“There is only one path to power – Eat and grow strong!”

- Khara, Rakshasa General

Humans are creatures of perception. Sometimes all it takes to inspire them is watching someone they thought of as inferior to them struggle and overcome a hurdle they themselves failed at leaping. They think, ‘If he can do it, I can too.’ Even when that isn’t necessarily true. But throughout the ages, it is these very humans who have created miracles. Based upon their tenacious faith, false has been turned into true.

Sand watched helplessly as the other slaves bustled about doing his work for him. When he had decided to use the hard labour to break through into the initial stage of magic, he hadn’t planned for his actions to affect the other slaves so profoundly. He hadn’t planned to affect them at all. After all, in his tentative plans, the mine was only a short pit-stop in his journey to reclaim the power he had lost to the river of time.

But he had underestimated the influence watching a ten-year-old child silently, stubbornly complete his tasks despite his wounds and their taunts, would have on the slaves. A man could survive on only food and water but to live, he needed hope. And as a slave, hope was in very short supply. Sand had given it to them. They couldn't help but be affected. After he had deposited the last basket of rocks in the cart, successfully breaking through into the echelons of a Red Mage in the process, the slaves had forced him to rest and tend to his wounds while they deposited whatever ore they mined into the cart on their own.

Sand sighed inwardly. ‘All I wanted was to seize the opportunity to stock up on some red mana. How am I supposed to do that if they do all my work for me?’ Sitting on a rock in one corner of the cavern, Sand took his shirt off and unwrapped his bandages, placing them in a neat pile by the side. He didn’t want them sticking to his reopened wounds as the blood clotted. Shaking his head in resignation, he turned his attention back to inspecting the condition of his body after his breakthrough.

‘The amount of mana is a bit low. It's within expectations. I couldn't close all my pores in this inexperienced body… I’ll have to work on it.’

The method of mana generation was quite simple. Every creature in the world followed the law of tenths. Whatever the creature ate, only about a tenth could be utilized by its body while the rest would be lost to the world as heat. Mages went against this natural law by preserving this energy, which would have otherwise been lost to the world, within their body. To do so, one had to perform strenuous exercise to generate heat and lock it within their body by shutting all of their pores. Once the heat went beyond a certain level, it would coalesce into another form of energy known as mana. Depending on the density of the mana, it would have different colours leading to the differentiation of a mage’s stages.

The first stage of mana was red. Hence, mages at this realm were called Red Mages.

‘The efficiency of conversion is around nine-tenths. A bit lower than I remember. I guess my talent isn’t fully mature yet.’

The magical talent of a mage was measured by inspecting what fraction of the heat energy locked within their body they could transform into mana. Anyone with an efficiency of ninety percent or higher was considered to have top grade natural talent and expected to reach the level of a Violet Mage somewhere down the line. An efficiency of eighty percent or above was considered a highly talented individual with the prospect of reaching the level of a Blue Mage if they were diligent in their efforts.

A medium level of talent implied that the mage could convert over seventy percent of the heat to mana, demonstrating the potential to reach the level of a Green Mage. A low-level talent could hope to reach the level of a yellow mage in his or her lifetime but further progress was unlikely. They had around sixty percent conversion efficiency. Finally, anyone with above fifty percent efficiency was classified as barely talented and a Red Mage was their hard limit. Anyone with less than fifty percent efficiency wouldn't even be able to condense mana in the first place. Their path to magic severed even before they could begin walking down it.

Of course, there were skill shards that could improve the magical talent of a person but without exception, they were consumption class skills. This meant that once they were used, they would integrate with the physique of the owner and improve it, thereby getting consumed in the process. Such skill shards were extremely rare and precious and almost never appeared on the market. After all, who wouldn't mind a bit more natural talent and magical potential?

As for Sand, in his heyday he’d had an efficiency of over ninety-five percent. There was a reason he had been able to rise to the level of a Dungeon Mage despite the oppression of the orcs.

‘But my mana is getting consumed to heal my wound. This way, I won't be able to increase my mana until I convalesce fully. Actually, this is good. I was worrying how I would hide my natural talent but if I use this wound well, I can give off the impression that I have a medium level talent. Even that will cause a commotion but there’s nothing I can do about that.’

Having mana in one’s body provided a mage with all kinds of benefits. Enhanced endurance and accelerated healing were the two most prominent effects. As long as a mage had mana, he or she would not tire. At least not bodily. Mental fatigue was still possible therefore mana didn’t eschew the need for sleep. And as long as a mage had mana, any injuries they had would heal much faster. Both these abilities consumed mana and were automatic in nature, meaning that a mage couldn't just ‘turn them off’ as required. Therefore, mages took great care of their bodies, avoiding overworking themselves or any form of injury like the plague.

