The little spirit swirling slowed, and her mana rippled thoughtfully as she digested the curiosity spirit’s explanation.

So, to summarize, we are taking the “cause,” from “cause and effect,” and replacing it with mana…

Which, in practice, seems to just manifest the “effect” directly, without any of the usual fuss…

Err, does that mean that I can use mana to do whatever I want?

As expected, the instant the swirling teacher sensed the student’s question, she immediately burst into a fit of giggles, leaving her little protégé feeling rather embarrassed.

From Chara’s perspective, she believed she had come to a perfectly reasonable conclusion, given the explanation.

“Well… It’s not that you can’t—it’s just that there are two problems~!” explained the curiosity spirit through intermittent laughter. “But before I can tell you about that, let me teach you about something else first~!”

Without delay, the swirling teacher produced three puffs of mana and lowered them onto her desk. After using one of them to pick up the piece of obsidian, she moved them toward Chara until they were directly in front of her.

Intrigued, the little spirit enveloped them within her perception to take a closer look.

Starting from the very left was… a type of mana she had never seen before. Unsettlingly, although she could sense it through her perception, and intuitively knew it was mana, it gave her no impression.

In the middle, was some normal mana. It exuded a gentle and refreshing feeling, characteristic of the water element. However, aside from this, it wasn’t any different from the rest of the room’s mana.

And on the right, was the puff of mana levitating the ominous black rock. This mana emitted the same impression as the previous, only more pronounced. So much so that it appeared to glitter within her perception.

Upon sensing this last sample of mana, Chara’s mind sparked in recognition. This was the state mana reached when it was in a spell.

“As you might have noticed, although all three puffs are just mana, each of them exudes a distinct feeling that sets it apart from the other two. This is due to a characteristic called [Intensity], which is kind of like a mana particle’s level of excitement,” enlightened Curiosity while jittering around the wisps of mana for dramatic effect.

Intensity? Excitement? Hmm, could this be like temperature for atoms…? considered Chara. In physics, “temperature” is a measurement of the average kinetic energy of particles within a substance. However, after a short contemplation, she shot down this idea.

No, if she went out of her way to specify “particle,” then “intensity” must be an intrinsic property of mana itself, rather than a collective behavior like temperature or density…

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Curiosity swirled around the leftmost puff of mana so it would catch her student’s attention. This was the mana that emitted no impression.

“Starting from the lowest intensity, this is [Reserved Mana]. This variation of mana is mostly found within your [Soul Sea] as it’s what’s generated by your [Mana Core]. As you can see, it’s very shy and doesn’t interact much.”

The little spirit didn’t understand more than half of the curiosity spirit’s explanation, but as if to show she was listening, she formed a little mana tendril and prodded it. There was no particular reaction.

The greater spirit swirled around the middle sample of mana.

“Next is [Normal Mana]. This is the most common form of mana, and it’s everywhere around us. Because of its heightened intensity, it’s very opinionated and social, preferring to gather with variants of mana it likes while avoiding ones it dislikes.”

When Chara concentrated onto the puff of normal water element mana, she confirmed that indeed, there seemed to be wind, ice, and water element mana gathering around it. In contrast, the light element mana, which should have been illuminating her desk, avoided it, making her seat seem a bit gloomy.

This was not surprising. Mana’s tendency to converge toward certain colors was something she had noticed even before she knew that it was mana. Nevertheless, she was a bit dissatisfied with the teacher’s rather lackluster explanation, as it only mentioned that certain variants of mana could either like or dislike each other without explaining why.

Sensing her student’s doubts, the curiosity spirit inwardly smiled. Nonetheless, she had no intention of answering—at least not this instant.

Without delay, she swirled the final sample of mana. Concurrently, its glittering intensified and its impression grew even more pronounced.

“Last, but most exciting is—[Spell Mana]! This variation of mana behaves similarly to the previous one, only more exaggerated. Furthermore, because of its extremely high intensity, it becomes so unruly and mischievous that it begins to affect the world around it…!” chided Curiosity.

To emphasize her point, she began playfully orbiting the floating obsidian around the little spirit. As it circled, it left behind a sparkling trail of illusory water droplets that glimmered with an aqueous light before fading.

“Now, all of this is well and good, but as you may have noticed, there is a teeny tiny problem. The mana is gradually disappearing~!” cried Curiosity, as if fearing that she was next.

Disappearing…? Now that she took a closer look, Chara realized that indeed, the wisp of mana holding up the ominous black rock was gradually diminishing. In fact, she didn’t think it would last another minute.

“You see, out of the two problems I mentioned earlier, the first one was referring to this,” said Curiosity.

That the mana is disappearing? Chara wondered.

“No! What I mean is… Although I depicted mana as a magical energy capable of turning possibilities into reality, the truth is, each mana particle only contains a fixed amount of energy called [Potential],” confessed the greater spirit.

Oh. I guess that makes sense… Baby mumbled inwardly, though she did find the term “potential” to be slightly intriguing.

“As for how this impacts our spell casting… simply put, the farther a possibility is from reality, the more potential it takes to make it real,” explained the swirling teacher.

Further from reality… As the little spirit mused over this expression, her mana swirled gently, her rippling as unreadable as her thoughts. She was confused.

Curiosity, an expert at reading swirling expressions, immediately picked up on her cluelessness, and decided to give her a hint. “Think of it as the number of conditions that must be met for a possibility to become reality, and how challenging those conditions are to meet.

“For example, consider the scenarios I mentioned earlier. For this piece of Obsidian to move left, right, or shatter into pieces, all it would take is a bit of force. Therefore, these possibilities can be considered—close to reality~! As such, bringing them to life shouldn’t demand too much mana.

“On the other hand, for this obsidian to wake up, move out, and become an artist…”

Enough already! Use a different example!