After the embarrassed maid left, Deon refocused on himself.

He had asked her how many hours of sleep an average person needed, but then dismissed the question, just to ensure she wouldn't get any strange ideas.

In truth, despite not sleeping much, Deon felt he had rested enough.

He felt refreshed and energized.

This wasn’t logical for someone who hadn’t slept in over 36 hours.

“Could it be because of the mana I interacted with?”

The thought excited Deon, and he found himself hurrying toward the gray box sitting on one of the bookshelves.

He swiftly opened it and pulled out the blue cube with intricate black patterns.

Closing the box lid, he returned to the comfort of his bed with the cube.

“Let’s do this!”

Sitting cross-legged in the center of his bed in a meditative posture, the cube rested in his hands.

Unlike the first time, Deon felt a unique connection with the cube. The sensation was strange but not uncomfortable.

With a single thought, Deon's senses began to dull. Soon, he found himself once again in the mysterious space where he had previously heard the sound of heartbeats—except this time, it was silent, and his dulled senses still registered within his mind.

But the significant change lay in the intricate three-dimensional patterns occupying much of his field of view. They weren’t larger than a two-story house but were complexly interwoven, difficult for the eyes to follow and the mind to interpret.

Deon’s consciousness moved around the patterns, searching for a starting point.

His connection with the blue cube instinctively guided him to what he needed to do to begin.

As he had told Vierenna, the object before him was a puzzle—and at the same time, it was himself.

To progress through the first tier, he had to solve this puzzle.

But first, he needed to find the starting point.

Deon continued circling and observing the intricate, dormant patterns before him. Every time he thought he had found something that might lead to the start, he was wrong or too far from the truth.

Unaware of how much time had passed, Deon decided to stop observing and start acting.

‘If I don’t try to begin somewhere, I’ll never start!’

He reassured himself while choosing a thin thread from the massive, complex pattern.

Reaching it with his mind—or senses—he wasn’t sure how, but somehow, he could naturally do so, considering he didn’t have a physical form in this mysterious space.

The faint thread lit up with a dim glow at the point Deon's mind connected with it. From there, the white light traced the thread, illuminating it.

Deon watched expectantly as the light reached the thread’s first branching point, which split into only two directions—one of the reasons Deon had chosen it.

He commanded the light to follow the thread on the left, which led deeper into the patterns.

But as the light began its journey along the new thread, it simply dissipated into nothingness. Soon, the patterns returned to their inert, static state.

Deon wasn’t discouraged or disappointed. He restarted from the same point on the same thread.

This time, at the branching point, he chose the thread on the right, which followed a lower path along the massive pattern.

But again, the light evaporated into nothingness, and the patterns reverted to their dormant state.

‘This is going to take a long time!’

Despite everything, Deon continued his attempts. He still believed he could find the path if he tried harder.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

In Deon’s room, time passed in relative quiet.

But in his mind, each passing second only added to his frustration over his repeated failures.

‘I'm doing something wrong! But what is it?’

His frustration began to cloud his thoughts.

Deon had seen this coming for some time now, but he had no alternative.

He couldn’t stop now. He just had to push forward.

‘But relying solely on trial and error is wrong in itself! I’m missing something!’

Deon paused for a moment, staring at the massive, intricate pattern before him. It just sat there within his line of sight, its shapes unchanging.

‘I need to try something new... but what?’

Deon had previously considered using his mana sense to speed up solving this puzzle, yet he hadn’t even found the starting point.

If he struggled at this stage, what would he do in the future?

‘What do I have to lose, anyway? If nothing works, I’ll consult Vierenna later.’

With that thought in mind, Deon willingly entered the sensory stagnation state he had experienced earlier in the backyard.

Almost immediately, the sound of irregular heartbeats began resonating within his mind and all around him.

‘I was right! I can access it now with a single thought.’

But something had changed.

In the empty space, the intricate patterns were nowhere to be seen—only the irregular heartbeats of varying intensity.

‘This is strange! I thought I was the one preventing the heartbeats from being heard in the space?’

