“Wh-What am I doing?” Mika shook her head and woke up from her stupor. She looked down and stared at the picture of the World Tree on the back of the manuscript, “Did I really just get mesmerized by a tree?”

She couldn’t help but wonder if she had gone crazy! Who in their right mind would find a picture of a tree so fascinating that it was almost life-changing?!

“You’re not crazy, young Mika. Everyone feels that way about Yggdrasil the first time they see it. Most people feel like they’re looking at the image of a higher power!”

Suddenly, she heard Joralf’s voice from behind. She turned around and noticed him approaching her.

“Are you saying this tree is real?” Mika asked as she pointed to the manuscript.

A look of reverence appeared on Joralf’s face, and he nodded, “While I can’t say for sure everything on that paper is true, Yggdrasil certainly exists and is the reason why Elves exist as well.”

Mika had a weird look on her face, “So, your ancestors really came from a tree?”

Joralf smiled and shook his head, “Not exactly. We believe ancient Elves were born from nature, and since the World Tree is the mother of nature, it only makes sense that it’s our progenitor.”

That answer just created more questions for Mika, but before she could ask, Joralf interrupted, “I’m sure you have many questions, but I don’t have all the answers. If you want to know more, you should visit Eldamar. However, I can tell you that Elves are very different from humans even though we look similar.”

Mika tilted her head, and Joralf continued, “Elves live a very long time, up to 1000 years to be exact, unlike humans, who can only live around 100 years without any cultivation. Unless we break through into the 6th Realm of Cultivation, the Blue Core Realm, our lifespan won’t increase. In fact, I am almost 500 years old myself, but I’ve only reached the 2nd Stage of the Red Core Realm.”

Mika’s eyes opened wide, and her mouth seemingly dropped to the floor!

‘1,000 years?! They can live 1,000 years without any cultivation?! What kind of bullshit is that?!’

Mika felt like the saying, ‘Life isn’t fair’, couldn’t be more true here. There were so many things she could’ve done in her past life if she could live 1,000 years, even if she couldn’t cultivate!

She could’ve taken breaks and had plenty of rest periods in her life-

‘Wait! What am I even thinking? Breaks? Why would I take breaks?’

At that moment, Mika seemed to understand a bit more about Elven culture and why the people in this village are so… laid back.

Joralf didn’t notice that Mika had understood and continued speaking, “You might be too young to understand this, but being able to live that long drastically affects our personalities, society, and growth. Thus, we spend most of our time doing things other than improving ourselves as we have hundreds of years ahead of us to do that.”

Mika nodded as she couldn’t disagree with those words, but she couldn’t even imagine wasting years of her life sitting around doing nothing! She didn’t have the time for that! If she wasted years of her life doing nothing, she’d ruin all the hard work she put into prior.

In her previous life, most people never lived past 50 or 60, not even 100, like in this world. Suppose she had worked hard until she was 30 and decided to take a 3-year break from training. Doing that would have wasted 10+ years of training; at that age, it would’ve been impossible to reach the strength and physique she had prior, thus ruining the rest of her short life!

However, things might be different if she had a guaranteed 1,000 years to live. She would have the time to spare to be careless and lazy in her training. What would a 3-year break mean if she had 900+ years ahead of her?

Nothing. It would mean nothing!

Why would something like that matter when she hardly aged?

“I see. That explains a lot. Thank you.” Mika said.

Joralf laughed, “Hohoho! It’s my pleasure, Young Mika. However, do keep in mind that not all Elves are like what you see here in this village. If you ever head to the Elven Kingdom or come across another village, don’t think they’ll treat you with the same kindness we’ve given you here.”

Hearing Joralf’s sincere warning, Mika firmly nodded her head. She would keep his words in mind if she ever crosses paths with another Elf.

Mika put the manuscript back on the shelf, turned to Joralf, and said, “I think I’ve finished reading everything I wanted to know about mana. I’m going to go walk around a bit and clear my head before training.”

Joralf nodded with a smile and left the room. He wanted to say many things, such as ‘Be back by sundown’ or ‘Don’t wander outside the village’, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

He knew he couldn’t treat Mika like she was a child. Something was different about her. Although she looked like a little kid, how she acted said otherwise—her maturity and drive to improve set her worlds apart from kids her age.

Thus, at first, Joralf wasn’t sure how to deal with her, but he eventually decided to treat her as if she were a young adult.

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Mika left the Village Chief’s house and began walking around the village, gazing and admiring the scenery. More specifically, the trees.

She couldn’t get the image of the World Tree out of her mind. It was like she caught a glimpse of the universe in that one little picture-branches spread among the stars, its roots encapsulating everything and a trunk that held everything together.

This image then overlapped with the diagram for Mana Pathways in that Elven Cultivation Technique, and she had a flash of inspiration!

‘What if… What if I base my mana cultivation technique on the idea of a World Tree?’ She couldn’t help but think.

To her, the strongest and most profound things in existence were the Stars in the sky. They seemed so far away yet were somehow able to light up the night sky. Some people even regarded the stars as gods as they were unreachable entities according to human standards.

