Mana Flow

"Elia, what time is it now?"

"Eight o'clock. Breakfast should be coming soon."

It was 8 AM now. Edwyn had begun meditating around 5. That meant, although he felt like he'd only spent a short while in the Sea of Souls, in reality he had been meditating for three hours.

"Looks like meditation distorts my sense of time."

As his stomach growled again, Edwyn pondered this.

"Edwyn… aren't you scared?" Elia's voice came from the lower bunk, calmer now.

"Scared?"

Edwyn lay curled up in bed to stave off his hunger, thinking back on the past month.

He'd lived in fear every day, trapped in a frail body, with barely any food, and beaten by a violent drunk. Every morning he woke up hoping it had all been a bad dream.

Compared to that life, this wasn't even close.

"I've been through worse. There's nothing left to be afraid of."

"…"

The room fell silent.

Elia had been the daughter of a wealthy merchant. To her, survival was always a distant concept, like clouds in the sky: visible, but untouchable.

She couldn't imagine what Edwyn had endured to be able to face this life-and-death trial with such calm.

Especially when he looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over.

"So what do we do? We can't beat the nobles."

Elia thought of the knights she'd seen, those armored monsters who could smash through battalions with just a few squires at their side.

If they encountered someone like that, she had no idea how they'd survive.

"Elia, who do you think is stronger, a wizard apprentice or a knight?"

"Obviously-"

She was about to say wizard apprentice, after all, even apprentices could use magic. No knight could stand up to that.

But then she remembered the book in her bag, How to Become a Wizard Apprentice.

In her fear, she'd forgotten that the academy had given them a means to fight back.

"Edwyn, you're a genius!"

Elia threw off her blanket, leapt out of bed, grabbed her dictionary and the book, and ran to the desk.

She hadn't trained in combat like the nobles, but when it came to studying, she was far ahead of them.

Edwyn, meanwhile, had only one thing on his mind, food.

Not long after, there was a knock on the door.

Edwyn leapt out of bed, breakfast was here!

He opened the door to find a puppet-like automaton pushing a food cart. On the cart were dozens of neatly arranged trays.

"Room 225. Two portions," came a strange mechanical voice from within the puppet, shrill and sharp.

Edwyn took two trays and handed over last night's dishes. The puppet accepted them and wobbled off to the next room.

"So this… is magic."

Edwyn stared after it, eyes filled with excitement.

Inside, Elia was furiously flipping pages with a dictionary in one hand and the book in the other.

"Elia, here's your breakfast."

"You can have it."

She didn't even lift her head. Immersed in the sea of knowledge, food was the last thing on her mind.

Edwyn scratched his head.

Ah, youth. Too excited to even eat.

Although… he wasn't that much older than her physically.

Edwyn sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes closed.

His Spiritforce had now replaced his eyes to observe the world.

It had been seven days since he first connected to the Sea of Souls.

The airship had remained stable the entire time.

Following the textbook instructions, Edwyn began building his mana flow. Unlike linking to the Sea of Souls, this process was slower but significantly easier.

Meanwhile, Elia had spent the week obsessively translating How to Become a Wizard Apprentice. Her dedication impressed even Edwyn.

In the face of life and death, everyone had potential waiting to be unleashed.

Connecting to the Sea of Souls freed a wizard's Spiritforce from their soul, allowing them to sense the ambient mana in the world.

In Edwyn's perception, the mana drifting through the air looked like fireflies, tiny lights, bright but faint.

His spirit extended like tendrils, and wherever they passed, the mana particles clung to them.

As he pulled the tendrils back, the particles were drawn into his body.

If connecting to the Sea of Souls was the foundation, then constructing the mana flow was the walls and roof of being a wizard apprentice.

Casting spells required using Spiritforce to manipulate mana. Doing that on-the-fly with ambient mana was slow, exhausting, and inefficient.

But mana flow allowed wizards to store mana inside their body, stabilized by spiritforce, so they wouldn't need to draw on the environment in combat.

Of course, stored mana had its limits. The capacity of one's mana flow was tied to their Spiritforce. If a spell exceeded that limit, the wizard would need alternatives, or risk reverting to the basics.

As the last mana particle entered his body, the mana stored inside finally reached a tipping point and transformed into a gentle stream.

It flowed from his heart, through his organs, and back again, forming a full circuit.

"Done."

Edwyn opened his eyes, excitement shining on his face.

With his mana flow complete, he could now quick-cast the beginner-level zero-ring spells listed in the book.

Zero-circle spells didn't require a soul inscription to use, they were simple and could be cast directly.

Some mages didn't even consider them "magic," just mana manipulation tricks.

Still, the editors of How to Become a Wizard Apprentice had kindly included four zero-circle spells at the end of the book:

Magic Missile (Attack)

Force Barrier (Defense)

Feather Step (Escape)

Silence Field (Stealth)

Together, they formed a well-rounded beginner toolkit.

And Edwyn was no longer a helpless weakling!

Just as he was basking in his success, Elia suddenly slammed her dictionary shut.

"Tired of translating again?" Edwyn thought.

"Ha! Edwyn, come down here! I finished translating it!"

Elia stretched with a crack of her back.

After seven days of non-stop work, she had finished translating the entire book. In the process, she'd basically mastered the wizard language too.

"Congratulations. Sounds like you're halfway through the exam already."

Edwyn jumped down from his bunk and offered her a congratulatory clasp of the hands.

"Hehe."

Elia beamed and gave Edwyn a hearty slap on the back.

After a week of living together, they'd become quite familiar. Edwyn learned that Elia was the pampered youngest daughter of a wealthy tycoon. She, in turn, knew Edwyn was the son of a poor farmer and a now-dead alcoholic.

They faced the future with entirely different attitudes.

Edwyn's calm optimism fascinated Elia. Whenever she felt like giving up, a few of his words were always enough to pull her back.

Now it was her turn to help.

"Spend the next few days learning wizard language with me. You'll be a real apprentice in no time."

"Huh?" Edwyn blinked, then smiled warmly.

"Don't worry, it's easy. A lot of words are really similar to our own language. If you study hard, you can understand most of How to Become a Wizard Apprentice before we arrive…"

"Elia," Edwyn interrupted, his expression half-smiling, half-serious.

"Did it ever occur to you that if I become a wizard apprentice, I'll be one more enemy in the exam? One more threat. A blade at your back. A chance I could kill you just to survive."

His tone was calm, but the meaning made Elia pause.

One more wizard apprentice meant one more person who could kill her.

Was she really willing to teach him?

"Well…"

Elia's voice shrank at first, but then grew firm, like she'd found a hole in his logic.

"Edwyn, if you were going to do that, you wouldn't have said anything. You'd just kept quiet."

Edwyn scratched his chin.

"Normally, I wouldn't stab someone in the back. But there's always a chance…"

"And for every one chance, there are 9,999 where you don't," Elia shot back, and suddenly punched him hard in the arm.

"You're so weird. I'm trying to help, and you're acting all cold about it. Say one more thing like that and I really won't teach you!"