011 - Aura Training
"Magical Fantasia, Miracle Change! Magical Girl Lunatic Warrior, transform!!"
- Fwoosh
Stimulating the mana core triggered the transformation immediately.
The black dress—a design she'd thought she'd never have any connection with in her lifetime—materialized over her body like magic.
Once various accessories equipped themselves automatically, she was handed what were obviously not combat shoes—shiny enamel pumps—and a magic wand, signaling the transformation's completion.
She couldn't control or even begin to understand the bizarre transformation chant that blurted out automatically. This was her third attempt, and she'd tried her best to keep her mouth shut, but it was impossible.
It was forced out of her.
If she hadn't been alone in the test room, she never would have transformed in such an open space.
"Hoo..."
Lee Jiyeon sat down on the bare floor first.
"Eek."
The cold from the concrete seeped through her thin pantyhose, making her jump up in surprise. She then obediently fetched a cushion from the control room and sat on that.
Lee Jiyeon recalled the contents of Hwa Ryong Jeong-jeom's post.
The method for using aura was divided into three main stages.
First: Gather mana in the lower dantian to form an artificial mana core.
The lower dantian—simply put, just below the navel, deep inside.
For a man, around the bladder; for a woman, the uterus...
Anyway, gather mana there.
There was some complicated explanation about it being the center of the body, but fortunately, she didn't need to understand it.
The key was how well she could control and hold the mana in place.
Fortunately, Lee Jiyeon had twenty years of experience wielding mana like an extension of her own limbs, and in her transformed state, the mana obeyed her will perfectly.
Not long after sitting cross-legged on the cushion, she felt something in her lower abdomen.
Mana flowing down through her circuits into the lower dantian began to develop its own attractive force.
Once mana gathered naturally without conscious effort, the foundation of the dantian was complete.
To put it simply, the heart's primal mana core was like a generator, and the dantian's artificial mana core was like a battery.
Surprisingly, she finished this process in less than an hour. She could feel a mana-like pull below her navel.
'She said this alone takes over a week...'
Lee Jiyeon brushed it off. It wasn't strange, considering the merits of her twenty years of experience.
No need to dawdle. On to the next step.
Second: Spread the lower dantian's mana throughout the body via the meridians. This was the conventional method, but according to Hwa Ryong Jeong-jeom, replace the meridians with reinforcement circuits.
The reinforcement circuits resembled blood vessels neatly organized by a master electrician.
They didn't match the meridians exactly but ran in similar paths.
Mana from the lower dantian spread through the reinforcement circuits across her entire body.
Without directly activating the circuits, she simply let it diffuse through them like roads.
The reason conventional practitioners struggled with this mana control was that meridians weren't something you could easily memorize from a diagram or sense intuitively.
In other words, this stage was a breeze for Lee Jiyeon too.
The reinforcement circuits were more than familiar—they were practically part of her.
At least far more so than her overnight-changed body.
For that reason, while not quite as quick as the first stage, she wrapped up the second stage remarkably fast.
'A whole month for this? Yeah, right.' Lee Jiyeon let out a chuckle.
"11 a.m...."
Glancing at the clock, she saw there was still some time before lunch.
Lee Jiyeon decided to go for the final stage right then.
Third: Manipulate the lower dantian's mana core to resonate with the middle dantian's mana core, then wield the resulting mana amplification as aura.
This was the fuzziest part of the explanation. Resonance, amplification—unlike the first two stages, it was full of unfamiliar concepts.
This was territory Lee Chang's experience couldn't navigate.
Lee Jiyeon cleared her stray thoughts and focused inward.
Middle dantian: The heart's primal mana core.
Lower dantian: The lower abdomen's artificial mana core.
Observing the two cores calmly, she began to sense a kind of vibration.
The heart was probably more important than the lower abdomen, so she examined the middle dantian first.
The girl's senses pierced into the mana core within her heart and flesh.
A definite tremor. No, a vibration.
Pulsing periodically with powerful beats.
It seemed regular at a glance, but the pattern was hard to read—irregular waves.
After observing it thoroughly, she shifted focus to the lower dantian.
It was definitely different. The waves from the lower dantian's mana core were highly regular.
Was she supposed to match this to the middle dantian's waves?
How...?
She tried manipulating the lower dantian's mana core to mimic the middle dantian's wavelength as closely as possible.
The result was repeated failure.
No matter how she tweaked it, the artificial core's waves only changed within the bounds of their regularity.
Making it as irregular as the heart's core didn't seem outright impossible, but it felt like it would take an incredibly long time.
Still, the moment she got it roughly similar...
- Splat
"Ooh?"
She felt a faint amplification throughout her body.
Maintaining her control over the mana core, she opened her eyes. Thin crimson haze rose from her entire body.
This was aura.
The unfamiliar energy circulated through her reinforcement circuits, naturally activating them as well.
Lee Jiyeon stood slowly.
In her hand was the black axe she'd brought along with the cushion, and straight ahead loomed the Lv.1 sandbag.
The same setup as yesterday, but with a changed aura, Lee Jiyeon raised the axe.
