Oraki looked at me for a moment, his face filled with intrigue, and confusement. The he laughed, “Your something else kid, Your really gonna say that after you just heard what they really are? I guess I can aplaude your guts.” He smiled, refreshed by the change of pace he was seeing with me still pushing forward and not losing hope even against a seemingly impossible foe. “First of all, we do still have to figure out what the actual situation is. We don't know where Koshinori is, or Tobi, not even what’s actually going on with Shina. But for now, if you wanna be helpful, the steps forward are the same.”

“Learning to use mana?” I asked, hoping I was right.

“Yeah definitely, for that your gonna need a full lesson but for now let’s just give it a go.” He paused for a moment. “Try and feel the mana inside you” He looked at me and watched carefully, almost excited but not expecting anything at the same time.

I close my eyes and begin to think “Ok, let’s think, mana… I should have mana, but what is mana? It’s not something I know, what is it similar to? It seems like, energy maybe...? Not quite, it’s kinda like energy, but still different. My normal line of reason is hard to use in this situation. There are too many unknown factors for me to deduce the answer through reason. Thinking back to the chase, I could feel something unfamiliar there. That swirling sensation I felt while on Oraki’s shoulder. Now that I know the context I guess that was him moving mana around to prepare his move. It started in the center of his chest. Its rough cause I was only on his shoulder but I feel like I have an image.” I tried my best to relax my whole body, focusing on the center of my chest, I slowed and steadied my breathing. “He said it was the Neutral Mana core in the center right?” I tried to sense the presence of that core inside me. It should be the most clearly defined because it’s formed first.

It had been a few minutes and I was slowly dialing in my senses. It's the first time I've tried to fully control them so it’s hard. Oraki has faded from my mind and I'm entirely focused on this task. I can feel my body, my feet, my legs, my waist, my chest, my shoulders, my neck, and my head. The sensations along my whole body are clear, the weight of my clothes dragging my body down, the force of my feet on the floor. All this is clear, and im holding this image and observing slowly.

Time passing is a hard concept to grasp while I'm like this. I have no idea how long it's been but it's all even clearer now. I have focused more on my chest where there seems to be nothing, It feels empty. I delve deeper, looking further into the black nothing of my inner being. Have I always been this sensitive? I don't know, this whole process is forein to me, but at the same time it feels familiar and simple. I spend a long time in the darkness of this void. Or at least what seems like a long time. I wait, looking, hoping. Nothing happens.

“I don't know what to do, I'm sure that if I got Oraki to give me some help I would be able to get it. At the same time I feel like this is a special chance. If I'm able to prove myself here, and prove my ability and determination then it will show how capable I really am. I need to do this on my own.”

I begin to think analytically again “I am not sure how to classify mana physically, but its definitely a kind of fuel. It’s fuel used to manifest power in various forms. Shina let out a super powerful attack and looked like she had used all her energy in a single moment. From that I can deduce that you should be able to run out of mana. This makes sense because if this fuel source was infinite at no work then that would break the law of conservation of mass and energy. So by that logic, if there can be no mana inside me, then maybe there is. But there must be a way to regain mana.” Then I remember what Oraki said. “But throughout the world there is ambient mana almost everywhere, and a lot of this mana is Neutral Mana.” I felt like I was on to something. “If that’s the case, maybe I can absorb some to use as fuel.”

I wanted to maintain this focus I had so instead of quickly trying to feel the outside world, I slowly shifted my focus, maintaining the level of detail I felt before. I was no longer trying to look closer Inside me, I was slowly widening my field of view, encompassing more and more of the space just around my body. There was still nothing, I expanded my view further. Until I could feel the whole room. I knew something was different for sure this time, I could see the room without looking at it with my eyes, as if there was something lining every surface and filling the room. I tried to focus more on this area inside the room. Trying to discern what it was I was feeling throughout the room.

Then, I saw it. Although I'm not sure seeing is the right description, more just perceiving. It was something warm, something calm and stable. It felt strong and it felt malleable. It was filling the whole room.

This is what made this world different. A room like this in my world would have never had something so intriguing and so powerful. I don't think It was very dense, the amount of mana here wasn’t special, but in contrast to my whole life in my old world, This felt like I was completely immersed in it. It was almost suffocating, In the same way That standoff they had at the guild was. But this time I was trying to feel all of it.

I had been holding this for a while just observing the mana, and getting used to it. The suffocating feeling had lessened dramatically. I was almost comfortable within it. It was almost time to try the next step.

