EP.135 A trial to endure (2)
Mana flows through the wizard’s body.
A wizard is one who efficiently manages the mana flowing through his body. A wizard must be able to control his mana.
‘Everyone thinks it’s funny.’
It’s something you’re born with.
It’s something we’ve had from the beginning and are familiar with.
That’s why many people are mistaken. He says he knows how to manipulate mana. He says he knows how to perfectly control his mana. He deserves it too.
‘Because it’s the most basic thing.’
It’s really basic.
Since this is a path that has already been taken a long time ago, people often forget the value of the basics. Every time that happened, I would say this.
“The basics are the most important thing.”
It’s a natural thing.
This is an obvious but easy to forget fact.
“The basics are the most difficult.”
“Chuck,” I said and took a step forward.
I heard Lark’s footsteps behind me. Lark’s steps were slowly slowing down. He has been like that ever since he entered the inner barrier.
“What are the basics? It’s literally the foundation. “If the foundation is strong, the tower built on it will not collapse.”
A tower built on a weak foundation.
When a storm comes, the tower falls into the mud and collapses. Therefore, the tower is meaningless.
There were people who built such a tower. There were a lot. I saw such wizards on the battlefield. Those who broke down at the beginning of the demon world would make excuses.
I thought of those excuses one by one.
I continued speaking while thinking about it.
“The air condition is so bad that the surrounding mana fluctuates…”
“If you are shaken by small things, it is because the foundation was built incorrectly from the beginning.”
“The demon energy is so thick, I mean, it’s hard to breathe…”
“If something strange were mixed in and it collapsed, that would be the only tower in the first place.”
“So, I can’t control my mana…”
I stopped walking.
“The basics should be just the basics in any situation. “It means you should never be shaken.”
I looked back.
“Whoosh, whoosh….”
Lark was visible through the snowstorm.
Lark was bending over, placing his hands on his knees and breathing heavily. He said Lark’s eyes were bloodshot.
“Shall we stop here?”
“···It’s still okay.”
Lark’s words were interrupted.
Lark’s breathing became unstable, and the mana flowing through Lark’s body began to disturb.
‘However, it did not collapse.’
Lark was still standing on his own two feet.
This meant that it was not the limit, so it was okay to go a little further.
One step, two steps, ten steps like that.
dump.
At the tenth step, Lark’s legs gave out.
I walked back one step at a time and stopped two steps behind where Lark had fallen.
“catch.”
I stretched out my hand. Lark stood up, holding my hand with his trembling hand. He took a step back.
“This is your limit now.”
I picked up the stake that Lark had left behind.
“We should start by holding on here first.”
A rope tied to each of Lark’s wrists.
I pulled it taut. A stake attached to the end of a rope stretched to both sides was driven into the ground.
Sigh!
Lark was frozen in place with his arms pulled back. A strong rope does not break easily. This may have been outside… but it was inside the barrier where a snow storm raged.
The flow of mana is distorted.
A place where it is difficult to put strength into your body.
Because it was such a place, these old-fashioned tools were useful. I said, putting my foot on the stake.
“Maintaining the basics in limiting and extreme situations. “That’s what I’m going to teach you from now on.”
Lark looked at me with bloodshot eyes.
It seemed like he didn’t really understand what was being said. So, I explained.
“Catch the flow of disordered mana. Capture her and cast a strengthening spell on her body. “Try to cut this rope.”
That was my goal during my stay in the North.
“···yes?”
Lark’s eyes widened. He seemed like it was nonsense. Apparently, ‘it’s all I can do to hold on…’ He must be thinking something like that.
I said with a bitter smile.
“Simply holding on won’t help. Someday I’ll have to run around and play in a place like this, but even then, will I just grit my teeth and hold on? “There are demonic beasts running at you?”
I shook my head.
“So, you have to hold on and move.”
“Well, that’s possible…”
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“Why is it impossible?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It’s in front of you. “Anyone who can.”
“······.”
“Do you think it happened to me in just a day or two? I also practiced like this. If you persist with evil, usually things will work out somehow. And, you are better off.”
The deepest part of the demonic world.
A place where all wizards run away because everything is perceived as poison by wizards. Therefore, this is a place where the presence of a wizard was more desperate than anyone else.
The place I stayed was like that.
‘It’s okay now because there are more wizards who stick to what I taught, but it wasn’t back then.’
When I first set foot in the deepest part of the Demon World.
I fell to the floor, my nose bleeding from the saturated mana. The knowledge of the tower of magic that I had built was of no use in the deepest part of the world of magic.
So, I had to build it from scratch.
The foundation had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
At that time, the people around me were all born with something special. There was nothing they could teach me, and in the end, I had to find the answer on my own.
I vomited several times.
I coughed up blood again and again, passed out again and again, and controlled my rampaging Mana. I built my foundation that way. So as not to break down under any circumstances.
‘Even if I have to stand in front of the Demon King.’
I used such an ignorant method…
“I had to learn on my own, but not you.”
