Observing the young npcs was Ezekiel.
He was sitting down and waiting for the teacher to get to his turn.
He mainly watched as the teacher took each student's hand before doing.... something?
The teacher wrapped both hands around a students hand one by one.
After the moment of their hand being held they were instructed to meditate before he moved on.
By the time it was Ezekiel's turn he held out his hand for the teacher.
Once it was taken he closed his eyes as each student had done, after a second he felt a strange thing enter his hand.
It was nothing physical and with the common knowledge of fantasy worlds he assumed this was mana.
It was a pleasant, chilly sensation moving through his body.
After the teacher instructed him and moved on he sat down in the correct position to meditate, specifically on that feeling.
By learning what mana actually felt like he was able to try to tune his senses to find mana again but after some time he just... couldnt sense anything in his body.
He tried to extend that same sense to his feel for the chill on his skin based on a hunch.
He ignored every single thing aside from the feeling on his skin until he finally felt a slight chill.
The more he followed that chill, the more he felt it across his body until he could truly feel the mana in the air.
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Skill Aquired: Mana Sense lv1. (Novice)
Sense the mana within the air.
Range: 1 meter.
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He ignored the notification sound but after it happened he could feel the same chill around him.
Small specks of the mana almost like little motes of blue light.
He opened his eyes and smiled until he saw that he was the last student, with the original teacher observing him.
"You may want to head to the next step, you took nearly an hour to get it." The teacher shook his head but still could only feel bad.
'This boy... the otherworlders seem to have a lack of talent for mana if it takes so long to just learn mana sense.'
~
"Your next task for learning to use magic properly is to manipulate mana."
"The manipulation of mana is a critical skill for a mage as every single one of your spells will be built upon it, the systems base spells can only take you so far."
The first step of manipulating mana was to imagine the mana pooling towards your hands.
Mana could be manipulated through other methods but using your hands to focus your thoughts was more natural for humanoids.
After some time trying to make the small motes of mana coalesce between his hands he finally pulled it off.
Between his palms was a little blue ball of light the size of a pea, it wasnt much but it was there.
~~~~~~~~~~
Skill Aquired: Mana Control lv1. (Novice)
Reduces the consumption of mana for all skills by 1%
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One percent, it may seem like nothing now but reducing a spells cost by even a single point is still an advantage!
Plus he was having fun playing with mana like this.
~
"Now students you must know that sensing mana and manipulating it are only the first step in your path to be a proper mage."
"Before you can ever be considered a proper mage you must be able to cultivate your mana."
"Cultivating your mana wont make you inherently better but it does make your potential as a mage better, why?"
A student raised her hand and spoke up, "cultivating mana means our mana pool is bigger sir."
Apparently without mana sense or mana manipulation it was practically impossible to cultivate your mana pool.
What made the skill so important wasnt just a larger mana pool but it was also the natural absorption of ambient mana.
This was a shock for Ezekiel because as far as he knew every fantasy world be it television, videogame or novel had a natural ability to regenerate mana.
In this game the natural mana regen was obtained through skills that were taught to the player.
With this knowledge he was determined to cultivate as far as he possibly could to make his mana limitless!
~
In another country within the game world a blonde man was resting after a hard battle.
His stamina and health were incredibly low but the combined effects of his recuperation skill and his regeneration bloodline trait made him very good at returning to fights.
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Recuperation lv5. (Novice)
Stamina regeneration is increased by 2.5%
Stamina regenerationg out of combat increases to 5%.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander knew that if he did not level up quickly he would be left behind by mages who eventually learned about mana skills.
The destructive potential of a mage was beyond what a martial class could achieve even if skilled martials could defeat mages easily.
He had a flash of a memory when he took part in a dungeon raid with a player he didnt remember the name of, all he remembered was the spell he used to wipe the boss out in a single moment.
Wings made of black fire that split into pieces, a rain of flaming shards of black glass that pierced the giant boss like paper.
The spell on its own was low damage and given the usage seemed more like a way to wipe out large numbers of enemies using damage over time.... but then the boss turned to dust.
It was the first time he had been genuinely afraid of a player after he met the King Slayer and he would never forget those black marks or those burning red eyes.
This mage? This mage was something else entirely.