Chapter 319: Mana Practice

The teacher began her lecture as normal, and everyone pulled out their note-taking devices and wrote as much as they could. And, of course, Moby followed suit, although he was half asleep the entire time, only paying attention to the new things while training. And, from what he had seen,  nothing seemed to be particularly important. 

That was when miss Rayna put down all that she had and walked up to the front of the class once more with a subtle smile. 

"Okay class, that will be all for today's lecture. Now, I'll be teaching you all about some mana control."

"Some of you may know this, but to actually get a mana crystal to work a certain type of pure mana needs to be infused into the catalyst. That also goes for recharging it. That's why it is left to the experts to recharge a dead mana crystal once all of its energy is used up. This is usually really expensive considering you must hire experts and some crystals may require reinforcement to the catalyst if it's too old. If it's not done correctly the crystal will be corrupted and no longer usable. By the end of the class, you all will be able to do all of this on your own!"

The teacher's smile grew even wider, clapping her hands together rather loudly. And, as soon as she did, small sparks of red energy that did not give off any light was seen coming from her fingers, and as she opened her hands up, a crimson ball of energy was seen hovering over her palm, making the entire class instinctively lean closer in their seat. 

"This, between my hands is mana, expelled out of my mana flow in its purest form, not as part of my ability. This is what is used to charge these mana crystals."

"There are more than one type of discharge and they all conveniently bear different colours each time. There is Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet." She spoke, switching between all the three colours with a simple flick of the wrist. "Each discharge has it's own unique properties that I will discuss with you later and each catalyst or crystal will require a different discharge. I made this look extremely easy but I promise you this is far more difficult than you would expect. This requires an extreme mastery over mana manipulation and months or years of training."

"Sadly, there is a massive element of talent in this field… More often than not, people are not able to use all the discharges. Some people simply can't use some of them no matter how hard they tried. Finding someone like me, who is able to use all 7 discharges is extremely rare. If you can't use all the discharges, don't be too down since mastering even 1 or 2 will set you up well for the rest of your life!"

She paused for a moment, letting the class take everything she just spoke in before she continued. And, Moby in particular was very surprised, he never knew that such a form of mana manipulation was even possible… It almost reminded him of how he used demon energy, sometimes discharging it in its purest form and at others manipulating it into something far different.

This also raised a certain curiosity in him… What if he tried to infuse a crystal with demon energy instead of mana. How would it turn out? He could not contain his curiosity and ecstasy just thinking about it, he had never felt this way in a very long time.

"But! Before you get into these advanced discharges, let's begin with the absolute basics." She flicked her wrist once more and the ball of mana shifted tones into a white with hints of darkness orbiting all around it.

"This right here is the most basic of basic discharges. It can only be used on low-grade crystals and nothing more. Here is where all of you are gonna start! Everyone can do this, but it will most likely take a few weeks to a month to complete depending on the person. Let me show you a more slow and thorough run-through of how to do this now." She closed her hands into a fist and dispelled her ball of mana before taking a deep breath and looking over at the impatient class. 

"Focus on your mana, flowing from within your core… And, instead of letting it explode outwards out of your body like you would with abilities, you must slowly guide it out of your body. This is the hardest part since if you lose focus or control, your mana will go out of your grasp and you would have to start over. For this, it is best to release the mana out of your fingertips rather than your palm like most of you are used to. 

"This is much harder than it sounds since controlling mana to this extent is stressful on both the body and mind. First, take it slow and steady… But, the more you practice, the faster you will get at it until you reach a point where you could do it without much thought like this." She demonstrated once more, before taking it away. 

"Now, we have around 30 minutes left of class. I'll give you all of this time to try and do this. Experiment and see what you can do! Don't be afraid to ask questions! You can start now!" 

The class went silent, only small grunts of frustration filling the air from time to time. Everyone was fully focused on the task at hand and was clearly struggling.

That was when a small shout of celebration was heard from the front. 

"I did it! I did it!"

However, he was then later disappointed yet reassured by the teacher that he was on the right track but had not yet completed it. 

In his hands was a small ball of white mana and nothing more… It was a far cry from what the teacher had shown. 

Not even a few minutes later, other students began to show the same progress with the white balls while the others were still left staring at their empty hands.

Although Moby had gotten past the very initial stage, it was all much harder than he expected. He imagined it to be as easy as controlling his demon energy but when he tried to control mana, it was extremely wild and unpredictable, it would start leaking on its way to the outside of his body and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it other than practice… At times he almost felt like the mana itself was rejecting him.

Still, despite all of that, he seemed to be about on par with every top student in the class, if anything he seemed slightly ahead of everyone even still. It seemed like his energy controlling training from Mason Griffith was paying off. 

That was when he heard a voice come directly from his side, words that were spoken a few minutes prior as well.

"Okay Miss, I did it, I'm done,"

It came from Regrit, and he seemed to be much calmer than usual compared to how he would imagine. Still, that was not the most surprising aspect… It was the fact that between his hands was a perfect ball of mana… Identical to how the teacher did it. People could not believe it. 

"Huh?! But how!? wow! Oswald! That's amazing! You're the first person in my class to ever do this! +150 points! Congratulations! You truly have a talent for this!"

Yet, despite all of the teacher's praise, he did not brag or seem full of himself. 

"Eh, it's no big deal… This is how my family makes all of it's money. I've seen this process happen more than once but it's never been directly taught to me. This should all be natural, I have an advantage over everyone else… I deserve no praise for something handed to me. I only take praise for the merit of my own hard work…"

'Is this still the same guy?' Moby questioned himself. 

That was when another voice suddenly sprung up from the front of the class. 

"I'm surprised you're not trying to show off as always Regrit! Maybe humility finally hit you!"

Everyone's attention immediately turned towards the front where there sat a smug-looking orange-haired boy with streaks of blonde flowing down vertically. He stood at around a respectable 6 feet and was rather handsome and polished even amongst all of the rich students in class. His open eyes were split between a glowing yellow on the right and orange on the left. He bore an appearance like that of an exotic lion, even his teeth looked abnormally sharp.

And, in his right hand was a completed ball of pure mana, white with a dark energy orbit just like that of the teacher. 

When Moby looked around the class, he did not even notice him since he was fairly quiet and well reserved but now that he thought about it… Regrit was really avoiding looking in that direction...

"But, I won't allow you to outdo me… It's sad we only share one class… Brother…"