Viers was woken up by strange sounds, he was confused and still half-asleep, it was similar to the sounds of many bugs, crawling all over the place, incomprehensible and chaotic. He couldn't pick up what sounds they were exactly, he'd never heard things like this before.

CHIIRP CHIRRP CHIIRPP

He jolted awake to full awareness when he heard the loud sound of giant birds next to himself. In his panic, he screamed.

“AAAHHH!!”

What the hell? Did they found me already? Shit, this is too fast! They send out giant birds after me? What the hell should I do?

He kicked off his blanket, jumped out of his bed and lied face down on the ground, his hands were covering his head like someone preparing to receive a bomb blast.

Soon, Max opened the door to his room then asked with a puzzled tone.

“What happened Viers?”

Slowly Viers looked at him, Max’s eyes were looking straight at him.

“Did you hear something? Like the sound of giant birds?” asked Viers still on the ground.

“Are you dreaming? What giant birds? It’s still dark man…” Max said with a hint of annoyance.

Viers looked around him, his room still the same as before and nothing changed since last night, no signs of intruder or break-in.

Did I just imagine it?

A few students arrived shortly, waken by his scream. Viers apologized to them, saying he had a scary dream.

They grudgingly left after Viers received some chewing, when silence returned to his room, Viers looked outside the window. The sky was purple colored and got brighter by the second, the sun would rise shortly, he did not see anything out of ordinary.

Nothing, nothing at all… did I really just heard wrong?

Viers returned to his bed, he tried to sleep again but it ended in failure.

***

Viers was just returned from his daily morning run, he met Terry in the corridor.

“Hey, heard you got scared by the sound of birds?” Terry asked with a tint of amusement in his voice.

“It was very frightening, in my dream, I got eaten by giant birds because I was a big yummy ball of meat,” Viers answered lightly.

“You’re lucky to not wet your bed then.” Terry smiled.

“Indeed… say, do you smell that?” Viers asked while looking around him.

“What smell?”

“I don’t know… like animal odor combined with soap mixed with fish stink? Oh and meat stew and flowers,” said Viers still looking around while sniffing at the same time.

“Dude, are you sure you’re alright? Did your near-death experience yesterday is messing with your head?” Terry raised one of his eyebrows.

“Wait… I think… I think the smell is getting stronger…? Uhmph! So nauseating!” Viers used both of his hands to cover his nose.

“Mornin’, nice weather isn’t it? Something’s wrong?” A girly voice came from behind.

A well-dressed girl was walking towards them, she was wearing an expensive-looking easy to move white clothes. Her name is Mirella, she had green eyes elegantly adorned her already beautiful looking face, she had shoulder-length wavy golden hair. Viers heard she came from a minor noble family.

Her elemental affinity was wind so Viers seldom interacted with her but her good looks and elegant demeanor made her very popular with the boys, some of Viers’s classmates were smitten silly by her beauty.

“Morning Mirella, looking beautiful as ever… oh wow. Such a nice fragrance, is that the rumored new Yuln-brand perfume?” Terry asked, visibly happy he had the chance to converse with the pretty girl.

“It is! My parents sent it to me, so many people wanted to get this but only a hundred bottles were sold, I’m really lucky.” Mirella seems happy talking about the perfume.

“It fits you very much, I dare say more boys will secretly fall in love with you after today’s class, right Viers?” Terry asked.

“OOooEERRggHH!”

Viers puked on the spot. Most fell on the floor but some of his vomit touched Mirella’s shoes and legs.

“……”

Both Mirella and Terry was standing like a statue.

“KYAAAA!!!”

Mirella hysterically screamed, her eyes were tearing up, she slapped Viers in the cheek, the crisp sound of skin hit another skin resounded through the corridor, she ran upstairs. She was crying.

“Dude… what the hell?” Terry was flabbergasted.

***

Viers cleaned up his vomit then went to class, he met Mirella, she came almost late, she changed her clothes and her hair was still wet, she seemed to take a bath again after her encounter with Viers. When Viers saw her, he immediately approached her and apologized, but Mirella didn’t even look at his face and turned her head when Viers was saying his apology, she answered with silence.

Viers returned to his seat, he could see that his classmates were stealing glances at him and murmured with each other, some of the boys gave him a hateful look. It was not hard for Viers to guess his morning drama would be troubling him in the days to come. But Viers was not too troubled by this, the teenage drama was an insignificant matter to him and he had other things to worry about.

