The Demon King took a bite of his hot dog slowly chewing and swallowing before speaking “Now that we have that out of the way, where were we?” He asked before breaking off a piece of the table and popping that in his mouth as well.

“Cycling our mana” Hailey answered helpfully

“Ah yes lets begin there, I'm sure most of you have noticed your internal mana sense by now, I’ll give you a second now to try it out. Try imagining balls of energy in your center one for element you gained except for you Hailey, you just you picture one, try bringing all your senses inward. Think of it like following your breath into your body and seeing what's in there.”

Sandra tried her best to follow the instructions as confusing they were, she breathed in and tried to picture her senses flowing inward with it. It was a lot more difficult than it sounded because her regular senses didn't go away, so it was more like she was trying to copy them not move them. She tried closing her eyes thinking that a little less outside stimulation would help but doing that only seemed to heighten her awareness of her other four normal senses.

She couldn't block them out of her mind, so what was she looking for? A sixth sense?

The thief tried focusing on each of the inputs to her mind,

The sight of the light passing through her eyelids.

The sound of her friends breathing,

The smell of the lingering smoke from the grill,

The left over taste of the burger in her mouth,

The feeling of the seat beneath her

And there was one more, a sense she didn't recognize filled her mind like a combination of the others. She felt them first, one cold and slick the other dripping and noxious. She felt them spinning like globes, beating like hearts.

She saw them as glowing balls of energy in a black void, nothing around them visible. One as sickly green and the other was gray, almost black. The vision blurred and Sandy struggled to hold it. She kept it just barely. It was like trying to watch a movie with your nose, but she managed not to let it disappear completely at least.

“You got it? Good.” The Demon King said with congratulations “now I want you to kinda zoom out. What are the cores connected to? What do they give to your body? You need to feel the movement of your mana trough you. I know you've done this already, Ali. Just wait a bit, please.”

Sandra once again tried to do as she was told, she tried to pull her mental image back as she did, lines filled her mana sense, flowing like nerves through her abdomen. She pulled further, more lines appearing as she did. The sight got blurrier and blurrier but the feeling remained distinct, by the time she was done Sandra could feel every one of her mana channels and the power that coursed through them. One moment it felt secretive and dark, The next it felt slimy and stinging. It was surreal, like feeling your blood flow through your veins.

Her head felt funny as it tried to assimilate the new information from a sense it had just gained access to.

Sandra opened her eyes and found the feeling still persisted. Her cores and the channels were just there, as easy to feel as the location of her own hands.

The Demon King smiled at her, His sharp teeth making the expression feel dangerous. “Good job Sandra, Now let's just wait for every one else.”

About a minute passed and the others, Kenn, Hailey and Giel announced their completion of the task one by one.

“Great job, for a bunch of idiots at least.” he chuckled “that was the easy part. Now for the part that's important. I need you to move your mana. Hailey and Ali you should already have an idea of how to do this. As for the others, try thinking of it like pulling on one of your cores, trying to create a strand of mana”

This was harder.

Sandra tried to pull at her cores like the Demon King had suggested, but it only resulted in an uncomfortable feeling like pinching herself, trying to move the cores themselves made her feel dizzy like she was crossing her eyes.

“I don’t get it…” She complained

The Demon King stoked his chin “imagine your core as a ball of clay. You aren't trying to move the whole thing you just need a little off the top”

“A ball of yarn is also a good mental image” Ali added “I’ve been using that when I cast spells”

Sandra nodded trying to picture her cores as something like their suggestions, she settled on balls of string cheese. She began picking at it with a mental finger, feeling the energy that made up her actual cores buzz with the action.

Feeling like she was getting somewhere, Sandra pulled at only a small portion of the ball feeling a bit of it tear away under her minds grasp. She came away with a sliver of power from her shadow core, the energy seeming to whisper with secrets as she held it with her will.

The strain of holding the mana was immediate. The flow of power through her body instantly stood still as she grasped this tiny piece of it. It was like holding her breath, her body being denied something it intrinsically needed to survive.

Sandra could feel sweat break out on her face, and seeing the expressions of discomfort already on the face’s of the others she had been the last to succeed.