‘Could it be that the space with the patterns and the space with the heartbeats are entirely different?’

‘No, that shouldn’t be true. Both are extensions of the mind. They should be in the same place. But... maybe my subconscious is deliberately separating them?’

Deon was almost correct. When he used his mana sense, he unintentionally severed his connection with the cube partially due to the absence of his senses.

When he connected to the cube, his instinctive focus on his five senses ignored the existence of his mana sense.

In short, when Deon used his mana sense, he lost his other senses. And when he regained his other senses, his mana sense faded into the background.

‘Should I try combining them?’

Deon felt hesitant but quickly replaced his doubt with determination.

As long as he had an idea, he wouldn’t ignore it.

‘The appearance of the heartbeat is linked to my senses vanishing. When my regular senses return, the intricate patterns appear. But maybe I can try maintaining the heartbeats while keeping my five senses active?’

Deon went with the idea, though he had no idea how to execute it.

With focus, he felt his connection to the cube dim to near nonexistence.

‘Why did this happen? And why didn’t I notice?’

It soon became clear.

‘My five senses are what create the connection between me and the cube. I didn’t lose the connection—I just stopped feeling it!’

‘So, the patterns are still there. I just don’t perceive them.’

Before Deon linked the cube to his mana signature, he used his five senses to establish the connection.

Now, with his five senses “offline” due to his mana sense, the relationship between the cube and his mana signature was what allowed him to sense the cube in the absence of his primary senses.

Deon’s plan was to reverse the process he had used to link the cube to his mana signature.

But this time, he would use the relationship between his mana signature and the cube to reconnect his senses without losing his mana sense during the process.

With his limited experience with the cube, Deon attempted to reconnect his five senses while focusing on the heartbeat that resonated relentlessly.

He kept trying, but nothing changed for a while—or so he thought.

Unaligned with the background heartbeats, a faint second set of heartbeats reached Deon’s awareness.

At first, he mistook them for the beats resulting from his mana sense. But they were the calm, regular heartbeats of his physical body.

‘Hearing!’

As his sense of hearing returned, Deon’s other senses followed suit.

The last was his vision.

‘Hah!’

Deon gasped in surprise at the sight before him.

As he expected, the massive, intricate patterns had returned, as if they had never disappeared.

But they were different from when he first faced them with his five senses.

‘I knew it! Mana sense goes deeper than it seems!’

Now, the thin threads forming the patterns glowed with a faint gray light. From time to time, dim sparks of light flickered in different points along the glowing gray threads.

‘No, that’s not right!’

From a broader perspective, the sparks didn’t appear in different points along the threads—they moved across them at a speed the eye couldn’t follow.

In parallel with the irregular heartbeats resonating throughout the mysterious space, Deon felt his own heartbeat quicken with the excitement of his current experience.

‘This is what— what should be called cheating!’

Focusing on the intricate patterns, Deon could now clearly see the starting point, the path to follow, and even the endpoint—all at once without feeling overwhelmed.

It was as if his awareness had expanded to comprehend what the five senses shouldn’t have been able to process.

‘Is this mana sense?!’

He already knew the answer and was experiencing it firsthand.

Suddenly, Deon recalled the description of the ability Mana Sense:

"The key to the world greatest mysteries!"

Although Deon was satisfied with the ability as it was, the feeling that his use of it was barely scratching the surface never left his mind.

But Deon didn’t let himself get carried away. For now, he had something to do.

‘I’m sure I’ll learn more when the situation demands it.’

He looked at the patterns, focusing specifically on the starting point.

‘But for now, why not give this a try?’

Without waiting another second, Deon reached the starting point with his mind, and the thread began to light up.

This time, the glow was a vibrant blue, signifying the correctness of Deon’s chosen path.

The blue light traveled along the thin thread, diving into the depths of the patterns. At every turn, Deon instinctively knew the correct path and followed it. Each time, his chosen direction proved to be right.

And so, Deon officially began his magic training.

All thanks to...

Mana Sense.