“Now onto the next bit, testing your evasion.”

Immediately after the village chief finished his statement a spear of earth launched out of the ground aimed at Alice’s midsection, it was all she could do to jump backwards out of the way, leaving the spear to fly on behind her. While she staggered trying to keep her balance the earth under the one foot she had on the ground started shaking, forcing her to the ground where she saw the spear above her head, hurtling down in a free fall that would definitely crush her. Alice desperately rolled out of the way and into safety before scrambling to her feet. She kept an eye out for any more projectiles coming her way but found none.

“Your agility, coordination and balance are what’s going to get you killed, you’ll have to build up those skills before you can do anything else. And onto the next part, how much mana do you have right now?”

The breakneck pace Karandi was going at was more than a bit disorienting for Alice but she still gave her answer.

“I’m at 25 percent right now.”

“Do you know how to regenerate your mana through meditation then?”

Alice thought of immediately asking how it was done but thought better of it, not wanting to get lectured on whatever manners goblins had. Instead she just shook her head and waited.

“Okay, first off you’ll want to get into a comfortable position and reach out to the ambient mana then have it fill your core.”

“What’s ambient mana?”

“Ambient mana is the mana that exists naturally in the environment. Now get to it.”

“You mean there’s mana everywhere, and I can just take it?”

“Yes I mean exactly that. What’s got you so confused?” It was clear that he was starting to get a bit annoyed now.

“Then why can’t I see it!”

“So that’s the issue.” Karandi let out an exasperated sigh. “You can’t see mana at all, but you can sense the location of mana you’ve influenced. Much like how you still know where your hands are in the dark. All you have to do is extend that sense to all the mana around you.”

Alice sat down cross legged and tried not to mentally reach out to the mana in the air but without knowing where any of it was she couldn’t seem to reach it. She then tried to send a small amount of mana out and shape it into a fine mist that filled a sphere around her. She then reached out through that mana to the ambient mana, feeling the faint buzzing of mana in the air fill her awareness. She then started pulling it back into her core where she immediately lost her concentration because of the sharp pain coming from her chest.

“And that’s why you wait ‘till I finish. Ambient mana and your own core mana are very different things. You have to change the ambient mana to be like your core mana before you absorb it.”

Alice felt her face flushing from embarrassment but nonetheless tried for round two, and this time looked at her core mana, entirely inert and stationary, unlike the ambient mana that constantly vibrated and moved around similar to the air it was taken from and tried to change the ambient mana to match. It didn’t take long for Alice to realise that it would take much too long due to the sheer quantity of mana, and hence she opted for a shortcut. Instead of trying to make the active and excited mana still, she took advantage of its hyperactivity and its love for motion to give it the property of changing its characteristics to match whatever mana was around it. There was no change at first but when she brought it to her core it slowly started merging with it. The mana she regained was slightly less than what she naturally regenerated. This meant that she could now double he mana regeneration at will.

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“Finally done with it ey. You might not have noticed but any kind of mana sense acts kind of like a beacon letting every living creature know exactly where you are, since the mana you reach out to also includes a creature’s internal mana. It also works as a way of preventing magic use if your mana control is better than those in the field.”

After that statement Alice felt a similar sense of pressure to when she was at the village chiefs door. She then tested his words and found that she couldn’t move any mana, whether it was inside her or outside.

“But enough of that, since replenishing your mana can call unwanted attention, you should also try to improve your mana capacity. And how do you think that’s done?”

“If you continually use your mana it’s capacity increases.”

“Entirely wrong. That only works if you use up your entire mana capacity or eat into your solid mana. A less risky method of improving your mana pool is to meditate like you just did, then to compress your mana to make room for more. You then continue until mana begins leaking out of you. You’ll have something like 110 percent mana capacity temporarily but when it settles you’ll have a larger total mana pool, keep in mind that going over 110 percent could lead to unwanted side effects, most notably being death. You can try that later as homework but for now go join the sparring matches to work on your reflexes, I have to leave before it gets too bright.”

Was that why he was rushing so much? The entire lesson couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes long. From the unnatural darkness in his home to his avoidance of sunlight Alice was now incredibly curious. She would have to ask around about that later but for now she had some sparring to do.

Alice walked over to the combat instructor and explained the situation to them. She was told to go partner up with a girl around who looked to be a few years older than her. Alice decided to start a conversation with the girl while they waited for their turn to come up, noting that her skill had developed to a point where she could communicate fluently with it activated, but she did occasionally tried to speak without the skill to actually learn the language. And with only 8 pairs of students it didn’t take long for their conversation to end. The rules of the match were simple. No causing permanent harm and obviously no weapons, not that anyone could cause permanent harm without weapons, nor would they want to.

The match started and Alice waited for the other girl to make the first move while keeping her spear ready to react- till she realized… she didn’t have her spear nor did she have it on her. Alice tried her best to get into a stance not dependent on her nonexistent weapon but the other girl ran at her while pulling back for a punch. Alice had to stop herself from holding up an imaginary spear While her mind fumbled around trying to fight her muscle memory, before settling on ducking under the fist. Having never been in this situation her reactions were slower than they otherwise should’ve been and she sloppily tackled her sparring partner to the ground. Alice drew back a fist to throw a punch but hesitated when it came time to aim that punch. She couldn’t just punch someone in the face, that would be entirely unnecessary, but anywhere else wouldn’t do enough damage. She eventually steeled herself and aimed for the girls jaw but was caught in her own by her opponents wild thrashing. She was thrown off balance by the blow and fell to the ground. Her opponent got over her and without hesitation launched a barrage of fists at Alice’s face. Alice tried to to dodge them but still managed to get hit by every other punch. Alice was tempted to activate [Flames of Vengeance] but that would definitely be a bad idea. Instead she also started punching at the girl, but since her partner was so much taller than her she wouldn’t be able to hit her face. All she could do was hope the level difference mattered enough to give her the advantage, and after few more punches it seemed it did. Her partner seemed much more tired than her even though alice had been on the receiving end for much longer. Alice took the opportunity to push the older girl off of her before once again rolling on top of her and throwing her own punches. That plan went down hill quick when Alice felt the girls nose breaking under her first punch, and with her head being placed on solid ground she was almost definitely concussed. She yielded shortly after.

Alice moved away from her opponent while the instructor came to check on her, and after some time the girl was told to rest under a tree while Alice was tasked with keeping an eye on her in case anything happened.