“Ok, I think that is enough hand-to-hand for now.” I never thought that I would be so happy to hear Barti’s voice during training as much as I was at that moment. Tindi had been beating me up, down, and around the room with nothing but her hands and feet for god knows how long. While I would have loved to be able to say that I took her down a few times, but other than that first time, I failed to so much as knock her to the ground for more than a second.

  “My turn.” Mindi’s cheerful voice caused me to cringe a tiny bit. Not at her voice but at the fact that she sounded so excited about beating me up. It didn’t help that I knew next to nothing about magic and how to use it to attack, let alone how to use it to defend myself.

  At Mindi’s gesture, I joined her inside the circle. As I stood there, I watched her as she examined the circle. She looked to be going over each line and symbol. Barti dusted off his hands and pants as he spoke. “It will do what you asked, maybe even a bit more.”

  “Good. Go ahead and power it up.” She said as she moved to the opposite side of the enclosed space.

  Not understanding what was going on, I finally asked, “Um, what is going on?”

  “While this room is decently protected against magic spells, I didn’t feel like paying for the guild for any damage. So, I asked Barti to place and power this circle.” Her hand gestured at the circle. “It should stop almost every spell you could cast. It should also increase the rate of mana regeneration of everyone inside its bounds.”

  “Meaning I won’t need to worry about any spell that misses or how much mana I have.” I instantly understood why she wanted the spell for this training session. “Aka, I won't have to worry about anything more than fighting you.”

  With a shake of her head, she continued. “Just remember that you might regenerate mana faster, but it does not mean you have unlimited mana. You will run out of mana, just not as fast. In fact, when he feels you are ready, Barti will randomly change how fast our mana regenerates. So keep an eye on your stores of mana.”

  “Wait, what is the point of that?” I asked, confused about the point of training for such random changes.

  “Ah, I sometimes forget that you don’t know much about this world.” Mindi’s eyes, while closed, rose to look at the ceiling as she explained. “While mana is nearly everywhere, it is not spread out equally. There are some places where the mana is all but physical while in other places the motes can be few and far between. Such environments will change how fast your mana regenerates. But it isn’t just the environment that can affect regeneration, the more mages you have pulling on the local mana can lead an area into a temporarily depleted state. This means that you need to be prepared for any changes as your regeneration can go from instant to nothing without warning while you are fighting.”

  Her head dropped and her eyes met mine. I nodded at her explanation because, while I didn’t understand everything about it, I did understand the reason for the circle in this training. With that out of the way, she raised her hand and pointed at me as she spoke. “Then let us see how you do.” With that as my only warning, a small ball of water formed in front of her finger before flying at me.

  It didn’t move all that fast, maybe going only as fast as a softly thrown ball, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get wet. My body dropped and rolled to the left in time for the ball to sail past. A moment later a second ball smacked against the top of my head. Either she had cast the spell after I dodged or it had been hidden by the first, either way, I had missed it.

  She kept casting the balls of water and simply watched me dodge, with some success, for quite a while but eventually her attacks stopped as she groaned. “You are just dodging the spells as I fling them at you. While this is a great strategy when you can see the spells and can move fast enough to get out of the way, it will do you no good in a real fight. You need to be dodging or countering the spells as they form.”

  While my shirt was made of leather and didn’t hold water like cotton, it hadn’t blocked the water from getting under it. The feeling of wet leather sticking to my wet and cold skin had me nearly grinding my teeth at her. “And how do you expect me to do that? It's not like I can see the spells as they form.”

  “But you can.” She insisted, “You just don’t know how to do so, yet.” With a step back, she sat on the ground and gestured for me to join her. “When you cast a spell, do you see your mana?”

  I shrugged as I sat down as far from her as I could get in the circle. While it wasn’t all that far, I needed every moment I could get to dodge her projectiles. “I think I do. Or at least I see the threads of mana I use to form each spell.”

  Her head shook as she stated, “That is not mana sight.” Then she tilted her head a bit before correcting herself. “Well, it is but it isn’t. It isn’t true mana sight. It is like seeing an object but not seeing all the parts that make it up. Useful up to a point.”

  She seemed to be relaxing into the position as if she expected to be in it for quite a while. I ignored the movement as I voiced my confusion about the sudden shift in training. “I thought we were training in magical combat?”

  “We still are, mostly.” Her voice sounded a bit exasperated and annoyed at my question. “Look, you are less than useless against another magical user if you cannot so much as sense their spell, let alone the currents of mana flowing around you.”

