“Has anyone ever heard… voices from the crystal before?” My words repeated in my mind. I felt cold dread crawl through my body as the confused, bewildered, and even intrigued gaze of Tulip burrowed into my skin.

“—We’re going to be showing Kirin how to feel her barrier, and her mana more intricately.” Levi finished his statement. His gaze shifted towards me, his eyes narrowed at me before he let out a sigh.

“We’ll talk later.” Tulip whispered, her gaze didn’t move away from Levi as she spoke.

I opened my mouth to reply to Tulip, but Levi let out a harsh growl to cut off my words before they could even form.

“Are you two even listening?” Levi hissed. He turned around, facing me directly while an accusing glare settled on Tulip. “I don’t care if you are the crowned heir,” Levi’s gaze slowly moved towards me as he paused, “Nor do I care if you are the most wanted criminal. You are my students. And you will listen.”

“S-Sorry Levi.” Tulip spoke through a clenched jaw.

Levi took in a deep breath at Tulip’s word. A hand raised to his brow, pinching it tightly he turned away and spoke in an exasperated tone.

“I understand what you both have just been through, or, at the very least I hope I do. However you must understand Tulip, this is no longer your private schooling lessons. Here you are being trained in more than just magic—You’re training to survive this world. To survive in wars, in battles, in life-or-death situations.” Levi’s tone gradually grew sour. A large step took him slightly further away from Tulip and myself, while his gaze barely shifted back towards us.

“From now on, you will be arriving out here just past dawn. Not in your school uniforms, but clothing fit for physical activities. You will have nothing to eat in the morning until after these activities have finished. Because you have just eaten, I will be nice enough to not begin with physical exercises today.” Once Levi finished speaking he turned back towards us with his arms folded—His eyes narrowed, glaring first at Tulip, and then settling on me.

“On the ground. We begin first with meditating to assist Kirin in feeling her barrier.” Levi barked out his order and I reflexively listened. I was sitting on the ground within a few moments—So often I had been ordered around that being told to simply sit came as second nature.

It took only a moment for Tulip to follow suit, a moment she had spent watching me with surprise written on her face. She quickly followed once Levi glanced at her, she sat down with her legs crossed one over another.

“Close your eyes and focus inwards,” Levi instructed as he moved to sit on the ground before me. I could hear the grinding, popping sounds of his legs buckling under his presumably immense mass—Reflecting an age that the rest of his body didn’t really show. “Pull all of your mana into a single spot inside of your body. To its origin wherever it may rest inside of you.”

I did as instructed, first I shifted my legs around to be underneath me. Crossing one over another in the same way that both Tulip and Levi had theirs. It took me several moments to find some semblance of comfort, shifting to and fro until I was satisfied enough to close my eyes with a deep breath until my chest could puff out no further.

The world of mana filled my closed eyes—I could see an outline of my own body from a view almost outside of my skull, like I was a handful of steps behind myself. Waves of blue aura pulsated around my body. It barely reached beyond my skin, no more than a few inches in the furthest areas. But it reached several feet into the air above me, flaking away into the air like the hungry wisps of an open flame.

I could also see the mana inside of my body; pulsing through my blood with each rhythmic motion of my heart. I watched it rush down to my fingers before circling back up to travel all the way back to my heart, once there it entered a complex spiral before repeating the process once again.

I let my lungs clear slowly, my chest deflating as my heart slowed to a cadence I could have walked to. I reached out with my loose control over mana, pulling at the flakes flaming off at the edge of the pillar my body exuded first. It was difficult, every moment my heart dared to move it pushed the mana back away from me—Stealing away with it any progress I could have made.

Another breath in and the pillar was back to its original size. I could feel a cold bead of sweat forming along my forehead while I yanked helplessly at the strands of mana, forceful motions only made it unstable and hard to control.

My lungs cleared once more, an annoyed huff escaping me as my body slouched forwards to find rest from the rigid position I sat in.

“Slowly Kirin,” Levi said, his voice sounding muffled like it was behind a thick wall of linen. “You cannot force mana to bend to your will rapidly, it takes care, gentle pushes, not harsh and volatile pulls. Once you master this, you can learn how to be slow in a hurry.” Levi fell completely silent along with the rest of the world once he finished speaking: Not even the wind dared to whisper in his presence.

“Alright…” I could barely even hear my own voice—It sounded even more distant than Levi’s had. I heeded his words and opted to watch how my pillar of mana looked, how it worked and how it shifted before I furthered my attempts.

Every motion my mana made through my body forced the pillar to shift. It was as if it was following my blood like an obstructed mirror, elongated and disfigured but mirroring it all the same.

I raised my right arm just to test if this was correct—And the pillar mirrored the motion. A section of it shifted around to follow my arm as I bent, twisted, and extended it around.

Next I tried to pull mana out from the blood moving to my right arm—As I gradually retracted it bit by bit, all the way back up to my shoulder the entire section of the pillar mirroring it disappeared, bringing a smile to my face.

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“So it’s just a mirror of my own power…” I thought as I pulled the mana out from my left arm, and my legs next. The act of pulling my mana away from these limbs left them feeling numb inside of this strange ethereal world my senses were cast into.

My mana was slowly gathering inside of my torso, I kept pulling it back further and further—The closer it got to my heart the more it was resisting, it was physically fighting against being compressed into a single point.

The pressure rapidly shifted from uncomfortable to painful—The pressure felt like it was trying to physically break away from my skin, like it was trying to break open my ribs and release into the world around me.

Sweat ran down my forehead, filling my hair and drenching my back as pain stung throughout my body. The phantom numbness became a stinging pain that I could barely ignore, each passing it only grew worse—Exponentially so once I began to drag the mana away from my head.

