Chapter 41: The Sixteenth Particle

After saying all of that, Zeldryn remained standing in front of the window for several seconds. As the excitement began to settle, however, embarrassment slowly crept in.

'...Wait. Why did that feel kind of chuuni, damn it?'

He lowered the hand that had just been holding a middle finger toward the sky and immediately looked away from the window. “Whatever.”

Luckily, no one had seen him. At least, he hoped no one had.

This time, Zeldryn had no intention of wasting any more time. He stepped away from the window and returned to the middle of the room. If he had already confirmed that he possessed the potential to become a Manholer, then there was no reason to stop now. He needed to train.

Zeldryn sat down again and tried to remember the contents of Life Really Is Happy, Right? More specifically, he searched his memories for what the protagonist had done after first gaining enlightenment about mana.

He closed his eyes and thought hard, trying to recall something useful from the thousands of chapters he had read. The longer he searched his memory, however, the more irritated his expression became.

'Nothing.'

Once again, that novel's author had barely explained anything in depth. All Zeldryn could remember were vague narrations about the protagonist training hard, meditating, and developing his abilities before suddenly becoming much stronger a few chapters later. There had never been any real explanation of how the protagonist had trained mana from the beginning.

“Damn it.” Zeldryn rubbed his face in frustration. “Would it kill you to be useful for once, you bastard author?”

There was no point relying on his memories of the novel if the information he needed had never been explained in the first place. In the end, he would have to figure it out himself.

Zeldryn focused his vision again until thousands of mana particles gradually became visible throughout the room. The golden-yellow particles floated in every direction, with some moving slowly while others remained almost completely still. Some even passed straight through one another without any visible reaction.

As he studied them more carefully, Zeldryn noticed something he had never seen before. He leaned slightly closer and narrowed his eyes at one of the particles floating nearby.

'Wait. There's something inside it.'

What he had always perceived as a single tiny point seemed to contain something even smaller. The more closely he focused, the clearer it became that this was not unique to one particle. The others appeared to contain those same smaller components as well.

“Damn...” Zeldryn stared at them in amazement. “Is this some kind of atom?”

He had no idea whether the comparison was actually accurate, but for someone from the modern world, it was the closest image his mind could produce. There was the mana particle itself, and inside it was something even smaller.

Curious, Zeldryn raised his hand and slowly brought one finger toward a particle floating in front of him. Perhaps things were different now. After successfully moving mana earlier, maybe he could finally interact with it directly.

His finger passed straight through the particle without producing any sensation.

Zeldryn pulled his hand back and stared at it for a moment. 'Well, of course it wouldn't be that easy.'

The idea had been far too naive. He had already proven that physical force could not interact with mana, so there was no reason for that rule to suddenly change simply because he had managed to move a few particles.

Instead, Zeldryn tried the method that had worked before: imagination. He chose one mana particle floating not far from his face and fixed his gaze completely on it.

'To the right.'

Zeldryn imagined the particle moving, and it shifted to the right exactly as he intended.

His eyes widened. “...It moved.”

This time, there was no possibility of mistaking it for coincidence. He had watched the particle move exactly according to his imagination.

At the same moment, however, a strange sensation appeared inside his body. Zeldryn instinctively placed a hand over his lower abdomen, specifically the area below his navel.

“...?”

There was no pain, but it felt as though something inside him were moving. A faint trembling sensation pulsed beneath his hand, unfamiliar enough that Zeldryn instinctively closed his eyes to focus on it.

The instant his eyes shut, he became aware of something within the darkness of his mind.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There was a hole, although it had no clearly defined shape or visible boundary. It resembled a section of the darkness that was somehow deeper than everything surrounding it. As Zeldryn focused on that strange space, he noticed an extremely faint golden-yellow color at its center.

The color was weak, but unmistakably there.

Zeldryn held his breath as something from the novel came back to him. He had read about a place located beneath a Manholer's navel, something used to store and absorb mana.

“Mana Hole...?”

The words escaped his mouth naturally as his curiosity deepened. If this really was his Mana Hole, then perhaps this strange image was what it actually looked like. Alternatively, it might simply be how his mind interpreted something that could not normally be seen.

Zeldryn wanted to observe it longer, but another question quickly took over his attention. He opened his eyes, allowing the countless mana particles in the room to fill his vision once again, then searched for another one to test.

This time, he selected a particle and imagined it moving in the opposite direction.

'To the left.'

The particle moved exactly as he wanted. At the same time, a small fluctuation appeared below his navel again, causing Zeldryn to immediately glance down at his stomach.

'Why am I only feeling this now?'

When he had first made two mana particles collide, he had not noticed anything. Even when he controlled six particles at once to create an explosion behind Kera, he could not remember feeling any sensation from his lower abdomen.