  Holding up a hand to placate her, I agreed with her. “Ok, I understand learning to sense when someone is casting a spell, but why would one want to sense such currents?”

  “Well, for one thing, if you can sense the currents then it will be easier to detect wild mana. It will also help you judge how fast your mana will recover in an area without having to experiment or guess.” I felt like an idiot. The answer to my question was obvious. She didn’t give me long to get mad at my own stupidity as she continued. “The two skills you will need to get are not all that hard. Just tedious.”

  “And those would be?” I asked when she didn’t immediately continue.

  “Mana Sense and Mana Sight.” When she explained things like this she lost every bit of shyness. “Mana Sight is a passive skill meaning you will not need to put some mana into it to use. With it, you will be able to see mana, or at least clumps of mana, at the first level. Though, you will want to work on leveling it up as the range and amount you are able to see is tied to it.”

  “How do I go about gaining the skill?”

  Instead of answering immediately, she closed her eyes and looked like she was deep in thought. When she did answer, her first words were an apology. “Sorry, I had to remember how I gained it. To unlock the first level, focus inside of yourself like you would for casting a spell inside of yourself. However, instead of focusing on your core, focus on a random spot. Just watch that spot until you start to notice a slight current.”

  Physically, I closed my eyes as I dropped into a light meditation. I mentally started to move into my body to do as she ordered, but her words delayed me. “The other skill is Mana Sense. It is active and easier to learn after learning Mana Sight. Once you are able to see the flow of mana inside your body, you will need to disperse some mana from your core. While I imagine my mana as a mist, you might find some other image to help you hold the mana in place.

  “The only thing that really matters is that you keep said mana under your control.” She emphasized that part. “With mana dispersed, feel how your mana interacts with the wild mana. Watch it as they push and pull at each other. Those interactions are what you will need to feel for when you are using the skill.”

  “I get that these skills are useful and all,” In fact, I had a feeling that this skill was this game's version of an enemy detection tool. A mana radar as it were. “But how do I go about leveling them up?”

  “By pushing them in any way you can. In fact, every skill can be leveled up in this way. In the case of these skills, if you want more range, practice controlling your mana at greater and greater distances. Oh and always learn how each type of mana feels. Wild mana is different than mana inside a monster, which is again different than any other creature. If one trains hard and becomes decently good at telling mana signatures apart, one can even tell who it is they are feeling.”

  While I was interested in the information she was giving me, none of it made sense. I doubted it would until I had these two skills and could see or feel what she was talking about. So, taking her silence as an order, I resumed my meditation. Dropping into the state wasn’t all that hard, which made sense considering the training I had when it came to casting spells while on the run. Doing so still required me to delve inside so that I could pull out a thread of mana and cast the spell. Of course, that memory brought with it thoughts of trying to cast spells without delving inside myself. Would it be faster? Would it require more concentration?

  I forced those distractions from my mind and focused on my goal; seeing mana. Now, since it didn’t matter where I looked for the mana, as long as it wasn’t my mana pool, I didn’t bother to move from the spot my meditating mind put me. From the looks of it, it was a section of my lungs.

  I sat there, watching as it flowed in and out of my body. Not seeing much more than the movement of air as they expanded and contracted. Which made sense. If I were something like mana, I would probably be smaller than a cell, let alone the alveoli that I was watching.

  As I did when I went looking for my core, I moved closer and closer until I was able to see individual cells. Able to see and watch as my blood and air practically touched so they could exchange carbon dioxide for the oxygen my body needed to survive. The more I watched this, the more I realized that something about the exchange was weird.

  An odd haze flowed with the air. It melted through the walls of my lungs and into my circulatory system before vanishing with the flow. While I didn’t know what the haze was, I could immediately eliminate a few obvious options. For example, it couldn’t be any form of dust as dust would have been stopped by the barrier that kept my blood from drowning me. And, unless I was in the middle of a sewer, I doubted there were enough viruses and bacteria in the air to get close to haze level.

  No, this was something else. Something new. The more I focused on it, the more it seemed to thin out. Almost as if it was reacting to being watched. For all I knew, it was. Even light reacts differently when someone is watching it versus when it is not being watched.

  Now that I thought about it, what if this haze was just another particle? A particle that I couldn’t see directly but affected the area around it. Similar to how heat affected the air above it, making it look like there was water where none existed. With that in mind, I focused on the effect itself and not the area it obscured.

  Everything else seemed to fade as I looked closer and closer. Something about it made me think that, if only I got just a little bit closer I would be able to see whatever made it up. Of course, that wasn’t the case. The closer I got, the more hazy the view became. Almost as if I was looking through a camera and, while I could zoom, I had lost the ability to focus properly.

  Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I would never see whatever it was that made up the mist. Whatever it was, I had to assume that it was what people were calling mana. Maybe some scientist somewhere would create tools to see and study it. It would be interesting to see what they came up with. As for myself, as long as it worked, I would live with what I had.

  Having discovered what I assumed was mana, I pulled back until I was once again looking over the entirety of my lungs. My eyes tracked the misty air as it flowed through my lungs and int my blood. After a minute, I followed the mist through my blood and toward my heart. A good chunk of the mist was pulled out of my blood, through my heart, and toward my mana pool. It created a thick haze in the area as something about the orb pulled all the mist toward it.

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  Some of the outer layers of the mist seemed to wisp away. As if pulled by a strong wind in another direction. The parts that broke off vanished from sight. Likely too thin for me to see. Not that I would have followed it. My senses were glued to the veritable fog of mana in front of me. A fog that I could see but couldn’t feel. One that suddenly reminded me of the other skill I needed to work on.

  I nearly smacked my head for wasting time as I reached for my mana. When I pulled out a thin cord of the stuff, the mist shrank away from it. Almost as if the mist was afraid to get close to the creation. A bit curious to find out what would happen, I let the thread vanish. The mana that made it up dispersed into the environment in an explosion of mist. As it the new addition of mana tried to equalize with the environment it pushed the mist around it further and further away.

  As this happened, the mist on the other side of the sphere surged forward. It poured into my pool as if falling into a sinkhole. This sight confirmed to me that the mist I was seeing was mana. It also showed me just how mana pools refilled on their own. Something that most games skipped over with a handwave and abusing the excuse of ‘because it's magic’.

  Focusing on the mist created by my mana, I found that it was no different than the rest. As in, I couldn’t feel it any more than one could feel the air on the other side of a window. It seemed that, as soon as one released their mana, it became free and left their control. Of course this meant that, while I had figured out what it was, it didn’t get me much closer to unlocking the skills.

  I pulled another thread out and tried to control the dispersal as I released my image while still trying to keep control over the released mana. Too bad the mana ignored me. The thread in my grip exploded outward as fast, if not faster, than the last one. Trying again yielded the same results. Given that I was not stupid and could learn, albeit slowly some days, I gave up on creating a thread first.

  From what I could tell, this way was akin to telling something to do two things at the same time. That it had to be both a solid thread and a fine mist. Since those two things were opposites, the mana bucked my control and joined its friends in taunting me by being visible but useless.

  Mentally I grabbed another fistful of mana. Instead of forming it into a thread, I kept it as a clump as I focused solely on maintaining control. I felt it as wisps of mana floated off. Most of which left my control, yet not all.

  With the little control I had, I tried to form a thin shell around my pool. It succeeded, but with the success came a new sense. Well, not a new sense but one that had always been there yet somehow muted or even silenced. Now that I could feel it, I realized it had always been in the back of my mind driving my intuition on some things. Now though, fully active and feeding me information, the information it gave me was both overwhelming and headache-inducing.

  Instinctively, I worked to tune it all out. Using the same techniques I had learned working in an industrial setting for years. While it might not help with everything, especially if it was too loud, it did help with the majority of the background noise. Which meant that, in this case, it was goddamned perfect.

  As the noise diminished to a dull roar, I found myself able to process the top layer of information. While it was dull, I could feel my blood as it rushed from one chamber to the next. But there was something else there. Something that wasn’t blood yet seemed to go with the flow.

  Fascinated, I tried to get a better look at the spot. Within moments, I came face to face with one of them and found wild mana condensed out of my blood. As it left the veins, it swirled around my mana pool. The weirdness I felt was that of the very mana in the air. If I had to equate it to another feeling, I would have to say it felt like it was a mist that was thick enough for water to start to condense on my skin.

  While it mixed with the mana I controlled, it did so with reluctance. It clumped up on the outside of my mana before finally forcing its way through to the other side to reach some sort of equilibrium. Not that the space filled with my mana was all that large. It barely encircled my pool. Curious about what would happen, I reached into my pool and pulled out more mana before feeding it to the misty shell.

  The mix thickened. Going from what one would find floating on the breeze from the ocean to something thick enough to cut with a knife. The sight of it reminded me of images of San Francisco early in the morning.

  Fascinated, I added yet more mana to the mist and got a completely different result. This time, the mist expanded. More information flowed into my brain as it did so. Again and again, I took mana from my pool and dumped it into the mist. It alternated between expanding and thickening until it abruptly stopped.

