[Mana strike has reached level 6.]

[Your intelligence has increased by one point.]

[Special skill: Mana channel unlocked. It allows you to channel mana into or from the mana ball.

Mannat’s sensed buzzed awoke as mana gathered atop of his palm. The hair of his arm stood up in response. A blue ball gradually grew from nothingness to the size of an apple in front of him. Forty points of mana expended, the ball of mana reached its largest size.

Usually, he would be forced to release the ball of mana lest it grows unstable and explodes. This time, he could sense a thin tendril, a channel between his palm and the ball of mana. It kept the skill stable and allowed him to force another ten points of mana into the accumulated mana ball, inflating it further to the size of an orange — the result of which remained to be seen. Most importantly, he could absorb expended mana from the ball, which he had failed to achieve in the past.

Mannat absorbed all the mana inside the ball and his senses slowly stopped buzzing as the ball of mana disappeared from his normal sight. His mana recovered by almost forty-three points. He lost 25% mana between creating the mana ball and absorbing his mana, a slight blemish on an otherwise beautiful gem.

He didn’t wait before growing another mana ball at his palm; this time he was going to test it. He aimed his palm at the Witch who cracked a smile at his jolly suggestion.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” The Witch joked.

Mannat quietly moved his arm away and fired at the sky. The mana ball flew faster and further, whirling a tempest of sound and wind in its wake. The ball flew to about twenty meters, twice the distance it had ever traveled at level five, and then fizzled out of existence.

The maximum distance it could travel had doubled, which was a nice surprise. Mannat shrugged his shoulders, prepared another mana ball, aimed at the distant ground, and fired. Dirt erupted at the explosion, rising more than five feet high, leaving behind a few inches deep and wide crater in the ground. It truly left a dent. Thankfully, he didn’t aim at the Witch’s tree.

“That’s dangerous…” Mannat reacted.

“Imagine that thing hitting the men who had tried to kidnap you.”

Mannat imagined a gut-wrenching scream, an explosion of blood, and twisted entrails shooting everywhere. The vivid picture his mind created made his bones shudder.

“You saw it, didn’t you? Don’t even think about lying. Your mana is too faithful.” Of course, she was reading his emotions like an open book. “Do you like the strength?”

“I would be worried to use the skill knowing I might kill someone if I didn’t know how to reduce the force and the power behind the strike,” Mannat said honestly. He met the Witch’s gaze. “How do other assistants use the skill since they didn’t learn to control its power?”

“You need to develop your world view, brat; Not everyone’s like you. The empire started the royal academy for the nobles. You’d be a fool to believe those elite sons and daughters of the noble lineage,” The sheer disdain in her voice spoke volumes of her thoughts about those other assistants. “--care whether they kill someone or not?”

Mannat regretted asking the Witch’s opinion. He didn’t need to sense her mana to know how she was feeling. The Witch was projecting her anger out for him to see.

She was right.

Mannat had met the count’s son, Iersha, seen his actions and his indifference toward him and his father. The boy hadn’t met eyes with him, as if he was a broken clay pot not worth his attention. He hadn’t forgotten Iersha’s words either. Would a normal person laugh at Mannat for claiming he would save his mother who was suffering from mana poisoning? Iersha was bemused that a village mutt like Mannat, who hadn’t yet learned his letters, had the courage to shoot for a target someone privileged like him had failed to meet. His prestige made him believe he was better than people like Mannat who had spent his life crawling in the dirt.

“Is this the reason you taught me how to control the skill?”

“I won’t deny it. ” The Witch smirked.

Mannat thanked the Witch for her foresight, which she graciously accepted with a snort. Guess, she didn’t want to leave any chance to be sarcastic that day. A smile grew on his face as he took a few tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden and sat under the tree’s shade to ‘meditate’.

“--scared to open the underground chamber?” The Witch asked.

“Later,” Mannat said. He wasn’t surprised that she knew his intentions. Nothing about her could surprise him anymore. “Let me replenish my mana pool first.”

“Be a little adventurous, brat. You are what -- twenty-five years old? You should have some fun before your youth runs out and you turn into an old rickety thing that can’t even move from one place to another.”

“You are the only one who ages in years with every day.”

“There you go!” The Witch slapped the fence chain causing it to rattle against the fence iron pole. “Enjoy life a little before it’s too late.” She smiled gently. the fence chain. “You never know what might happen next.”

A chill shook his core being; it raised his body temperature by a few degrees. The Witch had a knack for turning innocent things into ominous-sounding prophecies. Mannat failed to ‘compute’ a reason why she would say that right when he was going to ‘meditate’. He could spend his life trying to figure out her thoughts and come out at the end without progress.

He decided to ask -- to make sure he wasn’t missing something important. “You are being suspicious. Are you trying to teach me another lesson?”

“I have already taught you vigilance. It’s up to you how you use it.” The Witch said and turned unresponsive, locking Mannat inside a box full of thoughts with no key. He thus scratched the plan to ‘meditate’ to figure out her intentions.

The Witch’s anger was like a beacon for his senses. It made him wonder once again what a magician, a job bearer lauded by the world, was doing out there in the middle of nowhere, living alone in the dregs. How did she get associated with the Flower of morality, the girl sleeping in the underground chamber, who was also a priestess from the no man’s land? Perhaps, her inability to use mana, the reason she couldn’t save his mother, had something to do with it.

