Day 31, 5:00 AM

  The choice between Advanced Arithmetics and Expert Calligraphy takes some thought. On one hand, there’s balance, on the other, a higher tier skill always trumps a lower tier one. Plus, Edna mentioned some mages made do without picking up arithmetics at all, so initial tier skill should be enough. Besides, it’s just arithmetics, how hard can it be to level?

  With those considerations, I pick Expert Calligraphy, then check my new level up condition, six attribute points staring at me, waiting for me to spend them.

  I read the level up condition again, just to make sure I’m not getting something wrong, before smiling.

  “I have to perform ten tasks issued to me by my master. Edna, do you mind officially issuing ten ridiculously simple tasks, like picking up a leaf, taking a step, and such?”

  She stares at me blankly. “There’s no way that will work.”

  The wording says it should.

  “Humor me.”

  Edna starts bossing me around. I pick up three twigs and seven leaves, and I get a level up notice. Just like my wise master had explained, my choices are Initial Mana Control and Initial Mana Overflow. I make the conservative choice, with the idea of trying to master it on my own the next time I enter the class.

  I purse my lips as I read the next level up condition.

  “Edna, this one is tougher, ask your master to explain an arcane topic you do not understand until you comprehend it. I don’t think it can be anything new, but something you already taught, but I failed to understand.”

  “Wait, you really got a level from picking up sticks!”

  I put my finger on my lips. “Edna, the area is still crawling with abominations.”

  “Did you really level up?” she whispers.

  I nod, and she grabs the tree, a hollow look in her eyes.

  “Two minutes,” she mutters. “I took months to advance from level three to level four. I know, knew, people who took years, some never even made it.”

  She’s at a loss for words. “All they needed to do was pick up ten sticks. That’s impossible. I refuse to believe it.”

  I’m strongly tempted to wave the leaves and twigs in her face with an air of superiority, but I’m a graceful system exploiter.

  “Anyway, back to the next level up condition, the easiest way I can think of is either giving a horrible lecture, so that I can’t understand it, or doing it with a lot of technical terms I don’t know. Then, I ask you to redo the lesson properly. Hopefully, I get a level out of it.”

  “Can you use your mana control now?” Her mind hasn’t caught up. She still doesn’t believe I leveled by picking up a handful of foliage. I see no reason not to, and while I am excited to level up again, the thought of trying to do magic is just as appealing.

  “Sure.” I sit, leaning my back against the most nonthreatening tree around, and close my eyes.

  Green mana is everywhere, not in visible motes like when Edna reshaped my body or made my weapons, but as an ever-present fine mist or infinitely small snowflakes shifting in a nonexistent wind.

  Following an instinct I never had, but BSD implanted in my brain, I inhale. My body relaxes and the flow of mana around me changes. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m like a drain of a full tub. One moment the plug was there and the water stood still, the next the plug disappeared and mana started swirling around me, making a localized whirlpool.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Whatever happened, I need to understand it, to know what my body is doing, why, and how. Only then will I be able to replicate the feat myself. Now, how do I manipulate mana?

  “Edna, how do I manipulate mana?”

  “You can do something simple first, stop gathering it and just expel some from your body.”

  Yeah, that’s not exactly helpful. As if just thinking—

  It worked. Merely thinking that I don’t want to gather mana anymore and that I want it gone from my system, expelled a green cloud from my body. Edna gasps, but I’m too busy feeling lightheaded.

  “I told you to expel some mana, not all of it.”

  My head throbs, then something inside me does the same pop the ears do from sudden pressure changes. My vision clears, and I thought I was done, but then the ambient mana gushes into me even faster than when I was drawing it, and my vertigo intensifies.

  “Just sit there and do nothing.”

  “What happened?” My stomach is complaining a bit, and I guess men with weaker physique would be puking their guts out, while my flash of headache would have become a full-blown migraine.

