Grasping the unknown.

As he opened his eyes, once again driven by that same strange **** to wake up, he looked around to find the Victorian furnishings of his surrounding still felt foreign. However, they had nonetheless began to feel like home, both the people and the place seeming more familiar to him now. Nonetheless, there was no time to sit idly around, he quickly got out of bed, dressed for the coming day, and left the room.

'Guess there's no oversleeping in here…' He thought groggily as he entered the hallway. Bass and Matthew were both already awake, just the same as yesterday.

"Morning, John!" Bass was the first to notice him. It looked like she was completely healed, no bandage was in sight and she was as energetic as ever. Matthew sent a slight nod in his direction soon after. It was all still so strange and out of the ordinary, but it was also starting to feel normal. A second later, a maid appeared out of one of the connected hallways and instructed John to follow her to Ingrid.

"We have magic tutoring again, so I guess I'm off to see Ingrid. I'll see you all later," John quickly told the others.

"Good luck," Bass sent him off with a cheery tone.

John had once again been escorted to the training room. There stood Ingrid, looking just a regal and serious as ever.

"I told you I would explain. And so I will," she paused for a moment, letting the maid who had brought John leave the room, "the test you performed is meant to detect all Mana types the user naturally generates. It's usually quite a small amount, needing other Mana generation techniques to supplement it, but it's good at detecting what type that person will have an affinity for. As I suspected, it seems you generate an incredible amount of Psychic Mana naturally. Now, that in itself is not unheard of, but still quite rare, what's more incredible is that you seemingly generate a similar amount of mana for all the base types. An affinity for all or most types isn't unheard of, but there has been no recorded cases I'm aware of where a late bloomer has showed that level of potential.

“Think of the natural Mana generation as the upper limit of powers, there are quite a few ways to enhance it, and only forbidden techniques can be used to fully replace it. In other words, the upper limit of your powers, your potential, is not only incredibly high, but also varied to a degree that is quite rare. It'll take time to develop it, but ideally you would spend the next ten years mastering just Psychic magic. Sadly, we don't have that kind of luxury. For now, you will learn Psychic magic with me, we'll see how far you've progressed in two weeks and move on from there. First, I want to start with a demonstration. Please attempt to use any of your magical abilities. Your arcane bolts or wall would be ideal."

Confused, John followed her instructions. A moment later, the bolts popped into existence, and in only a second they had disappeared, as John felt the channeling of mana that came with every one of his abilities be broken apart and ripped from him. The bolts turned to dust just as they did when he dismissed them himself. The whole thing was not exactly painful, but not pleasant either.

"The hell was that?"

"I disrupted the flow and structure of your Mana, that is one of the main strengths of Psychic magic. The ability to disrupt your opponent's magic is difficult and requires quite a bit of concentration, but it is nonexistent in every other type of magic. Psychic magic is all about manipulating Mana, and by extent, the soul that generates it, that is what you are doing when you invade another's mind, to simplify it. Remember that from now on."

'Their souls? Wait… Shit! What the fuck did I do to Frank?' John missed all she said next until she grabbed him by the shoulder.

"That is why it must be taught properly. It is seen by many as the most powerful type of magic, but it is also by far the most dangerous in the wrong hands. I am grateful that the responsibility of having the power to manipulate minds was never thrust upon me, but you stumbled into it, and if you do not learn to control it and yourself, destruction will be your only legacy. Do you now understand how much weight is upon your shoulders?" John nodded quickly to signal his understanding, his mouth dry and his tongue tied, "I truly wish that you didn't have to bear this responsibility, but it is as it is. That responsibility comes with power, see that I never need to remind you which comes first."

"I'm still stuck on this. Souls are real?"

"Yes, they are the source of Mana. It is a power generated from willpower, exertion of the soul's energies, which includes physical exertion, and emotions. You might notice people tend to become stronger and more resilient when their mental states are ****. I believe even mundanes exhibit this. More than that, the natural generation of Mana is usually a good indicator of the strength of one’s personality and ideals. In other words, growing as a person can sometimes affect how much Mana you generate, for good or ill."

