The gym was empty from all but the echoes of Kaede's practice. Everyone had gone to bed long ago, but Kaede couldn't afford that luxury. Kaede sighed and tried to feel the buzz.
Just relax.
Nova said he was trying way too hard. But he hadn't said what he should do. Kaede closed his eyes again. Another thing Nova told him wasn't going to be effective. A buzz. Or anything! Why wasn't this working for him anymore?
"You're doing it all wrong!"
Kaede jumped at the sudden bright voice. He flashed his eyes open and standing before him was a woman that he had never seen at the school before. Her long blonde hair was split into two pigtails and her bright green eyes reflected back at him. She had a huge dopey smile on her face. Although Kaede had never seen her before she felt awfully familiar before.
"Wh- who are you?" He said, still surprised by her sudden entrance.
The woman leaned back. "Me? I'm Bingo!"
"Bingo?"
What kind of name was Bingo? Kaede didn't want to ask that. Besides the only mages he had met before went to this school. Who knew how other mages named their children.
"Have we met before?" Kaede asked.
Bingo scratched her head. "Uhh. No!"
"Oh… well I'm Kaede."
"I knew that silly." Bingo laughed.
Kaede didn't ask how she knew. This woman was quite peculiar. He peered at her face again. He still couldn't shake the feeling that they had met before.
"What were you saying before?" He asked.
"I was saying you're doing it all wrong!" Bingo exclaimed.
Kaede blinked twice. She was far too excited. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Angel told me to keep an eye on you." She said with a wink. "But don't tell the principal or the other students or Mr. Lewis because you know. They might get mad."
"Mad?"
"As long as you don't tell, don't worry about it!"
Kaede nodded slowly. So Angel had asked someone to keep a watch over him? Kaede started to feel a little bad for silently cursing him the entire week. He should've known that Angel wasn't going to completely ditch him in this place.
"Okay." Kaede said. "So… what am I doing wrong?"
Bingo scratched her head. "Everything really."
"What!"
"You are viewing mana the wrong way! What did you learn about mana in class?"
"That it's an element that only mages have the ability to use."
"And how do you think mages access it?"
"We grab it out of the air?" Kaede tried.
"Nope." Bing said, shaking her head dramatically. "What prevents mana from growing dense?"
Kaede thought back to his class earlier. "Mages using it?"
Bingo smiled. "Not using it. Storing it! Mages are like plants that get energy from the sun."
Kaede's brain started turning. "So I don't need to search for that buzzing feeling?"
Bingo crossed her arms. "Never look for that buzzing feeling! That's bad bad bad mana!"
"You mean dead mana? I've been using dead mana this entire time?"
If he had been using dead mana this entire time then maybe his mana level was incorrect! Maybe he was much higher than he thought he was.
"Of course not." Bingo said, crushing his dreams. "No one can use dead mana. What you're doing is absorbing it."
She looked at him with a pitying face. "Thank goodness I told you. If I was a week later you probably would've died!"
Kaede clutched his heart. Was this girl serious? Okay so he was really F tier. Now he needed to focus on improvement.
"So when Nova said it was easy it was because the mana is already inside of us and we just have to force it out?"
"Exactly! Let's start simple." Bingo sat cross legged across from him and spread her palms.
After a few seconds a unformed moving ball of mana appeared in her hands. Kaede's eyes widened at the sight of it.
"Instead of trying to do a special style off the bat, why don't you try doing something more simple."
Kaede spread his palms like Bingo and closed his eyes.
"Open!" bingo said. "You need to trust yourself! Are you going to close your eyes every time you summon some mana?"
Kaede opened his eyes and frowned. "Well I can't summon any, so shouldn't I try getting some out before I learn how to do it instinctively?"
Bingo cocked her head at him. "Have a little more faith in yourself!"
Kaede sighed and kept his eyes open. He stared at his empty palms, but nothing was happening. If he wasn't supposed to be looking for the buzzing what was he supposed to be doing?
"Summoning mana is easy!" Bingo said. "You just need to know that it will come out!"
"I just need to know?" Kaede said bewildered. "But I don't know!"
"You need to trust that the mana will appear the same way you trust that you will breathe air in and out! It's like second nature!"
Kaede looked at her skeptically, but he would trust her. Angel wouldn't send her to look after him if she wasn't at the very least helpful. And Bingo was the only one who could properly articulate what using mana meant.
He took a deep breath and tried again. The mana will appear in my hands if he trusted that it would.
Then an inkling of purple mist appeared between his hands. He had done it! He furrowed his brows and imagined this purple mist growing bigger. To the size of Bingo's mana! And just as he thought it the mana grew bigger!
Kaede looked up excitedly at Bingo. "I did it! It's there!"
Bingo beamed back at him. "I told you it was easy."
Nova was right in the sense that summoning mana wasn't a feeling. It was just there. Which begged the question of mana levels.
He looked back up at Bingo. "If I'm F tier how am I supposed to know when I run out of mana? Is this going to be the only bit of mana I can summon until I gather more?"
"Trial and error!" Bingo said. "You have to figure that out by practicing and your mana level goes up the more you train and increase the amount of mana you can intake."
Kaede sighed. "Well that's awfully inconvenient."
Bingo laughed. "These days it's much easier! Imagine having to level up when you have no resources or mana items!"
"Mana items?"
"Mana items are everyday items or tools infused with mana. They can help people enhance their mana! There are some that collect mana for the mage! That mana level test machine thingy is a mana item!"
"Really? That's awesome! Where can I get one?" Kaede asked.
Bingo smacked the top of Kaede's head. "No mana items for you!"
"Why not?" Kaede pouted.
"As my student you're going to work hard in trying to get your mana level up! Once you've hit your max mana level then I'll consider gifting you a mana item."
Kaede huffed. When did he become her student? Wasn't she just helping him?
"Well then teach me how to do Poe style." Kaede said. "I should at least learn the most basic style right?"
Bingo laughed. "The only reason it's so simple is because it's not flashy and requires little to no precision! Even a toddler could accidentally do Poe style!"
Well if he couldn't do Poe style didn't that make him worse than a baby?
"I'll teach you something much cooler!"
Kaede perked up. "What's much cooler?"
Bingo held her hand out and then a chain built itself link by link in her hand. The chain link moved dynamically in the air without falling to the pressures of gravity.
Bingo pointed at herself with her thumb. "Bingo style!"