The world did not blur nor did it feel any different. But he knew that only a day would pass outside of the crystal. Bon would be unchanged. The world would be the same as he knew. But he himself would not.

He would be older. He felt himself become anxious, but he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

'It's necessary. I'm the only one out of the two of us that can do it.' Bon couldn't move on his own, yet. Bon also wouldn't be able to integrate into the world's civilization easily either. In the end, Bon was an intelligent glass box. In the subspace world itself, Bon held no power other than mana manipulation, but everyone in the subspace world had that.

In the future, Siul knew that it would be possible for Bon to acquire means to move, but that time was not now. getting out of his thoughts, he found that the air was very pure. So pure, that he felt like his lungs were burning.

It was then that he remembered that too much oxygen was also not good.

A thin film cover of mana covered his mouth and nose. It was a filter to breath in less oxygen, but it was all he needed.

It was like being on the top of a large mountain deprived of air, but all he could do was get used to the feeling until he found a better alternative.

Leaning on a tree, breathing and feeling around himself, he made sure that he was healthy.

After adjusting for a few more moments, he stood up and followed along the path he had identified before entering into the world. Greenery filled the sides and the trees around him tall, rough, and armed to survive in the world with their spiky, tough bark. The shrubbery was as sharp as spikes too, he made sure to avoid them. The grass, though, was the very opposite of hard and cushioned underneath his shoes. They were rubbery to the touch.

Before long, he had found a sign, but he could not read its letters. Shortly after, he saw the walls of the town and quickened his pace. When he could see the guards, his heart beat faster again, but he still tried to maintain his composure.

Putting on his best impression of a dazed man, he walked without purpose and looked to be mindlessly wandering around. Approaching the gate, a guard walked to him and questioned.

To Siul, it was just sounds coming out of the man's mouth. He could not understand the words.

Siul pointed to himself and quietly spoke gibbering english.

The guards took his arms and tied them with a strong rope. He didn't struggle and followed them into the town. A few people stopped to look at the curious arrest, but all quickly lost interest.

They approach a medium-sized building. On top of it, there was the symbol of a sword and the simplified image of the raptor dinosaur's head behind it.

Inside of the building, there were similarly dressed guards that gave some small talk before letting his two captors resume their duties. Going through a door, Siul was now in a room filled with a few stone cells that were only outfitted with a bed, a hole for waste, and a window looking into the hall. Siul found it reasonable as bars of any material likely wouldn't be a good choice to hold mana users. Even plain walls were pushing it.

He was put into a cell as the guards mumbled something. The whole time, the guards had tried to talk to him, but Siul could only shrug or shake his head questioningly. Laying on the bed, he found it surprisingly comfortable and the room was a cozy warm temperature. Despite having just woken up a few hours ago, Siul could already feel himself drifting to sleep...

He woke up to a few knocks on a metal plate right outside his cell's door. Looking around himself in a stupor, he was shocked to find that he had actually fallen asleep. He didn't find himself just taking naps anywhere.

A guard that he did not know the face of was peeking through the window and trying to talk to him, but Siul really couldn't understand anything.

Next to the guard, hidden by the cell wall, another spoke to the guard as if confirming something before the two left. A few minutes passed by and they returned to open his cell. His hands were tied up before escorting him to a different room.

Inside of the room, there were only two chairs and a table.

Sitting down, Siul looked at the man who was also taking his seat from across the table. He spoke, but quickly stopped and took out a piece of paper with a symbol on it before pointing towards it. Siul understood what he was trying to ask. Did he know it?

Siul shook his head no and the man sighed before pulling out a few more symbols. Siul didn't know what most of them were except for the symbol of the building he was currently in.

After a few more minutes of the questioning, the man stood up and pointed to Siul to remain on the chair before walking out. Waiting patiently, he found himself fiddling with a strand of mana. There was nothing else he could do in the boring room.

The door opened and a big guy with a large beard walked in and sat on the end of the table. The previous man grabbed another chair and sat on it.

The bearded man pointed to himself and spoke very clearly.

"Hagm."

He then pointed to Siul. He hesitated. It would be what he will be called in the world. He thought of giving out his own name, but something about it didn't strike something right inside of him. He was in a different world. Why not let himself have some fun? In the end, though, he didn't want to get too unfamiliar. and he opted for his last name.

"Hark."

The bearded man manipulated a cloud of mana and pointed towards it.

"Ulma."

