It had been a couple weeks since the day that Johan had learned of the sieve method of mana control. He did manage to figure it out, through a lot of trial and error.

At first Johan would get a multicolored mess in the shape of a sphere. It was quite pretty, but that was where anything good about it ended. That was a failure as it showed Johan that he did not properly sieve out the other mana types, of course given it was the first time he'd done that he didn't think too much of it.

A few days later of trying to figure out that issue, he managed to remove a couple of colors almost entirely. Now instead of all the mana being jumbled but not mixed, it was just most of them being jumbled up.

This discovery led to him experimenting with what he had done to achieve that, he had messed with the strength of the mana flow into the orb. To Johan it reminded him of what he had been taught about the light spectrum, specifically the part of technically the color of something meant that it absorbed every other color and thus only reflected that specific color.

Of course it was far more complex than mere color, but it helped him a lot to be able to relate it to that as it led him to his next idea. He would try to make it so all the mana he was pulling went through something similar to a prism, or a lens that was colored, at least in function. It was something difficult to comprehend in any explainable way, but essentially it comes down to, reflect every color except the one you need.

With this he had managed to make an orb in a different color. Specifically he created one out of water mana, resulting in a bluish orb that seemed to almost ripple every few seconds.

After this Johan began to experiment more with how to control his mana prism idea.

Since he had developed it based on his understanding of the science of light, he figured out somethings he should test. Firstly, if all colors were absorbed the orb should still be white. this was simple enough, he just made the orb and when he did so he decided to not reflect any mana away from it. the results were... odd? It worked fine, but it was a strange feeling because he was used to doing it a different way. It almost felt too... orderly?

Normal mana is somewhat chaotic. That is the reason why it's normally difficult to control it and why young magic users go through a grueling training process. But this method, the one Johan had found, seemed to somewhat negate that effect of mana, almost like when light passes through an optical prism and then one can see all the light but then for some reason the light overlapped onto each other, so it looked the same... Perhaps it would be best to think of it as thread at that point, since it behaved more like threads than light at that point?

Thread is weaved to make a cloth, and it seemed as if Johan had managed to somehow unweave the cloth that made up mana and then organized the threads by color. He was left with neat and orderly lines of different colored thread.

Johan had a few ideas as to why this could have happened. One, the same reason why mana was able to be controlled in his clay method. It was influenced by his mana which was connected to his essence. Unlike his clay method where his mana only influenced the parts it touched, his current method had it so his mana connected with almost every bit of the mana he used externally. He proposed that this would allow him much cleaner control over the mana as opposed to before.

A different idea for why this had happened was simply that it was closer to the truth to how mana operated, he found this unlikely as he was certain that someone else would have had to of done this before him and thought some of the same stuff before.

Another was that it was, somehow, purified through this method. He found that unlikely as well since if that was the case then there wouldn't be a need for a mana heart. All this aside though, he needed to talk to his teacher about it.

When Johan had told his findings to Nath, the older man was quite shocked by this revelation, and had asked for more details on how light worked according to Johan. This led Johan spending the majority of the day debating about the function of light in relation to mana with the old man. The day after Nath told Johan to never tell another soul about this mana control method. It seemed that Nath had seen someone use a similar technique in the past, but he had refused to elaborate on it. Johan was told that he could use it personally though.

Finally getting to the end of the third week, Johan was walking across the street when he collapsed, prompting Jen, the towns local informant, to get Nath quickly.

When Nath arrived, he picked up the teenager and quickly took him to his home. There Nath began to talk Johan through how to form a mana heart, making sure he was lucid before doing so of course.

"Johan listen very carefully. You need to take all of your mana and surround your heart with it. You then need to *slowly* push it into your heart, it's similar to Muscular Strengthening, but due to it being the heart you need to be careful." Johan could barely understand, being blinded by the pain in his chest, but started the process of working on that. He was in so much pain that it felt as though someone was slowly and methodically breaking his sternum with every heart beat.

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The rational part of his brain was fighting the overwhelming urge to just expel all of his mana so his heart could beat comfortably again, but the rational part still managed to win just barely.

"Alright," Nath started, " I can only assume you've started, now this is important. You will notice your heart slowing down, it will stop for some time during this process. your blood is likely carrying some mana that has come into your body again, you have to use mana to push your blood until the procedure is complete. It's going to feel like molten iron, but you must do it or you will die at this point. You *cannot* half-ass this. If any part of your heart fails to get reinforced in this time, it will burst from the pressure that the other parts of you heart put out when you restart your heart."

