The three of us moved to the fourth door. I'm assuming the first is some other type of room because the door numbers are offset by one. The man was about to open the door but first asked

"You sure you wanna let him walk in here?"

Arika responded "Yes, I'm sure, now open the door." As he opened the door it felt different, I could feel the difference of mana without even walking through the threshold of the door. I was a little worried about walking through it, but I continued anyway.

I lifted my foot to step in but stopped, I turned to Arika "I should be trying to do this without a mana shield yes?"

“Yes, If it’s too much I will pull you out so don’t worry about that” With those words I continued forward, As I passed my leg through the doorway it felt like it was enveloped by a pressure, It felt tight and restricting, I continued through the doorway, When my chest passed through it felt like a punch to the gut. The mana that had been held back by my natural shield was attacking my exposed area. It was more mana at once than I could handle, but It wasn't quite the same blinding pain that I felt from Koshi. I began to absorb the mana, it felt like it was tearing through my mana veins. The flow rate was out of control because of the pressure. My body wasn't strong enough to control it despite the pressure. My mana core filled up faster than it however had before, and when it did I felt slight relief but only from the tearing sensation of the mana flowing through my body. I still felt an intense pressure from all angles, it was heavily restricting my movement.

“Are you holding out there?” Arika asked. The two of them had entered the room as well.

I responded, just barely able to get the words out. “Yeah, I'm still holding on just give me a minute.” I was almost laying on the ground, I had fallen over and had hardly noticed it happen. I need a way to control the amount of mana that comes in my body, I could try and block it out entirely with a mana shield but that’s not the point. I would normally push the mana out of my body at this point and then absorb it again, but I couldn't even manage that. The pressure was stronger than I could push back against. It was like I was on a bench press as the bar slowly fell towards my chest, unable to push it back up, and only able to slow its descent. Pretty soon I would crack under the pressure or the bar would crush my chest. I needed more strength, that was the bottom line. If this was a bench press, you would have to stop and increase your strength by doing more work with less weight. There is no workaround normally, but in this world there was. The mana in my body didn’t need to be pushed out, it needed to be used. Mana had energy, I needed to imbue the muscles of my body with that energy and gather enough strength to resist the pressure.

I began to try and fuse the mana with my body. It was still almost impossible to move the mana throughout my body so I started with the areas closest to my mana core. This worked since those areas were already touching mana and I gained control of my body in those areas. then I was able to send mana through them to the next areas since I had more control. I was able to slowly strengthen my body, expanding my area of control until I reached the edge of my chest and covered the areas where my neutral shell was exposed. As I strengthened the exposed area the pain reduced much further, I was able to breathe easy and could speak well again.

“Ok, I have a degree of control back.” I said aloud. I still couldn't get up though, I needed my arms and legs. It was much easier this time to strengthen the rest of my body. I then proceed to stand up.

“He actually recovered from that?” The man asked. “You sure you're not using your mana shield?”

“Yes I am not using a shield.” I confirmed.

“You sure you're good now?” Arika asked, she seemed like she knew something was still wrong. That’s when I realized that my mana in my body was being burned through quickly. The strengthening required to hold back the pressure of the mana was using up all the mana in my body. I was focusing on holding back against the mana outside so I wasn't absorbing any more. It was hard to control the intake of mana with the increased strength that I achieved. The process was already very delicate, for my inexperienced self especially. The pressure made it hard to focus and I was not used to the strength my body currently had. Eventually I would run out of mana and the pressure would come crashing down, this method was unsustainable for long periods of pressure.

“Yeah I definitely cannot hold this for too long. I may need help but I'm gonna try something first.” I prepared to attempt to absorb while strengthening myself. I was already stretched thin and was trying to grab something almost out of reach on top of that. Normally I wouldn't do this but I don’t have many other options to make use of by myself, and since this is training I'm gonna go for it. I only had around twenty five percent of my mana left now and it had only been around a minute and a half, I was struggling to maintain the resistance but I had to do something now. If I fail I end up in the same situation I would be in if i just waited to run out of mana.

