Mana manipulation is the ability all sentient beings possess. It gives us the authority to control and manipulate the world around us. It is generated by our mana core, which exists within a realm between our body and soul.

I recited these words, word that were drilled into my head by my mother, as I struggled to focus on the many energies swirling within my body.

Ambient mana is very hard to absorb, as it is very reactive and can wreak havoc on your mana channels if not absorbed properly. It contains almost every elemental attunement mixed into a soup of energy, constantly changing, never staying the same, never settling into a single form. Attunements can change in a matter of seconds without warning, making it hard to predict. If this is where to happen during crucial moments of meditation, the best-case scenario you get thrown out of meditation, worst case, a violent elemental reaction occurs within or around your body. This effect is called dissonance relapse.

Sometimes a steam explosion would go off in your face, sometimes ice crystals form under your skin, sometimes the ground beneath you liquifies and you sink. The list goes on.

Even though Shino had explicitly told me not to meditate this way and said that she would provide materials to help me, I still continued with this method. I understand the risk and yet I chose to do it of my volition, mostly because of the insight it provided to me.

Unlike ambient mana, internal mana is stable and uniform, and is slightly attuned to your innate affinity.

Even though I cannot see the flow of mana like Lyria, I have extremely high mana sensitivity higher than even Shino. This has helped me avoid the more dangerous drawbacks before it did any real damage and overtime I got to observe and classify the different attunements that ambient mana has.

There are the four basic pillars of wind, water, fire, and earth. Everything else that is elemental happens because of a combination of these pillars or an interaction between them.

One such interaction is lightning magic, as it normally wouldn’t exist in a neutral setting, but everything has a polarity.

A negative and a positive charge that I usually just visualize as red and blue particles. By slightly swirling these around and then separating them based on color, an imbalance would form. Once this reaches a certain tipping point, the wind attuned mana switches to lightning mana and attempts to regain that balance through electrical arcs. This is usually how I start my thunder type magical arts.

Then there is light and dark attuned mana. These are the most abundant out of any attunement, yet both are the most difficult to control. Which makes them the two rarest innate affinities. So I know little about these.

Normally, people would only meditate with ambient mana when their innate affinity is abundant, this way the potential drawbacks are lessened. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a clue what my innate affinity was.

I focused on my central mana channels and guided the mana towards my core, but not absorbing it right away, I redistributed it back out through my channels and out of my body. This helps increase my body’s mana tolerance. I repeated this until the mana was stable enough to be absorbed into my mana core, which can be used as the building blocks to increase my mana pool.

Our mana pool exists in a realm between our body and soul. It is where your internal mana is stored. As you get stronger, new layers form and it expands, allowing you to hold more internal mana.

Nestled deep within our mana pool is our mana core. It is where our internal mana is generated and is the manifestation of our fate soul. Thus, its characteristics are dictated by said fate soul, which stays unchanging regardless of how much we train or meditate.

I took deep breaths, timing each exhale as the mana exits, and inhale as it enters. My body slightly shudders as I feel a sudden pulse of energy echo within my chest. New mana channels form and extend from my center as my body prepares for what’s about to happen. This was it just a little more and I’m done.

I stop absorbing ambient mana and switched my efforts to controlling the swirling chaos near my core. I exert my will over it, trying to mold it into something more like a sheet.

I could feel my mana pool rumble and undulate and my mana channels grow even more, as if it were roots were extending from beneath a tree. I tensed up as both mana and Qi fill every part of my body, bringing with it the sensation of warmth, I could just barely feel the slight changes within my body as the two energies literally dance between my organs and then exit through the pores on my skin.

The chaotic flow subsided and I slowly incorporate it into my mana pool. As expected, a new layer forms over my mana pool, which the seal then quickly restricts.

I let out a sigh of relief and mentally gave myself a thumbs up, as this meant that I had just ranked up.

The sound of clapping cut my celebration short. The world around me came back into view as I opened my eyes, and sitting in a tree above me was Lyria.

“Congratulations on your rank up. Your meditation methods are not the best, but I guess it works for you. What realm are you in now?”

“Beginner second class,” I answered.

It had been a day since we formed the alliance. Both parties agreed to team up. We had no reason to reject this, as Cedric still had not fully recovered and I wasn’t exactly at my beast either.

During this time, I would often catch Lyria staring at me. This in a way caused a few wary feelings to crop back up as I recognize at a certain point that she had been studying me or it least what was going on around me. The constant string of questions she would vomit every time I interact with her didn’t help either.

“I see, still rather young, but your meditation causes so much dissonance. Interesting.”

“Your mana core must be quite pure. What fate soul are you?”

“Epic grade.” I replied.

“hmm for a human, that’s good, but I doubt that’s it.”

She scanned my surroundings for a moment before shaking her head as if to forget about whatever she was thinking.

“No matter. Have you heard about the game plan for tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, I am aware.”

“Great, your teammates should return soon with bale and Katia, the dark elf. Hopefully, they collected a good amount of points.”

During discussions, they held sparing sessions to decide roles and, let’s just say, Lyria’s team was much stronger than ours as they were all in the 1st and 2nd class of the intermediate realm.

Senna and Cedric were still 5th class intermediate while Enan was 3rd class. Meanwhile, I’m still stuck in the beginner realm, so if anything had gone wrong, we would have just end up being crushed.

Since the day was still young, they set out to acquire what they can while Cedric and I stayed behind to rest with Lyria and Allana holding the fort. Allana was the human girl I had seen before. She rarely spoke and stayed mostly to herself. It was as if she just simply existed.

In terms of our game plan, Cedric wanted to play it safe and just pick of what we can get, basically the same passive strategy we have been using, but Lyira wanted to go for gold and suggest we actively gather a bunch of cryptids and either lure them into traps or mow them down all at once with large scale magical attacks. Attacking other players was another concern that came up and in the end, we decided to only eliminate only those who engage us first. Lyria didn’t like this, but she agreed in the end. I guess she’s just as bloodthirsty as she is strange.

“Great, I just came by to check on you, and you seem to be just fine, so ill leave you to it.”

A few moments after Lyria left, I got up and began exploring the area we set up camp, countless intertwining vines and branches spread overhead, woven carefully like a hand crafted basket. It looked as if it was maybe by a master craftsman, painstakingly made, with no flaws in its pattern. There were enough spaces left to allow sunlight to pass through, illuminating our camping area.

This was definitely Lyria’s work. I couldn’t help but feel a little envious. She was already in the 1st class intermediate realm while not looking much older than me. I placed my hand over the seal on my gloves. This level of mana control was something I could only imagine doing.

I wondered how things would have been if my body wasn’t the way it was. If I had been born a different race, would I be as strong as her? Having to hide behind a seal and not being able to use my body to its full potential was the most frustrating thing ever.

I let out a deep sigh and curbed these invasive thoughts and figured now would be a good time to practice some sword stances. It’s not like I had anything better to do.