Opening my eyes, I looked around the classroom and it seems like everyone is still meditating.
I turned to Mr. Liam and to my surprises, he's staring at me with a slight smile on his lip.
I looked away instantly.
'Shit... Did he realise?'
I'm sure that Mr. Liam know I can use mana when I saw his face.
What I want to know is how can he tell that I'm able to use it, otherwise it's pointless to hide the fact that I can use it anymore.
"Okay, everyone can stop now"
As I was lost in thought, Mr. Liam ended the students meditation.
"Huff..."
"I can't feel a thing..."
"I can feel something inside me!"
Everyone started to speak to other person, except one who's still closing her eyes sitting in lotus position.
"Hey... It's Rachel!"
Someone suddenly shouted.
Black hair tied to a ponytail, with a small and round baby face. She's currently wearing the academy uniform and since she's sitting down, I can't tell whether she's tall or not.
She's currently breathing roughly and sweating a lot with a pale face, and I can see that mana is leaking out of her.
I then called out the teacher.
"Hey, Mr. Liam! Isn't that dangerous?"
He then smiled slightly and looked at me.
"How is that dangerous?"
"How, you said... She looks like she's dying because mana is leaking out of her!"
I said.
"Hooh... how can you tell?"
"Ehh?"
I then looked around and everyone is looking at me while whispering to each other.
"What is he talking about?"
"I didn't see anything though?"
"It's true that she looks like she's dying though..."
It was then that I realised that only I can tell that she's currently leaking mana.
And by the looks of it, Mr. Liam is also able to.
He then walked and stopped right in front of the girl called Rachel and enveloped her inside a barrier.
The barrier then locked the leaking mana inside making is impossible to spread out.
The leaking mana then started to go back inside Rachel and after a while, she fell to the side and passed out.
"Alex, do you know where the infirmary is?"
Mr. Liam suddenly asked me.
"Ye- yes..."
"Bring her there, and come back here after"
"Okay..."
I then picked Rachel up with princess carry position, and walked out of the classroom into the infirmary.
As I was walking to the infirmary, I thought about it a lot.
'Is it because I can use mana that I can see her mana leaking?'
'Is that why Mr. Liam is able to see the mana inside me too?'
'Or is there any method that I'm not aware of...'
I can't seem to come to a conclusion even after I reached the infirmary while carrying Rachel.
I opened the door and handed her over to the nurse, then went back to the classroom.
"Oh, welcome back"
Mr. Liam greeted me the moment I opened the door.
"Okay everyone, continue to do as I told you earlier while I talked with Alex for a bit"
"Okay~"
The student said in unison and he started walking towards outside the classroom with me.
In front of our class, he then started asking question.
"You can use mana right?"
"Um, I have no idea what you're talking about?"
"Hahaha don't lie, I can tell just by looking at you"
"..."
"You don't realise don't you?"
"Wh- what?"
"Your mana is leaking out right now"
"Eh!?"
I got surprised when he said that.
"What do you mean? It's leaking out?"
"You must be doing it unconsciously then, since you don't realise it yourself"
"Is that why you're able to know?"
"Yep, but there are other ways of knowing"
After saying that, he pointed to his eyes and it started to glow a little bit.
"Can you see it?"
"Yes.. It's glowing"
"Yep, I use mana to enhance my eyes, enabling me to see through a long distance, focus on something far away, as well as see something that can't be seen by naked eyes, such as mana"
"I see..."
"Of course, there are technique that can be used to hide the fact that you can use mana, but if the other party is way stronger than you, such technique is pointless anyway..."
"..."
"So? Why're you hiding it?"
I wondered for a while before decided to tell him the truth.
"I don't want people to have expectation on me..."
"What do you mean?"
"You know the other two guys that came with me right?"
"Yes, I do"
"Exactly, that's the reason"
"?"
"They currently has the academy's attention all over them because of their aptitudes and trait, while I'm currently left in the dark.
But what if it's known that I'm also able to control mana? There'll be expectation placed on me that I also have something special.
By then, if I can't meet their expectation, I'll probably succumb to pressure and won't be able to move forward"
I told him my reason, and he replied.
"Don't kid yourself"
"Eh?"
"Do you think being able to use mana at your age is amazing?"
"Tha- thats..."
"Let me tell you something, most nobles are able to use mana before they even entered the academy, and it's completely normal"
"..."
"The student at the at the class earlier wasn't able to because as commoners, they weren't taught about mana and the principles behind it, thus why they can't use mana.
They'll probably be able to use it by next week or the week after latest..."
"I- I see..."
"But in your friends case? It's different. They both have S ranked aptitude, with one of them has a double S ranked aptitudes.
In their case, growing up he might become on par with the hero. Heck, he might be even stronger because he has the special trait which we still have no idea what its about..."
After berating me for a while, we then returned to the classroom with a gloomy look on my face.
'He's right...'
'Both Jaesuk and Adrian are both special, and I'm just normal...'
Soon after, the lesson finishes and I went to the gym as usual.
There's some other people here unlike the last time I came, and I don't know any of them.
They seem to have no interest in me as they only glanced at me once and continued to do their activities.
I too, started to do my daily work out without paying attention to anything else.
'It's frustrating...'
The fact that I'm average compared to my friends who are both special makes it hard for me.
I'm the one who have the most knowledge about this situation, but after experiencing it myself, I turned out to be the average one instead of my friends who have no prior knowledge about this.
'Shit'
I finished up my exercise faster than usual and went back to the dorm to get changed.
After getting changed to a training uniform, I walked to the field to practice my spear again.
'Focus... think of the spear as an extension of my body...'
Remembering the practice I've received from the blonde girl before, I then started to focus all my attention to my spear.
'Since it's not that special, I guess there's no need to hide my mana anymore...'
Thinking of that, I released my mana and covered my whole spear with it.
I then extend the mana to flow surrounding my whole body, and just after few seconds, my whole body is surrounded by mana.
I've been able to do this since I left the village a while back, together with Kim Jaesuk.
When you understand the principle behind how mana works, it's not hard to learn it.
I then focused to maintain the mana, before it dispersed just a minute after.
'I can only maintain the body strengthening technique for about a minute right now...'
Even though it's only for a minute, I can feel that the moment I use the technique, my abilities improved a lot for that short period of time.
After about half an hour, I then finished up my training and walked back to the dorm's direction.
---
'It is indeed body strengthening technique...'
'I had my suspicions since the last time I saw him using it, but to think that he's able to maintain it for a minute...'
It is not hard to learn to control the mana, but using it to strengthen your body is another matter.
It's like using mana to boost your abilities instead of just controlling it, unleashing the limit of your physical strength to the maximum.
Even nobles that learned mana control at early age took a while for them to be able to use body strengthening, including me.
'But that guy is just a commoner...'
From the document I asked from Cecilia, all three of them suddenly showed up at the academy with a letter of recommendation from someone whom I don't know.
Even though he's already 21 years old, it's still amazing to be able to do that as a commoner, since they don't have any bloodline talent.
'Did someone guided them before coming here? The letter of recommendation makes the headmistress accepted them on the spot after all... It might be her acquaintance"
I stared at him walking toward his dorm before leaving as well, making sure there's no trace of me remained there.
After all, knowing that a princess is showing interest in a commoner is not a good thing for people to know.