Maya informed the three newbies that there would be an instructor coming to teach them a few basic lessons soon. They would only get one instructor since all mages were able to perform very basic techniques using several types of mana—albeit less skilled than if they employed mana based on their Talent. Moreover, performing skills outside of their Talent often required the aid of the appropriate mana stones, though that wasn't always the case.
After that, Maya bid them goodbye and headed to the door. However, she paused halfway. "Oh, right!" She turned around as she rummaged through her pocket. She then produced a red bracelet in her hand and handed it to Max. "I almost forgot. This is yours. Make sure to hide when you go outside."
Max took the bracelet and put it on his left wrist. [Thanks.]
"Alright, I'll see you guys later! Oh, you two don't need to worry," she added, facing Mutya and Dean. "I'll get you your bracelets soon. Ciao!" The happy-go-lucky woman then exited the training room.
The room itself was quite huge, which was surprising considering they were underground. It was roughly the size of half of a football field. There were several melee weapons hung on a rack in the corner. Although it was clear they were there more for physical training, rather than for real combat training. Mages were more inclined to perform magical techniques than fighting with melee weapons, after all. Besides, it wasn't that hard to acquire Wands and guns.
There was an awkward silence descending upon the three teenagers. Max scratched the back of his head before giving his peers a half smile. He didn't have his mana view mode on at the moment, but he could actually feel a familiar sensation wafting from the two. It was certainly mana waves coming from their ring foundation. That was the first time Max was able to feel traces of someone's Mana Regulator, since every mage he had met in the HQ had theirs Insulated.
The newcomers' mana waves felt rather…weak and wobbly, for the lack of a better word. And he had a good guess how they would look if he switched on his mana sight.
[So, you guys have finally formed your ring foundation, yeah? Feels good to have your body finally stabilized, doesn't it? I remember how painful it was when I experienced mana overflow.]
Max's attempt to be friendly was met with silence. Well, Dean only nodded once. Mutya mostly ignored him before walking to a corner and sitting down. She fished out a white mana stone from her pocket and started to cultivate. And so it would appear that Max wasn't the only force mage around here.
Dean was still standing in place, occasionally stealing sheepish glances at Max. It was clear the boy was feeling awkward for some reason.
Max raised his eyebrows. [What?]
Dean was seen flinching slightly. His fingers started fidgeting as he spoke. "Are you like, deaf?"
Max stared dumbfoundedly at him for a second. He could practically see the boy furiously checking himself if he was being offensive. He then answered. [Yes. Yes, I'm deaf.]
"So uuh…does that mean you're reading my lips now? Although, your eyes don't seem to be doing so." Dean nervously watched as Max's eyes would constantly flit away from his conversation partner—this was him reading the transcriptions.
[No. I've got this speech-to-text system on my Iris.]
Dean nodded in understanding. "Ah, cool." Silence returned for a full minute before he spoke again. "So uuh…you already know my name. Aren't you gonna introduce yours?"
Oh, right. Max had totally forgotten his manners. [Max Jin. Nice to meet you, Dean.]
Both of them then shook hands. Max was about to ask what the boy's story was before the door suddenly flung open. A man seemingly in his 20's with long dirty blond hair and well-toned muscles walked in, wearing a cheery smile on his face. He was donning a brown shirt underneath a sleeveless high-collared black coat.
"Good afternoon, every—" the man paused and wryly smiled. "I can practically feel the awkwardness exuding from all of you."
It was then that Mutya jumped up from her sitting position and rushed to greet the man. Her brown eyes glinted with excitement. "Are you going to be my teacher? My name is Mutya Rizal, and I Awakened three days ago. I arrived here yesterday and now am ready to become a powerful mage! Pleased to meet you, sir!" She then extended a hand, expecting him to shake it.
The man gave her a warm smile and took her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Rizal." He then turned toward the two other guys in the room.
Dean immediately introduced himself, followed by Max.
"Nice to meet all of you. I hope you don't mind if we all went by our first names. I want us to be casual." He smiled before continuing. "Right so, my name is Brody Jones, and I'm gonna be responsible for teaching you all of the basic things new mages need to understand, which includes easy techniques ranging from ones that are based around your Talent and those that are not."
He then showed off the black bracelet in his right wrist. "Max might already know this, since I heard he arrived here a week ago. Black bracelets correspond to those who already surpassed the 2nd Layer Formation and are on the way toward the 4th Ring Formation. These are basically the people who are on their 3rd Ring and Layer stages. And as you can see, I am one of them. As of now, I'm still forming my third layer, and according to the leader, there will be a new cultivation stage implemented soon into our training."
It seemed like Leo hadn't leaked the fact that it was thanks to Max and Nami that The Revolutionaries now had the knowledge regarding Rotational Friction stages and sub-stages.
"Now," Brody walked up to the center of the room while the others followed. "I've already been informed about your Talents. Both Max and Mutya are force mages, while Dean is a fire mage. You guys basically have like, the most common of Talents, which is fine. Besides, I myself am a fire mage."
