His face became very serious. “What did you say?” he asked again.

“I think I absorbed some mana.” I reiterated. He sat there as if he had heard the best and worst news in the world.

“Kid if what you just said is true, then things are gonna get really crazy really quick here” He was no longer excited like before. “First of all what did you do to absorb the mana”

“I slowly worked away at the thick outer barrier of my body that was preventing the flow of mana, and before I collapsed I felt that a tiny bit of the ambient mana had slipped inside where I had been working out.”

“That barrier you described is a Natural protective shell that grows over the first few years of life. The process to open up the shell and allow for mana absorption is very long and arduous. How did you manage it in just ten days?” It felt like I was being interrogated all of the sudden. I began to feel uneasy.

“Where is Oraki?” I asked, trying to change the topic. I need to learn to stop revealing things so quickly, but it's hard to tell what's important not to reveal.

“He hasn’t come back for the day so we just need to wait for him.” He says calmly.

“Then let’s wait for him. I don't want to explain it more than once.” I remembered what he said, how things are gonna get crazy quick. I need to prepare myself for the worst case scenarios right now. The innkeeper looked like he wanted to refute but decided not to. I continued to eat the food. The feeling of eating and breathing felt slightly different from before. I could feel more of it since I had a greater sense of self.

After I finished eating I went and sat on the edge of the bed. Moving slowly and making sure I didn't fall. I began to wait for Oraki to return. Not too long passed before I heard a knock on my door. I got up and walked over to the door, but when I opened it Oraki wasn’t on the other side. It was Arika.

“How well can you move right now?” she asked quickly.

I could tell something was happening “Not well but I can definitely move.”

“Then come on we got to go” She gestured to me to follow her, I did my best to keep up, I didn't have to worry about falling anymore but proper running would be out of my ability for now. As we moved through the building to the front door and I didn't see anyone on the way out, It looked like she planned for this moment to get me out of here. We made it out and down the street a bit, It was late evening now and the streets were thinning out.

We walked quite a ways down the road and then turned into a side road. It was dark and narrow, very dangerous looking. But then again the danger probably comes from someone like the person i'm following. We head far into this alley, make a few more turns that I probably would have missed entirely if I tried to find it myself and finally arrived at a scrappy looking wood door. Arika knocked In some seemingly weird pattern and then waited. After a moment the door opened and without a word she walked in, and I followed after her. The room was small, only room for a single table and some chairs, there was a small pile of supplies to the right side of the room and the table to the left. Sitting at the table were a few people I was glad to see. Koshi, Tobi and Oraki. The atmosphere inside felt grim. I couldn’t see Tobi’s face but Koshi had bags under his eyes, he must have been up for a few days. There was no words of greeting, Arika walked over and sat down against the wall near the supplies.

“Trail?” Koshi asked emotionlessly

“None” Arika responded. Silence fell on the room again, I stood there not really knowing where or what I was supposed to do. Then Oraki pulled one of the free chairs over to the table with one hand, still saying nothing. I took the hint and went to sit down. I felt out of place, but at the same time felt like this was where I was supposed to be. I have been improvising so far in this world, trying to make sense of everything as I go, but this was a painfully familiar situation. The atmosphere right now was akin to the one at the dinner table at home in the days after mom's death. Sullen silence, no one knowing where to pick up the conversation, feeling as if doing so would be disrespectful. The feeling of being trapped, the situation ties your tongue and seals your mouth, it clouds your thinking and makes you expect the worst.

“Any problems these last few days Senki?” Koshi broke the silence.

“No” I said weakly, still not feeling like it's right to talk.

“I heard you were making an attempt at learning to sense mana, what was the outcome of that? You were at it for like 10 days right? Did you actually sense mana at that time?” He tried to talk normally and shift the atmosphere away from Shina’s absence.

“Hah” Arika chuckled in the corner at Koshi’s question. “Does she think there's no way I did? Or does she already know?” I couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking at the moment but it became apparent quickly. “Go ahead Senki, Tell them what you did.” She sounded like she was enjoying the moment.

“You know what happened?” I asked Arika.

“Yeah I was keeping an eye on you when I could, I saw.” She sounded like she was trying not to spoil the reveal.

“I didn't give him any instruction other than basic information on what mana is and what mana cores are, how could he have done much in 10 days?” Oraki commented.

“You want me to explain from the beginning?” I asked them, and they nodded. “Ok so after Oraki told me…” I went on to give them an in depth account of my experience. They were super surprised when I told them I sensed the ambient neutral mana in my room, let’s just say they did not expect me to continue with the story from there. Once I got to the end they were all amazed except for Arika.

“So, let me get this straight.” Oraki began. “I told you to try and sense mana, As a joke test that you weren't supposed to complete. You did it anyway, then went on to absorb a bit of mana after that. All of this in 10 days?” He paused, just thinking and trying to process the situation. “How are we supposed to believe that?”

Koshi stood up and gestured for me to do the same. “Just stand in front of me for a second,” he said calmly. I stood there and waited, watching him the whole time. He didn’t move or make any gestures but all of the sudden my chest tightened up and I could feel a sharp pain. I clutched at my chest and crouched down trying to stop whatever was happening.

“Are you kidding me?” Oraki sounded completely dumbfounded, “This kid, he said to give him a chance, but this is crazy...” his words trailed off. The pain had stopped and I slowly stood back up.

“What the heck was that?” I asked.

“You’ll learn,” he said quickly. “Arika show him the basics and begin training him, he will probably be a little easier for you to handle since you were the fastest progresser among us.” He began issuing orders to arika and the others too, it looked like all the sudden he had a plan. He turned back to arika and continued. “I'm gonna want you to do something specific before you teach him conversion, but wait for me I need to set things up.” With that he exited the room, going out into the back streets we came in from. It was silent for a moment, but then Oraki and Tobi got moving and started to follow the instructions they were given.

“Follow me” Airka ordered as she went through another door leading to a smaller room. She proceeded to sit cross legged on the floor, and gestured for me to sit in front of her, which I did. We sat there for a moment, The sounds from the main room were gone. This room felt like an isolated world, I could already feel that if I tried to Absorb mana from here my focus would be greatly increased.

“So, first you need to know what happened just a moment ago,” Arika sounded like she was about to give a speech. “What happened was that Koshinori let out some of his mana towards you, And it hurt. The level he put out would do nothing to a normal person, because of a certain aspect of our physiques, the Life mana barrier. This barrier is what you worked down to the point mana could travel through with much more ease than previously. But now you're exposed, and even a small amount of mana can hurt you to the point of collapse. This needs to be fixed quickly. What you need to do is use your own mana inside of you to functionally recreate the life mana shell. This is called a mana shield. It is essential to your survival from this point on in your life. But as you described, you currently don't have enough mana to form this shield, so your first priority is to collect more and shift the mana to your core.” I felt a sense of excitement coming over me. I had started down the path of mana, and I have shown my worth in it, and now there are people here to guide me on this crazy journey.

She stood up and began to leave, “Is that all?” I asked quickly.

“In my experience a less hands on approach to teaching is more beneficial for prodigies like you.”

“Do you have experience teaching?” I was confused because she was so young I wouldn’t have thought she had taught anyone before.

“No, but I have experience being a prodigy myself.” And with that she left the room.

__________________________________________________________________