Sorry for the big blocks of text, loooots of info this chapter

  Early Evening - Early Summer : The Terra Mana Well | Leyfa Askr

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  *Vwoom* What is mana, and what is magic?

  They were simple questions, ones I expected to have simirly simple answers.

  However, while the ahemselves weren't too crazy, the moment you ask 'how', the floodgates open.

  "Mana is something that strehe foundation of the world." Speaking with a palpable joy, Eve walked out in front of me, reag her hand out and creatiiful swirls in the visible mana filling the air. "It is a medium we as intelligent life use to manipute that foundation, or as people of this world say, manipute physics." g her hand and dissipating the swirling mana, she smiled. "That manipution is what we call magic!"

  Already lost in my own thoughts, I gently sat down before looking up into the thick mana that filled the space around us.

  "But unfortunately, mana on its own isn't too helpful with things like creating a fireball." *Fwoosh* Igniting a ball of fire in her hand, she quickly spun it around herself before letting it dissipate. "Without any attribute, mana isn't much different from an atom. As I'm sure you've noticed, your aura cks an attribute, and as you've seen, you only really make it act like an object to transfer force through; something to spread out the weight of an impact or as you may have seen me do, use telekinesis."

  *Vwoom* Pig up a small rock several meters away, it appeared to hover toward me before dropping to the ground just in front of me. "So where do the other attributes e from?"

  "They e from things called runes. You think of them like a circuit, but they are just something that forces the mana to ge states." Holding her hand out, a circur, extremely intricate web of lines appeared, creating the appearance of a maze. "If I put normal, unattributed mana into this, I feel it flow through the circuitry before flowing out as fire-attributed mana. Then, if I want to create a fme with it, I just spin it really fast." *WOOSH* A fme the size of her instantly erupted from her palm. "And if I wao do the opposite, I ." *Crackle* In the blink of ahe massive fme vanished and a fog of frost filled the area around her hand.

  -Woah...- "So what are the attributes then? Are fire and frost mana different?"

  Wanting to ugh at my y, she was quick to answer. "Fire and frost mana are the same mana, sorry if the name fused you. The attributes of mana are divided into differeions of the ws of reality, with Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Lightning, Light, and ohat os in theory called space mana, and each of them is best at trolling something about the world. To try and keep it simple for now, fire mana is best at dealing with temperatures, earth mana is best at dealing with extremely rigid and dehings, water mana is best at trolling and maniputing liquids, wind mana is the same with gasses, and lightning is the same with psma. Light, however, is a little more plicated, while we are still developing our knowledge about it, we believe it is best at trolling things called photons, little strings that act like either a particle or a wave."

  -How.. fasating...- As a gleam of curiosity appeared in my eyes, I found myself falling into a trance-like focus. "And what about space?"

  Quickly getting a bit flustered, she stuttered before speaking holy. "I-I don't really know. We just assume it's what the system uses to work since we don't know of any magic that do anything like store items in.. nothingness." *Vwoop* Tossing a small pebble in her iory, she somewhat disappointedly pulled it out and tossed it. "But regardless, let's keep things simple. Besides meical methods like runes, nature also has ways to vert maween attributes, and the most widely known one is attribute nodes. You think of them like an artifact that verts mana to specific attributes with almost perfect efficy. They're also much easier and much quicker to use than traditional runes, so having a node is like having a special affinity with that element."

  -Iing...- Tilting my head slightly as she walked up to me, I asked, "Are attribute nodes essentially just artifacts that form naturally then?"

  Gently nodding, she sat right down in front of me. "Yes, but they only work for the owner of the reserve they are ected to, and their efficy is determined by how close they are to that reserve. So, to start with some more hands-on lessons, we'll figure out where yours are so we figure out what your best attribute is!"

  She seemed rather eager to get started, but I was a little hesitant.

  And after we started the teique to find where they are, I realized why. "Now, it's pretty simple. To feel the presence of an attribute node you either try and feel for it with your aura, or read the aura in your body directly. You should feel a sphere somewhere in your body where your aura 't reach, that is an attribute node."

  -Really?- Quickly reading the aura in my own body, the awful image of my insides filled my mind.. but I didn't find anything so out of the ordinary. "I.. don't see any..." Speaking with my eyes closed, I spoke with uainty.

  "Huh?" Even Eve seemed to be taken aback. "Wait, no no no, that 't be right. All asded should have at least one, if not most nodes. Maybe check closer to your reserve?"

  But I just shook my head. "I don't see anything spherical at all, let alone something my aura 't enter."

  Her expression quickly morphed with a mix of curiosity and fusion. "O..okay then... For the practical stuff, we will start with just unattributed mana..."

  Notig her getting anxious, I tilted my head. "Is something wrong with not having any attribute nodes? I not just use runes?"

  "Yes, but runes are very plicated. They take time to learn, and time isn't our friend right now so let's start with what is easiest for you to use in actual bat..." Looking troubled, she took a quick breath before firming her expression with determination. "Hooh... It's okay, maybe this is for the better anyway..."

