Daily

"Welcome, everyone! My name is Luna Harper, and I will be the one teaching you mana control!"

Wearing the same black uniform as all of the other teachers, Luna looked like a very gentle, elderly woman.

All of us were currently sitting cross-legged in a very eastern-looking classroom on the floor made up entirely of tatami mats. The walls were made up of solid wood, with the cherry on top being the parchment papers decorating them, containing all kinds of beautiful calligraphy.

These things combined truly made for a wonderfully serene atmosphere. An atmosphere that I couldn't help but feel was a bit ruined by the fact that Mike was staring daggers into my back.

"Let's begin by meditating. Close your eyes and try to feel the movement of mana inside of your body. How it originates in your heart and then moves all around your vessels. If you do... yes?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand why this is a mandatory course, Mrs. Harper. Isn't it a waste of time for us martial arts students to practice mana control?"

Thomas was the one who had raised his hand, unable to understand why he had to attend a course like this. A line of thinking that I couldn't help but agree with. It wasn't hard to comprehend that classes that fell under the banner of mages, healers, and so on would probably find this lesson very beneficial.

'But why would a fighter-type like Thomas have to be here?'

Luckily it didn't take more than a moment before the granny in front of us enlightened us with some very reasonable words.

"That's a great question, Mr. Stout. However, do you know what the two main benefits of practicing mana control are?"

Thomas only shook his head at her question.

"The first benefit is something called mana efficiency. Even if you're a fighter, your combat skills still consume mana. Even if it's generally a lower amount than if a mage would use a spell-based skill, it's still possible to reduce that amount even further."

'Oh, that's interesting.'

I had just assumed that using a specific skill would automatically consume a specific amount of mana. Which, in hindsight, was quite a stupid conclusion. Because my only skill was one that I could use in a multitude of different ways, which inevitably would mean it would consume different amounts of mana.

"The second benefit is..."

Her right fist started glowing with a bright blue in reaction to her conglomerating mana within it. To me, it looked like a pretty random action, but that was not the case for Thomas who somehow saw what she was doing more clearly.

"That's... [Power Fist]?"

"Correct. Now, the second benefit to being proficient in controlling one's mana is this..."

Suddenly, the room was illuminated as her hand became brighter and brighter, the power of the light escalating for every second that passed. However, other than it looking pretty cool, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at.

But, Thomas did.

"Holy crap...!"

Releasing her mana, Mrs. Harper looked quite content with his reaction to her display, pleased that he appeared to have understood what she wanted to tell him.

"That's right. Even simple, basic skills can become a lot more powerful by pouring more mana into them. This requires you to learn how to control your mana so that you are able to manually use it in any way you want to."

"I understand. Please, Instructor Harper, please teach me!"

"Fufufu! Of course! So, as I was saying: Let's begin with meditation. Getting in tune with your own mana pool is the first step to developing your control of it, after all."

Unsure of exactly what was expected of us, I also closed my eyes like everyone around me, pretending to know what I was doing. The truth was that as soon as our teacher mentioned mana, I was already able to feel it inside of me. No, even since the first day I came here, the day I saved George, I was able to feel it.

I had no issues at all directing the energy inside of me however I wanted. From the heart to my left hand, to my left foot, then back to my chest, and so on. Yet, when I sneakily opened one of my eyes, it looked like the others were struggling a bit.

'But nothing good will come from me standing out...'

There was no need for me to cause a scene by saying something like 'Isn't this too easy?'. Instead, I kept pretending that I was working hard to establish a connection with my mana just like everyone else.

The only problem was that it was very relaxing to just sit there on the tatami mats that had some give with closed eyes. Enough so that it was only when our teacher spoke again that I realized that our three-hour-long lesson was already over.

"Good job today! Though I might not see all of you again this week, I hope that the magic arts students look forward to Thursday when we will begin magic arts. Class dismissed!"

Due to the differences between the martial arts students and the magical arts students, we would naturally also not attend the same courses. However, those more specialized courses would only be held on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with all of us studying the same subjects on all other days.

Kind of. Fridays were days when we didn't actually have any lectures on our schedule at all. It was a day meant for activities outside of our lessons such as excursions and survival exercises, among other activities which required more time. However, when these kinds of things weren't scheduled, Fridays were meant as a day for self-studying.

Also, on the matter of self-studying: Even though our second school day was now officially over, with us having finished our last scheduled class of the day, we were still expected to train in our free time as well.

Despite that, I had other plans. The reality was that I still didn't know enough about this world yet, and though I also knew it was important for me to grow stronger, that wasn't...

*Bing!*

==========

[Act 1, chapter 2: The duty of a student!]

Daily mission:

- Complete 4 hrs. of personal training!

Penalty:

- Curse of the mummy.

Timer: 8hr 59 min 55s

==========

Although I was pretty happy to see that the penalty for the new mission that appeared wasn't death, I had a feeling that being cursed wasn't all too desirable of an outcome either.

'I guess I'm going home to train like the dutiful student I am...'

==========

Sitting cross-legged in one of the many parks that were spread out around campus, I was currently surrounded by five, floating rocks, dancing in tune with my will. The only reason why I decided to come here was that I felt like it might make for a good environment for practicing my magic.

It was also pretty great that there were plenty of smaller rocks lying around in the grass, which I was now using as the medium for my training.

To be completely honest, though, I still had no idea what I was actually doing, but as I could feel my body growing weaker due to the strain of using mana, I assumed I was doing something right.

In my head, it made sense that practicing one's magical abilities wasn't all too different from physical training. One part was simply to wear oneself out and get used to the strain, and the other was to get a feel of the 'movements', meaning I wanted to practice controlling my ability more delicately.

And as I started juggling the rocks in the air, I could somewhat feel my control slowly becoming more and more accurate, even though they still weren't floating as steadily as I wanted them to.

*Tak, tak, tak!*

"Huff...huff..."

At some point, the rocks simply fell down onto the grassy ground, and although it was disappointing, I already knew the reason why they decided to suddenly follow the laws of gravity.

===Status===

Name: Alex Winter

Class: Psion

Level: 5

Strength: 3

Agility:4

Stamina: 3

Intelligence: 15

Free stat points: 0

Mana: 3/75

Skills: [Telekinesis]

Talents: [Mana control - Rank 2]

==========

My mana pool had been emptied once again, but differing from the times it happened before, I was not going to meditate in an attempt to recover it again. Because I had already completed the mission given to me.

'19.44? And I haven't even eaten dinner yet...'

As I had been pretty desperate to make sure I would complete the mission, and our last lecture had ended at 3 o'clock, it couldn't be helped that the sun had already begun to take its leave.

'Why are the days so short?'

Getting to my feet, I began to walk towards the cafeteria to get some food while inwardly complaining. There were still a lot of things I wanted to accomplish today, one of which was to go to the library and learn more about this world and how it worked.

And that was something I was still adamant about. Even if I would have to reduce my sleep a bit, I knew I had no choice but to grit my teeth and persevere. For the sake of survival.

The worst part was that I knew I would have to do all of this again tomorrow, as the mission that I had received was a daily mission. Meaning I would have to complete four hours of training every day unless I wanted to be cursed by a mummy.