Brody then stopped walking as he faced his three new students. "Today, I'm going to teach you a couple of basic techniques according to your Talents. Tomorrow, and I hope you guys aren't too lazy to gather here again, we are going to be learning techniques outside your Talents."
Mutya suddenly raised a hand. "Is it really necessary to learn skills by converting mana into other types of energy? I mean, at the end of the day, we still rely on mana stones to do this, right? It would be no different than non-mages doing tasks using several types of mana stones."
Brody nodded. "It is absolutely necessary. Besides, you're going to have to learn a skill or two without relying on mana stones. It'll be hard, but it will aid you in the long run.
"Not only would it help you adjust to situations where your Talent might not be too useful, it would also help you refine your own Talent. Because based on what we have observed so far, improving someone's senses on how mana interacts with different types of energy would in turn sharpen their senses toward mana that you had your Talent in."
Technically, there was no such thing as kinetic mana or heat mana, or other types of mana. Mana was just mana. However, the terms were born to call the process of converting mana to other types of energy using their respective mana stones. Because of the existence of different types of mana stones, it was just more convenient to call the mana produced by them according to the energy it was converted into.
Therefore, when Brody mentioned 'mana that you had your Talent in', he actually referred to one's tendency to be able to sense how mana interacted with one type of energy much better than sensing its interaction with other types of energy. For convenience's sake, people were just used to calling it Talent in kinetic mana, electric mana, and so on.
"So," Brody turned to Max. "I heard you already learned a couple of techniques. Mind showing them to me? Oh, make sure to tone them down, of course. Wouldn't want you fainting on us."
Before Brody had spoken those words, Mutya's expression had been one of eagerness. However, hearing what her teacher said, she frowned. She stole a glance at Max, who currently had a look of boredom on his face. She didn't know why, but seeing the guy kind of ground her gears.
Actually, she did know why. His carefree and seemingly lazy attitude was basically her bane. She simply despised lazy people. In her mind, she already pictured Max as this privileged kid, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who happened to Awaken recently and was thus forced to live in this humble underground facility. She could even imagine him silently complaining about how he couldn't get proper food around here.
Her prejudice could've been the truth, had Max Awakened several years ago. However, now, he was but a simple homeless dude who didn't mind living anywhere as long as he could sleep in peace.
Max was aware of her judging eyes, but he didn't care. He proceeded to take a few steps back from the group and activated his gloves. However, Brody suddenly spoke up.
"Nuh-uh. You can't use your Wand," he said.
Max glanced at the transcription on his Iris before deactivating his gloves. He reluctantly took them off and slipped them in his hoodie pocket.
He switched on his soundwave viewing mode then raised both hands, concentrating on the sound strings on his vision while sensing mana inside his body. He sent out a decent amount of mana before turning it into kinetic energy that wrapped around his fingers. After that, he started applying the force onto the sound strings, stretching them and vibrating them vigorously.
It was the milder version of The Screeching Siren technique.
Brody, Mutya, and Dean all immediately heard a loud sound akin to a microphone feedback that assaulted their ears. It only lasted a few seconds as Max didn't want to actually hurt them.
That said, he had learned that mages had a special technique that allowed them to heal wounds faster than normal humans. For instance, Max had found that the stab wound on Dylan's arm had already fully healed the day after the heist. Upon asking, Dylan simply told him that he had visited the infirmary.
That was a completely novel concept to Max. It turned out that the mechanics of healing using mana was rather straightforward. It didn't even require one to turn mana into another type of energy. All they had to do was send mana from their own body into someone else's, and then condense it around the wounded area.
Especially in its condensed form, mana had the natural property to multiply organic matter and excite other energies within a short amount of time. In a more philosophical term, mana basically breathed life into anything it came in contact with. Which was why it was able to accelerate the regenerative process that naturally took place in someone's body.
This was also tied to the topic of mages' longevity, especially those who had higher cultivation. The fact was, the more mana stored in one's Regulator equaled longer lifespan. There was a reason some called mana life energy, after all.
Max ended his Screeching Siren before immediately dropping the sound strings in a violent manner. It was the Bass Boost skill.
Mutya and Dean grimaced as they covered their ears, while Brody just stood there with his eyes narrowed. Again, Max ended his skill very soon. He then raised a brow at Brody as if asking if that was enough.
Crossing his arms, there was a contemplative look on the teacher's face. He was clearly wondering how Max was able to control soundwaves so easily using kinetic energy produced by his mana. Usually, if a force mage wanted to control other energy and perform a skill, they would directly convert mana into said energy. However, the result would be a much weaker version of the actual skill, unless they reinforced it using a sound mana conductor.
Whereas Max had to go the roundabout way, converting mana into kinetic energy and using it to control sound energy. But the result was clearly at the same level as a sound mage performing the same skill. In other words, he didn't need to lean on a sound mana conductor as a crutch.
"What an interesting boy," Brody muttered quietly.