In a training room adjacent to the main room in his personal space, Alex Volff sits down in a meditating pose. The {F-ranked Energy Manipulation} skill book is open in front of him. He tries to follow the first instruction in the book, to try to concentrate and feel his spirit. The spirit is the guide to control energy. First he must be able to control his spirit before he can learn how to manipulate energy. Other Defenders that has tried learning this skill has always failed at this first step. Trying to grasp such an abstract thing such as spirit is nearly impossible.

Alex though still maintains a bit of optimism because his Spirit stat is very high. It is 4 times as high as the average human. He has a tiny hope that maybe this can help him taking this first step. It has been 4 days since he started trying to learn the skill. Other than when he needs to eat or perform other bodily functions he has been sitting in meditation still trying to feel his spirit. He feels like he almost succeeded but always failed at the last step. He still can't feel his spirit.

This is now the fifth day of his training. It is the last day that he will try. Alex keeps trying to follow the method written in the skill book to try and feel his spirit. He tries to concentrate and empty his mind at the same time. He skips his meals and keeps sitting in meditation position. When half a day has passed he finally makes a progress. For a brief moment, Alex can feel his mind being transported to an empty place with a small flickering light in the middle. This is his spiritual sea and the flickering light must be his spirit just like the skill book described. He tries maintaining the state he's in but he can't hold it for long. Soon he's out of that state and his mind comes back to reality.

Still, Alex clenches his fist and wore a big smile on his face. He has succeeded in the very first step that has stumbled other Defenders. He calms himself down and tries to recall that feeling again. After another half day of training he can now easily access his spiritual sea and maintain that state for 30 minutes. He has even makes a tiny progress in controlling his spirit to move around his spiritual sea.

An entire day of training has made Alex mentally exhausted. Entering that state is tiring, but controlling his spirit for a long time is even more exhausting for him mentally. He has to take a 30 minute break every time he tries to control his spirit for 15 minutes. Alex decides to take a rest and continue his training tomorrow. He has already made progress, so he might as well try to learn the entire thing.

The next day, Alex wakes up from his long sleep with his mind feeling refreshed. He soon feels an intense starving feeling as he has skipped his meals the day before. After feeling up his stomach with the rations he brought from Earth he starts training immediately. The next step of training progresses smoothly after he has breakthrough the initial bottleneck of controlling his spirit. Alex spends 2 hours familiarizing himself with controlling his spirit inside his own body. He can now control his spirit freely for 10 minutes before he starts getting tired and the maximum time limit of controlling his spirit now stands at 20 minutes. Now he's ready to move on to the next step, controlling his Mana with his spirit as a guide.

With a thought, the flickering light in Alex's spiritual sea moves to his dantian. In his dantian he can see blue gas-like substances floating around. This gas-like substance is his Mana. He tries binding the Mana using his spirit according to the method written in the {F-ranked Energy Manipulation} skill book. His first few attempts failed, but he perseveres and keep trying. Every time the tiredness starts creeping up he would rest for 15 minutes and try again.

After another 3 hours of trying, Alex Volff finally succeeded in binding his Mana using his spirit. Then he tries to move it around his body following the path described in the skill book. He can't move it far before the binding dissipates. He can feel some of the unrestrained Mana rushing back to his dantian and some of it vaporizes to his surrounding. Alex uses [Observe] to check his stats and confirm his suspicion. His Mana stat now reads 10/45, which means he used up 35 points of Mana in that failed first attempt. Alex immediately tries again but the failure happens much more quickly this time and his Mana pool appears to be empty after this second failure. It seems like he needs a full Mana pool to have a chance of succeeding.

Alex waits for 30 minutes for his Mana to restore on itself and try again. This time after a failure he waits for his Mana to fill up before trying again. After 6 hours of trying, Alex finally succeeded to circulate his Mana to his entire body. He can feel his body getting stronger and lighter at the same time. He can barely holds this state for 5 seconds before the binding dissipates.

"Congratulations, Alex Volff! You have gained initial mastery of the {F-ranked Energy Manipulation}," Alex can hear Fay's voice resounding in his head.

"I did it!" Alex makes a fist pump with an elated expression on his face.

Alex immediately calms himself and starts resting. That attempt left him with only 1 point in his Mana pool and a mentally exhausted feeling. He continues his training for another 4 hours. He can now holds this mana-enhanced physical state for 35 seconds, retaining 7 points of Mana in his Mana pool after each usage. Alex now feels that this skill is usable in a fight, but it should only be used in critical situations because after using this skill he's still left in a tired state. The exhaustion is not as severe as his first attempt, but it will affect his combat proficiency.

"I've done all I can to prepare. Tomorrow, it's time to start exploring the Realm of Defenders," Alex muses to himself.

He fills up his hungry stomach and starts resting. He needs to be in a peak condition tomorrow, because tomorrow is the day he starts his real fight.