  At this point, the mist filled my body. Information on every part of it flowed into my head where it was ignored. Yet, when I went to pour more mana into it to expand past my skin, the mana vanished. Okay, that wasn’t quite right. The mana I poured into the effect was still there. The issue was with the mana that expanded past my skin. All of that mana dispersed back into the environment as I lost control of it.

  Before I could try again, Mindi’s voice cut through the silence that had filled the room. “Good. You have managed to get both skills in a reasonable amount of time.”

  “Not that it will do me much good,” I grumbled as my eyes opened to look at her. My sight was tinged with a light mist. Not enough to block my sight, but enough that I could clearly see it. Given that one of the skills had the word sight in it, I had to assume that I was actually seeing mana with my eyes. Something that, while not useful at the moment, would help me in the future. While I was trying to get used to this new sight, a small part of my mind kept the mist in place so I didn’t lose what progress I had managed to make. “I can only sense the mana inside my body.”

  “First off, that will do you a lot of good. You can sense more than just mana can’t you?” As I nodded, she continued. “Being able to see and judge wounds will help you during and after a battle. Allowing you to properly determine what is and what isn't a fatal wound.”

  I hadn’t thought of using it like that. Such a skill would allow me to triage myself. Such an ability was nice to have but not all that great for when one is in the middle of a fight. Probably seeing my annoyance, she rolled her eyes and continued. “Take a look at your Mana Manipulation skill. If I had to guess it is level two.” She stopped talking to let me look and sure as shit, she was right. “At that level, you are able to control your mana to just past your skin. That is what is limiting your range.”

  “So, if I want to sense other people and the spells they are about to cast, I need to increase this skill?”

  “Yep,” she popped the p at the end as she started to get up. “Best way to do that is to practice and what better practice is there than to use it in a fight? This time I want you to focus on detecting the magic itself and not just dodging the spells after they have formed.”

  As I stood up, a ball of water flew at me. I didn’t have time to dodge it, though this time I did feel the mana it was made of as it hit my skin. Even though I was now soaked, this gave me a bit of hope. If I could expand my Mana Sense, I could potentially track spells already on their way to me and not just as they were cast. Something that she had failed to mention.

  A good chunk of my mind was focused on keeping the skill going while also processing the information it fed me. This left very little of my attention to dodging and moving. Even with me being the only one of us moving, I was fairly sure that my stamina would run out long before her mana did. If I wanted a chance at taking her down, then I needed to go on the offense.

  Now, I could get closer but doing so came with risks. Namely in the fact that I would have less time to react and dodge any spell she tossed at me. More and more of my brain would have to focus on dodging her. Eventually, I would be unable to even cast any spell, maybe not even maintain my Mana Sense skill. To be honest, what I needed was another brain.

  Ok, maybe not another brain, but maybe the ability to hold three or more thoughts at one time. It couldn’t be too hard. Just as I thought that a bunch of memories of my time learning to hold a spell and run at full speed reminded me just how hard learning to hold two things in the forefront of my mind could be.

  A sudden, sharp pain stabbed into my skin everywhere there was water against my skin. “I think it is about time I start to introduce the rules when it comes to magical combat,” Mindi sounded bored as she spoke. Her hand stretched in my direction. Given the foreign mana I could feel on my skin, she had to be casting a spell onto the water she had splashed against my skin. “Rule one. Never let someone's spells coat you. Even if it looks harmless, the castor can still manipulate said spells.”

  “How?” I gritted out through the pain as I stopped moving. I focused for a second to form some sort of fireball. Not to blow her up or anything, but something I could use to boil away the water. Anything to stop the pain.

  “While it is cheaper and easier to pull water from the environment, I created it with mana. As such, I have more control over it than I would with regular water. On top of that, everyone else will have less control over it.” She shrugged. “Pretty common tactic mages employ to prevent another mage from taking control of the elements inside a spell.”

  Finally ready, I didn’t hesitate to cast my fireball spell. I didn’t care that I didn’t have complete control. Instead of shooting away from me, the ball hovered in place. Flames licked up the surface as the heat warmed the space immediately around it. The closest spot of water to the heat stopped hurting. Either she was unable to control it with my spell so close, or the heat was countering whatever she had been doing. Given that I had let my Mana Sense drop in order to cast the spell and deal with the pain, I had no clue.

  With my mind preoccupied in dealing with the water meant I didn’t see the ball of water until it hit me. Well, not me but my fireball. The two instantly canceled each other out. The water turned into steam as the fireball was snuffed out.

