that he could trace the lines smoothly and without random jumps off course. Cynthia watched Nadios tracing the wyvern with a childish grin on his face and smiled. She was reminiscent of the days when Cynth was just a baby wyvern, running around the mountains and attempting to fly with her feeble baby wings.

15 minutes later, an hour and a half for Nadios, Nadios finished his wyvern drawing. It was not as perfect as Cynthia's but Nadios had to give himself credit. An onlooker could at least tell that it was meant to be a wyvern. Nadios waited patiently for Cynthia to start moving her time mana, but even after five minutes of waiting, nothing happened.

"Cynthia? Are you there?" Nadios asked.

This seemed to have broken Cynthia out of her thoughts as immediately after, the gray world that Nadios had grown so used to dispersed until he was back in the big cave with floating fire for light.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought." Cynthia apologized. "That's the end, though. I took a look at your wyvern and it looked fine. Great, even. You completed my mana control course much faster than I expected, if I'm being honest."

"I'm gifted. I know." Nadios bragged, his tone imprudent.

Cynthia scoffed. "Hardly. I set the standard for an average human boy, considering your talent. The average child of the wyvern species could finish that course in less than five hours, while it took you over that."

"Doesn't count. Wyverns are known for their excellence in magic, while humans are gifted in no areas whatsoever."

"Stop making excuses." Cynthia brought the sphere of mana containing Cynth forward. "What I want you to do now is cure Cynth. You should be skilled enough to just clear her body of excess mana."

"... Are you sure?" Nadios asked. "I mean, shouldn't I do some practice runs first? If you can make that gray world, you can make a tiny simulation, right?"

"I could, but the process of forming her mana core could take a long, long time. Several days at least. If we practice until you get good at it, I won't have enough time to teach Cynth everything I want to. Don't worry about messing up; If something bad happens, I'll teleport you away and return Cynth to the time chamber."

Nadios took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's do it."

Cynthia released the time chamber around her daughter, gently laying the latter on the floor. Immediately after, high-pitched cries rang out in the cave. It was like a normal human child's voice, except with a bit of grit in it.

Nadios immediately sent out a strand of death mana and penetrated Cynth's scaly body. He also used mana sense so that he could feel what was going on. Inside Cynth's body, her internal organs were swirling around and blood, which was rushing one way, suddenly switched direction.

He felt a pattern, though; Blood turned in one direction only, organs flew towards one specific spot, and mana was sucked towards that spot as well. As well as all of these, there were various microscopic tubes running all throughout Cynth's body that connected seven small orbs to an empty space that everything was centered around.

Cynth's mana veins were clogged with blood and fat. The influx of mana eventually invaded her veins and started to break their way through, clearing those clots of impurities. In a way, Cynth's talent was helping her as well.

Nadios gritted his teeth and began clearing the rampaging mana in Cynth's legs and tail. Every time the mana hit the small wyvern's tissue, it cut deep into it before rebounding. Nadios' death mana touched its first portion of rampaging mana; It cut through the mana like a knife through butter.

Nadios tried to imagine that he was just coloring a color book. He separated the mana into sections, just like he would do in his childhood. He would only clean one section before moving on to the next. Nadios continued this way and before he even noticed, he had completely cleaned out the leg and tail area.

He then moved on to the head. He didn't want to do her body yet due to the simple reason that with her organs shaking around and blood flowing everywhere, the risk was much greater there than anywhere else.

Nadios cleared the area around Cynth's skull before moving into her skull. He made sure to not clean too close to her brain. If he touched even a millimeter of her brain, the effect could be far worse than just letting the mana scar it. Once he gains greater control over his mana, then he'll go back and wipe her clean.

Nadios quickly finished cleaning Cynth's brain and was about to move onto her wings when Cynthia's voice resounded in his head. "That's enough. We'll continue next time."

Nadios retracted his mana string and laid back explosively. His forehead was matted with sweat and his breath came in uneven, heavy gasps. Although he wasn't physically exhausted, far from it even, mentally he was drained. "How… How long was I at it?"