What the hell happened to me? First the sound of giant birds and then the vomit-inducing odor… Could it be super-sense? Most protagonists in other stories need a few pages full of words before came to a realization but I have the Spring of Wisdom!

Why did this happen? Because I ate the bull? Hmn… not bad, not bad at all. Another mutation or side-effect of the healing factor? Unknown, insufficient data. It is a good ability though, very versatile, so far it enhanced hearing and enhanced smell but what about the others?

No, the important thing is I can’t control it, after I puked, the super-smell was gone, turned into normal again like someone flipped the on/off switch. Tsk, another dilemma… Well, let's look at the bright side, I got super-senses but it's uncontrollable for the time being, according to Spring of Wisdom, there should be two major ways to control this power.

First, body mastery. Train my body to master the physical sense of myself, often manifest on people who used their body a lot, like a martial artist or swordsman, and also sports athletes according to Japanese manga, such as soccer, basketball, tennis… even mahjong! I have no idea how the hell that works… I don’t think this is suitable for me, it takes too much time. I will fight a lot, so maybe I could attain it in the future but not going to help me for now.

Second, Mana. I suspected this from before, where something physical fails, use something magical. But I just made a plop yesterday, still so far away from practical uses… maybe the Mana crystal I have can be of some use? I should ask Nakala later.

The class started just like usual, however, Viers felt hostility from some of the trainees.

Really? I unintentionally slighted the prima donna and these bunch of kids full of puberty hormones wants to have a go at me? I don't have time for this nonsense.

When class was over, Viers asked Nakala in private.

“Ms. Nakala, what’s the use of Mana crystals?”

“Oh? Well, Mana crystals can be used as currency but for Path-seekers, we have other uses for them. See, the crystals are basically raw Mana for us to use. I planned to explain about Mana crystals and resources at a later date, be patient, okay Viers?”

“I’m sorry Ms. Nakala but can you just give me a little info? Can I use it to accelerate my training? I already meditate every day but did not make progress at all,” said Viers with a soft voice mixed with sadness.

Viers meant to show fake sadness and desperation, but truthfully he was indeed sad and desperate. After a few seconds of silence Nakala sighed, she relented.

“All right, just a little bit, what you have been doing all this time is actually absorbing Mana from all around you, nature is full of Mana, there is Mana in the air around us right now but there are places with richer and higher quality Mana, these places are mostly red zones where fearsome monsters make their den. Mana is invisible to normal people but Path-seekers can sense them. I once said many people considered Mana is life itself yes? So how could rock or fire have Mana?”

“When Mana concentrated enough, whether it’s by the quality or quantity or some other factors, ordinary materials could change mysteriously, one of those cases is what we call elemental. For example, an earth elemental is a moving rock or mud, a wind elemental is air given form. Higher-level elementals even have sentience and could communicate with humans… Mana is truly mysterious and full of miracles, Path-seekers uses Mana but there’s still so much that we do not understand.”

“Back on topic, when you meditate you take Mana from around you and channel it to your body, you increase the Mana you possess inside you bit by bit. You were told to meditate near water because you have the highest affinity with water thus can absorb Mana from water more easily. Of course, if you could find water containing rich Mana it will have better effect for you, but materials like that are rare, heavily in demand and very expensive.”

“Mana crystals acted like these materials, you can absorb Mana from the crystals, of course, the crystals would be worthless after you absorb the Mana and it will turn to dust.”

“Since you asked about how to use Mana crystals, I assumed you have one or several, you can easily absorb them normally by focusing on it while meditating but beware, your body is a container, if you absorb too much Mana exceeding your body capacity to handle, you will die.”

“For trainees like you, one or two should be the limit, you must not absorb anymore Mana until I teach you the next step.”

Nakala finished her explanations but Viers was dumbstruck, his face pale like a ghost.

“Viers? Are you alright? I heard you almost died yesterday, is something wrong, are you still hurt?” Nakala said with concern.

“Let me ask to be clear… Mana crystal… is money.” Viers said.

“Yes.” Nakala answered.

“Money is Mana.” His voice is cold.

“You can say that, yes.” Nakala was increasingly worried.

“Mana is Power.” Viers said without emotion in his voice.

“Yes, isn't it natural?” Nakala said like it was commonsense.

Viers was finally told the ugly truth, the revelation shocked him to the core. In this world, rich people... were automatically powerful.

This world is a pay-to-win? What a shitty game!