Zeldryn frowned as uncertainty crept into that memory.

'Or was there? Was my adrenaline just too high back then?'

At the time, he had been getting punched and kicked while dealing with the pain throughout his body. He had also been constantly watching out for Kera, whom he could not even see. It was entirely possible that such a faint sensation had simply been buried beneath all that pain and tension.

Zeldryn had no way of knowing for certain, but now he could test it in a much calmer situation.

He selected two mana particles, one floating on the right and another on the left. After fixing both of them in his mind, he gave each a different direction.

'This one to the right, and that one to the left.'

Both particles moved simultaneously, and the fluctuation from his Mana Hole returned. This time, the sensation was slightly stronger.

Zeldryn stared at the two moving particles as a smile gradually appeared on his face. There was nothing mocking or irritated about it. What he felt now was pure excitement mixed with curiosity and a little disbelief.

'Is this really magic?'

Throughout Reka's entire life, something like this had only existed on screens and pages. He had read about magic in novels, imagined it through comics, and watched it appear as visual effects in games. It had always been something impossible for humans in his original world, yet now he was actually doing it himself.

This was real.

Zeldryn's excitement only grew. “If I can do two...”

He focused again and selected three particles. All three moved according to his will, so he increased the number to five and succeeded again. After that came seven, and they continued to move without any apparent problem.

Zeldryn pushed the number to ten. The fluctuation from his Mana Hole grew stronger, but rather than stopping, he continued adding more particles. Twelve became thirteen, thirteen became fourteen, and eventually fifteen mana particles were moving simultaneously under his control.

Every single one followed his will.

Zeldryn held his breath as the sensation beneath his navel grew considerably stronger. The Mana Hole was no longer merely fluctuating. He could feel pressure and a growing heaviness, almost as though something inside his body were being forced to work far harder than before.

Somehow, his instincts seemed to understand what his mind had not yet fully learned.

'Fifteen. I think this is my limit.'

Zeldryn kept his gaze fixed on every particle under his control. His body was giving him a clear warning that he had reached enough and should stop.

Unfortunately, Zeldryn was still a beginner, and one of the easiest mistakes for a beginner to make was ignoring a limit simply because he finally felt as though he were beginning to understand something.

His gaze shifted toward another nearby particle, which would become the sixteenth.

'One more. Just one.'

If fifteen worked, then sixteen should only be slightly harder.

Zeldryn concentrated and tried to bring the sixteenth particle under his control. The particle began to move, but the instant it responded to his will, a painfully familiar sensation struck his lower abdomen.

His expression changed immediately.

This was no longer merely pressure. The pain felt as though something blunt had slammed into the inside of his body with tremendous force.

“COUGGH!”

Zeldryn doubled over as his concentration collapsed. His control over all sixteen mana particles disappeared at once, allowing the fifteen particles he had previously controlled to return to their natural movements.

He instinctively brought one hand to his mouth when something warm rose into his throat. After coughing, Zeldryn slowly pulled his hand away and looked down at his palm, only to find it smeared with blood.

“...?”

He stared at the blood as his breathing gradually became heavier. It was not only the pain that disturbed him. The sensation itself was familiar, painfully so.

'This pain...'

Zeldryn grabbed his lower abdomen as the memory became clearer. There was no mistaking it. This was the same pain he had experienced that night, when mana kept entering his body and it felt as though he were being destroyed from the inside, shortly before he lost consciousness.

“...But why?”

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and frowned. “Why isn't it like last night?”

The pain had certainly been sharp enough to make him cough up blood, but after he released his control over the mana particles, it had already begun to fade. Unlike the previous night, the pain was not continuing to worsen, his body did not feel as though it were deteriorating further, and he showed no signs of losing consciousness.

'Is it because I can control mana now?' Zeldryn wondered.

Another possibility quickly came to mind. Perhaps this was simply something that happened to Manholers during the early stages of training. It might have been a reaction caused by exceeding his limit, a warning from his body, or perhaps even the limit of his Mana Hole itself.

Zeldryn did not know the answer.

There were still far too many things he did not understand, especially since he had yet to figure out exactly what had happened to him the previous night. He stared at the blood covering his palm for a while before finally letting out a long sigh.

“Damn it.” Zeldryn slowly clenched his hand. “So I really was pushing myself too far.”

His gaze shifted toward the bedroom door. For the first time since Kera had left, Zeldryn began to think that perhaps the irritating man was far more useful than he wanted to admit.

“Looks like I don't have another choice.” He clicked his tongue before glancing back at the blood on his hand. “I'll have to ask that bastard Kera.”

Zeldryn sighed.

“No matter how much of an asshole he is, he's still the only person who can teach me right now.”