  “Mana exhaustion, the symptoms are usually much worse than yours, so you probably only suffered a minor case. Makes sense, since you hardly have a mana pool. Just stay there, and don’t get up until I tell you.”

  “Couldn’t you have said that in a more incomprehensible way and then clarified it?” She frowns, still not getting it. “I’m dizzy. You could have thrown some fancy vocabulary, then explained the problem in simple terms. I could have gotten a level out of it.”

  “We’re going home.” Edna rolls her eyes, then continues in a grumble. “If my level up condition is to pick up twenty twigs someone points out for me, I’m going to be really angry.”

  Now that was an understatement if I ever heard one.

  A day passes and Edna holds a lecture on mana transformations. I can’t make heads or tails of what she’s saying at first, like she’s speaking in a foreign language, but after I ask her to clarify, the subject comes out as quite a simple thing, actually. The amount of mana on Everrain is finite, it constantly flows and transforms, but the sum of it always stays the same. In her example, every mote of blue and yellow that merge into a green mote result in a nearby mote of green decomposing into blue and yellow.

  It’s an interesting theory, which provides me with two benefits. The first is the realization that lessons don’t need to be lengthy at all. The original lasted half an hour, but the useful version took mere five minutes. I’m guessing that as long as it delivers the point, a single sentence can be a lesson.

  The second, more important benefit, is the level up pop-up. I pick Initial Awakened Consciousness, and my poor brain melts. The sound of drizzle striking the leathery leaves high above my head tastes green and red, while life and water mana smell of honey and crackling ozone. And that’s just the sensations coming from my ears.

  My eyes tell me the dark forest throbs with life, like a slow, powerful heart fueling the planet. The pressure squeezes my brain, a distorted rainbow shimmers in my nose, then everything goes black.

  “I had to knock you out,” the rainbow voice says, licking at my brain. “Your senses appear to be too sharp, and awakening your consciousness overloaded your brain.”

  “It’s still happening,” I croak in green and yellow, not bothering to open my eyes. “Your voice tastes fuzzy.”

  “You can hear me and speak, you’re doing fine, trust me,” the multi-colored blob I smell with my ears says. “You suddenly blanked out, I was talking to you, then tried shaking, but you were paralyzed. Just drooling and gazing into space.”

  Sounds about right.

  “How do others react to getting Initial Awakened Consciousness? Why didn’t you warn me?” I’m not really angry, nor am I accusing Edna, I’m simply curious. It seems like a decent thing to do, warning a person they are about to tilt their brain and go catatonic.

  “Because the symptoms aren’t supposed to be that severe. At worst, you should have suffered from disorientation, nausea, confusion, trouble with speech and balance for the first day or so.”

  Those still sound kind of important. The kind of thing you should warn people about. Hey, Joe, you’re gonna fall down each time you take a step in the next twenty-four hours. Seems like basic human decency to warn Joe.

  “Can you see your next level up condition?” Edna asks, and I can’t believe I haven’t done it earlier.

  I blame it on the green, coppery-smell pudding I’m hearing all around me.

  BSD appears without the slightest distortion, overriding my tormented senses, and for once I’m sad it’s not covering an even greater part of my consciousness.

  Eight available attribute points are a welcome sight, but the level up condition is depressing.

  “I have to attend a total of three hundred hours of lessons held by my master. We’ll need ten hours a day for a month before we’re done with this one.”

  The grape-taste of whine in my voice apparently infuriates Edna. “How dare you complain about one measly month! I took two years without advancing before I gave up on reaching level six. Had I known the condition, I would’ve endured another month or two!”

  Edna’s voice is red, probably full of elemental energy, based on how my brain is working right now. I can’t blame her for being livid, but I can offer to help.

  “Listen, take all this as a trial run. Once you become my apprentice, we’re gonna push you all the way to the ninth level.”

  I can’t see her face, but the red turns brown to my altered state of being, probably indicating she’s mortified.