As Felix walked out of the cave, the blizzard was still raging on but the staff completely parted it. At most Felix felt a warm, pleasant breeze on his face with the hood of his cloak down.

Ah, this is satisfying after fighting that stupid storm for so long.

Felix kept the staff out and practiced fighting it for control of ambient mana until he was about two kilometers away from any of the tribes. He didn't want to give it back just yet as it would end the dungeon and he still had one more thing to do. Felix stowed the staff and the blizzard blasted it way towards Felix from all sides.

He trudged through the storm for a kilometer, free from deep snow right up until the edge of the staff's radius when he had last wielded it. From then on, he fought the storm and plowed through the snow. He was pretty sure the storm was starting to die down as he didn't have to fight nearly as hard as before. He made his way to the nearest tribe, The Ivory Axe Clan and walked up to the biggest longhouse, which he could now see looked like an upside-down boat, and entered.

"Oh you're back, any news?"

"Yeah. I am 100% sure neither of the other clans took the staff."

"You can't be implying that one of us-"

"No you idiot, The Frozen God rescinded it's favor. We are truly doomed"

"WOAH, hold on. I know where it is, I just need to go get it. A wandering Alpha Gralgore found it and ran off with it." Felix interrupted the frenzy before it started.

"Are you sure it was a Gralgore?"

"Yeah, why?" Felix responded.

"Those things are crazy. Don't bother trying to retrieve the staff, if an Alpha Gralgore has it, there is no way to get it back. Avoid it at all costs."

"They can't be that bad, can they?" Felix said suppressing a smirk.

"Gralgore are not pack animals, they constantly fight each-other which makes them high level. They also constantly seek out sources of heat. I've heard that when they catch their prey, they rip them open with their horns then roll around in the warm entrails."

That is disgusting, I am hating these things more and more.

"I've also heard they eat rocks, that's why they don't bother eating their prey. The rocks also makes their meat toxic."

Good think I didn't take any of their corpses and try to eat them.

"I'll keep that in mind. Anyways, do you know of anyone with a trainer or teacher profession? Something like that?"

"You probably want to talk to The Frostmyre Tribe, they're the smart ones. They help the rest of us with stuff when we need it."

"Thanks, I'll go talk to them."

Felix left the long house. The blizzard had calmed down and was now more like a slightly windy snowfall than a blizzard. Felix hurried over back to The Frostmyre Tribe and jumped over the wall. It was much easier this time as he didn't need Mana Shield to block the wind as it was much milder. He walked right up to the main wooden door and knocked. This time, it only took a few seconds for a Frostmyre to open the door.

"Oi, it's you. Was the mammary and birthing question bugging you that badly? I get it, look it's pretty simple w-"

"WOAH. No. Not that."

Never that.

"I'm looking for someone with a teacher or trainer kind of profession. I was told you guys are the smart ones."

"Ye came to the right place. I think Ezarti has something like tutor or mentor. Follow the hall all the way that way, she should be the last door on the right." The Frostmyre pointed off to his right.

"Thanks."

Felix walked away before they had a chance to mention birthing again.

He knocked on the specified door and a very Frostmyre looking female Frostmyre, he wasn't very good at differentiating them yet, answered the door.

"Ezarti? I hear you have the tutor or mentor profession?"

"That I do."

"I was hoping you might be willing to teach me something. Anything really."

She opened the door wide and stepped aside so Felix could step into the room. Inside was a large room with two doors, other than the one Felix walked through, and a table with two chairs in the middle of the room.

Ezarti walked over and sat down at the table and Felix walked over and sat across from her. He hoped that that was what she wanted him to do as she didn't indicate anything to him. After a few silent moments she finally spoke.

"What do you know about mana?"

Sweet, it is a mana trainer.

"Well, I'm a Caster-"

"I didn't ask your class, I asked ‘What do you know about mana?'"

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Uh, I wasn't done. Alright, to the point, I kind of like that. Still, could be a little more polite.

"Mana exists all around us at all times, potentially shifted in a higher dimension, denser in some places, sparser in others. Mana can be used to cast spells by shaping it into spell forms."

"Yes mana exists all around us, likely shifted in a higher dimension. Mana is consumed to cast spells and in theory can be shaped to cast a spell, but I've never heard of anyone doing so. Theoretically there are also mana currents, the ambient mana moves in patterns and can be effected. Like currents in the ocean, but their direction is entirely random and moves in at least three dimensions. It is unlikely we will ever be able to sense this in any way let alone confirm it happens at all."

I have. I could feel the ambient mana moving to fill the wake from the staff and then being sucked into the staff.

"You mentioned a lot of highly theoretical aspects but missed one of the most important aspects. Mana is one of the base building blocks of the universe. All things can be created from mana, and can be deconstructed back into mana. However, it takes an absolutely massive amount of mana to create matter, that is why the vast majority of spells you see move objects or create energy. It is much more doable."

Felix nodded, "Do you have any other highly theoretical aspects, I find those rather interesting."

