It was an uneventful afternoon as I cultivated, I quickly lost track of time as I watched the flow of mana weave through my mana core and nourish my chakras. By the time the alarm I set went off my mana was back to its limit again, but the core itself was only partially filled. It seemed I had run into a barrier.
Hopefully, the general class in the morning would answer my questions.
I went to the dining room on the first level and looked for my new friends. I grabbed some food and found them sitting together in the corner of the room. I hadn’t even sat down yet before Mason grinned at me and spoke.
“So I hear you had fun this afternoon?”
“Oh god, please tell me that me accidentally walking into him isn’t being made into a big deal?” I answered.
Haru started laughing,
“Mason was talking about you bailing on class, not you running into Cage, I figured you would do this. Hoshi told him you bailed on class halfway through.” he got out between laughter.
Mason dropped his head and heavily sighed.
“How unlucky are you to annoy a guy like him on your first day. He was decent enough while younger but I think his father pushed him a bit. Last time I saw him he hated me for some reason.” Mason tried to explain Cage.
“Yeah, I reckon he thinks you’re smug or something. He said, and I quote, “Just because you showed up with Prince Mason doesn’t mean you’re King Shit around here.” or something.” I told Mason.
“Well, I think he’s lucky your familiar didn’t attack him.” Haru chimed in.
“Yeah, with my strengthened body, I barely felt him slamming me into the wall so I think Clin decided to ignore them. Maybe if I ignore him Cage will let up, I don’t really want to start a feud with the son of a Duke. Pity I’m going to be sharing a class with him.” I answered.
“Speaking of familiars, when do I get to see yours and Hosiko’s?” I added.
“Well, my Rekka is what you westerners would call a Japanese Ghost Fire, real name is Akurojin-no-hi. I have to keep her in my room to avoid scaring people because she is a Poison/Fire hybrid type.” Hoshiko explained.
“And please call me Hoshi like my brother does. It’s too much trouble having all my friends use my full name,” she added with a blush.
Haru grinned at us all, at that moment I could almost see him chanting “one of us” at us all.
“You guys probably wouldn’t like Hito, she is a Jorogumo, a poisonous spider that grows very large once she gets to high tiers,” Haru added slightly sadly.
“I have been able to feel eyes on me every time you have been around all day, is that Hito?” Mason asked.
“Yeah, like Cain, my familiar is always with me,” Haru answered as a spider the size of a golf ball crawled out of his sleeve and up onto his shoulder.
In response, Clin unwound himself from my neck and down my arm onto the table. He approached Haru, Hito jumped down onto the table and met Clin in the middle. Both Haru and I leant forwards, in case something bad happened, to both our surprise Clin almost nodded at Hito, they then separated and returned to us both.
After that slightly eventful moment, we forgot about Cage completely and spent the rest of the meal talking about our new spells. We didn’t stay long after dinner as we all wanted to cultivate more before bed.
*
I woke up in a much better state than I did the morning before, it seems a bit of meditation/cultivation before bed leads to better sleep. I had heard in passing somewhere that cultivating is very restful so that might be it.
Mason and I headed down for breakfast, finding the others and having a much more subdued morning than the day before.
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As we were walking to the General Studies building I asked Mason about his lesson the day before, we had only focused on my day the previous night.
“I didn’t bother learning any of the tier one spells they had for Shadow because I learnt similar spells back home, I was told I can get a hybrid spell when I go to my Ice Affinity lesson instead,” he explained.
“I never asked, what are your other affinities, I’ve only ever seen you use your Shadow spells.” I finally asked.
“Yeah, I have spent most of my time on shadow affinity because it's the one I like the most, my other two are Poison and Ice. I know its a stupid reason but while I was planning on getting proficient enough to fight before I started studying the others.” Mason answered with an awkward laugh.
I could see he was a little embarrassed so I chose not to press him on it. I believe Mason isn’t very comfortable around all these people he didn’t know, living his whole life in and around the palace up until now. He had been much quieter and more subdued since we got here.
Our group got to the lecture hall and took our seats near the top, I looked around and watched our classmates trickle in, I really needed to start learning who they all were. I did a quick count as they came in and found there my guess the day before had been close. There were around fifty-five in the room.
As opposed to the dramatic entry of my previous lesson, the lecturer entered from a door at the bottom of the room. He looked in his late sixties, which considering what I'd heard about the healing properties of Light, Air and Water mana could mean he was anywhere between that and two hundred or so.
He was exactly what I would have expected to see back in my time from a college lecturer, tweed suit, grey hair and glasses.
He waited for a few moments as people saw him and stopped talking before he started.
