“You might’ve already seen it by now, but if a lightning mage wants to use lightning, they always have to spend a lot of elemental energy,” Elena explained.

Keith raised his hand, trying to get Elena’s attention. “Do you have a question young man?” Elena smilingly asked.

“It takes a long time to convert the mana around you to your elemental energy, right? But if it’s all used up after a few moves, do you have to gather everything from scratch?”

Elena nodded and started explaining, “Well, this doesn’t really have anything to do with the lightning element in particular, but it’s more a general mana core issue. What happens when we convert the mana around us into elemental energy, is that our core slowly gets purified by that element. The more our core is filled by the elemental energy, the more it’s purified. The initial gathering is very tough for each element, but after it’s gathered and that part has been purified, it’s a lot easier to fill again. So even if you spend all your elemental energy after a fight and you have to gather everything again, the speed of gathering can’t be compared to the first time of gathering and purifying. So only if you want to gather more than you have ever possessed in your mana core, will you start having troubles again.” She looked around herself and saw that all the students understood, including Keith. “Furthermore, the more your mana core is purified, the faster your conversion becomes, but the more elemental energy you need to gather to purify the mana core even more.”

“What happens when your whole mana core is purified with elements?” One of the students asked.

“Good question!” Elena’s eyes started to shine when she answered. “That’s actually one of the things every mage wants to accomplish. The moment your mana core is completely purified; you will be deemed as a grand spell caster! The difference between someone with a mana core that’s almost purified and a mana core that has been purified isn’t actually that great. It’s just an indication that you have reached the highest level there is.”

She kept explaining some other things like what lightning was capable off and how one would best be able to use it. After she concluded her explanation she dismissed the class and walked back to the staff building.

Keith left the area and went to look for Dillim after he picked up his wooden sword. Dillim had been spending a lot of time in the city and the forest surrounding the academy instead of accompanying Keith. Dillim deemed that the academy was safe enough for him to start handling some of his personal business. Keith had no idea what Dillim had been doing, but he also didn’t mind it a lot. Dillim still taught Keith once every two days in the ways of the sword. He would also teach Vaeryl if he was accompanying Keith by chance.  

Dillim could be seen resting behind the staff building, he was sitting in a lotus position beneath a big tree. His two-handed sword was split into the ground in front of him; it had around a quarter stuck inside the ground. Keith took his time to observe Dillim when he walked up to him. Dillim’s face had a neutral and calm look, which was pretty irregular. He had been growing a small beard and his hair had started to get longer, but it was visible that ever since he left Lirix –Keith’s country, that he had been less stressed. His grim and indifferent face had slowly started to become a little lively again, but it was only a little. Keith didn’t know what happened to Dillim before he had become Keith’s protector, but he hoped that he would eventually become the person his older brother had described him as.

Dillim opened his eyes. “Keith, you’re here.” He jumped up and stretched his upper body a little, creating some popping noises. Dillim was using his left arm to stretch his right arm backwards to his left. When he switched to his other arm, his eyes showed a flash of surprise. He then stepped to the side to dodge a charging Keith.

Keith had taken the opportunity when Dillim was stretching and not paying attention, to charge and strike with his wooden sword. “Hehe,” Dillim chuckled. “Nice try, but instead of first readying your sword, it will become more fluent if you strike out when you draw your sword in one movement! Even though you’re using a wooden sword now, later on it will become very useful.”

They continued training for a while, where Dillim made Keith practice his ‘draw attack’ multiple times. It started going smoother and smoother and Dillim was pleased with the fundamentals that Keith was developing. If he continued to practice in this manner, he would become a good swordsman, even without cultivating world energy. Even if he would never use a sword after becoming a mage, he would still have tremendously benefitted from the training. He would be able to understand enemy swordsmen and create strategies to deal with them, he would also still be able to become a swordsman if becoming a mage didn’t work out.

When they finished, Keith was all sweaty and went back to take a bath. When he finished, Keith and Vaeryl spoke a little about what they had witnessed in their elemental classes. Afterwards they both went to bed.

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The next day, at the mandatory class.

