A New Light

Chapter 17

It was the second day and Mr. Ruthlock didn't waste any time today. Right when it became 7:30, he set up a barrier around the area. No one would be entering or leaving without him knowing.

" 50 laps! Weights on and under 30 minutes."

I guess this is a warm-up? Nodding to myself for no particular reason, I set off on my laps. I feel like the laps had gotten easier compared to yesterday. Quickly wrapping up my last lap, I jog back to the clearing to see a sort of lecture hall. Not too sure what to do, as there was no one else, I sit myself down in a front and center seat. If there were no shadows to blend in with, then I would show myself in the spotlight.

I had to sit around for a good 21 minutes staring at a wooden stool waiting for something to happen. I suppose Mr. Ruthlock liked to be on time, because right when the allotted time was up he started his class with the people present. He started by drawing a fancy looking star with characters around it. I must have had a confused look on my face, because Mr. Ruthlock turned directly faced me and said, " These characters do not specifically say anything because they are representations of the three bases and spirits of magic." He circled the character on the bottom left. " This character represents mana, which you already know, is what allows for you to use magic. You are given an amount of it when born, and try to conserve it so that you don't run out of it during mid-age."

He then circled the character on the left and drew a diagram along with it, " Above mana is qi energy. Mana is what you start off with, but practicing qi will allow you to widen your mana pool, elongate your life span, and strengthen your physical state." Mister continued dissecting the star, telling us that the other two characters represented the spirits in the past that granted the allowance of such magic.

When the sky had turned orange, he gave everyone a thin book that had the instructions of practice saying that you will only be able to see the contents once. I don't know if they were deaf or ignorant, but some people opened the book, closed it, then looked surprised afterwards when the book combusted.

Looking up at the board, I pout a bit. He didn't explain the top character. When I look toward Mister, he only smiles at me as if saying it's a secret. Turning around and sighing, I headed back to the room I was staying in. However, my plans didn't work out too well, because halfway there my curiosity got the better of me. I sat down on a tall, sturdy looking tree and opened the book. The first few pages really weren't that difficult. It explained the levels of cultivation and how to sense the energy. It was the later pages that were important. It described what to do with the energy and how to circulate it.

Closing my eyes, I try to sense my mana pool first. A vast pool of platinum and a purplish-gold swirled together. I then imagine taking in the strands around me. It took a while of trial and error. At the start I would take in 1,000 strands, but could only keep 950, but now I could consume and keep as much as I tried. Although it was time consuming and tiring, the process was very invigorating. I spent the entire night up in that tree cultivating. Due to being do focused on filling and refilling my pool, I lost count of where I was in my cultivation. Half an hour before class started, I stopped cultivating. Looking at myself, there was actually a coat of a clear shiny substance. Are these my impurities? But aren't they supposed to be black... Shrugging it off, I enter my space to clean myself off and change my clothes.

Rushing to the clearing to make up for time lost in the space, I get there only to find that I still had 30 minutes to spare. After looking around confused, I remembered that time passed faster in the space. In the rush, I had forgotten that.

This morning was the same as the last one in warm-ups, but this time we had to finish the 50 laps in 20 minutes. Not that the time limit effected me. There was the layout of a lecture hall once again, but at the front of the class was a clear ball with a very elaborate stand. Right as class started he began calling names up to him with no explanation as to what he was doing. Not long after, there were 4 lines with around 7 in each. I was in the line furthest away from the ball, and in the back. The woman in front of me looked like she wanted to talk to me, but was interrupted by Mr. Ruthlock's voice, " Alexwell Maythrock, no improvement, fail. You may leave this faculty."