The difference between outside and inside my body was dramatic. Outside was warm, and full. The inside was cold, and empty. I could feel a clear wall between the two. This wall was thick and strong, Not leaving any room for transfer between the sides. I observed the barrier, searched up and down it looking to the weakest part, the easiest entry. It felt like that spot happened to be right in the middle of my chest, right below my pecs. It wasn't by much but I could still tell it was a weaker barrier than the rest. I decided to start slowly, pushing and pulling on that spot. Not with my hands or anything, honestly I'm not sure how to describe it, it was akin to controlling the flow of my body and trying to create suction or pressure. I was almost trying to open up a hole in that spot. I felt if I could open it even a little. Then I would make tremendous progress.

I continued this push and pull method for a while. I'm not sure for how long, or if it was doing much, all I know is the rhythm of it felt good. There was a certain comfort to it, it was tiring but I didn't want to stop.

After another long section of exercising the barrier, I felt something “Huh?” I had been lost in the action and wasn’t paying attention to the progress, but the barrier was exceedingly thin in the area where I was trying to open up. It felt like through the thin part I was starting to feel the mana in the air, the warmth was coming through now. It wasn't strong, almost negligible really. But it was progress, I was doing something right, I got excited but quickly restrained myself. I tried to look closer, and that's when I noticed it, a bit of the mana outside had managed to get through to the inside. It was sitting against the wall, just on the inside. I had done it, I had managed to absorb some mana into my body. I felt exhilarated, “This should be enough, this felt like the longest and hardest single thing i've ever attempted.” thinking that I could see what Oraki had to say about this, I slowly began to return to my normal state of consciousness.

As I began to move my limbs it felt like I had run 3 marathons back to back, My body screamed out in pent up pain that had been put off and ignored for this whole time. I fell down, my body losing all strength.

“Ah...h...gh” I tried to speak but my voice would not comply. Every part of my body felt absolutely ravaged. I had landed on my back, I just layed there, not that I could have moved anyway. Soon I heard footsteps rushing up the hall of the inn. The door flung open and the innkeeper rushed inside frantically looking around. His eyes landed on me on the floor, I gave him a weak smile because that’s all I could manage.

“Are you… are you alright!?” He stuttered and yelled at the same time. I didn't know why he was so scared and rushed. It was just a thump on the floor, I'm sure that kind of thing isn't uncommon. “Kid, are you ok? How are you feeling, how did it go?” He continued as the questions seemed to keep coming, and half of them made no sense to me.

“Wa… wat..er” I struggled to speak but managed to convey my message because he nodded quickly and ran out of the room. “He some of the things he said insinuated he knew what I was doing, did Oraki tell him? Where was he? How long was I doing that for?” I was speculating the possibilities, “Judging by my body's condition It could have been a day or more. Have I ever gotten that lost in something before? Enough to completely neglect myself for multiple days in a row?” Thinking back, I used to do It a lot to be honest. In the beginning of my time working and for a long time I would force myself so far beyond my limits I'm surprised I didn’t die earlier than I did.

He came back with more than just water, he had a full meal ready in a miniscule amount of time. He set It down on the table across the room and came over to me. I tried to get up myself but it was truly useless. I could move my arms a bit, but there was not enough strength to lift myself at all.

“Don't worry I can help.” He said reassuringly.

“Than..ks” It was still a battle to be able to speak, but it was getting better. He helped me up. My whole body hurt as he did so but I endured it. Seeing that food had made me realize how unbelievably starving I was.

He brought me over and sat me down in the chair. He pushed the food over to my end of the table. I struggled to lift my arms up to the table, but I managed to get them up there. My body was recovering the ability to move slowly. Before I could start eating he spoke up.

“Did you do it?” He looked at me with excited, almost childish eyes. He was sitting across from me on this small circular table but he was leaning halfway over the table towards me.

“What do you me..an” my voice was getting better with every attempt at speaking.

“You know, did you actually figure it out?” His excitement wasn't fading at all.

“Do you know what I was trying to do?”

“Oraki told me after the first day, he said he couldn't wait in the same place and do nothing forever so he told me to keep an eye on you, he's come by every day still.” He said all this like it was normal and trivial, trying to brush past it so I could explain my part.

I couldn't just ignore what he said though, “Wait, how many days has it been?”

“You’ve been at it for a week and a half, I’ve never seen that kind of concentration and dedication coming from anyone who was not already a dual or tri core mage.” He sounded like he was recalling something amazing and unheard of. I mean one and a half weeks?!?! How did I survive?

“So you're saying I’ve been standing in that spot for 10 or more days straight.” I was just trying to wrap my head around this.

“Forget that for now,” He complained, “Just, tell me, what did you gain? What did you see?”

“Uh, I am not sure of almost anything I did, I just tried reasoning through things with what I had and made efforts where I could. I think I did accomplish something though.”

“Yeah?” He leaned even further in his seat.

“I think I absorbed some mana” I stated bluntly.

He looked at me. He didn’t speak, he just stared. It felt like a full minute passed before he spoke.

“You what?”