Alice entered the manaless room. Cecilia closed the door. For the first time since Alice had arrived in this world, she was completely out of contact with mana. She had suspected for a long time that being cut off from mana wasn’t lethal for humans, but now that the time had finally come to test it, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She took a deep breath, then released it.

So what if she was wrong? If she ended up being incorrect, Cecilia would open the door to the room and get some mana inside. Alice would learn a valuable fact about how mana interacted with the human body. Exploring the nature of mana and reality required sometimes taking bold stances. And sometimes, she would just be wrong. She needed to accept that and run the test anyway – otherwise, she would never know. What was important was to gain information from running the experiment.

She took another deep breath, trying to feel out the changes in her body. Was she actually dying? Was she suffocating in some sort of slow, unnoticeable way? She didn’t feel very different yet. However, it might just be hard to notice the changes at first.

The only sound was Cecilia slowly counting out her heartbeat to use as a method of keeping time. While horribly imprecise, neither of the two had access to a Perk that would allow for perfect timekeeping, and clocks in this world were expensive and rare. It was nowhere near perfect, but it was something.

60 of Cecilia’s heartbeats passed.

“I am starting to feel a bit of what the other anecdotes and cases mentioned. Even though it isn’t necessarily indicative of me dying, I feel a bit weaker,” said Alice. “It’s not by much, but I definitely feel something.”

“Are you feeling all right otherwise? Any illnesses or strange problems?”

“Not yet.”

“What else is changing about your condition? You mentioned weakness – can you get me some data on that? Is it just a feeling, or are you actually weaker?”

Alice picked up one of the ‘weights’ she and Cecilia had prepared beforehand. It was actually just a sack filled with sturdy tools, none of which were likely to break even if Alice dropped them. This particular sack was the heaviest one Alice had managed to pick up before the experiment started.

Of course, in the process of figuring out Alice’s maximum weightlifting abilities, Alice had gained a point of [Strength], meaning she and Cecilia had needed to completely redo all of their calculations afterwards. Luckily, Alice hadn’t gained another point of [Strength] after that.

Gathering research data when Attributes could change in seconds was nightmare inducing. Something Alice had never thought about before she had actually tried to do it.

Alice shook away her thoughts and prayed that she wouldn’t gain a point in any of her attributes during the test inside of the room. Who knew how that would mess things up?

Then, with a heave, Alice magnificently failed to lift up the sack. She was almost able to lift it, but it was just a bit too heavy for her. After a few more seconds of trying, she quickly realized it was pointless. She stopped messing with the heaviest weight.

“Strength is certainly dropping. I can’t lift up the heavy sack anymore.” Alice then picked up the next heaviest weight, which the two had approximated should be around ninety percent of the heaviest sack’s weight. Cecilia’s high perception skill let the two make at least vaguely approximate guesses, but without either Perks or equipment to get real numbers, vague approximation would be the best the two were able to do. Still, it would serve for now.

“I can still lift the second heaviest sack, although it’s difficult. How are we doing on time?”

“300 heartbeats, so we should be at around five minutes. Give or take a few seconds on either side. Any dangerous symptoms yet?”

Alice closed her eyes, trying to focus on the sensations and feedback her body were giving her as she moved around.

“I am starting to feel very slightly dizzy. It’s a bit hard to evaluate what that means in numerical terms. However, I can definitely feel that it’s getting just a bit harder to keep my balance. I am also feeling… slower? Less precise in my movements?” Alice shook her head. “I can’t quite put it into words. However, it’s not just my physical strength – it’s not even just that I am starting to feel a bit weaker. It is like something is missing that has always been there. I feel… clumsy. Slow. I think if I tried to balance on something, I would probably fall.”

“Slow and clumsy?” Cecilia sounded surprised.

“Yeah.” Alice tried walking from one end of the room to the other. Not only was each step less sure than it usually was, she felt that her limbs just weren’t obeying her the way they usually did. It didn’t feel entirely foreign to her, though. In fact, the entire sensation felt oddly familiar…

“It feels like I’m losing stats in Dexterity,” said Alice, absently popping open her Status to make sure she wasn’t actually losing Attribute Points. There were no changes in her actual stats – in fact, her Status Screen looked exactly the same as it had before she had entered the room.

breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alice… you say that you feel like you’re losing points in Dexterity, right? And that your maximum strength has decreased a bit?”

