An assignment? I’m being given homework?!

At that moment, Chara automatically imagined herself turning around and leaving. Little had she forgotten, that as a spirit—a magical being whose essence flows in accordance with her thoughts—the swirling mass of iridescent mana forming her body actually started accelerating toward the doorway.

Startled by unexpected movement, she abruptly stopped, her thoughts thrown into disarray. However, before she could think further, a faint glimmer of water mana danced at the edge of her perception, vanishing the instant it caught her attention.

What was that?

Feeling like she had to take a better look, she pounced in its direction, only to come to her senses a moment later as she halted in front of the curiosity spirit’s desk. The little spirit’s swirling became turbulent for a second before pulsing with sudden realization.

She had been tricked!

“Little Spirit, I know you are eager to complete your assignment, but I need to give it to you first~!” Curiosity chided playfully.

“…”

Who is eager to complete what assignment!

Feeling aggrieved, Chara glared at the greater spirit.

Ignoring her silent protest, the swirling teacher continued, “Your assignment is to explore the building and find five different kinds of essence mana,” she explained as she marked five dots.

“You don’t actually have to collect them or anything; just memorize their overall impression and describe them to me later. Oh, and of course, none of the essences I mentioned during the lesson—including curiosity essence mana—are allowed~! Other than that, class is dismissed!”

The little spirit’s mana wavered slightly, her form shifting nervously in the air. After a moment’s hesitation, she looked at the swirling teacher and exclaimed, “Thank you for the lesson!”

However, you are still a devil… humph! she added inwardly before swiftly departing.

Curiosity stared at the door blankly. After a belated pause, her swirling accelerated into a cheerful swish.

I… I’m being acknowledged as a teacher~!!

Unable to contain her joy, she floated from one end of the classroom to the other. She repeated this over and over, the room’s mana swirling around her curiously as though it had become affected by her overflowing passion. As she returned the piece of obsidian to its place in the mottled black cabinet, she couldn’t help but have some thoughts.

Hmph, I was going to interrogate you later to figure out where you got so much knowledge…

However, since you are such a cute and attentive student, I guess I can overlook some of your uniqueness…

But only for a little bit~! I will reveal your secret eventually~!

Don’t think you can convince me with just this!!

The curiosity spirit was very confused.

***

Meanwhile, just outside the classroom, in the periphery of the cloister’s internal garden.

Chara, unaware that her manners had just spared her from a lengthy interrogation, had encountered an unexpected set back.

At first glance, her assignment seemed fairly straightforward; just float around, look for some essence mana—and really, that’s all it should have been... that is, if not for one minor issue.

Uuu… How can I complete the assignment if I can’t even sense essence mana…?

That issue being, that she was incapable of doing the very thing that was being asked of her.

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To her frustration, this was one of those circular dilemmas where the solution to the problem… was to just stop having the problem. It was like someone with no money and no assets being told that in order to escape poverty, they needed to invest in a stock portfolio.

The little spirit cast a suspicious glance toward the classroom before suppressing her doubts. While she didn’t exactly trust the curiosity spirit, she also didn’t see any sense in giving her an assignment that she couldn’t complete. All it would garner her would be more animosity.

With this conviction, she fell into thought.

Why can’t I sense essence mana. Could it be that I just never encountered any up until now?

Hmm, I kind of doubt it. That seems almost impossibly unlikely…

If I remember correctly, Curiosity said that essences are essentially just elements, only more specific. For instance, curiosity being an essence of water…

The little spirit’s deliberation stopped, and her mana rippled suspiciously.

Come to think of it, Curiosity is a curiosity essence spirit. Could it be, that both the water element mana forming her body and the water element mana filling the classroom are actually curiosity essence mana?

It was a bold hypothesis, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Furthermore, it also aligned with her own experiences.

For instance, when she first discovered how to use perception, all she could really sense was a chaotic blur of sensations, reminiscent of an ethereal dream-like fog. It wasn’t until she put in a conscious effort that she gradually realized that these impressions could be divided into several distinct hues—or as she later recognized them, elements. Considering this, it wouldn’t be unusual if she had to follow a similar process to differentiate essences from their parent elements.

The little spirit resurfaced from her thoughts and swirled confidently.

In that case, the solution is obvious. All I have to do is take the time to familiarize myself with the impressions of various kinds of essences—and before long, I’ll be able to distinguish them from elements in no time~!

She had it all figured out. Or at least she thought she did, before realizing that implementing her idea would require her to have the samples of essence mana to familiarize herself with first.

…

This assignment is crap!

She was back to square one.

Feeling frustrated, Chara decided to change her approach. Rather than examining random samples of mana and trying to distinguish whether or not they contained essence mana, she would find a sample of mana that she believed had a strong likelihood of containing essence mana first, and then examine it afterwards. This way, she could focus exclusively on improving her senses.

Now, the question is how…

Not having a good idea of where to begin, she reached out with her perception, thoroughly inspecting her surroundings.

The ground and crystal flora were infused with earth mana. The air carried a mix of dark, ice, and wind mana, especially in the areas shrouded in shadow. Meanwhile, light mana surged to fill the spaces illuminated by the glowing crystals embedded evenly throughout the cloister, keeping her surroundings well-lit.

Inexplicably, mana of various identities seemed to have naturally coalesced in locations where its presence felt the most fitting.

Upon realizing this, Chara felt like a child who had just discovered the concept of gravity. Intimately familiar with its existence, yet unaware of its underlying aspects.

How could she have ignored such a conspicuous and prevalent behavior? Was it because she thought it was natural? Was it because it was so closely aligned to her expectations, that it had never even caught her attention?

Ever since she first observed mana, she’d noticed its tendency to converge. This was later confirmed by Curiosity, who further explained that each element of mana will attract itself, along with three other elements, while repelling the remaining four.

This information held true. However, now that Chara was taking a closer look, it became painfully obvious that there were other forces influencing the position of mana, beyond just elemental compatibility. It was only a matter of ‘what’.

The little spirit pondered over this deeply before suddenly recalling a critical piece of information. Among the knowledge imparted to her by Curiosity, there was an explanation that explained the current situation perfectly.

The formation of identity!

Chara recalled the information.

All mana is initially reserved mana. However, as it encounters various kinds of phenomena, it gradually cultivates an identity, the personality of a mana particle. When this process is complete, it transitions into becoming normal mana, which could be either elemental or essence mana.

In which case, the issue of finding a certain identity of mana became only a matter of finding the right environment.

The question is, what makes an environment suitable to cultivate essence mana?

With practiced ease, she willed her perception into the shape of a cone and swept it across her surroundings. Within seconds, she quickly identified several distinct patterns.

Solids contained earth element mana, while gases carried wind element. Darkness element mana seemed to envelope every shadowy corner, while light mana shown confidently where there was light. Meanwhile, ice element mana seemed to permeate everything, instilling her surroundings with an ever-present calm and chilly impression.

According to Curiosity, each element represents a distinct aspect of reality. These include, the four states of matter, as well as temperature and brightness…

Whether it’s at the center of a planet, or the farthest reaches of outer space, if it exists in reality, then it can be characterized by at least one of these fundamental aspects…

Given that the identity of mana is shaped by the phenomena in its surroundings, then it makes perfect sense that these aspects of reality, which are nearly universally present, are the most prevalent…

Which means, that if I want to find essence mana, I need to find a place that embodies some kind of phenomena, more distinctly than any of these base aspects!