Lim Sol
"Good morning. I'll be handling Mana Studies for Class A. My name is Han Jae-young."
An old professor in a white suit stood at the lectern, looking for all the world like a man who had never once left his research lab. He was practically a skeleton. Had this guy started out as a necromancer?
"I assume there's no cadet here who doesn't know what mana is? You are the proud incoming class of Victoria Academy. I'll proceed on the understanding that you already have the fundamentals."
A statement that showed not the slightest consideration for the one person in the room who had enrolled with zero background knowledge. A teacher was supposed to look at every student with equal eyes. This one, apparently, was not that kind of teacher.
"We'll skip the concept of mana itself and move on. Shall we talk about mana operation?"
The moment the words left his mouth, mana began to gather along the skeleton professor's left arm.
"Mana operation can be divided into two broad categories. The first is Enhancement."
A low hum filled the air. Once the mana had concentrated past a certain threshold, it took on a visible form, wrapping his left hand in a sheath of power.
"This is what we call the materialization of mana. You take formless mana, reinforce it, compress it, and give it shape."
He drove that fist straight into a slab of steel that had been prepared beside the lectern. The metal crumpled like paper.
Holy shit. That's insane.
It was the kind of strength you'd expect from a professor at Korea's foremost institution for awakened hunters. The kind of strength that could walk onto a live battlefield tomorrow and not look out of place. That was what it meant to teach at Victoria Academy.
"The second is Discharge. You could also call it magic, though the term is a bit more comprehensive than that."
A sphere of pure mana formed above his open palm.
"Right now this is nothing more than mana compressed into a ball in my hand. Add a series of additional processes to this state, and it becomes magic."
A small magic circle etched itself across the surface of the sphere, and the gathered mana twisted into electricity that looked ready to leap free at any second. It crackled, sharp and bright.
"This is spell manifestation through a magic circle. Simple magic usually omits the circle entirely, but large-scale spells and high-tier magic often require one."
He launched into an explanation of magic circles that I let wash over me. It was too difficult, and in any case it had nothing to do with me.
"Well. We'll consider the basics covered. Shall we move straight into the advanced material?"
Another mana sphere formed above his hand — far more densely compressed than the one before.
"Every so often a cadet will say to me, 'Professor, I'm not even a mage. Why do I have to take this class?' I understand the sentiment. But the truth is, wrap mana around a sword and we call it sword aura. Wrap it around a fist and we call it fist aura."
As he spoke, he coiled the compressed sphere around his knuckles, shaping it into a proper fist aura.
"Whether mana becomes magic or simple reinforcement depends entirely on how you process it. The foundation is the same. The mana operation you learn in this class will have a use for every one of you."
The mana vanished from his hand. Then, centered on the professor, ripples of power began to spread across the floor like raindrops striking still water.
"This isn't really magic, per se. In the field they just call it Detection. You press your mana flat against the ground and let it radiate outward. For something so simple, it's extraordinarily useful. A sufficiently refined Detection can pick out a stealthed enemy or someone hiding behind a wall. What looks straightforward is, in practice..."
I tried to follow the professor's increasingly complicated explanation. Not a word of it stuck. I could not for the life of me understand why spreading mana around required mana formulas and computational processing.
"Once you've tried it for yourselves, you'll have a sense of where your own weaknesses lie. I'll offer individual guidance after that. Go ahead and give it a try."
The moment he finished, the teaching assistants waiting at the back of the room began distributing strangely shaped bracelets to every desk.
"So this is Victoria's famous mana assist device, huh?"
"Mana assist device?"
"Yeah. Wear one of these and mana operation gets a whole lot easier. The tradeoff is that your output tanks, so you can't use them in a real fight."
Kim Young-han's explanation, delivered from the seat beside mine, at least told me what I was looking at. Just how much in-game lore was there that I didn't know? Had the game really been this detailed?
"For the first attempt, try Detection without wearing the assist device. After that, put it on and draw your mana up again. You should get a feel for which part of the process is holding you back."
The professor had described it as the sensation of drawing the mana from inside your body and spreading it in every direction.
A low resonance rolled out from me. Mana unfurled through the surrounding space, and the outlines of the nearby cadets pressed themselves into my awareness.
Yeah. This is doable.
I'd managed actual spellcasting already. Being able to use something as basic as Detection was the least I should expect of myself. I glanced around. The other students still looked like they hadn't found their footing.
The hum of mana shifted. My eyes met another student's.
Elise. The top-ranked girl from the French contingent.
Of everyone in the room, only Elise and I had landed Detection on the first try. Nam Da-eun, the top practical student, didn't seem interested in the lecture at all — she was twirling the tip of a lock of hair around one finger, round and round. Which meant my Detection and Elise's had found each other's mana waves.
"..."
"..."
She was watching me through narrowed eyes, as if she had some grievance she hadn't bothered to name. I had nothing to say to that, so I held her gaze for a moment and then looked away. What had I even done wrong? If being handsome was a crime, I was looking at a life sentence.
"A handful of you have made progress, but the majority still haven't found the shape of it. Put on the mana assist devices in front of you and we'll try the exercise again."
"Whoa. My mana actually feels lighter."
"Does it?"
Kim Young-han had already clasped the bracelet on and was working his mana with a look of genuine fascination. I didn't think I needed one, but they'd handed them out, so I figured I might as well try. There had to be some kind of difference.
