It didn't take too long for Teresa to finish whatever she was doing, kicking out the Opfer who didn't manage to sense Mana and release those who did to continue studying the theories of magic. Basically, the only thing she did was check to see if there were any Opfer who suddenly looked like they were struggling to breath and then sent them back with Fen and the others.
There were a few of them who noticed this of course and tried to take advantage of that by faking their expressions, but Teresa caught them and immediately threw them out without even giving them the chance to awaken themselves.
She didn't give anybody a second chance, and after three of their peers were thrown out the rest of them understood the message.
Clapping her hands, Teresa got all their attention back to her after finishing.
"Alright, now that the demonstration's over just separate back into groups based on your chosen paths, and I'll go and give guidance and instruction at some point, or when I see that you're struggling." She pulled out her interface and made a list of goals pop up on a wall of the Training Hall, with two columns.
One of the columns read as:
[Basics to Mana Manipulation {Knights} ]
[Goal: Achieve a constant flow of magical energy around your body for two minutes, without stopping.]
[Benefits: The faster one can move their Mana around their bodies, the better a Knight they can be as they can instantly use magic to strike from any and every part of their body, essentially weaponizing their entire body.]
Fen guessed the next column would be for Opfer following the Mage path, and he was right. It read:
[Basics to Mana Manipulation {Mages} ]
[Goal: Manifest your Mana outside your body in any shape for two minutes, without letting the magical energy be disrupted.]
[Benefits: A Mage's range is limited by their ability to manipulate Mana outside their body, and by strengthening that skill it's possible for a Mage to achieve a range greater than their current Stage. Another benefit is that by limiting the effort it takes to exert control over magical energy outside your body, it becomes possible to exert more effort to empower your magic at the cost of Mana.]
There was no goal for Warriors because none of the Opfer that chose the path of the Warrior succeeded in awakening their senses to Mana.
Neither of the goals seemed too difficult to him, but then again, after spending every waking hour training for the past month Fen had blow past the basics, never taking more time than necessary to sleep and maintain his state of mind.
The only danger to his peaceful mindset was the Death Mark, which exerted a constant pressure over his willpower. Over time though the pressure became less and less as Fen got used to the pain and his will became stronger.
Taking a corner to himself, Fen sat down and closed his eyes, turning his senses inwards to better feel the Mana in his body. He was mostly familiar with Vitality, but he wasn't ignorant about Mana. On the contrary, he used it quite a lot to protect himself during the Scenarios and during the Task. After finding the magical energy inside him, Fen used his will to spread the energy around his body.
At first his flow was awkward and wobbly; he wasn't used to circulating Mana around his body. During combat or spars, he always maintained a flow of Vital energy inside him to strengthen his movements and never touched his supply of Mana unless absolutely necessary.
It just didn't seem worth it. What spellwork had an effect that his own Vital energy couldn't reproduce? The Vanguard Spell was unique and the Death's Influence magic was useful, but if he could, Fen would rather use his body. Flaming Spear was useful for giving him an expendable ranged attack, but it didn't do enough damage to be practical. Overall, magic was just another tool within his skillset, something to be used for specific situations.
But, he understood that gaining more experience with Mana would provide him with endless benefits. There were countless spellworks within the Foundation's records, and not all of them were weaker than his own body.
With this Lesson, Fen wanted to expand the versatility of his magic until it wasn't just a tool to use, but a part of him just like Vitality was.
After a minute of circulating his Mana around his body, Fen started changing to the flow to incorporate his extremities, going down to his toes and all the way to the tips of hair on his head. The magical energy was strained for a few moments, but he managed to endure long enough for the overlaps to fix themselves. A soothing and electric feeling started from all parts of his body, reinvigorating his cells and tired muscles.
The feeling of magical energy was... different, than his Vital energy. Fen was starting to understand why Raisen described Mana as a more simple energy compared to Vitality. To put it simply, he used the analogy of a car. Mana was like a comfortable mini-van; it got the job done and you could use it for almost anything, but it couldn't be compared to a first-rate sportscar.
