"I... I just had a thought." I began slowly, hoping I wouldn't embarrass myself. "Maybe I was not taking you literally enough? Are you saying that I have to have some sort of visualization of the mana before I can sense it? Like, instead of listening or feeling for any of the ways you mentioned, I need to pick one ahead of time?"

"Well, that would be the most optimal way, yes.... Are you saying you've just been waiting on one of the ways to hit you without actually focusing on any one way?" She seemed very confused.

Well that was certainly unexpected. I sighed and nodded to her and she let out a little giggle.

I certainly don't think its entirely my fault here, who could have known she meant it literally to have one in your mind. I thought she was saying the feeling was open to interpretation, but what she meant was one of the visualizations would resonate with you I guess.

Sighing again, I shot her a dirty look but she just laughed it off.

"When you practice later tonight, try the correct way and see if it helps. Maybe the misunderstanding was your only hurdle." She couldn't stop from smirking as she gave some more advice.

"Yes, well...... thank you for clearing it up for me." I tried saying it as nice as possible, but I'm sure I still sounded salty over the whole thing.

"Anyway, Will, on to the reason I needed to speak with you." She suddenly sat up straight and got very serious.

Ahh yes, her chiding had thrown me off but she had something specific she wanted to talk about. Time for the confession. I had been here for about seven months now, so it seemed like time for another cliché to rear its head. Guess we'll get this one over with. I'm sure I could let her down easy.

I too sat up straight and nodded at Bella to continue.

"I need to know if you completed the course." Bella said quite bluntly.

I just stared at her for a bit. "What?" I finally asked.

"You said you put the second ranked person in his place. I'm trying to determine the extent to which you did. I know I said Bea would corner you over it, but she seemed to let it go and I was counting on her to figure it out. So now I'm having to ask. Did you complete the course?" She elaborated a bit, but was still serious about the whole matter.

"Sorry, you just caught me a bit off guard. I.... I did not think this would be what you wanted to ask of all things." I rested my elbow on the table, placed my hand on my jaw and just stared at her incredulously.

"What did you think I wanted to ask?" Bella tilted her head quizzically while looking at me.

Realizing I couldn't answer that either, I jerked back to attention. "Uh, don't worry about it. That's my misunderstanding again. Anyway..... yes. I completed the obstacle course. Why? Is that extra embarrassing for him or something?" I quickly responded to get off what I had originally thought this conversation would be about.

"I was worried about that." She sighed and looked at me for a bit. "You're still tier four Will."

Well that didn't sound like a question there. "Yes, I am. And?....." I was thoroughly confused about the conversation at this point.

Bella waited for a bit, collecting her thoughts. "The last obstacles on the course are designed to only be passed by tier fives. The fall alone needs that tier's mana to not sustain injuries that would require an abbot. And I can't even remember the last time I've seen you ask or need a healer on the course."

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"Well I do not know what to tell you. I haven't tiered up since my first goblin kill over a month ago now, so I should still be tier four." I stated calmly.

"Yes, yes I believe you. But.... listen just be careful once the knight instructor breaks us down to individuals for our dungeon clearing. They are likely going to challenge you with a difficulty designed for tier five, and you're not. I don't want you getting overwhelmed when it happens, okay?" she finished with a lot of concern in her voice.

Oh! She was just worried about me. This was definitely not how I expected the conversation to go, but that's all it seemed to be. She was just concerned for a friend. This was definitely manageable.

"Hey no worries, I'll make sure to watch my back okay?" I reassured her.

"Good, that is all I wanted." she stood up. "Now let's go, you should go to bed and practice your new revelation for the mana training."

I smirked and stood as well. "Thanks for the insight, see you tomorrow." I waved as I headed back to the dorm while she put her tray up.

Once I got back Tom and Bea were still up and talking. We chatted for a bit and I told them about the mana sensing visualization tip. They just nodded and said they were already doing that. I sulked a bit at that, unable to believe that I was the only one who didn't catch on to what she was saying.

Huffing loudly I went ahead and crawled in my bed while they laughed at my tiny tantrum.

I went ahead and tuned them out so I could try re-focusing on the meditation. I guess I needed to decide on which visualization would help. From what I now understood, it seemed I would be locked in to whichever method I went for.

Thinking back to when she first explained the system, I decided I would definitely go with a mana pool. Its how it was often described back in my world in games and other literature, so I'm sure there was something to the metaphor I should go with.

I didn't like the idea of hearing it as running water though. I think that would be very distracting. I also wasn't too keen on figuring out how much I and eventually others would have. Would I be stuck picturing people as having either a cup of mana, or a bucket and so on, like Bella had described? That seemed wholly unacceptable.

I was unable to come up with anything else satisfactory. So, sighing internally, I bit the bullet and just decided to go with it and began visualizing a tiny river circulating my body. Suddenly I could literally hear rushing water and I sat bolt up right, snapping my eyes open.

I didn't expect it to come on so fast. I really didn't like that sound, it was very distracting like I thought it would be. I wonder if it was too late to modify it. I started visualizing a still lake instead, to get away form the rushing water. Since Bella said some think of it as a heartbeat, I decided to try it as a lake and visualized a single drop was sending ripples across it.

Liking this new visualization I closed my eyes and tried again.

Thankfully this time it was indeed a much more subtle "drip" sound that I was getting. Feeling quite pleased with my progress I just sat there listening to the drip. It was very relaxing. The sound had an echo-y quality to it. As I lay there effectively just listening to my mana, I let it lull me to sleep.

—----

At breakfast with everyone I let them all know that I was officially sensing my mana. Bea and Tom were jealous but even they had to begrudgingly congratulate me on a job well done. Feeling super please about my progress I asked Bella what was next, but she dashed my hopes. She said that she wouldn't teach us a new part until everyone caught up, but that I should just try to maintain it in my concentration as much as possible.

I nodded in acknowledgement but I urged Bea and Tom to hurry, or else I would leave them behind again. That at least earned me a terrific scowl from Bea which caused me to laugh.

I decided to take Bella very literally this time though, and I immediately began listening for my mana drip while we were still eating breakfast. It took some tiny amount of getting used to, but honestly I feel like it came pretty natural to listen out for the drip and just have it in the background of life. It was less distracting than glancing at a phone while talking to someone even.

Even while we were diving the dungeon I was able to keep it running nonstop for me. It did not even seem to affect my fighting. We reached our normal five fights and turned around. We must've made especially good time because we met up with my friends at the fork, and we reached the knight instructor right as the bell tolled. Giving my squad a round of pats on the back, we talked about going for a sixth fight for the nighttime dive, we would just hurry a little.

While we ate lunch Bella asked if I was able to practice my mana, to which I affirmed to her I'd been listening to it since breakfast, nonstop. She questioned me on that, saying that I should not be distracted from my fighting, lest I make a mistake. I assured her it was barely a bother, and that even now I could hear it yet I was holding a full conversation with them. She let it go at that, but warned me again to be careful of using it in a fight.

Other than that, we had a fairly nice lunch before heading right back to the dungeon for our final run for the day.