Chapter 162 Mana Exhaustion

Alex sucked in a long breath as he looked at the boulder before him. He had already wasted more than a couple of minutes giving himself a break after cutting the dummy. He had spent more than half his mana in that single cut, and it had taken a great toll on him.

He had felt so weak at suddenly losing more than half of it, and to make matters worse, his mana hadn't completely refilled to its original level. It was climbing back slowly and painfully, and he had to focus on his breathing to calm himself, concentrating on the sensation moving inside his body while simultaneously trying to feel the mana in the surrounding.

It was hard, painfully hard, so much so that even inside the training room, he had not struggled this much to fill his mana back up completely as he had practiced his skill for almost half an hour there, yet now it was worse than ever despite only swinging his sword for once. His mana had only crept up by a bare 10 points.

Alex leaned forward to pick up the boulder, but the nausea and dizziness returned at once, and he stumbled back down onto the floor on his butt.

Before he could think about what to do next, Professor Daniel appeared before him, his huge shadow falling over Alex and swallowing the world in darkness.

Alex lifted his head toward the professor. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his left eye, blurring the world into a faint haze.

"Boy, I don't know much about you, but from what I can tell just by looking at you, I'd say you burned through a lot of mana with that flashy move of yours, and now you're struggling to get it back." Professor Daniel observed, folding his arms across his chest. His black eyes seemed to look deeper into Alex than usual.

Alex nodded quietly, wiping away the sweat still dribbling down his forehead. "I feel dizzy and nauseous. My mana's filling up slowly, it's only moved by 10 points even though I've been focusing on my breathing and everything else," he said in a single breath, then fell silent, sucking in one long, full inhale.

Professor Daniel shook his head as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "What's your level, boy?" he asked.

Alex hesitated for a moment, then reminded himself that everyone already knew everyone else's level. Some students' levels might have climbed a little since then, but the fact remained that all of them had revealed their levels during the first entrance examination. Telling himself there was no harm in it, Alex answered honestly. "I'm level 25," he said.

Alex noticed the professor's eyes widened briefly in surprise at the mention of his level, though the man masked it quickly, his expression settling back into something unreadable. "Then have you learned any mana related skills, like mana sense or mana manipulation?" Professor Daniel asked, eyeing Alex with suspicion at the end.

Alex quickly realized his mistake. He hadn't learned any mana related skills at all, and the reason his mana was filling up so painfully slowly was that he could barely manage to feel the mana inside his own body, let alone anything beyond it. He held only the barest grasp of mana, just enough to sense it coursing faintly through his body and the ambient mana.

The reason his mana had filled so quickly inside the training room was that the room itself had been saturated with mana of such potency that, despite him having no mana skill at all, it had still refilled far faster than it was now.

"Then what must I do to learn a mana mana sense or mana manipulation skill?" Alex asked quickly, wasting no time on pleasantries and diving straight into the topic.

He had read about skills before, but it was nothing more than a brief skim of the subject as he couldn't acquire a skill until he reached level 10.

Also the another reason why he had never delved deeper into learning about skills was because the topic only reminded him, painfully, of his failure to level up at all. But now that he could level up, and had already reached level 25, it was no longer a sore subject, and he intended to study skills properly and acquire one if it was required.

Without warning, the professor lifted Alex clean off the ground with his huge, bulky hands and looked him square in the eye.

"You're giving me a strain in the neck, boy," he grumbled, looking thoroughly annoyed as he cracked his neck, a loud pop sounding out as though it had genuinely strained his neck from looking down at Alex while he sat on the ground.

"Listen well, because I'll only say this once. I'm no scholar, so my words might not come out coherent or easy to follow, but I'll tell you what I know from my own experience. Whatever you don't understand, ask the other professors or look it up in the books," Professor Daniel said, in a tone that made clear he wanted nothing more than a nod in response, which Alex gave immediately, while still dangling in the air in the professor's grip.

"You'll acquire the mana sense skill once the status window acknowledges your understanding and you have sufficient training in feeling mana. You have to feel mana with the intent of acquiring mana sense. The status window judges you on your hardwork and knowledge about the particular skill you want to acquire, or whatever it considers the bare minimum requirement for the skill. But since you're only level 25, you can only hold 10 skills in your slots. So you must only aim to acquire the skills that align with your class. As for mana manipulation, which is what you should really be aiming for, if you want to recharge and fill up your mana faster. Then you have to control the mana as if it is a part of your body. You need to learn to distort mana as it flows out of your body and into the world. You have to know how to move it inside your body to strengthen one part or another, and so on. There's more to it. However just remember that you have to convince the status window that you truly know how to manipulate mana, and once you manage that, it might finally bless you with the mana manipulation skill, or it might gift you something else entirely, like mana mastery, which is so rare that anyone who acquires it might as well be called a living incarnation of a god. That's a skill you can only reach after you've progressed far enough in mana manipulation skill." The professor spoke without pausing once. He explained as if he was also not sure about it completely, but Alex grasped the gist of it well enough, and the little reading he had already done on skills helped him make sense of the rest.

"But I can sense the mana, and I even willed it to cut the dummy with my skill," Alex protested, pointing at the half-cut dummy, its upper half lying on the ground while the rest of it still stood.

"You already answered your own question," Professor Daniel replied, and Alex's eyes widened once again with realization hitting him almost instantly.

Nonetheless, the professor kept going, and Alex was grateful for it. "You used your skill, not mana manipulation or mana sense. I'll admit you might genuinely feel mana in the air and in your body, since the mana now inside you gives you a different sensation altogether than before. I won't ask how, but from what I've heard and seen of you, you were still level one yesterday, and yet in a single day you've reached level 25. Since mana only unlocks at level 10, along with the ability to acquire skills, that sudden jump likely helped you feel the mana, but the status window may not have acknowledged it at all. The status window acts like a spoiled brat sometimes," the professor said, a trace of genuine dislike creeping into his voice on that last word, as though he had his own history of grievances with it.

"I won't exempt you from today's challenge, but you can spend the time practicing how to properly feel the mana, trying to connect with it more deeply without using that flashy skill of yours. You'll have to start the task once you acquire the skill, though I doubt that'll happen today. So you'll likely be running the track with the boulder tomorrow instead. You're not in the right state for it now, you still look like you might faint if I pushed you, and I've no interest in that, so I won't force you to attempt the challenge unless you want to," Professor Daniel said, setting Alex back down before walking off to keep an eye on the other students running the track.

Alex, meanwhile, quietly sat back down on the ground. He felt less dizzy and nauseous than before, having forgotten about it entirely while the professor explained. He had simply been too absorbed in the man's words that he had simply forgotten to notice how he felt.

But now that he was alone again and turning his focus back to his body, the dizziness crept back in, though not quite as badly as before. It was manageable now and not bad enough to make him fall back on the ground on his back.

He decided to push the thought of dizziness away from his mind. The more he linger on the thought, the more he would feel dizzy.

And then he glanced at the boulder and shook the thought of carrying the boulder and running around the track away. First, he needed to refill his mana, unless he wanted to collapse mid-run or, worse, let the boulder pin him to the ground and turn him into a laughing stock, which was the last thing he wanted. He was only just beginning to climb his way up, and he had no intention of giving anyone a reason to laugh at him.

With his mind made up, Alex sat down with his legs folded and closed his eyes at once, hands stretched out and resting straight on his knees. He focused immediately on his breath, using it to reach for the mana inside him. He would make certain to acquire the mana sense skill at the very least, even if mana manipulation had to wait.

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