Chapter 180
Chapter 180
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 180
Chapter Title: The Fourth Path
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‘This isn’t normal.’
Loan felt bewildered by his own state.
He felt confused, unable to clearly define the emotions he was feeling.
For someone who usually viewed everything with a cool head and even tried to analyze human emotions, the backlash was all the greater.
‘Is this puberty?’
He knew it as the transitional phase where a boy becomes a man.
He had learned from books that the body changes rapidly, often accompanied by emotional turmoil.
Experiencing it firsthand, he understood. This was exactly that.
He had been sensing the changes gradually, but he never expected to become aware of them so distinctly.
Sienna had probably triggered it. Because she was a woman. Or perhaps because she was someone he felt close to.
While Loan felt uncomfortable seeing his senior as a woman, he also felt a sense of relief.
‘I’m just a normal guy after all. Special, yes, but still an ordinary human.’
It was a rite of passage everyone went through.
A moment of being acknowledged as a member living in harmony with nature.
To live, to carry on new life, and thereby to exist once more.
It was also a moment he was granted the special qualification to continue an eternal life.
It wasn't a problem with his mind, but simply his mind failing to keep up with the sudden changes in his body.
Therefore.
For Loan, this was the moment he had finally achieved circulation in its truest sense.
Or it could be accepted as the moment he became a part of that circulation.
As he thought this, his confusion quickly turned to relief and contentment.
The impure thoughts were swiftly purified.
The rapidly spinning Circles responding to his will, the surge of mana boiling within him and spreading throughout his body, aided this process.
He had overcome it on his own.
However, Sienna, oblivious to his internal struggle, simply found the silent Loan strange.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. I’m… fine now.”
A rather stiff reply.
Sienna tilted her head, then continued.
“So, I believe the symmetrical path you mentioned must exist. It might not be as difficult as you think. You said the original starting point was the inside of your ankle bone, right?”
“Yes.”
“How about starting from the outside this time?”
“Ah…”
Such a simple solution.
“Stand up.”
“…”
As Loan hesitantly got to his feet and stared into the distance, Sienna traced the path of mana with her finger, starting from the outside of his ankle bone and moving up the side of his body as she explained.
Her finger traveled from his waist, up the left side of his back, reaching his face and heading toward his ear.
Loan fought back the unwanted thoughts threatening to surface by conjuring more intentions.
His mind felt like it was on fire.
Sienna's voice pierced through the chaos, barely managing to convey its meaning.
“If the third path pierces through both eyes, what if the fourth path goes past the ear and nose in the opposite direction? You can think of it as two mountains overlapping side by side.”
“Yes…”
Loan regained his composure and committed the path that would become the source of his fourth Circle to memory, over and over.
It seemed entirely possible.
Unexpectedly.
What started as him trying to teach Sienna about mana breathing had turned into the moment he found a clue to his fourth Circle.
Loan felt grateful in many ways.
“Thanks to you, senior, I think I can move forward.”
“Well… I'm glad to hear that, but don't think of it as the answer. It's just a theory, a guess that such a case might be possible. Actually feeling it and developing it won't be an easy task.”
“I suppose not.”
In truth, the path of mana flow was a concept closer to the abstract.
It couldn't be shown, explained, or proven.
However, since the structure, form, and function of the human body have remained the same throughout the past and present—and as various figures in numerous fields developed and advanced different training methods—it was only natural that common and general ways of operation became widely known.
Of course, knowing such a method existed and being able to apply it to one's own body to use mana were two different things.
It required an epiphany bordering on a miracle and a long period of training.
Someone like Sienna saying, “I heard it can be operated that way,” was no different from chasing clouds, unless one could visually perceive and refine the path.
In other words, Loan possessed a natural talent that no one else could match.
As Loan was lost in thought.
“What I learned from you seems like it will be quite helpful, too. It's still vague, but I have a good feeling about it.”
Sienna expressed her gratitude in a rather friendly tone, lightly tapping Loan's arm.
Her words put him at ease, but her deliberate touch from so close made him feel strange again.
In that unguarded moment, his mind threatened to become unsettled once more.
*Swish—*
Loan swiftly put about two steps of distance between himself and Sienna.
From Sienna's perspective, it was a completely random act.
She looked at Loan with a peculiar expression.
“Senior. How about we take a little more time for ourselves?”
“Hm?”
“I want to focus on examining what you taught me.”
“Then why did you run away?”
“It feels a little uncomfortable when you're so close. I think you felt the same way earlier.”
“I did?”
“I think it's because I'm hitting puberty, but it's a bit strange since you're past that age.”
“What?”
The boy who openly declared he was going through puberty.
Sienna immediately understood what he meant.
Sienna looked dumbfounded for a moment before her face flushed red.
But thankfully, she didn't press the issue or start an argument.
As she spun around and returned to her spot, Loan felt a pang of regret.