"Yes, well most of them haven't been proven as far as I've seen. Possibly some of the gods or the top research institutes have but it wouldn't be useable information for any of us. There is a theory that mana affinities can be created manually, though no one has been able to do so. There is a theory that mana can be manually shifted from a gas to a liquid or solid and back, we know those states exist, we just don't know of people shifting it. Those states simply occur naturally. That mana can be turned into stamina energy, many about mana having different states separate from matter, like agitated, calm, spinning etc. Though agitated and calm may also be related to the theory of mana temperatures, representing hot and cold respectively. That mana can only exist with it's counterpart, anti-mana. You can theoretically create mana as long as you create an equal amount of anti-mana at the same time. Those are the reasonable theories. Some ridiculous ones include souls being made of mana, mana being conscious, mana being pieces of the true god who created the universe. Those are most likely garbage though."

"Just fun to think about, thank you."

"Let's move out of the realm of the theoretical. While we may not be able to intricately control mana, we can move it around a little bit. At first it will feel uncomfortable, like you're straining yourself in a way you've never felt before. With practice you should be able to eventually control mana more intricately and that feeling should pass. As it is, only the top scholars who are millions of years old and have dedicated their lives to the craft can shape mana to cast any spells at all. Even they have no hope of ever casting complicated spells. So-"

"Sorry, but why is that?"

"Well, this is also theoretical, but everyone seems to be born with a limit on how much they can control mana, and a learning rate. No one knows if it is a hard limit or soft limit or what goes into calculating it. As you practice, you will approach this limit asymptotically but those with a high learning rate will do so much faster than those without. People have been experimenting with babies for years to try and increase their learning rates and limits. As it is, it seems like everyone is simply born with some numbers which decide these things."

"Experimenting on babies?"

"You humans are so squeamish, it's mostly changing the environments they are raised in, having them start mana control practice younger with differing techniques."

"Ah, I see. Sorry. I interrupted you, please continue."

"Yes well, as I was saying, You should begin trying to move your mana around in your body. Try to feel it, separate it from yourself and recognize it within you. If you get really proficient with this, you can start to sense general things about the ambient mana, like drastic changes in density for one."

I'm starting to think I might be unique. Either very unique, or her information is way out of date. Maybe both.

"I have another question. Do you know anything about mana cores or channels? I will continue trying to sense my mana while we talk and I'll let you know if I figure it out."

"Well, at least this isn't quite as theoretical. High grade beasts and monsters, especially those with magical inclinations, tend to grow a core within themselves. At first it was believed these were beast cores and had nothing to do with mana. High tier individuals kept coming across them and eventually they were researched. It was then discovered that they are in fact made of mana, this is one of the naturally occurring sources of mana in a solid state. There have been conjectures that there are many more cores than those we find, but their mana is not held in a solid state so it vanishes once the creature is killed. Channels run throughout the body of the creature to guide the mana from the core to where it needs to be. This is most common in creatures with organs that use mana, they essentially have a mana based circulatory system of some kind. Exactly how they function is currently just a topic of research, you would have to ask an expert in the field."

"Are the mappings of channels always the same?"

"No, of course not. The mana organs in these creatures very wildly. I have also not heard of any kind of pattern to them whatsoever."

"I see."

"How is moving your mana coming along."

"Oh uh… I think I can move it a little bit. So I can continue to pursue this after I leave, what are some other exercises or things you might teach after this?"

"Sense mana, move mana and the nature of mana. These things alone will help tremendously for anyone using mana."

"Why does intelligence increase the size of our mana pools? They seem mostly unrelated? At least more unrelated than vitality or energy."

"Yes it does seem curious. When you had say, a hundred mana, did you feel almost ten times smarter than a normal human?"

"No not really, as it is I definitely don't feel 40 times smarter either, why is that?"

"This is a well known flaw or oversight in The System's grand design. Essentially intelligence is an awful term and what it represents is very abstract. The actual intelligence of a person is often judged in interpersonal relationships by their ingenuity, creativity, wit, ability to control emotional responses and much more. Most of these are considered personality stats. They exist in your true soul or core soul. The System cannot manipulate or help you increase them, they help define you as a person and can only change by your own hand. The intelligence stat tends to help with memory, general speed of thought, processing speed of your senses, bodily coordination along with dexterity, and simple problem solving like math calculations. It will not allow you to make more abstract connections between things, it will not make you the greatest detective of all time or let you internalize and understand the universe itself."

"As for why it is correlated with mana, your guess is as good as mine. Your spell damage also scales with it, to a point, but I have never found a satisfying explanation as to why. Say I cast a Mana Bolt, it looks identical to one I cast with double the intelligence, yet the latter does twice the damage. It could be The System manually changing things, or it could be that intelligence measures some kind of focus, improvement in mana quality, purity or something else entirely that results in more damage. Many have tried researching this, by creating something with mana, containing it, then increasing their intelligence and creating it again. Comparing the two object though, no known differences have been found. It is also nearly impossible to restrict all the confounding variables. Furthermore, containing an initial cast perfectly for a long period of time is usually something only possible by using restricted or unique magical items." . . . . .