Lark didn’t need to do that.
“Watch carefully and follow along. “That’s enough.”
Because I was there.
Since I had walked the same path first and knew the method, Lark was able to choose a slightly easier path.
“······.”
Lark nodded slowly.
I burst out laughing and applauded.
“Then let’s get started.”
There were a few times when I taught something like this to wizards on the battlefield. Those who received my teaching used to express this process ‘like this.’
“I feel like I was born again.”
Indeed, it was truly the right expression.
I nodded, remembering their words.
‘To be reborn, what should I do first?’
First of all, I needed to look around.
I stretched out my hand. I placed my index finger on Lark’s forehead. Gray mana bloomed above the index finger.
“one.”
A poorly laid foundation.
A tower built on top of it.
“two.”
First of all, I needed to break it down.
“three.”
Even if it meant death as a wizard, it was a necessary process.
Engrave.
Woe!
The mana blooming above his fingers penetrates Lark’s mind. What passes by is just a moment. However, the trace left at the moment of penetration does not easily disappear.
“Sigh!”
Lark’s eyes trembled.
His nose was bleeding, and Lark’s eyes were bloodshot. Lark looked at me with bloodshot eyes.
“Hold on.”
I said.
“Hold on and remember.”
Something that was engraved in Lark’s mind.
It was an arrangement of the mana I had. The answer I found that doesn’t get distracted under any circumstances.
“And follow along.”
I hit the answer sheet on my head.
All that’s left is to follow along. I stood in front of the trembling Lark and smiled.
“There’s a lot of time. “Take your time.”
The sun has just risen in the sky.
It was only about 10 seconds later that Lark experienced his first fainting.
2.
A snow storm hits the sanctuary where the coming of age ceremony is held.
Lark had experienced that snow storm once when he was young. In the sanctuary he had followed his father into, Lark felt helpless.
I couldn’t see an inch ahead.
My senses were twisted. My vision was shaken. It didn’t take long for young Lark to collapse with foam at the mouth.
‘That’s the first one.’
And, not long ago, Lark had a similar experience. It was during the placement test. Lark was taken to the realm of the Well of Mana by Professor Han and experienced conditions similar to the snow storms of Sanctuary.
However, what I felt at that time was not helplessness.
At first, he felt helpless… but when he gritted his teeth and held on for one minute, he felt a sense of accomplishment.
‘That’s the second.’
Time passes and it becomes now.
Lark was facing his third experience. Again, with a professor.
“Sigh, gasp.”
Lark sighed and opened his eyes.
He seemed to have lost consciousness for a moment. Lark gave up counting what number it was.
Pass out, wake up, pass out again.
It was a repetition of that. The more I repeated it, the longer I was awake… but it still didn’t last more than 2 minutes.
‘Compared to the past, this is a tremendous growth.’
At the Fountain of Mana, you had to risk your life just to last one minute. But, what about now? I’m surviving 2 minutes in a similar, or even worse, environment.
‘It’s growth. Although it is growth…’
Lark raises his head.
There is a road obscured by a driving snowstorm. The road continues for a long time. It’s far and far away. Lark was just standing at the beginning of the road.
‘far.’
Lark’s eyes were bloodshot.
Those eyes were focused on a woman who seemed to be able to walk down that road without any problems.
“1 min.”
She counted.
It meant that a minute had passed since Lark opened his eyes. Her voice was clear even through the driving snowstorm. Her breathing was not disturbed at all.
‘state.’
Lark thought in his dazed mind.
‘Where I want to reach. ‘A far away place.’
Another minute passed while I was continuing my thoughts. Suddenly, Lark’s mind was cut off for a moment. When Lark opened her eyes again, she was still standing in front of him.
As if no time had passed.
“···how much.”
Lark opened his mouth.
“How long has it been since I fainted?”
“Approximately 30 minutes?”
is it.
Lark lowered his head.
A nosebleed was falling on the pure white snow field. The flowing blood was hot, but the blood that came out was cold.
My mind was confused.
Lark opened his mouth, continuing his disconnected thoughts.
“···professor.”
“uh.”
“Something pops into my head.”
“I guess so.”
“It’s complicated. “It’s difficult to understand.”
Lark said with a dazed mind.
I lost consciousness while speaking. After coming to his senses again, Lark opened his mouth. Rania was still listening to Lark’s words.
“What is this?”
“That’s the answer. “The answer I found.”
she laughed
“Because it’s a situation like this, you can see it vaguely. “People only realize something when it’s right in front of them.”
Lark saw something floating around in his head.
‘Arrangement, intertwined patterns.’
It was something complicated.
The head instinctively rejects it. No, it wasn’t instinct. Everything that Lark had built so far tried to reject it.
‘That’s wrong.’
Only those thoughts fill my head.
That is a wrong answer. It goes against what Lark has learned. To accept that, we have to break down what Lark thought was common sense.
‘answer.’
But Professor Rania said:
He declared that was the answer.
“······.”
Lark looked at Rania.