"Ulma?" It was nice to know what the world called mana and it would be best for him to call it that way too.

The man nodded before pointing to all three of them in the room and spoke a word before making three stick figures and saying the same word. Siul thought for a few seconds before that it either meant human or person.

Siul nodded in understanding.

After going through a few more words such as wood, chair, hair, and just about every type of thing present in the room, the little lesson came to an end and Siul was escorted back to his cell. He could only sigh as the door was shut and locked.

Sitting on the bed, Siul found that he had nothing better to do other than practice his... ulma manipulation.

He manipulated a few spheres on his hands before adding more. Compared to when he had first started to exercise, he had improved by a lot and was not on what he called level 3. The first level was forming a separate, static sphere on each of the tips of his fingers. The second level was then spinning each of the spheres in different directions. Level 3 was composed of then forming a secondary shell on top of each spinning spear and making the shell itself spin as well. Right now, he could only form three shells before it was too much.

Straining his mind, he maintained the three shells and after a minute of withstanding it, he moved on to forming the fourth shell. His focus was split, but he concentrated on the shell as hard as he could. Just as it formed, he lost his focus and the spheres dissipated.

Now with a minor headache, Siul let his mind rest as he laid on the bed, thinking of what he would do in the downtime. No matter what he thought, though, nothing seemed to relieve his boredom. Doing a few easy warmup exercises, his mind was fatigued and he laid on the bed before falling asleep.

He woke up again to more banging on the plate. The guards were back and escorted him to a different room. This room was, if only, slightly more furnished than the last and still inside the guard building. Now, in addition to the bed, there was a desk and a small bathroom with a toilet.

Still, though, there was not much he could do except for... Well, nothing. There was nothing he could do with his new desk. They didn't even supply him with paper or anything. It was there for the sake of being there. At the very least, though, it did have a chair to go with it.

A week passed ordinarily as he spent each day focusing on nothing but ulma exercises and eating the simple meaty meals they supplied.

He woke up to his door being opened and a scholarly woman entering into his cell. Beside her, there was a small cart filled with various objects and materials. There were also a few books and she held a particularly large one herself.

She spoke to him, but Siul repeated his usual action and tilted his head. She looked confused before looking back at the guard. Understanding slowly washed over her face and at a glance, Siul could tell her face was getting red. With fury.

She stood still for another second before closing the door and storming off to where he assumed was the head of the place. He could hear her yelling all the way from his cell.

A guard still frozen stood still at his cell's door, still a little shaken and pale from the sudden outburst. He looked towards Siul and just gave a reassuring smile before running off. Some time passed and the commotion died down as he heard a few voices talking with the woman before coming to what seemed to be a consensus. He heard her huff before walking back into his cell.

Looking at her with a little apprehension, he found that she had put on a gentle face. Much different than what he thought she would look like before causing the ruckus earlier. Dragging the cart and a chair farther into the room, she set up a black-board like wall and assembled her own desk in only a minute.

She lifted objects that looked much too heavy with barely any effort and in only another half minute, she had set everything up. She pointed to Siul and spoke, but he still couldn't understand the world's language. She sighed as he knew that she realized he truly did not know the language.

The woman pointed to herself. "Halva."

Seeing the similar situation, Siul pointed to himself. "Hark."

The entire teaching process was stale as she pointed to various objects in the room before speaking their names. Siul would then have to repeat the names and ever so often, they would review. It was hard to make it any less boring, but to Siul, it was better than sitting in the room trying to find something to do.

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He knew a few words from his interactions with the guards, but that was it. He learned the words for the wall, floor, ceiling, tile, bed, toilet, mirror, and about everything in the room again. She didn't stop until Siul could name anything at a glance. Throughout this, she passed before she changed subjects.

Siul groaned in his mind as he saw what was coming. grammar. It was about impossible to have a language without any structure. First came the way of using certain words equivalent to 'the,' 'a,' 'to,' and more.

His mind already felt like he was thinking in loops and spirals by the time his teacher spoke the first full sentence that he understood. She pointed at the bed and said the equivalent of 'The bed.'

By the time he was able to form his own basic sentences like, "I am sitting on the bed." Siul felt like his mind was burning and about to give out after what felt like five grueling hours of language. It was now that he was reminded of how he had to drop out of even the basic introductory language class to Karthen in his college because of the headaches it caused.

Luckily, it was not long after that his new teacher decided to leave. The last thing she taught him was the common way to say "hello" and "goodbye."

