Five hours later the pressure disappears as if it were on a timer, and I’m finally able to move. The whole time I was struggling against the inscriptions I couldn’t even twitch my fingers. I could only blink and gasp for each shallow breath.

For one beautiful moment, I imagine myself punching her and think of just throwing all my mana against her.

Lissandra doesn’t even look in my direction, even after 5 hours, still drawing on the Saint’s arm.

That’s also when Myrra returns, with a limp in one leg. Most likely a broken bone. Something that should heal fairly quickly for someone like her. The wound must have been much worse a few minutes ago.

“Shitty day?” I ask her.

Myrra nods, “I’m glad you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet.”

“We’re best friends now. She wouldn’t hurt me for anything.”

For a short moment, her canines peek through her smile, “I can see that.”

Lissandra joins the conversation, “We’re changing location. Little pup, 10 percent of your mana, this direction.”

We head out right away, and once again, it’s up to me to deal with the monsters under Lissandra’s watchful eyes.

I cheat a bit. I let the monsters wound me when it allows me to save mana or to land a blow here or there.

It doesn’t matter if they damage me. I just need to endure their assault for 5 hours. After that, I can heal my body with my passive. So I think it’s quite a good idea.

I’m not allowed to use Flamebearer either. Myrra carries it for me instead.

As I fight my way through the monsters, I think about what possible goal could be served by this. Of course, the first is to level. The other might be to improve my efficiency.

Lissandra already pointed out that I tend to rely on my big mana reserves, and someone like her is clearly going to have issues with that. You could even say we come from different schools. Whereas I tend to solve problems by throwing large amounts of mana at them, she tends to do so with lesser quantities of high quality mana. But I can deal with it for now, even though it annoys me. I don’t mind all that much, she has a reason for each of her lessons, and it’s going well so far.

Of course, I’m pretty sure the difficulty will increase. Just as the Veil becomes more and more visible in the sky, Lissandra will step up her training. Her reason for doing it all is still a bit of a mystery. I don’t believe for a moment that she’s doing all this out of boredom, or the goodness of her heart.

I step to the side, just enough to avoid a nearly invisible attack slicing its way through the trees behind me, and before it can come into contact with the two women, Myrra uses her Aurora glass to divert its path.

Infusing my dagger with thermal energy, I stab the monster and jump back, watching as the yellow energy seeps into the monster’s body, causing the beast to start screeching.

In an effort to save mana, I spin an orb around my body and sling it through the creature's eye.

The wolf-like monster lies twitching on the ground its shark-like maw gaping for a moment before finally dying. A notification rings, and I check my reserves.

I’ve already expended 80 percent of the mana allotted to me, leaving me with two percent of my max, and I still have three hours to go.

For a long moment, I stand there.

“Continue.” She says a single word from behind me.

A wave of anger washes over my body, and I find myself surprised by how difficult it is for me to suppress. I always considered myself logical and, on Earth, I was quite good at controlling my emotions. But what was easy back then now requires a bit more effort.

I have to wonder if my reliance on [Focus] weakened that part of me.

Instead of complaining, I head deeper into the forest.

An hour passes. Two hours remain, and with it, another 10 percent of my allotted mana.

Another hour passes, and the mana is nearly gone. Just a small amount remains, and with it, one more hour. That amount of mana isn’t even enough for me to strengthen my body for ten seconds or to create a dozen mana orbs.

“This is impossible,” I say, coming to a halt.

Lissandra doesn’t answer, and it irks me. I turn around, and seeing her expression only serves to annoy me more. I know it’s all because I can’t use [Focus], I’ve grown too accustomed to relying on the skill after the past year.

Yet I still can’t stop myself, “You deliberately sent me in the direction we would find the most monsters. You allowed me too little mana, you want me to fail.”

“I calculated an amount of mana that should have been enough for a beginner like you,” she says.

I finally manage to control myself and shut my mouth before saying anything else stupid. Somehow, my lack of control angers me even more than that silver-haired woman.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She takes a step towards me and says, “Send me your remaining mana.”

“I know what you want. Your efficiency is better, of course, you can…”

“Mana. Now.”

I do as she says, and that tiny bit of mana gets absorbed by the black dagger making it her own.

Of course, this monster will be able to endure it for one hour longer. Her handling of mana is just that much better. I do not need to be shown that. What I do not expect is what she does show us.

For the following five hours, she obliterates every monster in her way. She does it in a way that doesn’t require her to use her body. She creates an impossibly thin thread of mana which she uses to cut through high-level monsters and anything else in her way.

Without absorbing any other mana. That tiny bit, barely enough for me to create a few mana orbs, lasts her for the next five hours.

And then, when it’s nearly gone, she stops, the remaining amount creating two tiny orbs, floating over her palm. The orbs start spinning in intersecting circles. Gradually, increasing in speed until it seems like two circles hang in the air over her palm, nearly touching but failing to collide.

Just watching it sends a shiver down my back.

Lissandra then lets them clash against each other, controlling the shockwave to concentrate it, using it to bore a hole through a nearby boulder and a dozen trees behind it.