“Yeah, I definitely feel that way. It’s as if…” Alice sucked in a deep breath. “Say, what do we know about Attributes and Skills?”

“According to our best guess, they need mana to form,” said Cecilia, sounding like she was also realizing where Alice was going with this. “Though, thus far, we have only actually proven the two are related to each other, and have yet to prove any sort of causation. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“That this might be a way to actively prove that Mana is what causes increases in stats, rather than the other way around? And that maybe those Stats stop working without mana?” Asked Alice.

“So you ARE going the same direction I was thinking you were going,” said Cecilia, her speech slowing down. “Tell me, do you notice any mental effects? You mentioned changes to your physical abilities, but no changes to your mental capabilities. Those are also Stats, after all.”

“For now, I haven’t observed any major changes,” said Alice, frowning. “Actually, now that I think about it, my skin is becoming a lot less sensitive. My eyesight is getting a bit worse, too. At home, my eyesight was pretty average, but it became much better after I arrived in this world. However, it’s starting to get closer to what it used to be. It’s noticeably getting worse – it’s just that the change is too small and spread out for me to immediately notice. My hearing is also getting worse, but only by a little bit. Hmm…”

“In that case, perhaps you’re becoming slightly dumber by staying in the manaless room? If this were a well-known experiment, people would say that it’s a rather foolhardy thing to do, after all.” Cecilia’s voice carried a faint undercurrent of amusement.

Alice snorted.

“Maybe. I’ll keep an eye on it. It’s also much harder to test [Intelligence] objectively, so I might just not be noticing the decrease. Hmm… Now that I think about it, I also had much higher mental attributes than physical ones when I arrived on this world,” said Alice. “Assuming mana is used to improve stats, and only the stats gained through mana are decreased while cut off from mana, maybe my [Intelligence] and [Willpower] won’t be affected much if I’m cut off from mana? After all, neither of those stats have changed much since I arrived here.”

“True. If this proves to be safe, I wouldn’t mind also entering the manaless room for a bit to see if I can notice a difference. First let’s finish up this test before we think about follow-up tests, though.”

Alice continued to walk around in the room, chatting with Cecilia so that Cecilia could monitor Alice and keep an eye on Alice’s mental abilities. As second ticked by, Alice started to notice more and more of the weaknesses brought about by having no mana in the air around her. The weakness and dizziness were getting worse with each passing minute. It felt almost the same as being out of breath.

“I’m starting to notice the recorded symptoms of mana deprivation. It feels more and more like I’m missing something, and that I desperately want it. My limbs are feeling weaker, and I am getting dizzier. I am also starting to get a headache, although it is relatively minor so far. What is the time?”

“If we approximate my resting heart rate back into minutes, probably about fifteen minutes now. Should we call the experiment here? Don’t put your health at risk – if you think there’s any danger to you, we should stop.”

“I can continue on for now. But be ready to open the door and get some mana into the room if necessary. I want to push a little longer first. If getting out of an area filled with mana makes me lose the Stats I worked hard for, I want to know,” said Alice. “Even if places without mana in this world are almost exclusively labs, I still want to get a better idea what’s actually going on. Besides, we still don’t know for sure what’s going on. Am I just losing stats, or suffering from something similar to asphyxiation? Because becoming dizzier and weaker would also be consistent with my stats dropping. Loss of [Endurance], especially, would make me frailer and weaker. And it would also explain why people think that mana deprivation is fatal. [Endurance] does a wide variety of things, but some of the most critical ones seem to be boosting the immune system and making the body healthier. If that’s suddenly taken away, people would definitely feel sick and dizzy. People who are barely surviving a major illness might die, and those who are seriously injured might lose the ability to keep living on. But that’s still just our theory for now – we need to actually test it out. And I won’t put anyone else at risk.”

“All right. Just make sure to let me know the moment things start to feel really wrong,” said Cecilia. This time, there was an undercurrent of anxiety in her voice. The girl went back to chatting about unimportant topics, but the nervousness never quite left her voice. Approximately five minutes later, Cecilia asked Alice a new question. “Any further loss of strength and other stats?”

