The Academy II

Unlike the Combat Hall, the 'Mana Training and Utilization' Classroom was in a cold, room, indoors. Even so, the space of the room seemed to be even larger than the Combat Hall, stepping inside, Magnus took a deep breath, readying himself.

Inside the large room, was his supposed Professor, who was conversing with the students who had entered the room so far. She seemed amiable and had a bright smile.

Magnus squinted his eyes to take a good look at his teacher and recognized her. His instructor was the invigilator lady from earlier. Her name was...Lilith, Instructor Lilith.

Even though the room was larger than the combat hall, the number of students that were present was far smaller. After all, most students wanted to learn how to fight physically and did not aim to be mages or other magic-related professions.

And even for most of whom actually did, they opted to take courses like Magic Spell Comprehension, which taught them how to cast spells, or even Spell Configuration and Theory. It was due to the fact that most children had an innate sense of Mana, and didn't need mana training, but rather only needed magic and spell training.

After all, Magic was very different from 'Mana'. Mana was a form of energy that could be used in many ways, while Magic was one of those uses, using mana to convert elements into other forms of matter and elements, using the help of things like Casts, Spells, Grimoires, or other supporting creations and objects.

However, even though Magnus had the purest form of Mana being generated from his 'Energy Circuit', using his Mana Mastery skill, that didn't mean he knew how to use that mana in any way, shape, or form. He was in the dark, and after asking Estelle and Remus about it, they had recommended this course as it focused on strengthening your approach to Mana production and inception.

Even though some classes seemed much more important than others, the truth is all classes are of equal importance, the only variable is one's requirements. That's why the course selection is so important.

For example, in the Mana and Training and Utilization course he was in right now, even though the majority of the students had no real need for this class, it was really important for Magnus who had zero understanding of mana. And this class apparently discarded the original source of natural mana generation and teaches a new way of mana absorption and creation that is modified to increase the input as well as output without much effort.

As Magnus walked in with Jin, the teacher, Professor Lilith, noticed their arrival and smiled brightly while waving to them.

"Hello! Even more students! I'm glad, I've never had these many students at once before!", she said looking at the 50-ish students standing in an organized row in front of her. Once Magnus and Jin got into the position, Professor Lilith began with her class.

First, she confirmed the stance of all of the students in regards to their ability with mana. Unsurprisingly, none of the students in the class, not including Jin, of course, knew how to utilize and deploy mana. However, Professor Lilith didn't seem to be discouraged by this, and in fact, seemed to even be motivated.

"Let me properly introduce myself so you guys can better understand me! As you know, I'm Lilith, and this year, all of you will be trained by me on how to control and use mana. But this is my first time teaching, so please inform me if I'm messing up anywhere, thanks!"

After the introductions, she immediately began with the lessons. For the first lesson, Professor Lilith Instructed all the students to sit down, cross-legged. She then told everyone to close their eyes, after which she used her own mana to circulate the mana inside the room, which was already intense, due to the Formations installed in the past, and led the mana to flow around each of the students' mana orifices.

Mana orifices, more frequently called Mana Entrances, were the places on the body where the person absorbed mana from, the mana entrances of a human were on a pattern of certain acupuncture points, which were discovered hundreds of years ago in ancient Chinese medicine.

"Alright students, the process you're going to experience is something that has never been used before. It is somethings specially developed by me and my late master. There is no chance of failure, so don't worry about that, just keep your channels open, and your breathing steady."

Magnus followed her instructions without fail.

"This new method is one specially made for the students of the Academy, and it has been specially approved by the Head Master himself. This is what we call the 'Baptism of the Meridians'. Normally, most humans are born with innate mana streams built within them, along with their mana circuits. However, you children were unlucky enough to not have those Mana Streams flowing within them.

So... This process is going to create a never-ending stream of mana within your body, once I initiate it, your bodies should be able to automatically produce these mana streams for the rest of your life.

The reason these 'artificially initiated' mana streams even work, is due to you children not having any in the first place, so don't worry about any side effects, even if you are the first students to generate one. That being said, this process is going to be extremely painful, to the extent that most of you will probably fall down crying, so those of you who do not wish to commence, please sit down."

Hearing her serious tone, around 14 students sat down, they were uncertain about this operation that had never been done before, and did not want to ruin their bodies and hurt it, and refused to take this risk.

"Alright, you lot may leave the class, there's not much for you to do here, please visit the office and tell them I allowed you to change courses."

After the 14 had left, she continued,

"As for the rest of you, trust me, you will be rewarded for your bravery. While waiting for the mana to settle down next to your orifices, let me inform you of what exactly is going to happen, you deserve that right.

Essentially, the process is simple, the traditional mana streams were located using old, traditional Chinese practices, which is why I spent a couple of years researching the subject in China. After a lot of trial and error, and tireless research, I finally found it. The way to... kickstart mana streams inside of anyone.

To put it simply, I'm using the process of Acupuncture to kick start the stream inside of your circuits inside your body. The start is definitely going to be painful since the mana is going to bore a hole inside your body, so you guys are going to have to endure. Don't worry though, I'll stop if it's too much to handle."