He laid on the bed and after an hour of letting his brain rest, he felt like he recovered and did a few basic and easy mana exercises before falling asleep. This world strangely met his preferred sleeping temperature way too much. It was like he was a lizard in its natural habit and he enjoyed it to a great extent.

The next month followed the same formula and schedule. He would wake up and be taught by Halva for a few hours before resting, practice his mana control, and then fall asleep. The days were agonizingly slow, but also fast. It was like he was back in highschool again.

However, the month of constant teaching had done wonders. Near the third week, he could study on his own when reading text written by Halva. He had also been given papers to write on in his free time.

"Hark, give me your homework."

He groaned as he handed the pieces of paper. It didn't take long for her to actively start giving him piles of papers to work on as well. He didn't even have enough time to practice mana towards the later weeks.

A stack of seven papers were handed to Siul as she gave him some exercises to do whilst she graded it. After a dozen minutes, she put the papers down and began reviewing what he had learned.

"You know the basic grammar well enough and you can speak conversationally... Somewhat." She rubbed her chin before speaking again. "Hark, it's time we get you outside and teach you how things work."

Siul had already developed enough of an understanding of the language to comprehend what Halva says after a few moments. Apart from trouble regarding lesser used words and the finer details of the language like verbs, adjectives, sentence structures, and more. He shivered as even his dreams were becoming corrupted with forcing him to retain everything she taught.

If she wanted to, Halva could stop teaching him right then and there and just send him directly into the city. He would be able to learn everything else naturally through immersion.

"Really?" He had grown tired of the cell ever since his third day inside of it. Even with his unusual advantage of being able to sleep his free time away easily, the walls were plain and stale. The air was stagnant, and the smell was nothing to talk about. Every few days, someone would come through and it would be a coinflip to know if they were crazy or not.

"Yes, you can even manipulate ulma well and after another month of my teaching, we will have enough time to get you enrolled into the ulmagi school."

Halva had taught Siul many things about the world whether directly or indirectly. From how to introduce himself, to people's feats of using ulma and the various species of dinosaurs and animals that were collectively called huntrow. There was also a sub distinction called Trows, which were domesticated huntrows. He also learned that the town he was in is called Tuk and the kingdom he was in is called Gukulm.

Ulmagi school is an advanced education that people good at using, or interested in exploring ulma more could enroll in. It was clear from the start that Siul wanted to practice mana as much as he could and apart from his "memory loss," he now had a good grasp of the language and even "subconsciously," remembered how to do everything that was required to complete primary schooling.

Most people in Gukulm complete their primary schooling at the age of twelve and anyone twelve or above could enroll into the ulmagi school. It was never too late to nurture the development of ulma afterall.

Half of the people that don't enroll into an ulmagi school immediately after primary school end up doing it in the next 10 years according to shoddy statistics. At his age of 28, he was a little late, but it was nothing too unusual and he would enter into a specialized course designed for adults over the age of 20.

Halva left the cell in a hurry before coming back a few minutes later with a grin.

"Alright, we got permission. Now, it is important that you do not go away from me, or you will actually get arrested and serve time." Regarding serving time, that was one of the more minor repercussions of breaking the law. The society took on a more hands on approach like, say, amputating fingers and hands.

Most minor offenses like littering or having a brawl out in the open city served time, while consistent and repeat offenders of minor crimes would have a finger cut off. Crimes like killing without the agreement of a duel or some other mutually agreed upon condition meant cutting off three fingers and serving three years of time.

"Now follow me."

After a month of being locked in the cell, it was refreshing to see the actual sunlight of the world again. Fake or not, it felt real and supplied the world with energy so to Siul, it did not matter.

He walked out of the Guards' station and saw the bustle of people. It was a nice sight that he was desperate to see. In his little home out in the middle of nowhere in the real world, he had entertainment and more recently, the focus of the subspace world, but with nothing to do other than study, he wanted a little liveliness around him.

The street was made out of flat bricks and if not, then it was flat dirt. There was a shop selling hides while another was selling clothing. The whole street did not have many houses. Besides, most people simply lived in their two story shops with the first floor being the store itself while the second story was the living space. Some people even lived in the small attic of a small building if they did not have a second floor.

Halva pulled a copper coin out of her pocket. It was inscribed with the star shaped fruit and on the other side, there was a man sitting on a bone throne. Siul pulled out his own pocket of coins. Luckily, in the midst of his stay in the cell, his belongings had been returned. He cycled between his three sets of clothing while his small bag of coins just laid in a corner the whole time.

