Locke observed a total of six mannequins in the room each with its own corresponding training dummy except for one. They were set up in a more organized fashion compared to the training yard dummies outside. There was nothing else in here other than torch lighting, not even a window. A room without any furniture or decorations couldn't help but give off a dreary atmosphere.
He picked a random mannequin in the room and pressed the button on the back of its head. This one had an interesting pose where its right arm was grabbing onto a dummy. Once activated the hand brightly lit up and a large snap echoed throughout the room as the spell was discharged. Locke didn't have to press the button each time, it was more of a start and stop type situation. He continued watching the spell being cast and noticed it was definitely electricity that was flowing from the hand into the dummy.
After going through and activating all six mannequins he realized that each one cast a spell of a different element. There was a spear of ice, an air blast, electric touch, armor of earth, water jet, and a firebolt. Now those were probably not the name of the spells, but how he would describe them at first glance. Every spell was offensive in nature other than the mannequin that surrounded its entire body in rock.
Locke decided to do a few tests with the earth one. He punched it with and without the armor but there was no visible damage either way. There was also the distinct lack of pain when his fist connected, but that was most likely due to the tutorial. When Locke tried slamming it with multiple firebolts without the armor there was no visible damage, just a scorch mark that quickly faded away. The last thing to try was to activate the earth armor and cast spells at it. Each firebolt that connected onto the armor took a small chunk out of it, and after who knows how many firebolts it crumbled completely.
Looks like this earth armor would protect against all different sources of damage, very useful.
Once that slight distraction was done he turned to face the other mannequins that seemed more suited to training him.
Roughly two hours passed since the training started in this room and he didn't feel any closer to sensing mana at all. He did however get some hints on some future spells and their characteristics. Once four hours had passed it was time to change it up.
He positioned himself between a mannequin and a wooden training dummy. The air blast spell launched towards him, however just as it was about the connect nothing happened.
What? The spell just dissipated mid air....why?
Multiple scenarios played out in his mind when he thought up this idea. For example, being launched across the room and hopefully not dying due to fact that he cannot lose hp here. Or the spell not being cast at all as a safety precaution. This situation wasn't one of them and he couldn't really tell if this was going to help at all.
Locke sat there for a second then turned his palm towards his stomach “firebolt.” A small bolt tried to form but immediately dissipated. He adjusted his aim to where the firebolt would slightly miss his body and the spell fired off like normal.
That explains that; it's another feature of the tutorial where any nearby spell that attempts to harm me will cause this phenomenon. It's entirely possible that the spell being canceled midway could cause the mana to disperse in all directions. This kind of erratic movement might help my brain pick up on it, worth a shot.
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Two more hours passed with him trying different tricks such as this but no progress was made at all. He opened up his Character Screen and allocated 5 points into perception. Locke's plan had changed, waiting a whole day before spending these points didn't seem to be the correct choice anymore. There was a distinct feeling that nothing was going to change even if multiple weeks were spent training here. This thought process most likely surfaced due to frustration and boredom, however, sometimes you just have to trust your gut.
[https://i.imgur.com/0AWGTXr.png]
Closing the Character Screen the training continued for a while with no real change until he hit a total of fourteen hours.
“This is ridiculous what am I even looking for!” Locke shouted in anger, his voice echoing throughout the room.
He was about to assign 5 more points in Perception but decided against it. The new plan was to wait six more hours, if there was no change then he would increase his Perception to 15.
It turned out that was the right call because two hours later he noticed something while looking at the ice spear dissipating before it pierced his chest. He rushed forward towards the mannequin and watched the new spell being formed, his brain was finally picking up on it.
[https://i.imgur.com/E5g2b7t.png]
[https://i.imgur.com/g6HaYgc.png]
It took a while but he finally noticed it. Locke could now see that when the spell was being formed mana was sucked into the palm of the mannequin's hand. The mana had a slight tinge of color to it if you looked really close but it was extremely faint. In this case, the mana was light blue representing ice, he assumed fire spells would be some sort of red color.
Looking around and really homing in on this feeling he could see mana around him but it didn't have any color. The only thing he could compare this to is a visual akin to what you would see on an extremely hot day, more commonly around the pavement. When this happens it is as if you can see the air moving around. In the case of visualizing mana though it took almost all his attention and focus just to be able to see it.
Looking at both his Character Screen and Passive skill sections showed the below information.
[https://i.imgur.com/u9QebbN.png]
[https://i.imgur.com/lnrohTx.png]
Being the first of ten thousand people that started the game today to sense mana was both a surprise and not at the same time. The main surprise was that those kinds of rewards even existed at all and not spending his 5 stat points earlier could have cost him 2 free wisdom. There should be other players that went down this route to sense mana and he felt that he wasn't particularly fast when it came to learning it. The only real reason Locke could think of as to why he learned it first was due to the fact that his entire first day in the tutorial was essentially learning magic. He didn't imagine he was gifted or skilled in doing so. Another thing Locke noticed was the 1/10 on the passive skill which showed his progress on when the skill will upgrade to the next tier.
Collecting his thoughts Locke walked out of the training area towards Claire's study. It felt weird that after almost a day of intense focus he did not even have a hint of exhaustion. You could compare it to the feeling you might have when completely refreshed at the start of a day after a nice cup of coffee. Heck even with the air being thin inside the room it didn't bother him at all during his training. He never tested it but he thought to himself maybe he doesn't even need breath, at least in the tutorial.
Opening the door and entering the study Locke found himself in familiar surroundings with the instructor sitting in her chair studying some scrolls. He didn't interrupt her this time and decided to wait until she asked him a question or to sit.
After a few minutes, she smiled and said “Took you long enough, now sit.”