She was the only one who kept her form clearly in the snowstorm. Lark saw her clearly in her blurred vision.
“If you accept this.”
Lark struggled to form words.
“If I engrave this on my body, if I make it my own.”
Lark asked.
“What happens?”
What can you do?
Rania smiled at that question.
“You can do a lot of things.”
She said.
The woman standing at the level Lark was aiming for, the woman in the distance, spoke.
“Mana does not disturb under any circumstances. You have complete control over what you own. “Perfect control makes perfect calculation possible.”
She snapped her fingers.
Tick, and fireworks bloomed in the snowstorm.
“Your spell will not be disturbed under any circumstances.”
Lark lost his mind. After waiting for him to open his eyes, Rania continued speaking. The fire was still burning in her fingers.
“The power of the spell will also increase significantly. “Enough to sustain a simple ignition for 30 minutes in a snowstorm.”
She waved her hand and turned off the light.
Then he snapped his fingers again. A stronger fire than before burned above the finger.
“Spell power, accuracy, and sophistication will all increase. “Is that all there is?”
She spread her arms wide.
She was smiling in the snowstorm.
“You can fight anywhere. You can do your best wherever you are. “There will be no more places that are unfavorable to you.”
She walked through a blizzard.
Lark walked around the place where he couldn’t walk, as if he were taking a walk. Her gait was no different from outside the sanctuary.
“Aren’t you curious about what’s in there?”
I was curious.
“Don’t you want to see it with your own eyes?”
I missed you.
Lark nodded indifferently. Looking at Lark’s eyes like that, Rania burst into laughter. She opened her mouth, letting out a short breath.
“how is it.”
she asked.
“Isn’t it attractive?”
It was attractive. Very much.
“Then do it.”
A stern tone rang in Lark’s ears.
Lark closed his eyes. When he opened his closed eyes again, their look was different from before.
Crack.
Lark gritted his teeth. Two minutes passed, but Lark did not faint. Lark’s heart was beating violently.
Boom, boom.
Listening to the sound of my heart beating loudly.
I heard the sound of something breaking.
Hearing the sound of everything I had built falling apart.
“Sigh.”
Lark spat out the blood in his mouth.
What he spat out was blood, but what he threw away was random thoughts. Lark cleared his mind. There is only one thing that comes to mind in my now blank mind.
Arrangement of mana.
I traced what was engraved in my mind. Even groping is hard. However, it is not impossible. Lark groped for it like a blind man finding his way in the dark.
Tick, tidik.
There is a crack in Lark’s mana arrangement.
Between the split and collapsing arrangements, something new emerges. The molt progressed at a very slow pace. Starting from a very small place, slowly but surely.
I faint several times.
Stand up again and again.
Lark constantly caught the flow.
In the end, the area in which Lark was confident was persistence. Even a driving snowstorm can’t cool Lark’s heat.
The warrior of the North is tempered iron.
It will be a hot iron that will never cool down.
The more iron is quenched, the harder it becomes. The warriors of the North are like iron. Lark was a northern warrior. Lark grows through trials.
Fighting.
As the sun was setting, Lark succeeded in cutting the rope on his right arm. It was a result Rania did not expect.
3.
“······.”
I looked at Lark in silence.
After cutting the rope on his right arm, Lark fell down as if he had fainted. It was complete exhaustion.
“I didn’t expect this.”
I clicked my tongue. It was an unexpected speed and an unexpected result.
‘I thought it would take at least three days…’
It took the battlefield wizards about a month.
Since Lark was gifted with talent, we only limited it to three days… but I thought even that would be tight.
‘But, one side was cut off in one day…’
I laughed out loud.
“It’s amazing, really.”
It was a result beyond my expectations.
In a good way.
“Tsk cha.”
I left the sanctuary carrying the fallen Lark on my back. I laid Lark down in a place where the snowstorm had stopped and lit a small bonfire nearby.
“Whoa…”
I let out a short breath and turned my head.
My gaze was directed to the inside of the sanctuary. When I went inside the sanctuary and saw it for myself, I got a vague idea.
‘It’s not a fountain of mana.’
It resembles the Well of Mana, but is not the same.
It seems like saturated mana is floating in the air. Another thing was the state of mana.
‘It was hostile. Very much.’
Mana was sharp. Mana mixed with her driving blizzard rejected intruders. As if he was trying to protect something of her.
“Hmm…”
I smoothed my chin.
It is a place created to protect something. So then, what is the point of trying to protect a mana comparable to the fountain of mana by beating it down?
“I’m a little curious.”
I was curious.
I glanced at Lark, who was lying unconscious, and took a step into the sanctuary.
‘If you’re curious, just take a look.’
The moment I took a step, a snowstorm more intense than before greeted me. It looked as if they were kicking out an unauthorized person…
“oh.”
That only aroused my desire for a challenge.
“Hmph, huh.”
I hummed and walked into the snowstorm. The wind was cool so it wasn’t too bad.
A word from the author (author review)
It was packed in plenty 😀
