*BOOOM*
Hearing the explosions caused by Chang Hua's way of teaching her students, Hai simply ignored it and kept repeatedly doing the same process as to let Kryn and Hong Li-Wei get used to the feeling of absorbing mana.
"Now, you two, try to feel the mana around you." He said as he took his hands off their backs and made some distance from them.
As Kryn and Hong Li-Wei concentrated and started to try to feel the mana, Hai used his eyes coated in mana and the world before his eyes turned black with dark blue lines.
He saw small rainbow-like particles all around them, as if trying to fill the whole world.
Then, he saw some of those particles, the one near the girls were twitching or moving a bit weirdly.
Hai smiled when he saw this.
'They are starting to get a hang of it.'
Right now, Kryn and Hong Li-Wei are only at the "Sensitive rank", the rank where one can somehow feel mana, but still at extremely lower levels.
Hai is training them so they can become "adepts", the next rank and also the one in which someone finally can start interacting with mana and take the first steps to be able to use magic.
Looking at them, Hai calculated that they should take between 1 to 3 hours at most to be able to understand and start to absorb mana.
'Hey, system.'
Meanwhile, Hai decided to put things in order.
[Yes host?]
'Isn't it about time for you to open yourself to me?' Hai kept his calm smile while supervising their training.
[H-Host… I didn't know that you were into that kind of thing…]
'You know that those tactics don't work with me, right?' Hai picked a cigarette from his pack and lit it before putting in his mouth.
[…]
'So?' Hai waved his hand and silently obliterated a piece of rock that was flying towards the girls.
He pointed his left arm towards Chang Hua's direction and flicked his index finger.
"HYAH❤!" Stella suddenly yelped out aloud.
Chang Hua and the others stopped and looked at her dumbfoundedly before turning towards Hai.
Hai simply pointed towards the girls and made a flicking motion while maintaining an innocent smile.
Nobody said anything and they went back to training between themselves while making sure that nothing ever went close to Kryn and Hong Li-Wei.
Stella had a red face with a fervent glint in her eyes.
She found it difficult to focus on the training while her maiden's place was constantly itching due to Hai's earlier "hit".
Stella was gifted a punch in her face due to her distraction and she flew away while cussing Hai.
Meanwhile, said person kept having a good dialogue with his system.
[Host…]
'You don't want me to have to make you talk, do you?' Hai's smile widened.
[…]
'…'
[*SIGH*]
Hai raised an eyebrow when he heard the system sighing, but he did nothing else.
[Host, how much do you know about the world?]
'You mean about how this fictional/ real world works?'
[Yes.]
'Not much. Just that it revolves around the protagonists, or revolved until I screwed this system over.' Hai raised an eyebrow and looked at Kryn.
Then, he saw the rainbow-like particles starting to slowly but steadily move around her in a whirlpool manner.
'She is already progressing…' He smiled at the genius that is Kryn.
However, he didn't disregard Hong Li-Wei. Although her progress isn't as obvious as Kryn's, Hai knows that she is doing something different by the way the particles are moving around her.
[Well, that is correct yet wrong.] The system's message caught his attention back to their conversation.
'How so?'
[Basically, the world isn't exactly as you know it.]
Hai said nothing and kept watching over the girls.
[Well, the world kinda of isn't the real one.]
When he heard this, Hai raised an eyebrow while feeling that there was something big in this history.
[Actually, do you know what makes a fictional world, a wonderland?]
'The fact that it is fictional, hence, things can work out smoothly.'
[Yes. However, it's mainly the perfection that a fictional world can have.]
Hai put his hand on his forehead and started rubbing it.
'I can already see where this is going, but keep going.' He held in a sigh.
[What would happen if a world wanted to be perfect?]
'Tons of shit.' Hai instantly replied.
[And what if the world doesn't care about it?]
'…' Hai closed his eyes and looked upwards.
[This world's will isn't the original one. It is a parasite of sorts.] The system suddenly dropped a bomb.
Hai's face changed into a blank expression and he opened his eyes revealing a plain gaze.
'Let me guess. You are the real world's will and was kicked out of your "position" who-knows-how-many years ago.' Hai thought boredly.
[…]
'I hit the bullseye, didn't I?' Hai rubbed his forehead harder while he rhetorically asked.
[Yes…]
'You know what? F*ck this shit.' Hai simply gave up in even thinking that there will be something which isn't mind-blowing when it concerns him.
'So, just out of curiosity: why did you try to manipulate me?' He asked the question which he always had ever since he discovered the system's plot.
[….]
[It was a quest...]
'…'
[…]
Hai stopped thinking and observed Hong Li-Wei and Kryn again. He saw that both of them surpassed his expectations and should ascend to adept rank in less than an hour.
'System.'
[….What?]
'You will be a fine sex slave.' Hai thought while relaxedly smiling.
[…]
The system said nothing, but Hai could see some beads of sweat in the message's pop up.
Suddenly, Hai noticed a slight turbulence in the surroundings' mana.