"This is a dalma. Ten dalmas make a gamma and fifty dalmas make a talma. This is just to measure the amount we have and there are no other special coins."

"Why is that?" Siul wondered why there was only one type of coin. Although the coins were fingernail sized and unusually hard, it was still tedious when using a lot of them to buy something.

"Copper is abundant, that is why the king is not afraid to distribute them because you can't make a higher valued coin or item out of copper coins. Every other metal is too useful to make into a coin and risk people forging them."

"What if someone finds copper underground?"

"A copper coin is worth how much its materials are made of, that means selling, or forging, copper coins will net you the same amount either way... Well, forging might get you a few more, but who would go through the extra trouble for some loose change?"

Siul found it reasonable. That meant that even if somebody found a vein of copper, it wouldn't be forged or not, because they would still have the same value and worth.

"Also, because copper can conduct ulma quite easily, anything other than coins that are made out of would be even less likely to be made into forged coins. This is because tools using copper naturally cost more, this means anything with copper inside of it is worth selling it as it is and not reforging."

"Then can't people just use a copper coin to make an ulma tool?"

"No, because all legal copper coins are mixed with a few other metals to make alloyed copper that reduces its conductivity. This means that anyone can recognize an illegal tool made out of forged copper coins and report it. It is also a good way to make sure someone did a good job... Forging or not." Halva pulled out a second coin and pushed Siul into an inconspicuous alley. "Have you learned to how apply mana onto other objects?"

Siul sent out a strand of ulma. He could manipulate it and practice it, but he never applied mana to anything but his body.

"No."

"Well, it's simple for this exercise. All you have to do is send your ulma into the coin. Think of it like how you retrieve your ulma when you've been manipulating it externally. This time, you will just be retrieving it somewhere else."

Siul nodded and picked up a coin. He sent out a strand of mana and touched the coin. Remembering the feeling of bringing it inside his body, he tried to send the mana into the coin and in the next moment, it really did go inside the coin. The strange thing was, however, that it felt like his mana was right in place inside the coin. It wasn't on the same scale as his own body, but it was like filling an empty container.

"Now do it with this coin." She handed the other coin to him.

He took the coin and did the same thing. This time, though, it felt like there was a slight sense of rejection and the container that the coin provided was smaller.

"This is the alloyed Coin." From Halva's description, the less conductive coin, the legal one, was the one he was just handed.

"Correct."

From the exercise, there was a stark difference between copper and the alloyed copper. He really would feel cheated if he bought a tool made out of copper coins with how awkward it felt.

Walking along the street, Siul noted the names of the animals he now knew. The cat lizard is a lazl while the wolfbird is a hapcron. The raptor creature is a tilmike and lower, wider and muscly creature is a gangdun.

Small gangs of large bird-like animals flew around with cheery squawking chirps, coexisting almost perfectly with the city.

As they walked through the street, Halva guided Siul in and out of various shops. She also instructed him on what was acceptable or not. Fighting was popular, but it could not be done in places not meant for fighting. Other than that, the parties involved in a fight had to mutually agree to it. After that, though, as long as it was agreed upon, anything was fair ground.

It was also illegal to waste water, meat, and most everything else was common sense for a person like Siul.

"Waste water?"

"Yes, fresh water rivers are far and between. We have wells, but not enough to sustain the city. The caravans that travel to the lake around a hundred galn away can only carry so much too. It is only safe for them because they do not make much of a fuss."

"Why not... Just move near the lake?"

"Oh no, we can't do that. We may have risen in power over the past hundred years, but we have already learned that huntrow won't give up their source of water without a vicious... Fight. Also, it is a common gathering place for large huntrow in general. The normal rivers cannot sustain the huntrows that are as high as the skies themselves. So, all water is to be cherished."

"Wasting meat is also a taboo, not as necessary as water, but more of a matter of respect. The meat hunted by a strong warrior or ulmaster is to be cherished because a strong person risked his life to procure it. Not eating it is... Fine, but throwing it away is too much of an insult and you can be jailed for it. If the ulmaster is esteemed, then you can even lose a finger or two."

"What if I can not eat all of it? Or it starts to spoil and rot before I eat it?"

