'You should know who to piss off and who not to, young hatchling,' the Dream Bison said. 'Don't act foolishly.'
Zheng groaned, rolling on the ground and waiting for relief to set in. Struggling with pain, he said,
"It was just a guess. I didn't say it with the intention of malice."
The Dream Bison said, 'This should be a lesson that teaches you that not everyone understands things the way you do.
'And, when faced by something or someone who is stronger than you, you should deal with them carefully to avoid getting hurt.'
"I know all these," Zheng said through gritted teeth.
'Oh. Then it's a reminder.'
All the prince wanted at this point was silence so that his body and mind would focus solely on recovering from pain. Unfortunately, the black bovine wasn't helping.
Zheng said in exasperation, "Please, can you stop sending mana to my arm? I need to recover."
The Dream Bison said in a congratulatory tone, 'There you have it. You can finally detect mana flow in your body. All you just needed was a little electrocution jump start to get your rusty brain working.'
Had it not been for the notification from the Dream Bison, it would have taken a while for the prince to realise that he could detect mana flow.
"Thanks for the help," the prince said sarcastically. "Can you please stop now?"
'No. You need all the mana you can get to properly learn how to detect mana flow in your environment. I'm lending you mana for you to heal. That wasn't an ordinary electrocution.
'At the moment, you can only detect mana flowing into your body. Also, you still haven't learned mana breathing.'
"What is mana breathing?"
'It is the refilling of your mana reserves with the simple act of breathing.'
Zheng was feeling much better now. The mana breathing skill fascinated him. He wanted to learn it. However, a question came to his mind.
"Why doesn't my father know this skill?"
The Dream Bison replied, 'Your father doesn't have the patience to learn it. He prefers to train his flamepower, strength, and power.'
Zheng nodded his head, accepting the explanation.
'We may not have time to meet again, so I will give the plan on how to mana breathe.'
"Didn't you mention that where I live has a very low mana density?"
'Yeah, I did. My cave is included.'
"I assume you come here regularly, right?"
'Yes, I do.'
"Why don't you move over to here?"
'Young hatchling, this place is so far away that it is as good as a lost place.'
Zheng nodded. He didn't understand but he had to pretend that he did.
'To mana breathe, you need to shut off the light energy in your body from the light energy in the world,' the Dream Bison said. 'The light energy in the world communicates with that of your body through your respiratory system. Shutting off your light energy tricks the world's light energy into thinking you are a vessel without light energy, which makes the world's light energy vigorously invade your body.'
Zheng asked, "Is light energy the same as mana?"
The Dream Bison said, 'This answer depends on who you ask. To me, mana is a tool to control light energy.'
"Then, what is light energy?" Zheng asked.
The Dream Bison answered, 'It is the part of the energy that makes the world. It is the opposite and equal of dark energy.'
Zheng opened his mouth to say something, but the Dream Bison stopped him by quickly saying,
'Dark energy is not dark magic. And just like light energy, mana is a tool used to manipulate it.
'What affirms my belief in mana and the world energies is that each of the world energies is always accompanied by mana. This mana makes it easy for a mage or mage beast to manipulate these energies at any time.'
Due to his initial naivity, this piece of information was thrilling to the young prince. He now felt a stronger urge to grow his magical energy. His instincts told him that his enemies knew more about the world energies and more about magic. He just hoped that he wouldn't be caught by their snares before he could become more powerful than them.
The prince had questions about the use of world energies, but he had to wait for the bovine to finish its lecture on mana breathing.
The Dream bison said, 'Back to mana breathing. The rate at which your body will be invaded by the light energy is directly proportional to your stamina. Low stamina will lead to a slow invasion, and vice versa.
'That doesn't mean anything if you learn the skill because you will never be out of mana, and that will be an advantage against most mages.'
Zheng was surprised by the last sentence, and his expression didn't fail to show it. The bovine was implying that most mages don't know how to mana breath.
Zheng said, "Are you sure of your last sentence?"
'I'm very sure,' the Dream Bison replied. 'Learning that skill is a rare fixed talent from birth.'
The bison didn't want to reveal to Zheng what dark energy was or that he had the ability to deal with it. The beast was being careful in case the prince devolved into a murderous psychopath. Dark energy is a very sensitive aspect of the world energy.
Dream Bison asked, 'I feel that we shouldn't exhaust our available time talking about world energy. Do you have any questions that don't relate to them?"
Zheng rummaged through his memory. He remembered something from the titleless book. The book said that a lord mage needed a strong body constitution to have a high mana reserve capacity. At the same time, the book was encouraging light mages to boost their body constitution stats to increase their mana reserve capacity. He felt that this information was conflicting because it was the light mage's external orb that determined their mana reserve capacity.
The Prince asked, "Why do light mages need to boost their body constitution? I thought that their bodies couldn't store mana like lord mages."