To humans, gods were the epitome of the peak. Whether it be in strength, intelligence, lifespan, knowledge, or anything, they were the best of the best.

However, if those ‘gods’ were only fruits on a tree, how strong must the tree be?

That’s the kind of strength Mika sought! The kind of strength where even the world itself was only a speck of dust in her hands! The kind of strength where even gods are nothing in front of her!

So, she didn’t feel it was wrong to base her Mana Cultivation Technique on the World Tree since it represents the peak of existence.

The only question now is: How?

How should she create a technique that represents the essence of what the World Tree is trying to convey?

Mika didn’t know the answer to that question, nor did she think it would come any time soon. She’d most likely have to spend a long time planning out each Realm, perfecting it, and preventing any flaws from hindering her progress. Luckily, the level of her [Mind Space] had shot up recently.

Fortunately, after reading the books in Joralf’s library, she at least knew the basics of Mana Cultivation.

So, if she wanted to start cultivating now, she could.

Mika shook her head, ‘How can I start cultivating mana when I don’t even know how to use it properly?’

Now that she had cleared her head a bit and even gotten some inspiration, Mika decided to find an isolated place to train with her mana.

After a few minutes of walking around the village, she found a nice spot next to a tree a few dozen meters away from the walls. She looked around but didn’t see any houses or people nearby, so she sat down.

‘In the first book by Skylar Van Heusen, he said I’ll learn more about mana the more I use it.’

She didn’t know what to do after that, but she assumed that was the point of the training.

‘I’ll just take all my mana out of my core and go from there.’

With a thought, Mika gathered all the mana in her core and ordered it to flow through her Active Mana Pathways and then out of her right hand.

*Fwoosh*

Mika’s mana wildly flared when it came in contact with the outside world, and she could feel herself losing control.

‘What the…?!’ Mika inwardly screamed as she could feel slivers of mana leaving her control. Obviously, she didn’t want that to happen since not only would that shorten her training time, but it was imperative that she at least be able to control her own mana!

Mika isolated her focus so that she could only perceive the mana in her right hand and forced her will upon it to prevent any mana from leaking out.

Thankfully, the System had already instructed her to train her Mana Control a while back, so she understood the basics.

However, despite having trained her mana control for over a year, she still found it hard to prevent any of her mana from leaking out.

‘I could control all the mana within a Stage 1 Black Core Realm beast’s core. Why can’t I control all the mana within my own core without issues?’ Mika wondered, and this time, the System answered.

[There are several reasons, Host. For one, your Core is bigger and of higher quality than those low-leveled beasts. Two, the quality of your mana is higher. Lastly, what you’re trying to do is different than what you did with the beast cores. With those, you tried controlling the mana within a fixed container. However, now, instead of inside a container like a core, you’re trying to control mana out in the open. Of course, you’d find it more difficult.]

Mika nodded as what the System said made sense.

She went back to using her mind and will to try and patch up any holes that allowed her mana to leak.

She struggled with this for several minutes until she was left with a ball of mana around 5 centimeters in diameter. Though that was over twice the size of her Mana Core, the density of the ball wasn’t anywhere close.

Mika wasn’t disappointed by this result, though, as it just meant she had a long road ahead of her.

‘Let’s see what I can do with this little ball of mana.’ Mika wondered, and a picture of a cube appeared in her mind.

She tried overlapping this cube with the sphere in her hand, to which it began to wriggle around as if it wanted to change forms, and within a few seconds, it morphed into a cube. Though the sides weren’t exactly even, and it was a bit lopsided.

Although it took way too long to change shapes, and the figures didn’t look right, Mika didn’t let that discourage her. She kept changing her mana's shape into many different forms until she became used to the process.

She spent the next hour or so doing this until her mind grew tired, and her mana fizzled out.

Sweat dripped down her face, her cheeks were flushed, and her clothes were soaked. It looked like she had just spent the entire day doing physical training!

“Haa… Haa… Haa… Who knew it’d be so hard to control my mana for so long?” Mika muttered with a smile as she lay flat on the ground, exhausted. While training her mana control was difficult, tedious, and time-consuming, she learned a lot in the past hour.

For one, having a clear image of what she wants in her mind is critical. If the image is blurry, then the shape her mana morphs into will also be lacking.

Secondly, willpower is extremely important, if not more important, than having a clear image. Without enough willpower to imprint that image onto the mana, it wouldn’t even change shapes.

You can’t just think, ‘Turn into a cube.’ and the mana will turn into a cube.

Mika imagined it as if she had to use a set of phantasmal hands to reach into her brain, grasp the image of a cube, take it out of her brain, and make it something real. She had to really believe that whatever she thought of could be turned into reality!

Lastly, the amount of mana she can control correlates directly with her willpower and understanding of mana.

‘So, all I need to do is practice more, huh? Luckily, that’s what I’m best at!’

With that as her last thought, Mika’ closed her eyes and fell asleep.