Johan gulped and did his best to move the mana in his blood while keeping the mana pouring into his heart a consistent slow pace, he could feel his heart stop and the rest of his body screaming out in protest from the mana moving blood, Nath hadn't lied about how painful that would be, in his body. His lungs especially hurt due to the strain of blood being pushed inorganically through them, each breath he took caused them to swell and compress like normal, but felt strained.

"Once you finish the construct that is the mana heart, you need to manually pump your heart a few times to get it to beat once more. This will be the most painful part, and if done with too much force will kill you, do it gently, allow your heart to take over after you feel it beat on its own."

Johan was almost done, every bit of his heart was reinforced except for a small piece next to the aorta. It hurt so much. At that point, saying that it felt as though molten iron was running through his veins felt like an understatement, it felt as though his veins were being ripped open, each one being split lengthwise.

Finally, after an agonizing 3 minutes of his heart being stopped, he finished it. He was entirely certain, but still went over it two or three times, death was on the table here after all. After confirmation, he moved his blood very carefully, letting the mana release it once he gathered some to his heart, then using the now relinquished mana, he surrounded his heart in a comparatively thin layer as compared to before, and then squeezed it very lightly.

It was Horrid, and made Johan feel like he would combust, but he did it again, still being very careful.

He did this once per second, until finally, he felt it start on it's own. After just a moment or two, he could release the rest of his blood. he could feel his heart beat much stronger than it had before. It was an amazing feeling, especially as he knew he was so close to dying.

Nath had been right about feeling weak afterwards, but Johan hadn't been prepared mentally for what he had to go through. He was weak mana wise, sure, that was to be expected after all, he *had* just used several weeks, no months, worth of mana all at once after all. However, he hadn't expected to be so physically and mentally exhausted.

"Congratulations Johan, you are now an official mage of the lowest rank. I know it was a grueling process, but now you will never need to go through that ever again." Nath held the boys shoulders, the teen having slumped over a little bit and drenched in sweat. The exertion along with the fear of death always took it out of a new mage, but now that Johan had managed the biggest step, Nath knew that the training could now begin in earnest.

-

Gerald Farmer was surprisingly doing quite well. Aside from not knowing of the state his children were in, he was doing much better than he was some months ago. After the Madam had taken him and forced him into her faction he had been forced to do some less than savory things. It wasn't anything he hadn't done before, but since his children had been born, he had thought that he had left behind that life.

The Madam was strong, but she wasn't as alone as the rumors stated. she had around two dozen people signed into contracts of servitude, most of them were those with death sentences signed by the Magistrate of course, but that only made them more desirable to the Madam, for some reason she despised the Magistrate despite working along side them.

Not all of these servants were magic using either, only ten were in fact, the rest were purely to deal with paper work so that the Madam could do whatever she wanted while the servants took on the actual work.

Either way, Gerald was alive and relatively speaking, doing quite well. At one point in time he had been an elite guardsman, moonlighting as an assassin, for a prominent Karshlan noble family, so he had quickly become one of the most dependable fighters the Madam had. It was to the point that he was essentially working as her personal secretary, and body guard, reminding her of the things that she personally had to do, as well as ensuring that things got proper cover ups when she did something publicly. That was until that morning.

That morning the Madam had received something. Gerald wasn't sure what it was, only that the Madam had a large smile when she finished reading it. She then turned to Gerald.

"We're going to the Karshlan Empire in two days, get all the supplies ready for us, everyone except the paper pushers are going." Her smile did not fade for the entire day, and Gerald wasn't sure why, but it gave him chills.

Finally a few days later, the Madam teleported the small caravan through to the furthest edge of Ambevelance, almost into Menstra.

Gerald couldn't help but think of his two children as he stared out into the wastes. He had sent them out here for safety, but this wasn't what the landscape looked like years ago when he had come here with his wife. Were they out in this oppresive wasteland somewhere? Were they safe? He forced himself to dismiss these thoughts of a worried father. He could do nothing for them at this time, all he could do, was hope.

Gerald faced forward, out towards the waste. Mentally preparing himself for the long, and likely arduous, journey ahead of himself.