"You were in her for roughly four hours." Cynthia replied. "You should be getting home now."

"Alright… give me a minute first." When Nadios was sufficiently recovered he got up, left the time-slowed circle, and was about to teleport back to his room when Cynthia's voice cut the air.

"Ah. I almost forgot. Practice controlling more than one mana string with precision while you're at home. While not needed, it will greatly lessen your load in the coming days."

"Understood." With that, Nadios teleported back to his room and got into bed. There was still two or three hours before sunrise, which was when his dungeon expedition with Krupt and Co. was scheduled.

*

*

*

Nadios got up and put on some pants, a cotton shirt, and a leather tunic. He made his way out of his room and down into the kitchen where he snatched a piece of bread. On his way out the door, he bumped into Rianne cleaning.

"Nadios? What are you doing so early?" Riannes asked.

"It's a secret," Nadios said, his voice muffled by the bread in his mouth. "I'll show you, mom, and dad sometime." Nadios made a mental note to start building a treehouse or something.

"Ok, well, be safe."

"I will." Nadios hugged Rianne. "See you later!"

Outside, the sky was still coated in the black and blues of nighttime although it was beginning to lighten a little. Nadios guessed he had a little over 30 minutes before it was time to meet with Krupt. He slept a little too long, huh…

Nadios settled into a run that covered just over ten meters a second. With this speed, he would get there in just a bit over 40 minutes. While racing through the forest, Nadios encountered many creatures that he just ignored completely. They weren't strong enough to hurt him, but he wasn't strong enough to take them out quickly. Since this is the case, it would be better to just disregard them.

Nadios ran until he passed the Atalant Forest. There, he quickly found a characteristic rock the locals called "Rude Rock" due to it looking like a hand with its middle finger raised from a certain angle. Nadios departed in the direction of Rude Rock's palm.

Before long, a large tower made its way into Nadios' view. The tower had appeared suddenly and out of nowhere. One moment the sky was clear and the sun was crawling over the horizon, the next Cyplir Dungeon standing there in all its glory.

The dungeon twisted and turned on its quest to touch the heavens. Along its body, numerous thinner branches split apart. These branches intertwined with each other and the main body, creating a giant tumbleweed-like thing. At the very top of the dungeon, a spire peeked out over the mass of interlocking branches.

At the base of the dungeon, there was a small town. Houses, Inns, shops selling equipment, there was even a red light district for the hard working wannabe dungeon conquerors. While walking through the streets, Nadios faintly heard a voice calling out his name. Turning around in a circle, Nadios caught sight of a young man with a receding hairline wearing protective red armor.

"Hey!" Krupt waved. "Gennadios!"

Nadios pushed his way through the crowd towards Krupt, Miriam, and Benjamin.

"Hello," Nadios said, standing in front of the three. "Sorry for being late."

"No no, it's fine." Miriam said gently. "We just got here ourselves."

"Mm."

"Well, let's get going, shall we?" Krupt said, turning towards the entrance to the Cyplir dungeon. He froze as if a thought suddenly struck him and whipped back around to face his companions. "I almost forgot. Here, Gennadios. Take this." Krupt reached into a bag on his back and took out a sheathed blade.

"I noticed how you are always using a kitchen knife whenever you join us on missions. So, I bought you this sword. I debated going for a dagger instead, but you were using that kitchen knife like you would a sword so I got one."

"Oh. Thanks, Krupt. I appreciate it, really." Nadios took the sword from Krupt's outstretched arms and unsheathed it. It resembled a European longsword. It had a three foot blade connected to a soft leather hilt via a simple crosspiece.

The blade reflected the little sunlight there was. Nadios took a second more to admire the blade before sheathing it. He didn't want to lug it around everywhere, since that was tiring, so he coated the sword with space mana and sent it to his riverside base. If he needs it, he'll use venire to teleport it to him.

"Alright, now let's get going."