Feeling the mana

"Sigh…"

Kayla looked at the black wooden ceiling thoughtfully.

The things that the old man had told her, who until now had refused to tell her her name, left her surprised and moved.

In short, the old man had told her that he wanted to train her for a month before she went to the empire's capital to enroll in the Indomitable Jungle Academy.

According to his words, she was still too weak to go to a place full of elites, and she felt sorry that Zinon's protégée made a fool of herself. So he would teach him how to use her mana and give him rigorous weapons training.

"That damn old man... I'll make sure he eats her words!" Kayla punched the air with her tightly clenched fist. One of the things she hated most was that they underestimated her strength.

Tock Tock!

A loud knock sounded on his bedroom door and before he could respond, an extremely excited Ethel entered the room.

"Hey Kayla, is it true that the final wall is going to train you?!" Ethel ran towards her friend with her eyes shining with excitement.

"Haha I guess you already found out... yes, we start tomorrow but... final wall? You mean the old man?" Kayla looked a little confused at Ethel. There were few times she had seen her so excited.

"Of course! How can you not know about him?! He is literally a historical figure!" Ethel looked at Kayla in disbelief, but she suddenly remembered who she was dealing with. "Oh sure, I'm talking to you…"

Ethel almost forgot that her friend was like a newborn baby when it came to general knowledge...

"Sigh... Well, I guess I'll have to explain who he is! First of all, she is an old general named A-" Ethel began to explain the old man's story to Kayla, but Kayla shook her head.

"I don't need to know that, it's enough for me to know that he is an incredibly old man." Kayla smiled defiantly. "Also, I feel like he doesn't tell me his name because he doesn't recognize me and I refuse to allow that! I'm going to make that old man tell me his name from his wrinkled mouth!"

Ethel looked at Kayla and shook her head with a smile. Even though Kayla acted mostly serious and even depressed, she had a pride that never allowed her to lower her head. Not to mention how stubborn she could be sometimes...

"Why are you looking at me like that? It's creepy…" Kayla looked at Ethel with some disgust. Ethel had been staring at her with a smile.

"Ahem… it's nothing, nothing…" Ethel blushed a little, but like the lady she was, she knew how to change the subject quickly. "Err... well, now that I remember... the old man, as you call him, offered me the use of the city's army hunting grounds while he trained you so we could go to the academy registration together."

Ethel, like Kayla, had had a talk with the old man about his own personal matters and she had just returned from talking to him.

"Oh really?! Glad to hear it! I thought we were going to separate us because of my training…" Kayla sighed in relief. Even she felt the pressure of going somewhere completely new, especially to an otherworldly academy without having anyone she knew.

"Haha yes, he said that I should try to surpass level fifty and have my class promotion before attending to have more advantage, not to mention that I also don't want to go to the academy without anyone I know…" Ethel's situation was quite similar to Kayla's in not wanting to attend the academy without having at least one friend...

They both laughed at that, without a doubt, attending a new school was hard for anyone.

Without much else to do, they both left the two-room cabin within the subspace that the old man had lent them to stay in this month and went out to explore the city with Bred's permission.

However, Kayla just wanted the day to end quickly so her training could begin.

...

"...So in summary, mana is one of the few sources of special energies that we can control that is present throughout the world, whether in living beings or in objects."

"And like all energies we can control, mana gives us the ability to surpass our own limits and even perform actions that can only be described as magical." The old man finished his explanation as he extended his hand with his palm facing upwards.

The old man smiled, and without warning, light particle-like things began to gather in the palm of his hand, forming a brilliant ball of light blue light.

"Wow!" Kayla looked on in amazement. Even though she had already seen Ethel perform ice magic, she continued to be amazed by every magical thing she witnessed. "What's that?!"

"Haha, it's nothing special, it's just an accumulation of mana from the atmosphere, it's just a little trick, it can't do anything except glow a little." The old man smiled and threw the ball of light toward the ground, causing it to explode into thousands of particles the instant it hit the ground.

"Oh…" Kayla looked disappointed, she had expected it to be something great. But when she saw the ball of light disperses into thousands of blue dots, a doubt arose in her mind.

"Although now that I think about it… Why can I see that accumulation of mana? Isn't mana supposed to be like air, something we can't see with our eyes?" Kayla looked at the old man in confusion. Zinon was the one who told her that...

The old man's eyes were filled with satisfaction.

"Good very good! It shows that you are a brilliant girl!" There was no better satisfaction for a teacher than for his students to be brilliant. "And to answer your question, yes, normally we cannot see mana in its purest form."

"So tell me, knowing this, why do you think you were able to see mana recently?" The old man smiled, eagerly awaiting Kayla's response.

Kayla began to think seriously, coming up with hundreds of possibilities in seconds. Kayla originally couldn't do such a deep and complete analysis at such a speed, but since she woke up in her class, she felt that her brain was clearer.

Not to mention that all the class skills she got affected her ability to think in some way. Even analysis, which passively improved his ability to perform analysis on anything.

So in less than half a minute, Kayla already had an answer that she felt confident in.

