While I caught my breath and inspected the crystal I saw the other guards doing the same as Uncle Darius, they would all go to the corpses of goblins they had slain and retrieve the magic crystals. The Blackwood Manor would receive most of these crystals, however, the guards would keep one in ten crystals that they handed in along with being rewarded gold coins for their work.

After a few minutes of this, everyone was ready to set out, our location was marked on a map and it would be given to others to come and clean up the camp and bodies. Kaelen had come up to me to congratulate me on my first kill to which I simply smiled and thanked him. We had set out and the rest of the route was clear and we ran into no further trouble. We returned to the Blackwood Manor.

Even though we were only gone for less than two hours, I felt exhausted. The other guards would take a small break and eat their breakfast which I joined them for. It was a simple meal of oatmeal and fruit which I was used to eating in the manor daily. Before the guards left for more patrols throughout the day I thanked Uncle Darius and waved goodbye to the other guards as I ran back into the manor to wash up and get ready for Silas’ lessons.

In the bathroom, I looked into the mirror and my scarlet-colored eyes, I could not get the image of myself impaling the goblin out of my mind, let alone the scene of its head rolling off to the side and its body falling. I was scrubbing my fingernails deeply as I tried to get rid of the dried blood that was hiding in them. Before I knew it, my fingers were bright red as I had been scrubbing in my lost thoughts.

I quickly gathered my composure and went to the manor’s study where Silas was already reading a book. “Take a seat, I’m just finishing this chapter.”

I quickly took a seat on the sofa opposite Silas, the study was fairly spacious with two sofas facing each other in the middle and bookcases lining the walls. Silas was focused on his book which the cover read ‘Integration of Mana Veins Vol. 3’, this aligned with Silas’ purpose of coming back to the Blackwood Manor.

He had put the book down on the table between us and looked over at me, having caught my interest in the book he was reading. “First of all, I’m not yet an official magus so I can only teach you to a certain extent, my magical aptitude is not great but that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.” I looked into his amber-colored eyes to make sure to listen to each detail he was about to tell me.

“Now, I’m much better at the theory of mana than the physical usage. I’m going to try and teach you a basic skill everyone at the academy learns.” Silas had now stood up and I suddenly felt an indescribable pressure in the room. “This is going to be an impractical example, however, there’s no better way to show you what’s happening.”

I was doing my best to sense the mana particles in the room, all the mana seemed to be focusing around Silas and most of it was being drawn from within his body. I knew that this mana was from his crystal core. It was all gathering in his right arm and it felt as if his whole arm was being imbued.

With my naked vision, I could see the mana density around his arm, from his fist to the shoulder it was as if there was an aura of light. The air was thick with tension as he drew in a deep breath, his eyes locked in right in front of him. In a flash, his fist skyrocketed forward, arcing through the air and making a whistling sound.

Stolen novel; please report.

When the fist reached its utmost distance, the sound of a powerful thunderclap spread through the room.

The surrounding bookcases shook and after a moment they came to a stop. I could feel the disruption of the mana within the room as the mana particles were agitatedly darting about. Outside, the leaves were swaying with the strong wind emitting from the room.

Suddenly, Elena ran through the door.

“What’s going on?” she had shouted as she was startled by the sudden shockwave throughout the house, behind her came Victor too.

“Silas! How many times do I have to tell you? The study is not a practical experimentation area.” Victor didn’t look pleased at all, it seemed like this might have been a common occurrence for Silas to use this room while experimenting.

Silas scratched his head in shame while replying, “Sorry brother, sorry Elena too. I didn’t mean to startle both of you. I’ll keep in mind to use the training courtyard next time.”

“Come dear, let’s go for a walk.” Father grabbed Mother by her shoulder gently and started leading her toward the door of the manor, it seemed like he knew what was going to happen and decided to take his wife away for some peace.

After seeing that they were gone Silas looked at me with a smile, “Anyways! What I have just performed was a simple punch enhanced with my mana. I had focused my entire concentration while being static which allowed me to make my punch powerful.” He took a seat on the sofa. “However, in combat, it is highly unlikely that your opponent will allow you time to build up such an attack. You can also use this to enhance your jumps and kicks and along with enough training even make a boost to your speed.”

He continued while picking up his book, “Alright, now you try. No better way to learn than trying to figure it out by yourself.”

“Shouldn’t we go outside?” I started standing up and asked.

“Don’t worry, with your mana supply you won’t be able to get anywhere near such force.” he stated bluntly.

I went to the side of the sofas and started to relax my muscles, I knew I had to be in a focused state to influence this much mana in such a precise movement. First of all, I sat down in the middle of the open area before the sofas. I gathered all the mana that I could by circulating the cultivation technique a few times. I could feel the mana being absorbed into my core and until I reached a point where no more could be absorbed I stopped.

I stood up and got into position to throw a punch, this is when I closed my eyes to focus on drawing the mana out of my core. With each deep breath I took I controlled a small amount of mana, I made it flow from my core through my body towards my right arm. After exhaling I focused on not losing the mana built up in my arm before attempting to bring in more. I had lost a bit of mana with each exhale but after a few breaths, I had gathered a substantial amount of my core’s mana out.

I focused on spreading out the mana throughout my arm and I could feel sweat forming on my forehead. I finally decided I was ready and threw the punch with mana infused within my arms.

However, I had done something wrong. When I started throwing the punch the mana simply dispersed from my arm back into the atmosphere and only a bit of it remained within my arms, still not affecting my punch.

“Do you know the problem?” Silas had asked me without looking away from his book.

I nodded, I now knew that I had to keep focus on my mana and not stop controlling it with the punch. Simply gathering it into my arm was not enough to enhance my strike. With my current guess, I could try another strike right now before running out of mana in my core.