It crawled past my eyes, and my entire world went dark. All I could see were the distant lines of mana, dragging, swirling, spiraling… and finally forming a single sphere, directly over top of my heart.

A shuddering breath escaped me, betraying the pain that my body felt. But I couldn’t hear my lungs clear, I could barely even feel them do so. And yet, Levi’s words came through clearer than ever. Almost like I was hearing for the very first time.

“Well done, Kirin, now push that Origin. Allow it to expand until you feel it pressed up against a wall, an impassable barrier. Your barrier.” Levi’s words hit my ears like a soft melody. They washed away the residual, throbbing pain that still ached away at my body, and replaced in its place a new vigor to keep pushing.

A new breath of cold air rushed into my lungs—Washing away the last of the fatigue and discomfort that resided within, filling me with a newfound will to continue.

My control over the origin of my mana was shaky at best, it took an immense amount of effort to even just keep it in place. Trying to expand it outwards sounded like a near impossible task for me, but I pushed all the same.

The sphere pressed outwards, and with it pressure returned through my body. I could feel the raw energy, the unending surge that wanted to be released. It screamed and thrashed like a wild animal trying to break free of my grip. It pulsed just to be dragged back in, I put mental pressure alongside physical; pressing my mind and tensing every muscle in my chest to hold it together.

And, it kept expanding. Inch by inch it crawled through the inside of my chest, reaching beyond my collar bone and up to the base of my jaw. It reached as low as the top of my hips, and as far out as the base of my elbows if my arms extended—And it stopped, the origin point of my mana refused to move any further as if it hit a wall of impossibilities, an impassable wall.

The concentration finally became too much to sustain however. The instant I felt the edge of the barrier everything collapsed, my mana rushed back into my body as I lurched forwards. Intense nausea rolled through my body, I shifted forwards onto my hands while holding every muscle in my body still to prevent myself from expelling everything I had just eaten.

“Intriguing.” Levi’s words, no longer ethereal, sounded from right next to me. The slight motion of turning my head up towards him proved too much for my body as I fell over entirely.

“Kirin!” Tulip shouted, I heard her standing up, but the world was dizzy—Spinning, spiraling around with me as the epicenter.

“She’s fine, Tulip,” Levi calmed the Heiress, I could hear him holding her back. “She pressed against her barrier and lost control, give her a few moments to adjust to feeling mana in her body again. Three hours without it has left her rather weak.” Levi’s voice grew more distant the more he spoke. But my running mind froze for a moment, just to process his words.

“Three hours?” I thought slowly—I could feel my senses returning gradually, each breath I took in, each pounding rush from my heart, they all contributed to the regaining of my composure. I could see what Levi meant with just a quick examination of the world as well.

Hours had indeed passed, the sun was far higher into the sky. Mana was no longer physically in my body, I had pulled every single droplet out of my blood, all of it had gone into my Origin.

“How… did I do?...” I forced the words out with an uneasy breath. I pushed my arm out, sitting up just enough to get my legs underneath me and stand on shaking legs.

“I would say rather excellent,” Levi answered, his face shifted into a shallow smile—Barely more than a slight twinge of his lips upwards, so miniscule it would have been missed entirely if I wasn’t meeting his gaze. “You have just done in three hours what any other untrained mage would take three weeks to accomplish. And you have done such a thing after you had broken through your first barrier, without sensing your mana in the slightest.” Levi furthered with a nod of approval.

“When… did I do that?” I asked once I straightened my back. Standing up entirely to look up at him. Levi gave an answer that actually left me to pause, and think over his words.

“The day the guards discovered you had magic. After some conversations with Darek while you were both missing, that was the conclusion I came to—That when your magic was first discovered, it was a result of you breaking through a barrier without sensing your mana first. A feat that I don’t believe anyone has done for several generations,” Levi answered, he was silent for a moment until he glanced at Tulip. With a soft nod he spoke further, “Kirin, I believe it is no understatement to say that you would be a prodigy even among the powerful families, perhaps on a similar level to Tulip.”

“Is it that hard to find a barrier?—And what do you mean the same level as Tulip?” I was quick to ask further, I knew Tulip was good with her magic. She was good enough to teach me how to use my own magic from nothing, to well-enough in order to survive.

“Kirin,” Tulip was the one to answer, her tone softening a little. “Magic isn’t easy for most people. It takes years, decades of practice even. Most Arcadians barely reach the class of ‘Mage’ in their life, the average class for a student to graduate is only one level above where we’re at right now.”

“The fact that you just learnt that you have magic, maybe five months ago? Let alone the fact that you’re already a Magus who can feel their next barrier, it’s incredible,” Tulip finished speaking with a soft breath. She let a smile rise to her face, her ruby gaze meeting my own.

“As Tulip said, you have ascended beyond mediocre, and well above the average in a few months. You’ve proven multiple times you’re a diligent student, now you must prove you can apply the effort,” Levi added with an approving nod. Levi took in a deep breath, shaking his head as he looked away. “We’re done for today, I expected this to take far longer than it did. Go and rest, and remember what we discussed earlier. First thing in the morning.”

“Thank you,” I spoke genuinely. Letting a self-satisfied smile across my face, pride swelled in my chest from the praise before it deflated away a moment later. “Thank you for training me, Levi.”

“Of course.” He replied courtly, and began to walk away. But, once Levi’s presence receded I could feel an uneasy sense of being watched again. It was nearly the exact same feeling from just earlier this morning.

“Well, what do you want to do for the day, Kirin?” Tulip asked as she walked over beside me.

“Explore the school? I’m sure there's still a lot to find.” I answered with a smile, I pushed the feeling away to the side as Tulip led the way—It was probably nothing. Right?