'That would explain a lot of things…'

"Regardless, shall we get started with the lesson itself now?" Ingrid asked, her tone impatient.

"This wasn't the lesson?"

"No, that was the introduction, yesterday was a… fluke."

"I guess I'm as ready as I can be," John said, hesitant given the flood of new and somewhat disturbing information.

"Let's start with how to form Mana into structures. Like regenerating Mana, it seems you are already capable of doing this to some degree, but I doubt you have all of the nuances down. What do you know about forming Mana?"

"I'm not even sure what you mean by that…" John thought back to when he had created the few skills that he had not gotten. "I guess it's the act of channeling Mana into a certain shape and purpose." That was the only real option, that's what he had done with Arcane Bolt.

"You are correct. But it's quite a bit more than that. Mana is a varied thing, it's properties change as it is manipulated by a mage. That manipulation happens through the unity of spirit and body. Through concentration, if you will. There are experts in manipulating Mana that can create entirely new spells and fields of magic simply by varying the density and shape of Mana, but for now let us start simply. Shape implies purpose, but there is another factor that decides how Mana affects the world around it. Do you know what that is?"

"Is it the caster's intent?" John guessed, but it made sense to him that that might be the case.

"Indeed. More than form, intent is what creates spells and by extent magic. One can create a shield of Mana, but if he commands it to attack, it will act with that ****, with that intent. I want you to create a simple structure. A cube or other basic geometric shapes, and imbue it with the intent to stay as solid and hard as possible. Can you do that?"

"I'll do the best I can." John was still unsure if he could even understand what Ingrid was saying, nonetheless capable of doing what he asked.

He looked inward, just as he did the time he had made skills. Inside him he still felt that ever present energy, and so once again he imagined it flowing out of his body like blood, pouring into the air and eventually taking the form of a small cube. As Ingrid instructed he attempted to imbue with purpose. He focused his entire mind on it holding up to as much stress as possible. A moment later, when he opened his eyes, he saw a cube in his hand. Strangely, however, no popup appeared like the last time he had done this.

"Good, now let us test it." A moment later, it began floating in the air and then thrown at the wall at a relatively quick speed. It shattered the moment it touched the wall. Ingrid talked once more, "again."

John wasn't going to argue, so once again he looked to the paths of energy, or Mana, as it seemed to be called. This time, he knew what to do. It wasn't difficult beforehand, but forming the cube felt easier, like he was retreading the same paths, rather than making new ones. This time he tried focusing on the intent while forming the cube. John could feel that it worked, it was tougher than before. Yet, it was shattered against the wall just the same.

"Again." Was all Ingrid said in the next hour.

The techs had been informing her of some strange readings from their destination for the past half hour. None of it got through.

"We don't know what is there exactly, but the Mana concentration is off the charts. Far beyond normal parameters."

"So is there a gateway there or not?"

"At this point, we still can’t be sure"

"Then why did I even bother coming to this debriefing." The red headed pilot had enough of it. She wasn't the captain, nor the most experienced officer onboard. But everybody insisted on treating her as such.

"Well, I believe that's all the information we have anyway. You are dismissed, Lieutenant Hunt." The ominous voice coming from the dark end of the room came from her ever mysterious captain. Unlike the rest of his crew, he wasn't from Earth or the first plane, he was one of the representatives of this plane's Earth.
Ruby respected commander Ray, but nonetheless, all this operational nonsense was a waste of her time. She had gotten the promotion years ago now, when she became a pilot, but she never wanted it. Her interest lay in things outside of military organization.

"I'm going back to training," she said, frustrated.

She walked out the door and into the rest of the ship. Making small, quick steps as she headed to the hanger. There were only two weeks left now until they arrived, and she was getting even more restless. Something in her mind kept telling her this wasn't just any mission. An unsettling air had set over the entire ship. But she was the only one that could feel it.

