The little spirit swirling slowed, and her mana rippled thoughtfully as she digested the curiosity spirit’s expnation.

  So, to summarize, we are taking the “cause,” from “cause and effect,” and repg it with mana…

  Which, in practice, seems to just mahe “effect” directly, without any of the usual fuss…

  Err, does that mean that I use mana to do whatever I want?

  As expected, the instant the swirling teacher sehe student’s question, she immediately burst into a fit of giggles, leaving her little protégé feeling rather embarrassed.

  From Chara’s perspective, she believed she had e to a perfectly reasonable clusion, given the expnation.

  “Well… It’s not that you ’t—it’s just that there are two problems~!” expihe curiosity spirit through itent ughter. “But before I tell you about that, let me teach you about something else first~!”

  Without dey, the swirling teacher produced three puffs of mana and lowered them onto her desk. After using one of them to pick up the piece of obsidian, she moved them toward Chara until they were directly in front of her.

  Intrigued, the little spirit enveloped them within her perception to take a closer look.

  Starting from the very left was… a type of mana she had never seen before. Ulingly, although she could se through her perception, and intuitively k was mana, it gave her no impression.

  In the middle, was some normal mana. It exuded a gentle and refreshing feeling, characteristic of the water element. However, aside from this, it wasn’t any different from the rest of the room’s mana.

  And on the right, was the puff of maating the ominous bck rock. This maed the same impression as the previous, only more pronounced. So much so that it appeared to glitter within her perception.

  Upon sensing this st sample of mana, Chara’s mind sparked in reition. This was the state mana reached when it was in a spell.

  “As you might have noticed, although all three puffs are just mana, each of them exudes a distinct feeling that sets it apart from the other two. This is due to a characteristic called [Iy], which is kind of like a mana particle’s level of excitement,” enlightened Curiosity while jittering around the wisps of mana for dramatic effect.

  Iy? Excitement? Hmm, could this be like temperature for atoms…? sidered Chara. In physics, “temperature” is a measurement of the average kiiergy of particles within a substance. However, after a short ption, she shot down this idea.

  No, if she went out of her way to specify “particle,” then “iy” must be an intrinsic property of mana itself, rather than a collective behavior like temperature or density…

  Curiosity swirled around the leftmost puff of mana so it would catch her student’s attention. This was the mana that emitted no impression.

  “Starting from the lowest iy, this is [Reserved Mana]. This variation of mana is mostly found within your [Soul Sea] as it’s what’s geed by your [Mana Core]. As you see, it’s very shy and doesn’t i much.”

  The little spirit didn’t uand more than half of the curiosity spirit’s expnation, but as if to show she was listening, she formed a little mana tendril and prodded it. There was no particur rea.

  The greater spirit swirled around the middle sample of mana.

  “ is [Normal Mana]. This is the most on form of mana, and it’s everywhere around us. Because of its heightened iy, it’s very opinionated and social, preferring to gather with variants of mana it likes while avoiding o dislikes.”

  When Chara trated onto the puff of normal water element mana, she firmed that ihere seemed to be wind, ice, and water element mana gathering around it. In trast, the light element mana, which should have been illuminating her desk, avoided it, making her seat seem a bit gloomy.

  This was not surprising. Mana’s tendency to verge toward certain colors was something she had noticed even before she khat it was mana. heless, she was a bit dissatisfied with the teacher’s rather ckluster expnation, as it only mentiohat certain variants of mana could either like or dislike each other without expining why.

  Sensiudent’s doubts, the curiosity spirit inwardly smiled. heless, she had no iion of answering—at least not this instant.

  Without dey, she swirled the final sample of mana. currently, its glittering intensified and its impression grew even more pronounced.

  “Last, but most exg is—[Spell Mana]! This variation of mana behaves simirly to the previous one, only more exaggerated. Furthermore, because of its extremely high iy, it bees so unruly and mischievous that it begins to affect the world around it…!” chided Curiosity.

  To emphasize her point, she began pyfully orbiting the floating obsidian around the little spirit. As it circled, it left behind a sparkling trail of illusory water droplets that glimmered with an aqueous light before fading.

  “Now, all of this is well and good, but as you may have noticed, there is a teeny tiny problem. The mana is gradually disappearing~!” cried Curiosity, as if fearing that she was .

  Disappearing…? Now that she took a closer look, Chara realized that ihe wisp of mana holding up the ominous bck rock was gradually diminishing. In fact, she didn’t think it would st another minute.

  “You see, out of the two problems I mentioned earlier, the first one was referring to this,” said Curiosity.

  That the mana is disappearing? Chara wondered.

  “No! What I mean is… Although I depicted mana as a magical energy capable of turning possibilities into reality, the truth is, each mana particle only tains a fixed amount of energy called [Potential],” fessed the greater spirit.

  Oh. I guess that makes sense… Baby mumbled inwardly, though she did find the term “potential” to be slightly intriguing.

  “As for how this impacts our spell casting… simply put, the farther a possibility is from reality, the more potential it takes to make it real,” expihe swirling teacher.

  Further from reality… As the little spirit mused over this expression, her mana swirled gently, her rippling as unreadable as her thoughts. She was fused.

  Curiosity, an expert at reading swirling expressions, immediately picked up on her cluelessness, and decided to give her a hint. “Think of it as the number of ditions that must be met for a possibility to bee reality, and how challenging those ditions are to meet.

  “For example, sider the sarios I mentioned earlier. For this piece of Obsidian to move left, right, or shatter into pieces, all it would take is a bit of force. Therefore, these possibilities be sidered—close to reality~! As such, bringing them to life shouldn’t demand too much mana.

  “Oher hand, for this obsidian to wake up, move out, and bee an artist…”

  Enough already! Use a different example!

  maury