"Then it is fine to throw it away because you have shown respect by filling your stomach. No one will eat rotting meat, so that should be disposed of properly." She laughed. Siul looked strange. The rule was double sided and seemed more like just a rule of etiquette more than anything.

"Nevertheless, in formal environments, it really is illegal to throw it away before eating your fill, so keep that in mind."

Siul found it weird, but then he thought of something that made it worse.

"What if the food is poisoned?" If it was required to eat, then it was only doom waiting to happen.

"Well, ulma makes our bodies healthy and less affected by more and more poisons. There are not many poisons in the world that can do more than itch a stage 3 ulmaster. If you can prove that poison is in the food, then the person who poisoned it, if found, will be killed on the spot. If it is not spotted and death somehow happens, then that just means you weren't strong enough." Halva shrugged at the weird rules of the kingdom. There was not much she, as an individual could do. Besides, she herself was already a stage two ulmaster, so she didn't care in the first place.

After all, it was not possible to poison ulma or find a natural poison strong enough to even kill a stage 2 ulmaster. On his deathbed, the great first king of Gukulm was only on the verge of stage two and he was only killed because he was attacked by Tarban. What else could have happened when attacked by the man himself? Halva shook her head.

This was also one of the countless reasons that the majority of people do end up eventually learning ulma whether or not they end up going to the ulmagi school or not.

Soon enough, they ended up in a tavern. "As you can see, people come to places like this to... Relax, socialize, or just a place to sleep in. You can also get some good food here. It's also one of the few types of places that the laws relax quite a bit."

Siul saw a few people smack each other in a brawl as Halva was greeted by an acquaintence. Siul tried to parse through all the people talking, but it was fruitless.

They took a seat and Halva ordered a few things off the menu as they took a seat at a table. A few arrogant looking men approached.

"On a date with your new boyfriend, eh?" They were evidently drunk and Halva only showed an annoyed expression.

"He's a student, and I am teaching him how society works. unlike what you mucks may think it does."

"Same thing. Boyfriend? Student? The same thing, right?" They ignored her and continued to press.

"You better lay off." Halva was getting pissed now. Siul backed into a corner as the conflict continued.

"You can try to lay off all those fine young ulmasters! Hahaha." The group of people around him erupted into quiet laughter.

That was the breaking point. 'Uh, oh.' Siul saw Halva stand up and crack her knuckles. The scholarly and gentle image that she had nurtured in Siul's mind was cracking.

"You're going to regret this."

"Nothing more to regret than finding out some juicy secrets, he!"

In one moment, Halva's fists blurred and made contact with the man's face. He was sent across the tavern and slid off the wall with a comedic groan. By the time that the man was sent across the room, Halva had already punched his accomplices in the gut, making them all fall to the floor.

After the whole instant conflict had settled down, the bartender sighed and walked over.

"Destruction of two tables. A finw of... 10 talma." Halva ticked and coughed up 10 cloth bags of coins before sitting down with a huff. She suddenly realized that Siul was with her all along.

"Damn..." She always tried hard not to reveal this side of herself to students, but in one way or another, something always set her off. She didn't know what she was thinking walking into Ristvan's Tavern in the first place. "Those low lifes are only jealous because they can't get near someone like me!"

"Ha...?"

Halva leaned in close to Siul. "You didn't see anything. I am a friendly teacher, got that?"

Siul nodded furiously.

Halva leaned back as their food was served to them on plates. Looking at the plates as large as his torso, Siul really did forget what had happened for a second as his stomach quivered in fear. There was no way he could finish even half of one plate, let alone the two that he had ordered for himself.

He picked up the meat and took a large bite. His stomach rumbled. This would be the first time he could gorge himself on meat in a month. After the first bite was taken, he couldn't stop and it wasn't long until half of the mountain of meat was gone. He looked over to Halva, but he saw her three plates were already gone, licked clean even. She wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"Huh?" He looked at his own half eaten plate partnered with one still full.

"Do you want my other plate?" Siul knew that he could never finish the two on his own, so he pushed the second to Halva.

"Sure." She smiled again, but did not touch it.

Siul looked down to take a few more bites and when he looked up, Halva was wiping a napkin on her mouth, but in front of her, a third of the mountain was gone. Now he knew that his eyes weren't deceiving him. The woman in front of him wasn't human.

He struggled to finish his own plate, but he managed. They walked out of the tavern and Siul himself could barely take a few steps. In the end, Siul ended up back in his cell at the guards' station before immediately falling asleep upon laying down on his bed in a food coma.