Turning towards Kryn, he saw a golden aura leaving her body.
This aura was different from anything Hai has ever seen as he could feel a majestic and overbearing feeling like no other from it.
Then, when he blinked, he suddenly found himself inside a dark place.
Hai calmly looked around, but all he could see was endless darkness.
'System, you there?'
[Yes host.]
Hai felt a bit reassured in knowing that the system was also here, so he wasn't hallucinating.
Then, from that darkness, bright red flames appeared and colored the dark space into a land of red and fire.
From the fire, a silhouette suddenly materialized out of it.
It was a golden phoenix.
Hai looked expressionlessly at the fire phoenix and held in another urge to sigh.
He threw the cigarette away and waited for whatever was to come.
The phoenix suddenly looked at Hai and he felt a weight trying to force him to kneel down.
"You bring me in here without any warning, don't explain yourself, waste my time, and then you try to force myself to kneel? Do you want me to erase you?" He leisurely asked the entity that was glaring at him with a prideful gaze.
Then, Hai suddenly felt as if the flames tried to burn him and as if someone tried to pry open his mind.
Hai took out another cigarette from his pack and used the phoenix's fire to lit it up.
Then, he put it in his mouth and exhaled a puff of smoke.
"Yeah, cigarette lit by a phoenix's flame tastes the same shit as a normal one." Then he turned towards the phoenix while putting the cigarette back in his mouth.
"Begone." A single word left his mouth and he witnessed as the world of fire broke apart and the phoenix vanished.
Hai blinked and found himself back where he was before noticing someone tugging his pants.
He looked downwards and saw Kryn looking at him with concern in her eyes.
"Hai? Okay?" She asked after she saw that he snapped out of his daze.
Hai looked at the cigarette in his hand and threw it away making it shatter in small pieces of ice.
"Yeah. Kryn, don't smoke. Smoking makes people high." He nodded while speaking in a sagely voice.
"Huh." Kryn just nodded while not completely understanding his words.
Hai then turned to Hong Li-Wei and just in time, he saw her getting up and stretching her body.
"Hai? Did I do it right?" She asked while stretching.
"You were awesome, sweet." He said earnestly.
Hong Li-Wei smiling slightly, but said nothing.
*CLAP*
Hai clapped his hands and gained their attention.
"Now ladies, I will be teaching you how to form a core and then, you can start praying." He said while making a projection out of mana.
Hong Li-Wei and Kryn saw a light blue sphere made out of tiny small particles that behaved like waves.
"Beautiful." Kryn said while looking at the sphere and Hong Li-Wei couldn't help but agree with her.
Hai smiled at their reactions. It just goes to show that they aren't only interested in the power that comes with being a mage.
"This here, is an example of a mana core." He said and twisted his wrist a bit and then, the sphere broke into shards and the particles dispersed themselves.
"A mana core is the place where you will take the mana you absorb from the surroundings and purify it to make it usable by you. It's like a generator which uses dirty water while cleaning it." Hai then started to slowly twist his hand.
The particles which were away started to slowly come closer to each other and eventually, they were rotating in the shape of a sphere.
"When forming a mana core, you will go through three phases: core formation, condensation and compression. In those phases, you will absorb and guide mana inside you towards a designated place where you will then form a sphere. After it, you will condense the mana in there by forcing it to be close and act as a hollow sphere, which you will then compress when you notice that it can hold its shape without you influencing it anymore." He showed all of those processes in his projected sphere to make sure they had a clear example.
"Remember the paths where mana pass through which you memorized?" They both nodded. Thus, Hai only smiled and continued his explanation "You will use them or a better one to guide the mana inside you. You have to guide it to your stomach as this is the best are for the mana core to be in. Any questions?"
They both shook their heads.
"Okay then, you two may begin, and remember: be patient. This process can take a while and you should do it carefully as this will be your foundation to walk on the magical path, so make sure that you have a good and sturdy foundation, even if it takes time." After advising them, Hai let them do their things while he kept supervising their progress while also doing some slight training on his part.
Hai raised his right hand with his palm open and then he willed a bit of the surroundings' mana to gather above his palm.
Not even a second later, there was a small blue dot floating soundlessly above his palm.
Hai looked at it and even used his other vision to see how it looked from another angle before dispersing it.
Still with his palm open, he then started to gather mana again.
However, this time the process was way slower and the quantities of mana that gathered were extremely low.
What Hai was doing now was simply using his will to try to gather mana.
He is basically trying to stimulate mana to obey his commands without him needing to absorb it and purify it.
Hai turned back and observed Hong Li-Wei's and Kryn's progress carefully before he went back to his small training.
He coated his eyes with mana and looked at the mana that was gathering in his hand.
Observing that his will was generating a slight attractive force to mana, he noticed that different from when he absorbs mana like a vacuum cleaner, by using his will, he is making something similar to a small and weak magnet.
He is attracting and gathering the mana all the same, but the force and efficiency between the two means are vastly different.
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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!
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