“How long do we have to hold this” Kenn asked his voice labored.

“If every one has it, we can move on.” the Demon King answered, he waited to receive nods or grunts of conformation from each of them before continuing “Good, now that you’ve separated mana from your core you need to move it through your mana channels. This shouldn't be as difficult but keep in mind what you’re actually trying to do is move the mana throughout your body in a specific way and bring back to your core.” He demonstrated by making a looping gesture with his fingers “If you’re doing it right you should be collecting mana from clogs and backups in your system. Doing this repeatedly will slowly increase the density of your cores as well as help clear away any pollutants or impurities in your mana. This is cycling, the catalyst for all progression in mana cultivation.” He stopped for a second to let the words sink in “Now, as for the specific way you need to cycle your mana, techniques vary depending on what you're trying to accomplish, but for right now let's start you on a simple one.”

The demon held out his hand palm up, a silhouette of a person appearing in his hand.

It was covered in lines that Sandra assumed were mana channels and as she watched light flowed through them, starting at the center where a dot representing its core sat, going upwards along the spine to its heart and out to the limbs and head from there in a star pattern before returning to the chest and back to the core and starting again.

“This is a basic-basic cycling technique known as the five-star circle, for obvious reasons, all you have to do is move that little bit of mana you've taken from your core in this pattern when you get to the ends of your limbs, be sure to extend the cycle outward to your fingers and toes. Your body needs mana to survive so be sure you’re not depriving any of it. I’ll be watching through my own mana sense to make sure you’re doing this right.”

Sandra felt oddly shy knowing someone else would be seeing her mana system. Her soul, even if she had only seen it herself a few minutes ago, felt like a very personal part of her existence. She decided to ignore the feeling, instead trying to move her mana as she had been instructed, the suffocating feeling lessening as she started to move the mana up to her chest. Doing so felt kind of like controlling her breath, she had to actively keep this process that her body was screaming at her was necessary going. And she knew if she stopped thinking about it her body would return it to a natural flow.

With each second her control over her mana became harder, pushing it through her channels took more and more effort as if the power was getting heavier. The feeling increased even more as she felt it collecting the stray mana existing within her system, never getting to the point that she had to stop or the process became truly difficult, but it was enough tho make the thief need to take deep breaths.

As they worked the Demon King corrected any mistakes, showing them the correct method with his magical hologram.

“Kenn your flow is unsteady you’re going to lose control”

“Hailey you’re missing your stomach area, your entire body needs mana”

“Giel don't forget your tail, your cycle is unbalanced it needs a constant speed”

“Ali, remember what I said about fingers, you don't want those falling of due to mana asphyxiation”

“Okay Sandra, now just bring the mana around back to your core and…”

As the mana reentered her shadow core it seemed to tingle with positive feedback, sending a burst of energy throughout her body, she began another loop, creating a star when she got to her heart and another in her hands, then feet. The mana felt cool, murmuring secrets just out of her hearing, as it glided through her. Her core thrummed again as she poured all the mana back into it.

Sandra decided to experiment a bit. The next cycle she pulled from her other core. The poison mana flowed out like green mist, stinging as she cycled it. It was a pleasant burn like you got from a workout or the carbonation of soda.

After a few rounds of that she noticed something else.

The feeling within her stomach was changing, the hum was fading from her gut seeming to move into her mana and ultimately to her core, the sensation of cycling she was getting used to being enhanced threefold like lightning in her soul.

“Demon King…?”

“Yes”

“Am I supposed to feel like I ate a thunderstorm?”

“That's just the mana from the herbs. It’ll give you a good head start once you’re done processing it in a few days.”

Sandra nodded and went back to her new-found exercise, until the Demon stopped them around thirty minutes later.

“Do you guys feel like you have a handle on cycling. At least the idea of it?”

The party all answered a collective yes.

“Good. You’ll need to be sure to memorize the technique I showed you. Also make sure you train both cores about evenly. You can’t advance until both of them are ready for it.” The demon stood and stretched “Now I’m feeling like it's time for an attempt on my life or two. Who wants to learn some magic?”