How did she become a Magician in the first place?

The royal academy was established a little over a century ago, some decades after the world war that left the two empires in pieces. She couldn’t have been a part of it when it was established. She wasn’t a noble – he guessed from her hatred toward their kind— and only recently had the empire lowered the restrictions and allowed commoners to enter the academy. Was it possible that the Witch was a century old? Mannat did a mental nod. The Witch looked the part, a relic of the past ravaged by time.

He was reaching out too far by considering that she was that old. It made a lot of sense though. Perhaps, a noble from the academy had hurt her somehow when she wanted to learn magic, and the priestess had helped her. Later, a fight might have left her injured in some way, forcing her to be on the run far away from the capital to hide. It was entirely possible.

Mannat decided to cool his head at this point and let his thoughts rest. Only the Witch could tell him the truth. He knew exactly how that conversation would go.

Anyways, he ate a tomato and felt the warmth travel up his body for the stomach. He couldn’t actively ‘meditate’ because of his drumming heart, so he let the mana naturally bond to his blood and flow through his veins.

While mana enriched his body, he examined himself. Yes, the draught was over. Inspect had leveled and he finally had the skill 'examine'.

Where ‘Inspect’ gave him a glimpse of others' status, physical and mental attributes, and some personal information, ‘examine’ opened them up to his eyes like a gutted rabbit with its blood-drenched. He could see his status in its entirety. Be it attributes, ailments, skills, or his title. He could read them all; it had been quite a surprise the first time he saw how many skills he had accumulated on the status. He was doing great!

Spoiler: Status

Name: Mannat (14y,1m,15d)

Level: 2 (77%/100 experience)

[Class: None] / [Job: Blacksmith Apprentice(2)/ Magician Apprentice(6)]

Mana: 215/265

Mana reg. : 31+25/hour

Stamina: 26

Title: Child of Life

Strength: 13

Intelligence: 53

Perception: Low-High

Dexterity: 7

Wisdom: 30

Endurance: Low-Medium

Constitution: 13

Luck: 1.4

Willpower: Medium-Low

Skills:

Intelligence: 0,10,20,30,50

Focus(10)->Inspect(10)->Examine*(3), Healing Strike(3), Meditation(8), Mana Strike(6), Mana Cultivate(2)

Wisdom: 0,10,20

Analyze(10)-> Computing*(3), Mana Sense(10)-> Mana Vision*(4),

Cons.

Strength

Others

General fitness(10)->Vigor(10)-> Fortitude(4),

Heave(2)

Blueprint Library(-)

Blacksmith Apprentice

Blueprint Library, Healing strike

Magician Apprentice

Meditation, Mana Strike, Mana Cultivate

Ailment: None

He had used the skill ‘examine’ every chance since he received it. He examined everything. Himself, the garden, the Witch (he tried and he failed), his family, the sky, air, and the Witch’s tree –which was surprisingly called ‘false tree of life’ similar to the books.

People breathe air, the tree breaths miasma through its leaves, breaks it down, or somehow (Examine didn’t reveal) transform it into mana and pump it out of the roots.

‘Examine’ was an exciting skill, but it was not omnipotent. It couldn’t reveal information about his lone title - The Child of Life. It was an itch on his back he couldn’t scratch. The Witch had told him he would need the skill above level five to achieve the result. That would be a couple of months of agitation and wait. Surprisingly, it would unlock two special skill-- One at level five and another at level eight for being a genuine tier two skill. In comparison, a tier-one skill unlocked one special skill at level six.

Mannat ate the bounty he had gathered from the garden and waited. Warmth filled his stomach. Soon he felt full, then controlled the gathered mana and started cultivating. ‘Mana Cultivation’ was the skill he had unlocked when his second job reached level five. It was a tough nut to crack.

Meditation allowed him to absorb mana from his surroundings. Mana strike allowed him to expel mana from his body. Walking the same road, cultivation allowed him to move mana inside his body, opposite to passively storing it at his heart. Every revolution was very time-consuming and slow, taking hours to complete. He had learned after experimentation that the skill worked best when used in tendon with ‘Meditation’. One refreshed his spirit and the other calmed his mind, countering each other weakness.

A refreshed spirit was not its only effect. Every revolution he completed condensed his mana to improve the bite of every point and nurtured his body at the same time.

It was the reason behind the increased potency of the ‘mana strike’. He was excited to see what kind of special skill waited for him when the skill reached level six. He had a feeling his mana would have a qualitative, which would set the foundation for him to become a magician.

[Examine][Lv-3/10][Tier-2][Active]

[Expanding on Inspect, Examine reveals in-depth information of the target object, revealing their

strength their weaknesses without hiding anything.]

[Reward: The skill gives one point of intelligence and wisdom with every level.]

****

[Mana Cultivation][Tier - 1][Lv-3/10][Active]

[Cultivate mana to condense and strengthen it, working your way toward a chance at creating a mana core. The key to being a magician lies in its completion.]

[Effect: Faster discharge of mana and increased potency of dependent skills]

[Reward: the skill add one point to your intelligence/ level.]

****

[Heave][Tier-1][Lv-2][Active]

[This skill will shoulder your responsibility.]

[Effect: The skill when used forcefully increases your strength by 20%, but also doubles your stamina expenditure for every skill level.][

Reward: The skill gives one point to the strength/level.]