Her confidence returned as she saw the shadow of her suit looming over the gigantic room that was the hanger bay. It was painted in the traditional colors of a mobile suit, white and red. Obviously designed after the original model, but hundreds of years of improvements and upgrades stimulated by magic showed their effects. Given its year of creation on her Earth, Ruby had taken to calling it the "Millennium Gundam".

Yan was once again utterly frustrated. Her attempts at learning new transformations seemed to be rebuffed at every step. She had been studying under the same teacher for as long as she'd been in the Council. An old explorer that started his career as a biomancer. And he continued stubbornly insisting that she should master her owl form first, and the ability to vary it just as she did her human one. Even her own body seemed to agree, refusing to accept any other forms, no matter how much effort she put in to learn them. And so, another magic lesson began without any progress in that field.

“Today we’ll be continuing work on your owl form. Please enter it,” her teacher quickly said. She did as she was instructed, there wasn’t much else she could do, and as annoying as she found him, he was still much better than she was currently. Once she did, he continued, “now, attempt to modify your aura to another form again.”

She focused again. Her Mana had collected around her in the form of an aura to maintain her form, and now she tried modifying it, just as she did in her normal form. Unexpectedly, her right wing turned into a wolf’s paw.

By the end of the lesson, John had gotten tired of Ingrid’s repeated instruction. He did, however, become quite proficient at summoning the cube of Mana, the pathways to it were so set in his mind that his instincts took over when he called upon it again. It was also quite a bit harder, requiring her to move it at greater speeds in order to shatter it the same way. That much, at least, was progress, and Ingrid recognized it soon enough.

“You did well. I’m sorry if this all feels useless to you, but believe me, it is necessary. Many of our more advanced techniques are based on this method. This is how most of us learn most spells and magic, and it is a way you must learn as well. Your abilities, as significant as they are, do not seem to let you skip this step entirely. Regardless, it is quite impressive indeed that a novice can do so much in just an hour. However, you still have much to learn, John. We’ll start on more practical constructs next time. For now, you should return to the others. You have another lesson with Mr. Graham soon.”

He left the room begrudgingly, it was quite an interesting experience, and he had not yet entirely processed all of the information, but there was more to ask and still more he wanted to know. As he walked out, however, a pop-up appeared.

’That’s an interesting skill. But all of it is going to have to wait for later…’ The Gamer thought to himself as he walked along the winding corridors, being escorted by another maid to the same courtyard their last CQC lesson had taken place in. Once he arrived, he found the others, along with Graham, there as well.

"Split into groups. Today we'll be working on basic counters and grabs," Graham was curt, as usual, but he did go on to teach them some useful maneuvers soon enough.

John once again got some sense of what they were doing as they trained. They simply practiced various blocks. Some were intended to lock the opponent’s arms or legs, as to disable their movement, and some were intended to allow for further attacks on the enemy. Bass was John’s sparring partner this time as well, and he still got his ass beat by her far superior technique. He understood enough of it, however, as demonstrated by another skill pop-up.

It was a good skill, it made his melee options far more real than they were before. That also made him think of two things. First, he had still not invested the points he got from his two level ups. He immediately dealt with that, asking Bass for a break for a while to think over his options. He also needed a minute to rest, the training was quite intensive, and his stamina was obviously not infinite. More physical options were necessary, of that he was sure, but his mana pool was also getting quite limited with how much he used it. Given that, he decided to put three points into both Strength and Endurance, and the rest of his points into Intelligence. He looked at his character sheet a moment later.

Afterwards, he turned to the others, looking at their progress. It seemed that Matthew was already proficient at this, as he had trained with Graham earlier, but was now currently standing at the side of the courtyard. Yan and Charlotte were both sparring against each other as well, but it was quite obvious Yan was more suited to this. A few minutes later, once they had both caught their breath and were once again ready, John and Bass returned to sparring.