  But while we quickly got started, expeg me to get summoned back to another world in a matter of hours, a feassed in the blink of an eye.

  pletely absorbed in the lessons, I didn't even realize it either. With the wonderful dense mana, the sensation of being tired or hungry never came, leavio focus entirely on learning the funs of my aura, how to make better use of it, and how to trol it more effitly before moving tur mana itself.

  But while gettier at using my aura would take time, everything with it made sense, even if the teique was something plicated like telekinesis, I was qui the uptake because once I lears properties and got used to them, the ability to make use of it was easy.

  It still wasn't easy though. Even though I had enough aura to rip a drake in half acc to Eve, I had nowhere near enough mental capacity for it. My issue wasn't the speed of my thoughts, but rather how much I could visualize at once, and the precision of those visualizations.

  In Eve's words: 'With aura, the easiest way to create objects is through visualization, but if you do it that way, the moment you stop visualizing something, the object will dissipate. If you create something like a series of ns eg the impact of your punething teers away, you must visualize every n at on a precise, uniform manner, or else it will be unstable and you might end up breaking your hand or wrist instead of your target. Think of your aura like a building, and your visualization like a blueprint. Once you get det at that, we will add in the less beginner-friendly teiques.'

  And when I asked what was sidered 'det', she said when I could jump off a skyscraper and nd without making a sound.

  Which most certainly wasn't going to happen without some proper practice, so, to make better use of time, we moved on to my reserve, fog on the pure mass of mana i.

  But while I expected it to be the same as my aura, sihey were both unattributed mana, Eve was quick to correct me.

  "While they are indeed both unattributed mana, they have different properties. You think of aura like a decayed version of what is swirling around your reserve. You 't use it in things like runes, or spells unless you want to call something you do with your aura, like telekinesis, a spell. The mana in your reserve doesn't have those limits though."

  "So my mana and my aura are fually different things?"

  She was quick to nod. "Their properties are mostly the same, and while you do the same things with both, normal unattributed mana is more effective than aura in one pce." Pointing to her chest, she looked into my eyes with an unwavering gaze. "Inside your body."

  In short, proper mana was better at doing the things aura did, but in your body, sometimes in a perma fashion.

  "When your trol gets a bit better, you'll be able to do things like mana-strengthening, which uses mana tthen the bonds betweeoms that make up your body. After doing it enough, you'll find your movements getting lighter and faster. If you do hit something hard, it will also help spread the impact out throughout your body instead of fog it on a joint so you exert more strength."

  -Oh, that'll be nice...- Gng down at my hand for a moment, I looked back up at her with a bit of eagerness. "Could we focus on striving for that then? I o learn that ASAP..."

  Immediately g up, she gave me an odd look. "Why the urgency..? Are you not already strong enough?" A bead of cold sweat quickly formed on her forehead.

  *Cl-l-l-link* Pulling back the armor on my hand, I took off my glove and showed her my hand. -Looks like it's mostly healed now...- Aside from a little bruising, it looked normal. "In my st mission, I broke my hands pung a wyvern... It was full strength, sure, but uh.. if I could use full strength for more than one exge that would be very.. very helpful..."

  Her expression instantly darkened as her heart seemed to sink. "W..what level wyvern needs you to hit it with your full power..?"

  Looking over her head, I gave it a moment of thought before speaking somewhat bluntly. "9200-ish." Looking to the side, I waved my hand and pulled out a fragment of its scale. *Vwoop-THUNK* It weighed about half a ton. "His scales were pretty sturdy-"

  "HOUSAND?!"

  Tensing up, my gaze slowly settled on her. "He was incredibly weak pared to my old self, but without my upgrades, I had to push myself a bit-"

  "A bit?!" Eve tinued with a slight quiver in her voice. "I know you've been in the system for a long time, but.. how is that possible..." Her eyes, washed with a mix of fear and worry, instantly locked with mine. "How monsters like that exist..? Even Mother could only handle monsters up into level four thousand or so..." Leaning back, she looked up at the ceiling. "How horrifying is level housand? What if a monster like that finds its way to Earth?"

  "It won't." Although fear was woven deep into her voice, I spoke somewhat bluntly. "The system has too many measures io keep monsters like that from ing here."

  "But.." She quickly looked me ba the eyes. "If that's the case how did you get here..?"

  -I guess it's to be expected that I'm more of a mohan a human in her eyes, just as anyone else...- I was quick to tinue calmly. "My system got wiped, Eve. The system did literally everything it could to try and purge or kill me." Pausing, I rexed my posture. "Plus, look. When I got here, even the administrators wanted me gone, but we made a deal that I would intervene should a mohis world isn't capable of handling appear, so stop w." -If something I 't handle appears, we have much bigger issues...- As the image of the administrator that threw me bato the system appeared in the bay mind, my expression visibly darkened, but I tried to hide it. "Haah..." -I have a long ways to go if I ever want to kill a god...- "In any case, let's just get back to the lessons, we have a lot to cover, right?"

  "R-Right..." Somewhat awkwardly, she tinued with a much softer tone. "Sorry about that..."

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