Just a Simple Demonstration
"I'll only show you something simple."
"Sorry about that. There's something I want to show you all."
Yena was grumbling out a low, wounded-stray-cat mrrrow. I offered her my apologies once again, then continued.
"The reason Yena's attempt failed is simple. She wasn't using a skill with mana — she was using mana through a skill."
"Uh… huh?"
"Let me show you an example."
I pulled out a small rod tucked between the pages of my notebook — a plain wooden stick with not a single stat attached to it. When I breathed the Spirit's Blessing effect, Wind Attribute Enhancement, into the rod, wind began to swirl around it.
"This is what Yena looked like a moment ago. The wind attribute is confined entirely to the 'weapon' the skill was first used on."
And now, let's take it a step further. I jabbed the rod, thunk, straight into the notebook. Slowly, the wind's energy bled into the pages, until the notebook, too, drank in the wind attribute — and began drifting up toward the ceiling.
"What, you enchanted the book too?"
"No. I never cast a skill on the book. I simply transferred the wind from the rod into it."
The notebook rose, defying gravity. Even without pouring any more power into the rod, both it and the notebook were now saturated with wind on their own.
"If you've learned mana, this is the most basic stage. You pour mana into an object, then transfer the mana that dwells in that object into another."
Flap. Flap.
"It won't be easy at first. So most students can't hold it steady like this — they keep pouring power into the rod over and over. Because if you don't keep feeding it, the mana settled in the book destabilizes and it comes crashing down."
In other words: to transfer mana, you first had to be able to move it of your own accord.
Yena wore an expression caught somewhere between understanding and not. Then she tried linking her own notebook to her pen, attempting a transfer of mana in her own fashion. Naturally, it failed.
"It's not working, teach."
"Of course it isn't. You can't move mana yet."
"…So what's the advanced course, then?"
"The advanced course?"
"Yes."
Her eyes sparkled up at me. Was that really what she wanted to see?
All she'll get out of it is a bruised ego.
The truth was, I'd planned this entire lecture on a very long-term horizon. Even academy students backed by the royal treasury took over three years to work through this curriculum — and the users of Deoen carried a Penalty on top of it all, forced as they were to break their own limitations.
If they glimpsed something too flashy from the start, it could easily feel like an unreachable goal, leaving them hollow with helplessness instead of inspired.
"…Then I'll only show you something simple."
The notebook still clinging to the rod gave a flutter. Moving faster now, it peeled away from the rod entirely and began soaring through the air all on its own — like a bird, its pages beating at the air as it flew.
"Wow. Insane."
No connection to the rod, no skill used — a book moving purely on my will, exactly as I intended. While the chat drowned in disbelief, the book spun back around and settled gently onto my forearm.
"This much is the advanced… no, let's call it the intermediate stage. If you can do this, you'll be able to catch the chalk like I did earlier."
"…Don't tell me you made me try to do that?"
"Hmm… it was a bit easier than this, honestly. But yeah, roughly the same idea."
Still, I'd figured someone at Yena's level could manage a miraculous approximation of it. Even if she couldn't hold it, at least bending the trajectory a little. Watching her smack herself flat on the forehead made me feel slightly guilty.
"There's no need to overthink it. Once you've mastered mana, the basic stage is entirely within your reach."
It looked hard, but it absolutely wasn't. You simply moved the mana dwelling inside your body and put it into an object. That was all.
That is, if you could master mana.
"Which is why! For those of you struggling with the flow of mana, I've prepared a little gift."
I returned to the table and pulled out a blue box I'd stashed underneath it. Inside sat pale-blue marbles, each about the size of a ping-pong ball. I picked one up and held it up to the camera — a blue orb with an arresting pattern of mana inside it, which took in my own mana and began glowing brightly.
"This is called a Mana Condensation Stone — a magic tool I made myself."
"This magic tool will help you learn to wield mana. It works by linking with the mana embedded in the condensation stone to stimulate the mana inside your own body."
Seven out of ten people who used this would pick up mana with ease. In fact, more than half of the academy students who trained with this tool had mastered mana within a month. The rest were those with no innate talent for mana, or whose constitution simply rejected the tool.
But the users of Deoen had already acquired mana through the System. As long as something stimulated it, they should be more than able to put it to use.
Of course, whether they can move the mana the System has locked away entirely on their own… that remains to be seen.
Well, I'd say three in ten or so wouldn't manage it.
"Expensive? Very. Call it about seventy-five dollars apiece, give or take?"
To embed the magical triggers I wanted, I'd needed mana stones of fairly high quality, so it was only natural the condensation stones carried a steep price. Costly, yes — but compared to everything I'd received over time, it was a bargain.
"So many of you have watched my streams and sent donations, yet I've had precious little to give back in return. So I'd like to repay you like this, at least."
Even this would fall short, but rather than releasing too many at once, I planned to hand them out bit by bit as part of the content itself.
"Reselling them will do you no good. After thirty days they simply turn back into plain rock, and there's no meaning to using them any other way before then."
I twisted the mana array inside one of the condensation stones in my hand. With a sharp crack, the remnant of mana streamed over to me, the stone washed over in grey, and it dropped pitifully to the floor.
"These condensation stones carry two triggers. The first stimulates your mana; the second converts it and sends it back to me. And that — is your homework."
"Convert your condensation stone into an ordinary stone within thirty days, and a pulse of mana confirming your success will reach me. After that, of course, the transmission cuts out — it'll simply change and nothing more."
Tap.
"Anyone who manages to turn their stone into rock before the next lesson, one week from now, will be invited here, to this classroom."
Not thirty days — one week, to rewrite the array of mana itself. That would mean they were already operating mana at a level well above average. Someone at that level could follow at least part of the advanced course I intended to teach.