Did it look like I was avoiding her too obviously? Was I too blunt, too direct, too rude?
‘No. It was right to be honest about my condition to avoid any misunderstandings.’
But it was also true that the sudden mood swings and erratic thoughts he was experiencing were quite bothersome.
‘At times like this, all I can do is focus on training.’
Fortunately, Loan had the highly effective motivation of ‘the end’ and ‘destruction.’
He deliberately brought it to mind—
Vivid illusions pushed into his cluttered mind, beginning to drive out the stray thoughts all at once.
Loan rode that momentum and instantly fell into a state of deep concentration.
Soon, only he, the world, the mana that composed the world, and the self made of mana remained.
Before examining the new path to forge within, Loan focused once more on mana itself.
He observed, and then observed more closely.
His will to find stability amidst complex emotions and the enhancement of his keen eye led Loan to a new perspective.
‘Huh…’
Suddenly, Loan perceived something different about the mana particles.
‘This doesn't seem like the rotation I knew.’
He knew that mana particles rotated.
It was a fact he had learned while fighting the demon Naberius, discovering the attractive force between mana particles and understanding their interaction.
Based on that, he had imbued the pendant with rotational energy, which allowed him to draw in mana.
But what he felt now was somehow different from what he had seen before.
Until now, he had perceived it as a sphere rotating on a central axis in place, but now it seemed there were two layers, with an outer sphere rotating around an inner one.
‘It's a solid sphere, so I shouldn't be able to see inside.’
Thus, the conclusion he reached was that countless points were revolving uniformly around an inner sphere.
It possessed kinetic and rotational energy on its own.
Loan suddenly wondered what would happen if mana particles with such energy were made to collide.
He hadn't been able to perform such fine-tuned control before, but now that he could observe more closely, it seemed possible.
Loan divided the mana in the atmosphere into two groups, separating them to the left and right, then applied moderate pressure to force them into a single space.
When he forced the mutually repelling particles to make contact.
He saw a force generating within, like crackling sparks.
It was a small bolt of lightning.
It was quite similar to what Fabian, the Archbishop of Scion, had generated from his fingertips.
Loan continued to observe the process by which the phenomenon occurred.
He pondered how to make them collide to create a spark and how that could be expanded into lightning.
It was a rather enjoyable observation, but on the other hand.
‘Ugh…’
It was also an extremely painful one.
It was so difficult that he couldn't continue observing.
This was the consequence of so casually attempting the impossible feat of observing mana particles.
His eyes hurt as if they were about to pop out, and a severe headache followed.
‘It's not… time yet, I think.’
But just observing it was a significant achievement.
Since he understood the principle, he should be able to create the phenomenon without necessarily seeing it.
‘Apply significant pressure within a small cloud and make water-attribute mana particles collide to amplify it…’
The thought occurred to him that he could use mana in a way he had never considered before.
Having achieved this initial success, Loan immediately focused on examining the new mana circulation path Sienna had taught him.
When he examined it symmetrically to the third path, centered on the bones, it wasn't too difficult.
‘For now, just securing the path.’
Even while traveling with Sienna, Loan remained dedicated to his mana circulation.
He even nagged Sienna, telling her she should be able to train while on the move.
A day, two days. It continued like that for several days until they arrived in Ferrara.
“It's chaotic.”
“It is.”
Although the political situation was said to be stabilizing rapidly, the area near the Ferrara border was still in turmoil.
The first people they saw were haggard vagrants and thugs swaggering around with pathetic weapons.
However, it didn't seem serious enough to threaten the system or ruin people's lives.
He felt that the real problem lay somewhere deeper.
Sienna and Loan followed their intuition and headed toward the outskirts.
An area where stabilization was relatively less advanced. It would be a suitable place to learn the true state of Ferrara.
On the way to the eastern region where the council was established.
The two arrived at a rather large village.
At a glance, the village seemed to have no problems.
It was too peaceful. That sense of dissonance felt like proof that it held a much larger problem.
“Something's off.”
“I agree.”
The two slowly rode their horses into the village.
Outwardly, there seemed to be no major issues, but there were people standing by the roadside, leaning crookedly against trees, watching Loan and Sienna.
Just by their attire, it was easy to tell the village had been taken over by Nostra.
But even with two members of the Union present, not a single person asked for help.
They were either satisfied with the current situation, felt there was no problem, or were in a position where they couldn't make any conspicuous moves.
Loan quickly scanned the surrounding mana.
A place where many people were currently gathered.
Something was happening in what appeared to be the village hall or a restaurant.
Whatever was happening there was controlling the situation of the entire village.
Slowly approaching on their horses.
Feeling the gazes of the watching Nostra.
Loan examined the mana of the people gathered inside the building, beyond the wall.
He saw their mana wavering precariously with the ragged, shallow breaths of people whose lives were being threatened.
The kind of situation Loan hated most.
A large number of villagers were being held hostage.