"Maybe it's because... that mana pool was somehow contaminated in the process of gathering?" Kayla's night-black eyes shone radiantly.

"Incredible! You came to the right conclusion on your own with so little information, you certainly don't seem from another world!" This time, even the old man felt a little surprised. Kayla's response was exactly the situation that had occurred.

"As you said, that accumulation of mana became contaminated in the process in which I used my mana to gather it in my hand, staining it with a little of my mana. If you had your mana vision more developed, you might have noticed that the mana ball had small golden dots, which is my mana."

Kayla smiled when she heard the old man's explanation. As she expected, her answer was correct.

"So our mana is golden while the natural one is a light blue? And if so, why is it? Our body changes it to that color?" Kayla asked, curious about the reason behind that.

"Haha, so many questions" The cornflower smiled and answered all of Kayla's doubts. In these last years of his life, in which he focused on teaching the younger generation, he had never encountered such a fluid learning process.

"First of all, no, the mana that we use is not always gold nor is pure mana always blue, the latter depends on the area. And since we are in this subspace created using elements related to nature as a base, naturally the pure and natural mana that predominates has to do with wind and vegetation."

Kayla looked at the large fields around her and the strong wind that occasionally ruffled her short hair and she understood. In fact, it was quite logical.

"As for our mana, you are a bit right. We certainly change the mana when it enters our body, but it does not always turn into a golden color, that varies from person to person" The old man extended his hand again and a ball of golden light appeared in his hand.

"For example, my mana is golden in color, Bred's is light black, and your friend's is probably blue." After the old man finished speaking, a somewhat excited smile appeared on his face. "So, aren't you curious about the color of your mana?"

Kayla's eyes opened and she quickly understood the old man's intention. "Obviously!"

The old man smiled and didn't waste any more time. He quickly asked Kayla to sit in the lotus position and close her eyes.

"Kayla, for us to know the color of your mana, you have to externalize it like I did. And for that, you first have to feel it... "The old man placed his big hand on Kayla's back. "I am going to inject some of my mana into your body, remember the feeling of mana running through your body and try to feel yours…"

Kayla nodded slightly and focused on the sensations inside his body.

"Concentrate your entire being towards your lower abdomen, where your mana storage is located…" The old man's voice entered Kayla's ears.

Following his advice, Kayla focused her entire being on her lower abdomen, trying to find something.

Quickly Kayla, who had always had exceptional concentration, was able to ignore all the other useless thoughts in her mind and leave it blank.

And at some point, while Kayla remained in a state without emotions or thoughts, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours…

Suddenly, Kayla opened her eyes, startled. However, what her eyes saw left her even more shocked.

Instead of the beautiful meadow in which she found herself, she now seemed to find herself in a darkness that seemed to have no end.

"What the fuck is going on?! The old man didn't mention any of this!" Kayla started to get a little nervous.

She attempted to move, but quickly realized the futility of her actions. After several minutes of trying to move, she finally realized that she didn't have a body in the first place...

"Did I die?!"

Kayla was scared for a moment, but her rational side came to light and she thought of all the more logical possibilities than dying that she could think of.

"The old man shouldn't let something bad happen to me or at least he would warn me of the danger... So this is probably part of the process of feeling my mana."

All of Kayla's nervousness vanished the moment she came to that conclusion and she quickly returned to her task of trying to feel her mana.

There wasn't much he could do, so after a few minutes of staring into the darkness, his mind went blank again as he tried to sense the mana. Although I had no idea if that was how mana could be felt...

Time passed quickly for Kayla and just when she felt like she might fall asleep, a sudden flash of gold illuminated the darkness before her.

"What?! Perhaps that is the mana of the old man?!"

Kayla watched in astonishment as a stream of golden light receded towards a place and she unconsciously wanted to follow it.

"Eh?, can I move now, How odd..."

But unlike before, this time she was able to move.

Although Kayla had many questions, she didn't have time to think. The golden current was getting further and further away!

Kayla chased the stream of golden light for what seemed like hours. Finally, his chase, in which he had to follow a "slightly" complicated path, came to an end when the flow of mana reached an illuminated area in the dark space in which Kayla was located.

"This… is my mana?"

Kayla gazed speechlessly at the majestic golden sea before her.

But this golden was different from the stream of light she had been following until now. The stream of light, which she suspected was the old man's mana, was a light and brilliant gold.

Instead, the sea in front of her was a dark, heavy gold, with a unique shine she had never seen. Not to mention the biggest difference with the old man's mana...

"Purple currents?..." Kayla looked curiously at the thin purple lines that flowed throughout the golden sea.

Compared to the golden sea, the purple lines couldn't even make up 1% of the sea. The only reason Kayla could notice the thin lines was because of the large difference in colors.

"If my hunch is correct, this place is my mana storage... So my mana is this color huh" Kayla looked at her mana with fascination. That golden color with the thin purple lines looked very beautiful...

"I guess that's the end of my task." Kayla smiled, or well, at least she felt like she did. However, suddenly a question arose in her mind.

"...But how do I get out of here?"