But at that moment.
- Pfft
"Ah."
The resonance weakened, and the aura vanished with a deflating sound.
Her physical reinforcement faded too, of course.
Lee Jiyeon lowered the now-heavy axe with a hollow expression.
"Well, yeah... You don't get full on the first bite."
If asked what she had the most of right now, she'd say time.
One of the few advantages of her youthful body was surely included in that—longevity.
From a 34-year-old man to an early-teens girl; she'd effectively gained about twenty years.
Forcing herself to find these little perks of her new body one by one was Lee Jiyeon's new coping mechanism.
The clock now read 12 p.m.
Soon, a hologram appeared in one corner of the test room. It was Jo Jeong-ah.
"Jiyeon, there you are in the test room. Aren't you hungry?"
"Of course I am. Heading there now."
"Okay. Remember you have a post-meal checkup scheduled, right?"
"Yes, yes."
Lee Jiyeon released her transformation and left the test room.
Maybe because she'd been at it for so long, but her stomach felt even hungrier.
This time, she vowed to finish every last bite of one menu item.
——
In the end, she failed again.
Lunch was stir-fried beef with bean sprouts. She barely finished the meat, but quite a bit of rice was left.
Her stomach even felt slightly bloated from overeating.
As they left the cafeteria, Jo Jeong-ah said with a worried look,
"Aren't you eating too much?"
"It's my growth spurt."
"...True."
A light joke. Seemed like an unexpected reply.
Jo Jeong-ah chuckled as if amused.
The afternoon schedule was a boring physical exam.
She changed into a loose lab gown and went through several massive machines of unknown purpose.
She even dozed off in one where she had to lie still for a long time.
By the time the exams ended, it was late afternoon—almost dinner time. Strangely, her stomach had already deflated.
As she changed back into her regular clothes to head out, Jo Jeong-ah approached with a tablet.
"Jiyeon, could you take a quick look at this?"
"Pardon?"
Jo Jeong-ah turned the tablet screen toward her.
An X-ray-like image filled the screen, but instead of bones, it showed something else.
Outline of a young girl's body.
Baseball-sized white dot at the heart (middle dantian).
Golf ball-sized white dot in the lower abdomen (lower dantian).
Countless thin lines extending from each white dot to the limbs' extremities.
No further explanation from Jo Jeong-ah was needed—Lee Jiyeon instantly knew what it was.
"This is... mana?"
"Yes. It's your internal mana, but something's off.... What's this?"
Jo Jeong-ah's finger pointed to the white dot in the lower abdomen.
So that's how it shows up.
Lee Jiyeon explained simply what she'd done that morning, holding nothing back.
"Aura? An artificial mana core in the lower dantian?"
"Yes. I nearly succeeded, but the last part was tricky, so not on the first try. It said to match the waveforms for resonance, but how the hell...?"
"Waveforms?"
Jo Jeong-ah seemed intrigued by that part. Lee Jiyeon continued.
"Yes. The heart's mana core waves feel irregular, and I can't control them arbitrarily. The lower abdomen's are regular and controllable, but only within that regularity. When I got them roughly similar, there was a faint resonance, but super weak."
"Hmm..."
Jo Jeong-ah listened with interest, then fell into thought.
She started scrolling through data on the tablet, searching for something.
Lee Jiyeon tilted her head. What's this about?
Finally finding it, Jo Jeong-ah displayed and organized the data, showing it to Lee Jiyeon.
"Was that 'waveform' like this? Top is the heart, bottom is the lower abdomen."
Top (Heart - Middle Dantian): Irregular, complex pulses.
Bottom (Lower Dantian): Highly regular waves.
"Uh..."
The diagrams Jo Jeong-ah showed were single-line waveforms.
The top matched exactly what Lee Jiyeon had sensed—irregular. The bottom, regular.
Lee Jiyeon cross-checked the tablet's waveforms with her internal sensations a few times. Roughly similar.
"Yes, about right? You can measure this too...?"
Well, with those massive machines, it made sense they'd measure anything.
"Jiyeon, could you make multiple artificial mana cores in the lower dantian, by any chance?"
Jo Jeong-ah's questions came one after another.
Multiple? Hwa Ryong Jeong-jeom's post hadn't mentioned that.
"Not sure. I'd have to try."
"Does it take long?"
"No, about an hour."
"Then make two more? Right now."
Eh, now?
Lee Jiyeon glanced at the clock.
6:10 p.m. Already dinner time.
"Mm, but I'm hungry..."
"I'll grab some food. Just do it here in the meantime."
She'd hinted subtly, but the switched-on lead researcher showed no signs of backing down.
Lee Jiyeon sighed.
"Alright, sure. Let's try."
"Anything you want?"
"Chicken. Spicy and crispy."
No helping it now—she'd at least get something tasty.
At Lee Jiyeon's clear order, Jo Jeong-ah smiled brightly and left the room.
Oblivious to Jo Jeong-ah's intentions, Lee Jiyeon complied with her request.
The task: Create two more mana cores in the lower dantian.
The reward: Chicken after a long time.