Two minutes passed almost two quickly, and Fen was reluctant to stop. But, the interface already updated his status and showed his name next to the Knight's goal, showing Teresa that he had already finished. Slightly regretful, Fen checked but couldn't see any other goals for Knights so he simply moved onto the Mages goal.
What, was he supposed to sit around and do nothing until somebody instructed him? Laziness wasn't even a part of Fen's vocabulary at this point.
With the Mages' goal he was able to use the Mana technique he learned from a magically enabled beast from the Scenario's, Mana Compression. With it, he could increase the density of energy within a ball of magical energy to make it semi-solid and even usable as a blunt weapon, although the amount of effort it took to manipulate the compressed magical energy made actually using the energy as a weapon extremely unwieldy.
During the Task Fen had managed to spread his Mana around a rooftop and keep his control over it for much longer than a few minutes; doing the same thing in small area should be much easier.
At least, that was what he thought.
In practice, Fen had never tried to make his Mana hold a shape. To make the complex shapes of the Flaming Spear, he relied on the spellwork to manipulate his magical energy for him, he never actually shaped his Mana in the likeness of a spear. To say it was difficult was an understatement; Fen could barely manage to make a shape in the first place.
The Mage goal required that he create a shape and make it hold it's place for longer than two minutes. One of the hidden requirements was told to him by Teresa, who noticed a large issue with what he was doing.
"Why the hell are you connecting your Mana with the shape?" Teresa slapped the back of his head after observing his actions. She didn't ask why he was doing the Mage's goal because she didn't care, all she was interested in was to correct the mistakes he was making.
Shocked out of his focus, the sphere of Mana that Fen was holding place fell apart and disintegrated into nothing. Sighing with disappointment, Fen responded with a very confused, "Huh?"
Rather than telling him, the old Mage demonstrated his mistake by revealing her Mana to him. Just like him, she made a simple sphere of magical energy before giving him a look. When Fen didn't show any reaction despite her repeated gestures back and forth from the sphere, she grunted and started explaining.
"Do you see anything in my construct that looks different from yours? Anything at all?" She said, exasperated. With a small frown, Fen looked again at her construct, going in detail to make sure he didn't miss out on any details.
"I still don't-"
"Make your Mana sphere," she cut him off.
With his confusion growing by the second, Fen obediently listened and projected his will over his Mana to create a sphere, guiding the energy outside his body before willing it to take the shape of a sphere. Done with his task, he looked over at the Mage beside him after not noticing any differences-
"Oh!"
She clapped after hearing Fen realize what he was doing, withdrawing her Mana back into her body and then leaving to find the next struggling student without bothering to explain further.
Turning back to his construct, Fen severed the Mana serving as the connection between him and his sphere of magical energy. He was unconsciously treating magical energy the same as Vitality, using it like it was an extra limb or hand like he could improve his skill over Mana by using it more and more.
While it was true that Mages used magic like they did their legs of their fingers, rather than treating Mana as an extra limb they should treat it like one of their senses; their Mana was almost never connected to them. When Fen created a Flaming Spear, he never used a tendril of magical energy to connect himself with the spellwork. Why?
Because it was a waste of energy. He simply needed to send out a cloud of his Mana from his body and manipulate it when it got to wherever he needed it to go. So why was this sphere of Mana any different? It wasn't, and Fen finally learned to stop treating it like it was.
The roughly shaped sphere instantly became deformed and resembled more of a rectangle rather than a perfectly smooth ball, but it didn't crumple inside itself like Fen worried. Focusing his senses on his magical energy, he struggled to manipulate the Mana without using more of his Mana to force it to take shape.
It was similar to molding clay. If before he was able to 'cheat' and use his hands to manipulate it, then now he was forced to somehow shape the clay without using any parts of his body. It seemed impossible, but magic also seemed impossible until he learned how to use spellworks.
Fen became convinced that there had to be some kind of trick to it, otherwise there was no way he could make the Mana take shape for even thirty seconds; two minutes seemed like an impossible dream. But no matter how much effort he spent, he couldn't make the magical energy keep it's shape for longer than a few seconds.
Taking a deep breath, he let his Mana dissipate before he thought about his actions to think about what he could do differently.
