First Period: Understanding Mana

First Period: Understanding Mana.

Eight in the evening.

The hour when people clock out of work and drift onto their streams one by one in search of something to watch. Workers of every stripe, their day finally behind them, either log into Deoen themselves or live vicariously through the streams of those playing it.

Twych, called the heart of Deoen, was once again crowded today with countless streamers broadcasting without exception — but only a tiny handful of those broadcasts were actually popular.

Among that handful, the hottest rising star of the moment: the newcomer streamer Lily.

Beautiful face and voice, and skill on top of it all — the kind that could crush even rankers. Her popularity had no choice but to climb by the day, and yesterday's matchup in the Mock Siege Battle team selection was more than enough to leave everyone stunned.

Those who had been watching Lily all along fell even deeper under her spell, while those who saw her for the first time through the siege battle began to take a real interest. A huge crowd of viewers sat waiting for nothing but Lily's stream to go live.

Granted, after everything that happened yesterday she could easily have taken the day off — but Lily had shown herself to be diligent enough to stream at least six days a week, no matter what.

And true to that expectation, Lily's stream flickered to life.

Even at a glance, the wide-open chamber was striking for its antiquated pillars. A cavernous space that immediately brought a lecture hall to mind — a long, gently curved slate of a green chalkboard, and rows of unoccupied desks waiting for owners no one had yet claimed.

Beyond a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass, a stretch of lush greenery was visible. This was Deoen, no question about it.

Over roughly ten minutes of waiting, viewers kept pouring into the broadcast. It had already hit seventy thousand before anything had even started.

Then, once the room had more or less filled—

Creeeeak.

"Alright, everyone — take your seats, please."

Lily pushed open the wooden door on the left and stepped into the lecture hall. It was the same snow-white saintess habit as always, except for the small notebook she carried cradled in one arm.

She set the notebook down on the desk, gave the camera a little eye-smile, and beamed.

"You're all here for First Period: Understanding Mana, correct, my dear students?"

Lily gave a satisfied nod as she watched the chat scroll by.

"Then — First Period. Let's begin the class on Understanding Mana."

"Yes, ma'am~"

With a cheerful hiyah~, the screen showing only Lily cut to a different feed.

There sat Yena — not in her assassin's garb but in what looked like a student's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠uniform, a pair of inexplicable glasses perched on her nose. Her desk was a chaos of notebooks and writing implements.

Yena nudged her glasses up and waved at the camera.

"Hiii."

"I have to rank first in my whole grade, so would you all mind keeping it down? Class is about to start and you're being a bit of a distraction."

Hmph! Yena gave a playful huff and whipped her head away with theatrical flair.

The screen cut back to Lily.

"Now then — hello, everyone. I'm Lily Elbrit, your instructor for today's lecture, Understanding Mana."

With a soft clatter, a single piece of chalk on the desk rose and drifted through the air.

Chalk filled with mana, taking flight. It sailed straight toward the chalkboard and wrote out the words Lily Elbrit in clean, sweeping strokes.

Finished writing, the chalk bobbed up and down with an air of quiet self-satisfaction.

"Before we begin, allow me to go over a few points of caution."

The chalks moved. Chalks that drifted on nothing but my own power, without relying on any skill or system of any kind.

And yet, the force that moved them was neither grand nor flashy.

"The mana-manipulation methods I use and demonstrate here may not line up with Deoen's basic laws or common knowledge. And even if you do learn to apply them, you may find the results somewhat underwhelming."

After all, the mana I used was nothing more than a medium for moving chalk. Mana itself wasn't anything particularly special.

"Skills within Deoen are extremely useful. Even if you never bother with this kind of independent mana manipulation, skills are always absolutely viable — there's no separate calculation required, after all."

The techniques of the Heavenly Tribe were, naturally, superior to anything in Deoen's skill list — but the magic, weapon arts, and mana handling I'd picked up here and there were otherwise not so different from Deoen's skills. If anything, the higher-tier skills probably had the edge on Deoen's side.

Still, learn to manipulate mana independently like this, and handling irregular situations became far easier.

For example—

"Miss Yena?"

"Ah... yes?"

Yena, who had been busily scribbling something, jerked her head up.

"Try catching these. Without using any skills."

I tossed two pieces of chalk toward Yena. Flustered as she was, she caught both cleanly in one hand with a calm, easy snatch.

Yena waved her hand up and down in the air, thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Got 'em!"

"Nicely done. Now this time, catch them using a skill. Feel free to go flashy."

"Flashy, you say?"

Hmm... Yena mulled it over. But in the space of that musing, the chalk had already left my hand.

Red energy erupted around her as she snatched the chalk out of the air far faster than before — a technique with an impressively flashy visual effect. She'd caught it so fast, though, that the chalk snapped a little in her grip.

"Oops."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"That's fine. I have more chalk than I know what to do with."

A flick of my hand, and the chalk left Yena's fingers and drifted back into my palm.

"What difference did you notice between the two?"

"...? Using a skill versus not using one?"

"That's part of it. But tell me — did you use mana just now, or didn't you?"

Yena deliberated. I told her to take her time and waited.

At last, she opened her mouth.

"Uh... I didn't?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Well... Lily-ssi — no, Professor — you said skills aren't the same as independent mana use, so I figured I didn't use it? And I didn't feel that 'flow of mana' you're always talking about, either."

Right? Yena looked at me with no small amount of hope.

I smiled and shook my head.

"No. You did use mana, Miss Yena."

"What were you thinking when you used the skill?"

"...That I had to catch it?"

"And so you caught it. Well done. A skill is, in essence, a magic formula. You feed resources into a fixed equation and it brings about a result."

But that alone will never let you move mana on your own.

"When you used the skill, you didn't catch with your hand — you wrapped your energy around it, didn't you?"

"That's right."

"Then this time I'll throw three chalks. Two will come in low, one will go high."

In that case—

"Catch two with your hand. Catch the last one with energy alone."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"The catching is the same. Just copy the exact same thing, only with your energy."

"Er... that sounds kind of hard?"

Yena groaned and complained — but I counted to three and fired off the three pieces of chalk all the same.

Eyes wide, Yena swallowed hard, wreathed herself in that red energy like before, and snatched the first two chalks out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the air.

And then, the last one.

The single chalk she was forbidden from catching with her hand.

"Hnngh—!"

Whiiiish—

SMACK!

"AAACK!"

With a crisp, ringing crack, the chalk caught Yena dead center in the forehead, and her head snapped clean backward.

"...Ah."

"Ahem... Yes. It doesn't work, does it? Failing is the normal outcome here. Yes."

"...Are you laughing?"

"No. I'm not laughing."