Chapter 3: Mana

The reconciliation with my mother came at a cost. For two weeks, I was confined to our house, sticking to her like a shadow. But when my father returned home one evening, his calloused hands held a leather book thicker than my forearm. His grin was triumphant.

"For you," he said, placing the book on the table. "Sir Krow gave me this when he knew you like books. Just... read it and it will tell you a lot about magic. Hopefully you will stop annoying me with questions."

The title is in a golden color: Mana: The Breath of Creation.

I was so excited I started reading it non-stop for a whole 2 days.

The book was crude compared to modern medical texts from my past life, but its core idea electrified me: Mana is the energy of life itself, drawn from the world and refined through the body. Fighters channeled it internally to enhance strength; mages expelled it to reshape reality. But the text was vague, repetitive—written by someone who understood what mana could do, but not how.

Like teaching surgery by describing the scalpel but not the hand, I thought.

But then, a passage caught my eye:

"To awaken one's mana core, the aspirant must breathe with intent, pulling the unseen threads of the world into the vacant vessel of the one's body."

I frowned. Breathing exercises? Like pranayama?

I began that night.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I inhaled slowly, imagining the air thickening with invisible energy. But nothing happened.

Too vague. I need a system.

My fingers drifted to my wrist, feeling the pulse beneath my skin. Blood flowed through veins, arteries, capillaries—a network perfected by god. What if mana could flow the same way?

For weeks, I experimented. I visualized mana as a second bloodstream, pooling in my heart before branching outward. At first, it felt like chasing smoke. But then, during a game of tag with Mok, I felt it—a flicker of warmth in my chest as I sprinted, I could see Mok hands moving slowly towards me to tag, or am I fast ? How is this possible?.

Adrenaline? Or...

I stumbled, skinning my knee. Mok laughed and tagged me, but I barely noticed.

It's working, somehow, I can feel the progress.

By age seven, I could feel mana like a second heartbeat.

My "core" wasn't a mystical orb—it was my actual heart, pumping mana through self-made channels that mirrored my circulatory system.

 When I activate it into my legs, I could leap onto the roof of our house. When I flooded my eyes, the world sharpened into impossible clarity.

It's just like my blood is always there in every cell of my being, and I can activate it with just a thought, heck sometimes I can feel mana activating all over my body without even trying.

You can say I have body enhancement 24/7 even when I'm sleeping. I'm not sure but I guess.

But overall according to the book my mana pool is as small as my blood in my body.

You can say I have the motor for the car but without the tank.

But this was not so bad since I can now feel and absorb what mana I'm missing from around me with ease.

But external magic was a headache for me.

One evening, I asked my father , intrigued. "Dad, the book is so vague about mages that use external mana, is it like internal mana but in the air?"

"You're overcomplicating it," my father said while sharpening his sword by the fire. "Mages at the capital just want it, and the mana obeys."

Wanting isn't enough. they need control, a medium..

I thought of defibrillators, of how electricity could restart a heart. Mana isn't magic—it's physics we haven't named yet.

The breakthrough came during a storm.

Hiding in the forest to avoid my mother's watchful eyes, I pressed my palm to a puddle. Rain lashed my face as I pushed mana outward, imagining the water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen.

Come on. Ionize. Conduct.

A spark leapt from my fingers.

The puddle exploded in a crackle of steam and light, scorching my hand. I stared at the blistering skin, laughing maniacally through the pain, FINALLY I DID IT.

I was right. It's just energy. 

But still what pained me that i still need a medium 

When I did this in the puddle I had to contact the water in the puddle.

Then a thought struck me. I said slapping my face "oh i'm such an idiot how can i forget , The air is the best medium"

The final piece clicked at eight

deep in the forest.

I'd spent months trying to manipulate external mana without using my body as a conduit. It always slipped away, like trying to grip water.

The air how to manipulate it.

I closed my eyes, recalling MRI scans from my past life—the way magnetic fields could align particles. Focusing on a pebble, I pushed mana into the air around it, twisting the energy into a rotating field.

The pebble levitated.

It's not about control. It's about creating conditions for the mana to act on its own.

So i was right influencin was the correct term not forcing.

I grinned, dizzy with triumph.

By now i can confidently I categorize my abilities into three "systems":

Enhancement (internal mana): Boosting strength, speed, and senses by saturating cells with energy, just missing the mana pool to make any huge difference.

Projection (external mana): Manipulating environmental mana by forcing my own mana out to influence environmental mana, but again i can barely do that once or twice and just to make a magic trick not as grand as magic spell.

Hybridization: Combining both—like supercharging my nerves to slow perceived time, a trick I used to cheat at playing tag. Or enhancing my healing so much since I know exactly how I can fix any injury or disease from my medical background from my previous life. I can influence the mana in my body to manipulate my blood cells such as white blood cells to fight bacteria or stop bleeding.

But secrecy was suffocating.

"What are you hiding?" Jol asked one day, finding me sketching mana diagrams in the dirt. At ten, she'd grown taller, her kindness now edged with a sharp curiosity.

I erased the drawing with my foot. "Nothing much just a some random drawing i made to kill time"

She frowned but didn't press.

My ability began to show.

My father noticed first.

"Your eyes," he muttered one night, squinting at me across the fire. "They're... glowing."

I forced a laugh. "Reflecting the flames, maybe."

But Mother saw it too—the way my scars fade faster than they should, how I never seemed to tire. Her smiles grew strained, she walked towards me and then with a tight hug.

"Promise me you'll never go to the city," she whispered once, her voice raw. "Not until you're ready."

I didn't ask what "ready" meant.