Alice walked back over the to sets of weight, before she tried to pick up the previous weight.

“I can’t lift the second heaviest sack anymore.” She started working her way down some of the lighter sacks, over and over, until she stopped.

“I can still do the third heaviest sack. We estimated that one should be around 85% of the heaviest one, right? In that case, I seem to have lost about a sixth of my arm strength.” Said Alice.

“Any other symptoms? Are they getting any worse?”

“Hmm… I think they’re starting to stabilize. I definitely noticed that the symptoms getting worse a minute or two ago, but at this point, I’m not noticing much change. It’s hard to evaluate the stats besides Strength, though.”

“All right. We can wait another five minutes, then.”

The two waited for several seconds. Alice continued to pace around the room, anxious to see what the results of the experiment would be. However, she made sure to keep talking to Cecilia. Alice speaking nonstop was one of the best ways Cecilia could monitor the safety of the experiment, apart from the small two-way peephole installed in the door. However, Cecilia watching everything might not give the full picture of the situation inside the room, so Alice made sure to keep speaking.

“All right, it has been another 5 minutes. Any further decrease in strength?”

Alice began testing the sacks for a third time. “No. I can still lift the third heaviest sack, and it doesn’t feel like the difficulty of doing so has changed.”

“Hmm… How would this compare to your previous world?”

“Ummm… I mean, I would still be noticeably stronger than the girls in my school, even the physically active ones. Compared to the boys… I think I would still be noticeably stronger than them, but the difference wouldn’t be as pronounced. Nowhere near my current ‘normal’ where I could easily stomp my school’s sports team, but I could still beat an average sports team member, I think?”

“Interesting…” Cecilia stopped talking for a moment. “Wait a minute. If your Attributes aren’t ‘working’ at 100% anymore, what about your Perks?”

“Huh.” Alice hadn’t thought of that. She immediately grabbed a small fingernail-sized piece of charcoal and tried to store it using {Sample Collection}. The fingernail sized piece of charcoal disappeared into thin air, the same way objects usually did when she used the Perk. However, Alice noticed a feeling of strain when she stored it this time. That had never happened before. Usually, whenever she had an excuse to use the Perk, it just slipped objects in and out of it easily. If before, it was like lifting up an apple, this time, it was like shoving an apple into a tube that was just slightly too small – still doable, but harder.

“{Sample Collection} still works, but it seems harder to use than normal. Let’s see…” Alice tried using {Precise Mana Measurement} on the area inside the Manaless room. She already knew that there was no mana inside of the area, she just wanted to see if the Perk would work at all.

“{Precise Mana Measurement} still works, but my headache got much worse. A lot of my other Perks are passive or combat related, so it’s hard to test them as effectively. However, I am starting to wonder if they aren’t all working at 100%. My thoughts are finally starting to slow down a bit, and I can’t sense motion in the world around me as effectively as before.” Alice frowned, and began trying to focus on the feeling of multitasking.

Then, for the first time, she realized that the buzzing feeling of having two different thoughts at the same time had grown muted while she was in the room. She was still thinking of two things at once, but her second stream of thoughts felt sluggish. It was hard to focus. Even though she could still do it, it was harder and less efficient.

“I think my more passive Perks are also working less effectively. I’m definitely noticing a few of the more combat-related ones seem less efficient here.”

“Is that so?” Cecilia called out from the other side of the door. “In that case, I’m going to assume for now that everything granted by the System is working less effectively without direct contact with mana?”

“It seems to be that way,” said Alice. “I’m not noticing anything changing further, so I don’t mind waiting a little longer inside of the room. Let’s see how things go from here.”

“All right. Let’s wait another fifteen minutes, then we can also try seeing what happens if you hit the requirements for a skill. You mentioned you wanted to see what happened if you tried to form one inside of a manaless room, right?”

Alice nodded, then realized that Cecilia was only able to see her through a small peephole in the door. She spoke out loud, to make sure it was easy for the other girl to know she agreed. “Yeah. Let’s go for it.”