Red came in slightly late, drawing the attention of all the students who were present already. “Sorry everyone, I had some trouble on the way here, so I’m slightly late,” he apologized while entering the classroom. When he reached his own table and chair, he sat down contently and started the class. “Today we will discuss mana and world energy. The two things are the most important to mages and warriors. Unfortunately, we don’t know where the energies come from yet, but it doesn’t really matter.” While explaining, he leaned back a little, balancing the chair on its back legs. “What does matter, is what properties both the energies have, does anyone know the difference?”

Keith raised his hand. He wasn’t really shy, especially when he was certain of his answer. “Mana is a very destructive energy that’s harmful to the body, while world energy is a very gentle energy that’s good for the body,” he calmly said while looking at Red. “Mages convert the mana to their elemental energy of choice, while warriors absorb world energy with their energy veins.”

“Very good!” Red complimented, before continuing, “Mana is indeed very destructive! That’s why none of the mages are able to absorb it directly, we first convert the mana around us to our elemental energies and then we absorb it. Mana may absolutely not touch our body, or we’ll be harmed severely. That’s why the conversion actually starts outside our body until the energy is within our mana core. For some reason, after mana has been converted to a particular element, it doesn’t really harm our body any longer. There are even stories about ancient mages who reached such a high level, that they could transform their own body to their element! For most of us it’s just good to know that when you cast spells and they hit your own body, nothing bad will come from it. At the same time as you purify the mana, your body will start developing a resistance towards that element, which means it will be harder to get harmed by that element!”

“Why can’t we have both mana and world energy?” A student asked to no one in particular.

Red stayed silent as a response, invitingly looking at the other students to answer the question. Keith searched through his memory a little, before speaking up again. “I’m not totally sure, but I heard that the more elemental energy or world energy you have, the more it starts to fluctuate. Elemental energy and world energy can’t merge together so after a while the energies start to hit each other, which is bad for your body.”

“Excellent,” Red smiled happily. “You must’ve already been taught a little about the most important things. Keith, right? Very good.” He complimented Keith again and then looked back at the student who asked the previous question. “Mana, which is actually something that everyone can convert, cannot coexist with world energy. Neither can elemental energy, which comes from mana, coexist with world energy. It’s possible for someone to have both energies as long as they do not come into contact with each other. But your mana core randomly starts to fluctuate with elemental energy when you get stronger. It will shoot the elemental energy through your whole body and if it would come into contact with world energy, even a little bit, it would cause a severe reaction. The same goes for world energy, after a while, some small bits of energy will leak from your energy veins. If the energy would hit your mana core, you might be lucky to keep your life.” Red’s smile disappeared as he said this, seriously looking at each of the students. He made sure that they would all remember this lesson.

Some of the students weren’t fully convinced, so they discussed mana and world energy some more, clearing up all misconceptions. A few students secretly wanted to cultivate both, but after this class, they had let go of all those thoughts.

The class was finished for today, so everyone left their seats and went to their elemental classes. Even though the elemental classes weren’t mandatory, almost all of the first years still went. Everyone wanted to learn about their elements. Only the second-year students, who had learned most of the things already, rather played around with friends or meditated instead of attending the elemental classes.

Keith chose to attend the lightning class again today. He figured he would go to all the lightning classes if he was forced to choose.

In this manner, time started to pass. He would attend all of his elemental classes and started learning more and more about magic. He kept up his daily sword training, either by himself, with Vaeryl or together with Dillim. After a while, he started to consistently beat Vaeryl while sparring. Vaeryl didn’t really focus on the sword and was more occupied with mental training. Keith worked hard for both his mental training and his sword training.

The more he learned, the more he was able to figure out his future path. He wanted to mainly focus on the lightning element, while he would also convert some of the mana to darkness. He was planning to not really spend a lot of time on cultivating the fire element.

Talent and affinity were very important for mages. Even though there were no bottlenecks for the purification of the mana core, it would still progressively slow down. The higher your affinity towards an element, the faster you would reach a high level of power. Keith wasn’t planning to cultivate for decades, he wanted to take revenge, instead of waiting for his family to die of old age.

The more he trained, the more defined his body started to become. His determination slowly started to increase while his enthusiasm and expectations towards becoming a mage only started to grow.

Almost all of the students started to get more and more anxious about finally finishing the forming of their mana core and energy veins. They were learning about what they could do and what they might achieve later on, but no one was able to do anything yet. They were forced to watch other people do the things that they wanted to do as well.

In this manner, two years went by.