"Welcome to Mana Techniques, where you will all be learning the basics of Mana Cultivation, learning spells and the levels of cultivation. I am your instructor, Heinrich Bloomsberg, proficient in Light and Psychic mana," he paused for a moment and looked out at the students.
"What I did just there, revealed my elements, you will not find anyone else who will do that as easily, truly revealing your elements to others in a verbal manner is historically seen as calling the other person unintelligent, we all know many elements can be determined by their effects on our bodies and personalities. I look across this room and can infer many of your elements from your hair alone, our eyes have always been said to be the windows to the soul, this is reflected by those of us that had the colour changed. Space and Void is the most vivid difference that most takes notice of,"
"You all seem to be taking notice of those around you at the moment, I will give you a moment to look at those closest to you to see these effects." Instructor Bloomsberg finished his sentence.
I looked at Mason, his eyes and hair only really reflected his Shadow element, but after studying his hair for a little while under these lights, I could see a hint of purple for his Poison element, but nothing jumped out showing Ice. I could see what he meant, just because we thought we knew others elements from their looks didn't mean we truly saw everything.
Hell, without seeing Clin or the supposed "Battle frenzy" I may fall into, there is no outward indicator of my Beast affinity. The twins too, their psychic nature was hidden behind the browns of their Earth.
"From the look of shock I'm seeing across the room I think some of you are grasping the meaning behind what I said. Relying on your suspected knowledge from the outward image may just cost your life one day. We may have started to tame both this world and those our species have flocked to across the galaxy, but that doesn't mean we understand or can see everything we encounter."
I could see that this lesson was going to be much more interesting than I originally imagined. Not just rote learning information but actually making us think about the nature of our abilities.
Now that I have you all listening and actually thinking, let's drop back to basics for those here who only just started cultivating yesterday. There are levels to your cultivation, based on your strength, mana control, mana capacity and growth…." Bloomsberg continued.
He took a lot longer to explain the different levels but apparently there were four we needed to know about.
Core, once you have your Mana Core formed but will struggle to move the mana until you gain a cultivation technique. After the first breakthrough, normally taking between three days and three weeks, where the body slightly strengthens and purifies itself.
Once you complete the first breakthrough, you are in the Tempering stage. Through further cultivation, also depending on your cultivation technique, both the chakras and mana channels are also purified and strengthened. Turns out mana channels are the route that it travels through your body. This is expected to take eight to twelve months.
Seed is the next stage, it involves completely filling your mana core after purifying your body, then you need to find and start wearing down the “weak” spots at the cardinal points in your mana core. The fastest recorded was just three weeks, with the person only having a single affinity and was cultivating in the middle of a volcano, but it normally takes over a year for those with multiple affinities.
This leads into the final stage that we are being taught about, Roots or Mana Veins. Once you have cleared out the weak points in your mana core, the mana veins will grow from the core and start spreading through your body. This stage is finished once the roots have completely spread throughout the entire body and that’s when you can go through what is called mana rebirth.
We weren’t given a time frame for this as it is expected we will have long left the academy by the time we reach it. It is assumed, with the resources and techniques we receive at the academy that every single one of us will reach the Roots stage of cultivation in our second year, but without taking heavy risks that Instructor Bloomsberg hinted at, it takes much longer than a year to complete the growing of the mana veins, let alone complete the rebirth.
All the stages also have a second name, apparently, the different groups gave them different names but once Terra became a proper monarchy again they progressed with that naming scheme. Core-Page, Tempering-Squire, Seed-Knight and Roots-Captain. After the mana rebirth, you are called a ManaKing
Bloomsberg went into much greater detail as I was only half-listening but was winding down as I started paying attention again.
“Don’t be discouraged by the speed of your cultivation if another of your peers is faster or has more compatible affinity combinations, no one who has been accepted into this academy will ever be weak. You have the resources available to you to become a power in this universe, be it cultivating resources, high mana locations or training. I implore you to learn everything taught to you, seek advice from the instructors, and make connections with those around you. These three years you spend here may very well shape the rest of you life, not everyone can be a noble or join the military, some of you may end up travelling to other planets and become an adventurer exploring the wilds of unknown worlds.”
With that final statement, he left the room and the people around us exploded with sounds, talking about the lecture. Our group chose to leave and headed to the same cafe we went to the day before. We were quickly seated and digging into our lunches.
“So, thoughts on all that?” Haru asked, ever the first to talk.
We almost argued for a while about what each of us took from the lesson, especially Mason who had excellent strength and versatility is only one of his three affinities on one side with Haru, Hoshi and me on the other with our beast affinities affecting our cultivation.
It was a fun hour before we all had to think about finding somewhere to cultivate for a while before heading to our next lessons. Oddly enough, we all shared Mana Beast Hunting so we went back to the dorms to spend an hour in our rooms.