First, he sent a cloud of Mana outside his body. Then, by focusing his senses, Fen manipulated the... the exterior. He only manipulated the exterior.
'Is that what I'm doing wrong? But how would controlling the inner energy affect the rest of the construct?' Although Fen didn't really believe that controlling the inside of the Mana sphere would do anything, he was running out of ideas so he threw his hands up in the air in defeat and just did it.
The second he did though, his face became slack in surprise. Not because he succeeded, but because he thought that now he knew what he had to do!
By only controlling the interior of the Mana sphere, he could force the shape to maintain it's form but the overall shape of the magical energy would deteriorate as there was nothing stopping the exterior of the Mana from flowing everywhere and dissipating. But! What if he controlled both at the same time?
Fen put his idea into practice and used his will to dominate every inch of the now-shapeless blob of his Mana, but rather than doing the same thing as before and trying to force the shape onto the energy he now thought of the blob as two separate entities.
There was the exterior; the sides, what made up the form of the Mana. By controlling it Fen could make his energy take whatever form he wanted, be it a square, a cone, or in this case, a sphere free from blemishes and edges.
Then there was the interior; the density, the substance of his blob of Mana. By controlling it Fen could eliminate any of the energy's resistance to his will and fully control it to form the shape he wanted.
He could do this easily with spellworks because the memories of the monsters he killed helped him through the process, but at the same time those memories limited his skill from improving because he never thought about the 'why', and only focusing on the 'how'. Similarly, Fen used the same technique of controlling Mana outside his body to guide his Flaming Spears towards their targets without ever realizing the importance of that step and why it existed.
His abilities as a Vitul could help him significantly and Fen knew it, but now he became aware that the help he received could also weaken his foundations as a magic user. It pained him to now understand that every time he used magic he was making mistakes, but at the same time it relieved him to know that he now understood his own shortcomings enough to grow out of them.
Now that he understood the basic concepts behind manipulating Mana to form a shape, making his blob of energy into a perfectly round sphere was easy. Hell, he could do it for thirty minutes, but that'd be pointless. There was no point to repeated repetition if he already understood the underlying principles of the action, unless of course he needed to review them.
Two minutes later, both goals of the Knights and the Mages glowed green with his name next to both of them. Fen crushed the small feeling of pride that dared to grow in his chest, reminding himself of his goal.
The image of Gray crying next to Amelia and Qin popped into his mind, engraving itself even further into his mind. The jagged scar running up his neck all the way to the kid's cheek served as a cruel but necessary reminder that the Foundation wasn't a good organization.
He trusted Raisen, truly, he did, but Fen didn't trust the old man's organization. The same went with Archon Ellora and Yor the executioner; they seemed like nice people (Depending on your definition of 'nice') who wanted to help him but they were just one side to the Foundation. The people within the organization wanting to kill him because he killed a Chosen were a very clear example of the bad sides within.
No matter the issue, getting more power was the only solution. Killers trying to find him? Easy, just kill them when they try. Chosen trying to keep him from his family? The exact same solution. The Universal Grade civilization of Heaven wanting to kill him because of his Vitul nature?
...maybe he shouldn't try to kill them. After all, Fen was in no position to threaten a God, not yet.
After checking with Teresa, Fen learned that there was nothing else for him to for the rest of the Lesson, so he left. The old Mage didn't seem surprised by his ability, but that wasn't that shocking. It didn't seem like she cared for anything, actually.
But just as he left, a flash of movement caught him by surprise and threw him down the facility corridor, with Fen just barely managing to raise his arms to protect against an otherwise lethal blow.
Raising his eyes, the familiar sight of the creature that attacked him after the Task came into view. Now that it wasn't actively trying to kill him, Fen saw that it had the body of a wolf, with four limbs armed with sharp claws and fur that resembled living masses of shadows rather than flesh. Four glowing blue eyes glared at him, with two pairs on either side of it's head, and a snout filled with teeth engraved with red etchings.
"Hah... seems like you fixed your broken legs," Fen smirked, remarking at the status of the legs he snapped before in an attempt to buy himself time to pull out his short sword. Raising the weapon before him, it was only then that he remembered that the blade was in terrible condition.
Fists it was, then.