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The next day, I was sitting on the floor in Professor Sageira’s lab with an enchanted artifact strapped to my arm, and she was sitting opposite me.

Said enchanted artifact was something Professor Sageira whipped up that looked like an analog ammeter and was supposed to measure my internal mana flow

“Let us begin, start raising your mana flow, just like I showed you.” Professor Sageira said as she kept an eye on me.

I nodded, closed my eyes, and turned my will inward, from there, I felt out my mana pathways.

As my visualization of my mana pathways comes into focus, I finally see the languid and constant flow of my mana.

“Got it, I am starting.” I whispered out as I started to take control of my internal mana.

As I started pushing, at first, I did not notice any difference in speed, but after observing the tests on the rats, I knew it was normal and gave it a few seconds.

After a few more seconds of pushing, I finally noticed an increase in mana flow and started pushing harder.

Soon, I got my mana flow increased by 50% and I felt my body tingle. I informed Professor Sageira of it and started increasing the flow as I heard the sound of her taking notes.

As I pushed some more, I easily got to 100%, at this point, I was feeling rather warm, so I decided to slow my pace of increment. But a 100% increment is nowhere near the flow rate I saw in the hobgoblin shaman, I will push forward… cautiously.

As I got to around 125% increment, I was starting to feel my body ache and decided to slow my increment to a crawl, hopefully, I can adapt.

“Stop.” I hear Professor Sageira say, and I release my control on my internal mana.

As I opened my eyes, I noticed a drop of sweat drip from my brow, and when I looked down, I saw that I was drenched in sweat.

When I raised my hand to wipe my face, I saw that my arm was trembling from exhaustion, “This is pushing my mana, what is it physically exhausting me?”

Professor Sageira threw me a towel as she shrugged. “As of our first test, it is unconfirmed, best guess is because your body’s mana pathways are not yet up to the task and your physical body is trying to adapt or compensate.”

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I nodded and tried to get up, but my legs gave out on me and I stumbled down on all fours. “Err… I hate to say this… but I may need to have some help getting back to my dorm… and a jug of water. I am parched.”

***

The day after I tested the rapid mana flow exercise on myself, I woke up feeling worse than after the exercise. My body is pain, and all my muscles ache. Even muscles that I did not know existed.

This brings me back to when I almost killed myself from activating my aura as a baby, the good old times when I did not need to go to school. But it is not all bad, I got to have a cute childhood friend out of it… don't know if I would continuously make the trade of almost dying to get a childhood friend, but hey, it worked out fine.

After lying in bed to get accustomed to the aches for a while, I pulled off my blanket with as little muscle movement as possible, painfully got up, and hobbled my ass to the bathroom for a morning shower while thanking whatever God or fluke of the multiverse brought my soul here that we decided to carry out the experiment on the night before the weekend.

After I got out of the shower, I downed one of the Mana Relaxing potions Professor Sageira passed to me and hobbled my way to breakfast.

“Better ask the lunch ladies to pack some of my meals to go, I don’t think I want to move around much today, and I might also drop by the alchemist and get something for my muscle aches.” I mumble to myself on the way out.

***

A week goes by, and I am back in Professor Sageira’s office, sitting on the floor.

“Alright, the last time, you got up to 125% increase of your baseline mana flow before mana pathway stress did any damage, so let's try to keep it at 120% for a prolonged period of time. We will try for 10 minutes, and if prolonged exposure to this flow rate is sustainable, we will go from there, begin.” Professor Sageira said and I closed my eyes to concentrate.

Once again, I ramp up my internal mana flow rate and get the tingles, followed by internal warmth. When I got to where I roughly thought was 120%, I opened an eye and peeked at the measuring artifact, and tweaked my flow until I was at 120%. And as I was doing so, time came to a crawl.

After a few minutes of just sitting and doing nothing while I felt sweat drip down my head, I noticed that maintaining the mana flow rate did not take much continuous effort… and I was bored.

I opened my eyes to Professor Sageira staring at me, “What, are you too tired already? It has barely been five minutes.” she chided me.

I shook my head, “No, nothing like that, unlike last time when I was concentrating while continuously increasing my flow rate, I was rather tense, but it turns out that just maintaining the flow rate does not take much effort, mentally that is, and I was kind of bored… can I read a book while I continue the exercise?”

Professor Sageira squinted at me for a moment, then said, “Fine, but hold the book with a towel, I don't want your sweaty fingers in my books.”

So that's how I spent the next hour, sitting on the floor reading while I was sweating my ass off. Professor Sageira only stayed and watched for around half that time before she decided that if I did not keel over and die in that half an hour, I should be fine.

At the end of our session, I felt like I just left the gym after a good workout. She then gave my mana pathways a good once over, shoved a Mana Relaxing potion in my mouth, passed me the measuring artifact, told me to repeat the same exercise every night before I sleep, and sent me on my way.

It was decided that at the end of the week, we would once again test my limits and see of there were any improvements.