“You have wasted one hour of your leveling, one hour of your rest, and three hours of mana shaping. For the next seven hours, you will try to recreate what I just did.”

She then enters the forest, leaving me and Myrra behind.

“Why do you keep antagonizing her, feral one?” Myrra asks moving closer.

“Both of us are the types who hate being pushed around, so it’s obvious we will clash.”

“Maybe you just like it when people are mean to you.”

“Totally.”

“I’m not joking, feral one. You seem more comfortable when people treat you with disdain. It’s like you don’t know how to deal with kindness.”

Maybe something to think about. I shrug in response and create two small orbs over the palm of my hand, spinning them around each other.

“Did she also make you do this?” I ask.

“For a bit. Then said she would probably have done better a few days after being born and compared me to a level ten animal some lady from her court used to have. So I got different kinds of exercises.”

“Sounds like her.”

Myrra then sits on the ground near me. With her back resting against the tree, she puts her feet on my knee, the one that’s not broken and healing.

In exchange, I reach out and pull on her tail, which gets me a surprised gasp and a soft kick.

Returning my attention to the two orbs, I increase the speed of their spin.

What Lissandra did was move both of the orbs at exactly the same speed, even a millisecond of error would cause them to clash as their trajectories met.

The other thing is I can’t figure out how the hell she makes them spin so quickly. Maybe I could do it with kinetic energy and a little bit of cheating. But moving two mana orbs just with her [Mana Manipulation]?

As I set myself to work, I find it much more difficult than I had expected.

Maintaining their shape, adjusting their trajectory, adding enough speed, and synchronizing their speed. When Lissandra did it, the orbs moved too quickly to observe, so I wonder, did she change their shape to pierce through the air more easily? Did she do something else?

How did she cause the shockwave? Was it the force of the orbs’ collision, directed by a hastily constructed barrier? Or maybe she changed the shape of the orbs before the end to direct the shockwave the way she wanted.

Perhaps she did something else that looked like a shockwave. Was it something to do with the frequency of the mana? Did she need to reach a certain speed to reach that result?

The two orbs spin over the surface of my palm, I keep shifting their trajectory bit by bit, I change their shape as well. I also reduce the mana they contain after a bit of testing. There seems to be a reason for her sparing use of mana, well, other than her low reserves.

I sense Myrra shifting and Lissandra coming back, but all of it happened somewhere in the back of my mind. This place is safe with them around, so I allow myself to dive deeper into practice.

When someone taps on my shoulder, I get annoyed. I just started, so who…

“The time dedicated to mana shaping has passed,” Lissandra says.

I make the two orbs over the palm of my hand disappear, and she doesn’t say anything. Surprisingly, she doesn’t compare me to a toddler or some random animal.

“Give me twenty percent of your mana,” she says.

I do so, and when she takes it from the black dagger and reaches toward me, I lower my defenses. Once again, she covers my skin in inscriptions, though this time it’s just my arm with a few connections to my mana heart. These inscriptions are something I could get rid of if I really wanted to, the same as before.

"We've been discovered, and too many monsters are coming our way. This time, you'll take the lead and concentrate on using the most powerful attack you can in a single burst without collecting mana beforehand."

“Any skill?”

“Yes, just take as much mana as you can handle at once and in a single burst, focused through your skill and channel it through your arm without damaging it.”

Interesting. So it’s like trying for your personal best in the gym? A single repetition of the exercise with as much weight as possible?

“Where are we heading?” I ask.

“North.”

I don’t even bother asking for more.

According to the natives, the north is where they placed the bulk of the Veil Ignition Stations. That, as well as bigger bunkers and the most powerful Skyhold Islands. And the ruined continent where the body of Absolute Tassian lies. The man who made Nevan’s emblems.

Last time I was here, that healer Irvin, the soylent guy, spoke of the Absolute Tassian with a great deal of respect. He told me how the man was capable of fighting off the forces of the Veil and the enemy even after they lured him into a trap. So I have to wonder if Lissandra’s interest lies in one of these places, or if she’s after something else?

Much like the previous floors, I left the 5th floor without bothering to explore much, so being here once again makes it interesting, especially with so many things to find.

After packing our stuff, we head off in a direction indicated by Lissandra, and I start collecting as much mana as I think I can handle. The requirement that I use my arm to direct it is going to hold me back a little but it makes for an interesting exercise.

The question is how much mana will I be able to channel through the arm without damaging it? I’m supposed to be improving my control after all, with an eye towards moving higher amounts of mana through my body at once.

I hate to accept it, but so far it seems like Lissandra’s totally seen through me. All the things she’s requiring from me are tailored to target my weaknesses.

When the first monster jumps in our way and I send a burst of mana through my arm, activating [Resonance]. I even reduce the amount of mana to what I think I can handle just to be sure.

The monster dies as the oscillating mana tears it apart. There’s no thought of efficiency, just me using as much mana as possible. Trees splinter, the ground cracks, and everything in the path of the attack is vaporized. A chunk of the forest is obliterated along with the monster.

Looking at my mangled, bleeding arm, I also realize that I’ve severely underestimated how much more difficult Lissandra made it with these inscriptions.

Inscriptions that I now realize aim to weaken my already low constitution even more.