  “Rule two. Never take your eyes off your opponent. Even if you are trying to take care of, or focus on, one spell at a time.” Heeding her advice, I looked at her and found that she was waiting for me. A small ball of water balanced in her hand as if she were a pitcher and I was a batter.

  As she threw it, I found that I was too close, her throw too fast, for me to move out of the way in time. So, I sort of panicked. My mind spammed the fire rune over and over, forming a web of runes in a vain attempt to stop the ball before it could reach me. To my shock, the spell worked. A wall of fire formed between us. It vanished moments later in a cloud of steam. The mana holding it together completely used up in just one strike.

  Mindi pursed her lips but gave me a sharp nod. “That spell does the job, though it is a bit expensive isn’t it?” Flicking my eyes to the bar at the corner of my vision, I was shocked to see that half of my mana bar was gone. Likely from that one spell considering how fast it was refilling. “Rule three. Don’t use more mana than you need to.” She didn’t give me time to argue that I had no choice as she asked a question that made me stop and think. “Did you absolutely have to use that spell or could you have used another, much cheaper, spell?”

  My mouth snapped shut at that. She was right. If I could pinpoint where her ball of water would be, and when, I could have canceled it out with a simple fireball. Mentally I shifted gears from trying to figure a way to beat her to one of just getting a single hit in. Backing up as part of me worked to reactivate my Mana Sense. I forced more mana into it as I tried to force it further and further from me. Unbidden and unwanted, a stray scene wove its way through my mind. It forced me to watch it as the scene played out at a speed I could barely keep up with.

  A person worked on a piece of metal as it spun in a lathe. Taking their time as they cut and shaped it. The next piece of metal went into a more sophisticated-looking lathe. The tools were controlled with wheels and rails rather than hand as they cut out the same shape. Another piece, another machine. This time one with tools that cut following a predetermined path. Only stopping long enough for a pair of hands to switch the tool out before moving on to the next cut. The last piece sat in a completely enclosed machine. One that changed its own tools as it followed whatever paths it had been programmed to follow.

  While the scene faded, I felt as if I had been hit by a lightning bolt. I was a fucking idiot, always trying to control every bit of mana I could. It was taxing on both my mind and body when it didn’t have to be. I needed to follow the example of the machinist and let my tools do their job. Let them bring me the finished part, or in this case, the information I needed to know.

  With just an idea and no clue as to how to go about it, I went off instinct as I pulled a thin thread of mana out. It formed it into a rune I had never seen yet somehow knew. It was a communication rune and looked fairly simple. Yet I somehow knew that I would have had a hard time forming the rune if not for the bolt of inspiration that came from the scene.

  The thread of mana formed a circle before dropping into a loop that went just past the center of the circle. As it passed the center it formed another loop even though the first loop was only half done. It then passed through the center a second time and formed a third loop before finally finishing the first loop. The thing looked like a three-leafed clover with a rounded triangle shape sat in the center.

  As the rune finished, it felt as if the mana near it became more present, if that makes sense. I could feel everything near that spot more clearly. It was as if everything was boosted with an antenna or something. The best part of the rune was that, just like an antenna receiver, I could tell it to ignore certain signals.

  This time, I held onto what I was fairly sure was a newly created spell as I pushed mana out around me. Unlike before, the mana stayed misted around me and under my control. As if waiting for this moment, Mindi reminded me of rule two with a ball of water. However, unlike before, I managed to feel the ball of water as it flew through the air toward me. Not that the extra few moments did me any good. I still wasn’t able to dodge the ball and it splashed against my face causing me to splutter.

  “Good, but rule four,” Mindi called out as if sensing that I had somehow figured out how to push my senses out. “Everything costs mana.” Eyes wide, I glanced at my mana bar and found that it was dropping like a stone. In a rush, I canceled every rune I had up. The drop slowed before finally stopping. Unfortunately, it also did not go up. Given how clear the world looked around me, the circle was completely devoid of mana. Likely Barti’s doing.

  “Rule five,” Mindi stated as she held a small rock at the ready. “Don’t rely on any one method to do anything. The longer you do the same thing, the more likely your opponent will figure out a way to get around it. I will admit, I didn’t think you would figure out a way to detect mana so fast. Pretty sure that, given another two throws, you wouldn’t have needed to even dodge anymore. Too bad I am not going to give you the chance.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked a bit hesitantly.

  “Now the kid gloves come off.” Her smile was malicious and sent a shiver down my spine. “Now I start to throw some spells that can do some serious damage if you don’t block or dodge them. All while Barti here does whatever he wants to the environment in here.” I was going to die here.