The moment I brought the bracelet to my arm, it wound itself around my wrist of its own accord, and something seemed to flood into my body, filling me up from the inside.
"Huh. That's a weird feeling."
This time I drew my mana up from my fingertips. It was definitely easi— no. It wasn't. If anything, it felt heavier. Was this thing defective?
I pulled harder. Strangely, wearing the assist device only made it more difficult.
"Okay, this has to be a defec— gah!"
A sudden, crushing pain erupted inside my body, and a groan tore out of me before I could stop it. I toppled off my chair and hit the floor. The pain did not let up. I clutched at my chest and rolled, gasping. A nauseating taste of iron filled my mouth. Blood ran from my nose and soaked the floorboards.
I clapped a hand over my mouth and coughed. My palm came away red.
Fuck. What the hell is this.
"Hey! Are you okay? Professor! We've got an emergency over—"
Kim Young-han was shouting something beside me, but my vision was swimming and I couldn't make out the words.
What the fuck is happening...
The pain had come without any warning, and I could barely hold onto my thoughts, but I knew the cause. The mana inside me was in chaos. My mana circuits had twisted over themselves until raising power through them was nearly impossible. And every time I tried, the pain grew worse.
I didn't know what had triggered it, but I knew instinctively that if I could just force the circuits back into place, the pain would go with them. The process would hurt like hell — I was already starting to fade. If this kept up, I might actually die.
I seized the unmoving mana and wrenched it into motion. Power that had always answered my will now fought to slip free of it, ricocheting through my body like a ball gone mad, battering me from the inside.
I couldn't hold it. Blood and bile came up together, spilling onto the floor in thick clots that had climbed the length of my throat. I dry-heaved until there was nothing left, and after that, I could breathe a little easier.
Clear Mind never failed me. Even when the pain hit like surgery without anesthesia, it locked my consciousness in place and refused to let go. I rode out the agony — I was almost used to it by now — and set about tuning my mana, forcing it back under control.
I caught every surge that tried to bolt free and eased the circuits and channels inside me, one by one, carefully back into their proper paths. Controlling every minute pathway in the body at once demanded a level of focus that left no room for anything else. And somewhere in that process, my understanding of mana deepened, and the work of putting myself back together grew faster.
I dragged in a breath. Held it. Let it out.
In the end, I got every last thread of mana under control. Life started circulating through a body that had been a few seconds from dying. I was still a wreck on the inside, but at least I wasn't getting worse. A little later and it might have cost me more than a few ruined circuits. I'd kept my life. That was enough.
Only then did I have the presence of mind to look around.
Every student and both professors were on their feet, staring at me. Directly in front of me stood Kim Young-han and Professor Lim Sol.
"You... how did you..."
Lim Sol, wrapped in a heavy robe, was staring at me with her eyes gone perfectly round. The shock had blown her pupils wide beneath the hood, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, fishing for words that wouldn't come.
Why was Lim Sol even here? Her whole character was built around holing up in her research lab whenever she didn't have a class.
Not that it mattered. My head was still pounding. I just wanted someone to treat me already.
"H-how... how..."
"How?"
I'd only been trying to meet her halfway while she mumbled to herself. She shrieked instead, then grabbed me by the collar and started shaking me.
"How?! How did you do it?!"
"Kh— wait. Please. Just wait a second..."
"Professor Lim Sol! Let him go! There's blood coming out of his mouth! Hey! I said let go!"
Fortunately the old professor snapped out of it and pulled Lim Sol off my throat. I coughed, and the blood that had pooled in my mouth spilled out. The room started spinning again.
"What? Ah! Blood?! Get him to the emergency room! You're a professor, aren't you? What are you doing?!"
"The medical team is already here, so would you please put the boy down?!"
"Ah. Right. Okay."
Only then did Lim Sol release my collar.
What the hell was that about...
Lim Sol. A mage born with a once-in-a-generation gift for magic. An authority recognized not just in Korea but across the world. She barely intersected with the protagonist's story, but her loose-screw personality and the decadent charm of that catlike face had made her a surprisingly appealing character.
Looking at her now, she was just a lunatic.
She'd always been a little unhinged, sure, and in the game that had been part of the appeal. In person, she was simply insane.
A low hum filled the air. True to a game world, the people who'd arrived as medical staff pressed glowing hands against me, light pouring from their palms. I could hardly believe that something as simple as being touched by light would ease the pain — but that was the reality I was living in. I could feel it receding in real time.
"Wow. That's actually amazing." I coughed again, twice.
"Hoyeon, you okay? You're alive, right?"
"Yeah. Thanks for worrying."
Kim Young-han was watching me with genuine concern. Having a friend around really did make a difference at times like this.
"If a friend I made two days ago dropped dead, I'd have some seriously haunted dreams."
"..."
The medical team, true to the standards of a top-tier academy, finished treatment in no time and packed up their things with brisk efficiency.
"The damage to his mana circuits was severe, but we've treated all of it. It shouldn't interfere with his daily life."
"Thank you."
I was still on my back, catching my breath, so the old professor offered his thanks in my place.
"The cause is probably that mana assist device... it may have been defective. I'd recommend looking into it."
The words were barely out of the medic's mouth before an awkward cough sounded from nearby. I turned my head. Professor Lim Sol was standing there with a face gone scarlet, clearing her throat.
"Well. The thing is..."