The two spent another fifteen minutes or so with Alice sitting inside of the room. Every five minutes, Cecilia would have Alice go through a list of physical tests and ask what had changed, but by the thirty minute mark, Alice had stopped noticing anything different. She retained 85% of her physical abilities, as far as the two could tell, and her ability to use Perks remained ‘difficult but still possible.’

“All right, I think we can assume mana deprivation isn’t fatal – at least, it isn’t fatal to you. We haven’t tried with someone from Luliv yet, so even if Earthlings can survive without mana, people from here might still struggle. Anyway, how about we try forming {Advanced Mathematics}? You said you should already have a few levels in the Skill already, even if it didn’t show up yet, right?”

“To the best of my knowledge, at least.”

“In that case, how many degrees are there in a triangle? Make sure to write down the question, and then say the answer – if you aren’t looking at a written version of the question, the Skill won’t be awarded. Even though this question is a bit on the simple side, it’s one of the most common ones to start getting into the Skill. That means it’s well documented, which is valuable. Also, easier questions about Triangles help to work on the skill, which is important because some of the later stuff is very hard to do the calculations for. Having a higher level in {Advanced Mathematics} is critical to gaining more Skill levels in {Advanced Mathematics}, amusingly enough.”

Alice grabbed a piece of charcoal and a piece of scrab wood, and quickly wrote down the formula for the question. Then, she simply scribbled the correct answer on the wooden slat, and said it out loud as well.

“All triangles have 180 degrees,” she said.

She checked her Status Screen. She looked at the room around her, preparing to bat away any mana if it somehow made its way into the room.

Instead, nothing at all happened.

No Skill increases. No Attributes. No Levels.

It looked exactly the way it would have on Earth, really. She wrote down a question and then answered it. There was no reason to expect anything to happen afterwards.

“I didn’t get a {Skill},” said Alice, after waiting a few minutes.

“Huh.” Cecilia sounded like she was scribbling something down. “There’s really nothing?”

“No change at all. No new skill, no new levels, nothing. In fact, I haven’t seen a single change to my status screen since the moment I entered this room,” said Alice, sinking into her thoughts.

“Is that really true? That’s… that’s really….” Cecilia cut herself off mid-sentence, as if she didn’t know how to continue what she was saying. “Don’t talk about this with father Friedheim. In fact, don’t mention it in public. I won’t either. Let’s just… think about this.”

Alice nodded.

“All right, so we’ve established that you can’t form skills inside of the manaless room. We haven’t tried it with anyone else yet, but we at least know that it seems impossible for now. Do you want to come out now?”

Alice thought about it for a few moments, before she nodded. “I haven’t seen anything change at all in the last half hour. While there might be some shocking discovery in the next half hour, I am starting to doubt it. At the very least, we know it’s unlikely to be potentially fatal to carry out this experiment, at least for me. We can try replicating it one more time with me as the test subject, and then if you’re willing to, you can try it as well.”

“All right,” said Cecilia. A note of delight entered her voice a moment later. “Ah, I got an upgrade to [On the Shoulders of Giants]! I also got a few levels in [Scholar]. I also picked up [Scientist]. It’s a shame [Scholar] is a Secondary class, and I don’t intend to focus on Science. Still, not bad for a few weeks of work. Especially the Achievement boost. How about you?”

“Nothing,” said Alice, sighing slightly. She hadn’t gained a single attribute, level, or skill. The moment she had failed to form the {Advanced Mathematics} skill she had realized she might not get anything out of this experiment in her Status Screen, but she had still hoped that she would gain some levels.

She gritted her teeth, and decided to ignore it. She wasn’t doing experiments just for the sake of gaining levels and Attributes – she genuinely wanted to know more, see more, understand more. Even if she didn’t get a single Level out of this, she would still do it.

Of course, it would still be more than a little disappointing.

“Nothing? That… does verify the idea that mana needs to be in the area for Skills, Attributes, etc. to work. Still. I’m sorry,” said Cecilia.

Alice sighed, then walked over to the door and opened it.

The first thing she saw was her friend, standing directly outside of the door and standing on her toes, looking inside the room.

The second thing she saw was mana.

A WHOLE LOT of mana. The moment Alice touched a wisp of mana from the surroundings outside of the manaless room, all of the mana in the hallway seemed to perk up. Then, it started surging towards her, like a tidal wave.