*Deep Breaths*

"Alright, let's begin, today, I'm going to start with the main source of mana in your body. Your lungs. Most of you may know that one's mana input can generally be improved by certain breathing techniques or frequent meditation and yoga.

The main cause of that is your lungs. Your lungs are the main circulators of the mana that will be present in your body. And we can't exactly use mana without circulating it first. Therefore, starting from the lungs will be the most stable option. And we'll work our way up from the lungs in the following classes.

For now, just try and ease up your breathing and torso, and try not to shake too much. Your lungs have 11 separate points that circulate your mana, they are called the Lung Meridians.

The mana will enter through your 'Middle Assembly' meridians, also called the ZhongFu Meridian which is right under your collarbone, and the mana will finally finish with the 'Lesser Metal' meridian, which is called the ShaoShang Meridian that is close to the tip of your thumb. Although this knowledge isn't exactly important to you, it would be better if you remember this stuff.

Due to his skill, Magnus could faintly feel the flow of mana being controlled by Instructor Lilith into his torso. He could feel his lungs faintly moving faster, as if excited.

He then heard the screams of the students around him, some of whom tried to conceal it. But he didn't feel a thing, he wondered why. He could faintly feel the mana, using his skill, and could see it entering his lungs, but he didn't feel the supposed pain of it boring holes through his body.

It was then, he felt it, was it the ZhongFu meridian? He could feel the meridian the instructor talked about start to react. He could feel a weird sensation. The mana of the atmosphere seemed... afraid? But neither he, nor the mana got to do anything as it rushed into his acupoint out of nowhere. Magnus felt a sensation of bliss when his ZhongFu meridian suddenly made an internal popping sound as if it were shedding its mana-less state and absorbed the mana at an alarming rate.

All the mana in the room started to circulate into Magnus's one meridian, but it seemed like it wouldn't stop, it just kept absorbing. Magnus was too caught up in the delightful sensation he currently felt, to realize that something was wrong.

Jin looked over at Magnus, obviously, this entire time, he was just pretending to let the mana slowly bore a path in his body, just like the other students, however, due to his abilities, he was able to sense that something was wrong with Magnus.

He looked over and noticed that something was not going as planned.

'Hah. What did I expect, he's a Child of Destiny, after all. I guess it would be weird if his body acted the same as everyone else.

He noticed that the mana in the room was almost absorbed, even though it just been 2 seconds, and it showed no signs of stopping. Since things could get out of hand, affecting all the other children here, Jin started emitting a slight bit of mana, to restore the room to its original level of mana, before establishing a direct mana pathway to Magnus himself.

He then let out the purest form of mana that he was capable of doing into the exact location of Magnus's ZhongFu point and directed a large source of mana towards it. It was his purest form of mana, which was dozens of times purer than the mana in the room, and the amount of mana he delivered to Magnus, was over hundreds of times larger than the amount of mana in here.

After 2 seconds of this, Magnus's ZhongFu meridian could no longer absorb any more, before Jin directed the mana through it into the next meridian. In truth, doing all of this required a giant deal of skill in terms of mana, not to mention the amount and purity of mana Jin was releasing, and yet, he seemed completely unfazed.

After an hour of this, most of the students were done with the Lung Meridian 'Baptism' that instructor Lilith called it. They felt refreshed, that they could strengthen their lungs, and even their breath could be held for much, much longer.

Magnus and Jin were standing there, among the last 6 people who still needed mana to awaken their lungs. Of course, Magnus and Jin didn't really absorb any of the mana in the room, but rather, Magnus was unconsciously absorbing the mana emitted to him directly by Jin, who still seemed the same, even after an hour of this.

Jin was currently guiding the mana through Magnus's last acupoint remaining for his Lung Meridian Mini-Circuit to be complete, the ShaoShang Acupoint. After a couple of minutes, it was on the verge of completing, that's when Jin increased the amount of mana even more, in fact, he even gave 10 times more, an inconceivably large amount of mana was entering Magnus's circuit.

'Damn. I'm sure of it, his mana circuits were sealed. For some reason, it was a natural seal, by his own body, not with outside interference, how interesting. I mean, considering the seal he has, it's obvious that his body produces some unnatural sort of mana. Perhaps his body wasn't capable of wielding the unnatural form of mana he has, so it created a seal, and that seal only strengthened over time. In either case, perhaps his ability bestowed upon him is related to Mana? I wonder what it is.'

While Jin was lost in his thoughts, he felt his mana finally breakthrough. Magnus unconsciously released a sigh and passed out. Jin caught him, and probed Magnus's lung meridians' mini-circuit of mana, and was shocked by what he saw.

His mana, which he expected to slowly dissolve from Magnus's lungs over time, while he generated his own, was completely and utterly absorbed by Magnus's partly unsealed circuit. He wasn't sure where it was going, but it was just taken. When he probed even further, what greeted him was an endless ocean of mana. This ocean of mana genuinely scared him, he had never seen this much mana in his life, even in himself.

The entire 'ocean' was filled with a property, the property of 「Domination」.

"Haaah." Jin wasn't sure how to react. Then again, anyone in his shoes would do so too, after all, it seemed like Magnus was a lot more 'special' than he realized.