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I loosened up my body slightly, trying to let in a bit of mana, My body contained such a small amount of mana that compared to the density of this room the mana just wanted to force its way in so all I needed to do was let it in. But like loosening the seal on a hose the mana did not just enter calmly, It still overpowered my body, In the act of loosening up I lost some of the strength I had, and the mana pressure took advantage, It tore through a bit of my mana veins again. This caused me to lose focus on the strengthening of my body and I just totally lost control. The mana tore through me again and began to fill my body. I collapsed and just tried to endure the pain.

Before I reached that state of equilibrium again, where my body was full of mana, I felt myself pass back through the doorway, The pressure over my body fading in a wave. My head felt light and a bit dizzy, I tried to look around and ask a question but was unable to, then I proceeded to pass out.

______________________________________________________________________

I began to regain consciousness and felt the warmth of soft blankets over me. "What happened?" I thought, and as I opened my eyes the rest of the room looked just as well off. It was a nice bed and a nice room, well lit with white painted walls and a smooth wood floor. The door was across and to my left. There were no windows though, even though it felt like natural light was filling the room. Arika and that man were nowhere to be seen.

I began to sit up but felt a sharp and jarring pain shoot up my body from my right leg. Much less painful but still present was a deep soreness in my whole body, presumably from the mana training. The pain in my leg was not expected and I had no memory of what could be causing it. I lifted up the blanket to take a look at my leg. I saw it was wrapped in bandages from my mid thigh to the end of my feet that were just beginning to soak red to the outside. This was something that must have happened after I passed out. I tried to circulate my mana through my body to see if I could feel what was wrong with my leg exactly. I only had a small amount of mana left but it was enough. It was slightly painful to circulate my mana but not too terrible. My leg wasn't in good shape, it felt almost shredded. My natural mana shield around my leg was totally broken up and shredded. The mana veins in my leg felt raw and torn. Passing mana through them hurt but also felt like it helped, Like hydrogen peroxide in a way.

My small amount of mana was drained quickly, as if my leg was eating it up for healing purposes. I tried to absorb mana from the room and found the room was filled with more mana than normal, but not an uncomfortable amount either. It was just more than the standard throughout town. I focused the flow through my core and towards my leg so that it could take all the energy it needed.

This technique worked for a while but eventually lost its effect, the mana would sit in my leg like normal but it did feel overall better. The main healing felt internal and focused on the mana veins and pathways. There felt to be flesh wounds all along my leg that were still very present and very painful. Another thing was the natural mana shield, the crumbling pieces were for the most part being washed away. My leg felt much more open compared to the one with the still intact mana shield. Most of my torso was now open along with my neck and shoulders, it was just my head, arms, left leg and waist. I began to relax a bit. I’d like to figure out where I was and what happened but in my current state I wasn't going anywhere.

Soon enough the door to the room opened, and in walked a man. He looked like an army soldier in formal wear, he had a nice suit, with medals on his chest. Made me wonder what a person like that would be doing coming to see me. I already assumed that I had been taken away from Koshinori’s group, but it seems like I've been taken by people of prestige in the city. That probably means the church, unless there is another power I don’t know about.

"You awake?" His question was filled with concern.

"Yes sir" I responded politely.

He looked back out the door and slightly nodded his head, after which two women scurried through the door behind him. They looked like nuns, just slightly different clothing than a typical nun. It had light blue collar pieces and the black bard faded to a deep blue as it went down. They didn't have a cross around their neck but some other simbol, also there was no head dress or coverings. They came over to my bed quickly.

“How does your leg feel?” one asked.

“It's manageable, but I don't think I would be able to move it yet.” They pulled the blanket off of my leg carefully and held out their hands toward my leg, hovering them about two to three inches away. Their hands began to glow slightly green, it felt similar to what tobi did. They stopped abruptly just seconds after they began and looked at eachother shocked. They both got up and quickly ran back to the man who was still standing at the doorway.

“What happened?” he asked just as confused as I was. Then I remembered, I had just cleaned away almost all of the shattered mana shield on my leg. If they saw that and noticed the difference then that could be the reason.

They whispered to the man so that I couldn't hear them. His eyes widened, he looked to me then looked back at them, they nodded. “Leave us” he said strictly. They both bowed quickly then left.

The man walked over to me. He stood near the end of the bed and was looking away from me. "Things just got a lot more complicated" He turned to me after he spoke. His eyes were filled with a mix of pity and determination.