‘Really, this body needs a lot of work.’

One more benefit that came with mana – well, not exactly a benefit but a feature – was the ability to sense one’s own mana. Now, this was a lot more useful than it sounded at first. Mana permeated every corner of a mage’s body. Sensing mana meant that that the mage had a panoramic awareness of his entire body. That allowed him to stay in the best possible shape and diagnose his own illnesses with extreme accuracy.

Sand couldn't help but frown as he found exactly how damaged his young body really was. The wounds on his back were merely the tip of the iceberg. The ten years of malnutrition and misery heaped on him since his birth had taken its toll on him, leaving deeply rooted imperfections that couldn't be resolved without some sort of healing skill or magical potion. But soon, his eyebrows stretched as he relaxed. It was a problem he had dealt with in his previous life. There was no reason he wouldn't be able to resolve it in this life as well. Especially with all the advantages he had.

Snapping out of his contemplations, he cast a glance at the slaves who were struggling to complete their quota. His mask of apathy cracked slightly as he watched their struggles. These men weren’t important in the grand scheme of things. He’d never heard of a freedom fighter remotely related to anyone from the silver mines on the outskirts of Gehenna. Helping these men wouldn't advance his cause. In fact, if his performance was too striking, it might arouse the vigilance of Kreg. The best course of action would be to just ignore them.

‘But I am the reason they are running behind schedule. If they didn’t stand around idle, gawking at me lugging some rocks about, this wouldn't have happened. Anyway, if they overshoot the requirements, Kreg will allow us some meat. This body needs whatever extra nutrition it can get.’

Having justified his actions to himself, Sand wrapped the bandages around his wounds. The wisp of mana he’d managed to generate had already clotted the blood, getting consumed in the process. Donning his shirt, he stood up and went over to Crooked.

“Hey,” he said, “Don’t you think the work is going slowly?”

Turning around from his excavation of the ores, the sturdy man spoke in a surprised tone, “You can walk? How? It’s only been what – an hour.”

Sand waved his concerns away. “I’m fine. I’ve always recovered fast. Now, don’t you think that the work is going quite slowly?”

Despite looking at him with suspicion, Crooked shrugged and answered, “Nothing I can do about it. That orc’s target was impossible to reach anyway. The miser wasn’t going to give us any meat.”

“Well, I might have an idea as to how to reach that target,” said Sand. “And it’ll take less effort than now.”

“Really?” asked Crooked, licking his lips in anticipation.

The team had been mining the ores individually, picking a spot and taking their pickaxes to the rock. But that way was quite inefficient. The veins of silver were distributed throughout the rocks unequally. A lot of the slaves were wasting their efforts by digging away at regions of quite low concentration. In the absence of unity, a hierarchy based on strength had formed were the strongest slaves worked where the mineral was richest. After all, their rations would be distributed on the basis of their individual contribution. Crooked had even been thinking of collecting some commission from them for reporting their contributions to Kreg accurately. But after Sand’s performance, he’d given up that idea.

Now, under Sand’s guidance, the team only mined the most mineral rich areas of the cavern and rotated the workers, allowing them to be well rested when their turn came again. That way, they managed to speed up the production process several fold. Therefore, when the middle-aged man who’d shown them the ropes finally came by to inspect their progress and dismiss them for the day, he was shocked to see the cart overflowing with ore.

“Well, that’s quite the day’s work,” he commented before leading them to the front of Kreg.

The orc narrowed his beady eyes as he studied them before his eyes fell on Sand. Striding up to him, he grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip. Immediately, Sand felt a foreign mana invade him, and prod around his body for a while before retreating. Letting go with a jerk that nearly dislocated Sand’s arm, Kreg addressed the slaves with a chuckle, “Looks like that Gura trained ye pretty well. Tell the cook that I said that ye did some good work today.” He walked away, leaving a few words behind: “The lad decides who gets what. The runt can have the leftovers.”

That night, in the mine’s mess, Sand observed the rest of the slaves being moved to tears at their first proper meal in ages. Looking down at his own bowl, his gaze grew profound. Gruel that threatened to brim over, several scraps of meat of indeterminate origin, some greens; his bowl had the largest amount of food, more than even Crooked’s – a result of contributions from all the slaves. As he raised the bowl to his mouth and took the first sip, he came to a decision. ‘If I get the chance, I’ll come back and see them freed.’