After a long ice bath and a shower, Zane sat on his bed, taking notes about everything he had learned about the [Flow State]. He charted the neural path he believed his mental energy must pass through to achieve his goal, and during tomorrow's class, he'll test them one by one. Once he finished, he reached for a book titled [Rune: The Art of Language], which focused on the linguistic aspects of runes rather than the natural science or math.
However, before he could even open it, he sensed a notification from his soul crest and checked. "Hmm? Have I received an extra 500 academy points? Why?" He checked his profile. "For the discovery of Mental Neural Network?" Zane immediately looked at the brain chart he had just finished.
"How stupid of me: I should have checked the library instead of wasting time figuring it out myself," he shook his head. "However, the name Neural System is way better." With the extra academy points, Zane felt relieved about his investment in the Analytic Magic Association. He even slept more peacefully because of this news.
Unfortunately, after checking the library early the next day, his good mood was ruined. The library had a completed and perfect mental network for the [Flow State], and there were many of them. Unfortunately, none were things he could afford. So for now, Zane had to rely on free anatomy books on the brain and on trial and error.
…
"Hmm? Why did your score rise 500 points all of a sudden?" Tom Nguyen asked. Every morning, as soon as he sat down, the first thing he did was check the ranking. And to his annoyance, Zane was first, and he was second, but before, the difference was only 185 points. He quickly checked the class website. According to the rules, he had the right to know the source of Zane's sudden point increase.
"What's Mental Neural Network?" Tom Nguyen asked.
"It's a mental channeling thing," Zane casually explained.
"Oh," Tom Nguyen sighed. For the past few weeks, he's been trying to learn mental channeling. However, no matter how he tries, he cannot distinguish the different areas of his brain. In other words, his channeling is random: he might want to increase his focus, but instead his emotions suddenly become heightened or even diminished; sometimes something goes wrong with his body, forcing him to stop.
"Quiet down, class," Professor Burbank said. "Yesterday, we learned the difference between Mages, Shamans, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Clerics. Today, we will learn about Magic Knights. The first thing you must know…"
[AN: I will slowly incorporate these concepts into the story instead of just directly stating them in class.]
Zane's day passed swiftly, and before he knew it, the time for the Analytic club had arrived. As soon as he arrived, he noticed something different. The Japanese student who always arrived before him was not here. At first, Zane thought he was late, but when Professor Malida arrived and the student still wasn't there, he began to wonder whether the student had quit.
The second abnormality in this class was that the Nigerian student, Kofo, wore an agbada — a traditional Nigerian men's gown — and sat with the noble students. He seemed to blend in perfectly with their groups, laughing at their jokes and telling some of his own. Zane was utterly baffled by the entire situation, but he chose to mind his own business.
For today's lecture, Professor Malida began talking about something called a Poly Circle Matrix, which Zane understood as a magic circle that uses two or more smaller circles inside the Prime Directive — the larger circle that allows a mage to control their spell. Poly Circle Matrices are widely used, especially in spells with multiple effects or when combining different magic fields.
Zane barely managed to understand the lecture. But just as he was about to be proud of his progress, the professor said something that ruined his mood:
"Elves are considered a longevity species, and that's because their physiology allows them to create a vast quantity of life energy with relative ease. Over the years, Elven magic has evolved to utilize that trait. Their entire magic system involves enhancing their spells with their life energy. So, as you can imagine, its very foundation is the Poly Circle Matrix, which allows them to combine life energy with, well, anything.
"For the next few lectures, I will be discussing Elven Magic a lot, so you might want to brush up on your language."
Zane sighed to himself as he walked out of the lecture. To say he was in a foul mood was an understatement. How on Earth was he supposed to learn Elvish in a few days? The answer was obvious: Language Potion. However, he remembered the price on the academy list. The 500 points he had just received could barely cover a third of the potion's price.
"All this effort and it was all in vain?" Zane thought. It's one thing if he's confused in these lectures because of his ignorance, but now the professor will be using an entirely different language. What is he supposed to do? For a moment, Zane felt he had wasted all this time, effort, and resources on this club. Maybe he should have listened to the people who told him the club was for the latter section of the tower's training.
"No, I can't give up without trying everything first," Zane thought, instantly removing the negative thought from his mind. His mother didn't raise a quitter. Since he had come this far, he couldn't give up. Maybe time would prove that he had made the wrong choice, but for now, as Zane saw it, investing in that association was still the best path for him.
Without wasting a moment, he requested a meeting with his academy advisor: Professor Burbank. A meeting was soon set for tomorrow at 5 PM. Thursday soon arrived, and it was time for the practical class. The instructor finally switched up the Magic Training Section, focusing on something Zane had already mastered: moving targets. It's one thing to hit a stationary target and something entirely else to do the same to a moving one. The tower understood this and planned accordingly.
Zane thought he could ease up in the class, but he was wrong. Instructor Seiya noticed that many students had already mastered this skill, so he gathered them and handed each one a [Resistance Ball] before explaining how it worked. Zane glanced at the metal orb the size of a pigeon egg in his palm and was quite surprised; he had heard of this thing while researching how to improve his [Mana Projection] training.
Zane projected his mana, and it immediately formed a small layer of cloud underneath the [Resistance Ball], which acted as a support to carry it in the air. The ball floated a few centimeters from Zane's palm before landing back. He tried again, and the result was the same.
"So, that's why it's called a resistance ball," Zane thought. If the mana projection is not done correctly, the ball will not float from his palm; in other words, the ball will resist the projected mana if Zane does a bad job of maintaining the output. For the third attempt, Zane used the technique he had learned to achieve a mana projection of 9 seconds. But to his surprise, the resistance ball only floated for 7 seconds. At first, he thought it was a fluke or that he was not performing correctly, so he tried a fourth time, but the result was the same. And so were the fifth, sixth, and all subsequent attempts.
"What's going on? Why am I regressing?" Zane thought. He ignored everything else and focused on the metal ball in his hand. Attempt after attempt, Zane did not stop, his eyes fixed only on the up-and-down movement of the resistance ball. "Mana Projection is not just about intense focus or releasing as much mana as possible in the air and hoping it's dense enough to stay for an extended period.
"No, the key is an interconnected system of countless variables: the speed at which the mana is released, the quantity, the density, how steady it is before exiting the body, and even the fluctuation of my mental energy. When all these variables reach a certain threshold, the resistance ball will lose its effect and float in the air for as long as the caster can maintain all the variables."
Now that he had the answer, Zane immediately began to apply it. He observed all the "variables" he had determined and tested them one by one until he found the perfect formula for him to achieve mana projection.
"12.4 seconds — you've met my requirement."
"Anansi's mischief, instructor, you must be doing this on purpose," Zane said as he dropped the resistance ball and held his heart.
"Intense focus is good, but being too focused to lose awareness of your surroundings is a death sentence."
"Forgive me if I thought this was a safe environment," Zane said, rolling his eyes.
"Bad habits are easy to learn and hard to unlearn. So, start being on alert at all times so you don't make a mistake when you're in a dangerous environment."
"That sounds exhausting," Zane thought, but he didn't say it out loud and nodded to the instructor.
"Do it again to see if this was a fluke or not."
Zane picked up the ball and tried a few times, and each time, the ball floated between 11 and 13 seconds.
"Again, but this time, condense your mental energy."
"Hmm? Why is it so much easier now?" Zane thought. With his condensed mental energy, the ball floated for close to 20 seconds.
"Why do you think?"
"High Mental Energy seems able to replace all the other variables needed to achieve perfect mana control."
"That's right," Instructor Seiya nodded. "For some magic skills, high mental energy is all that's needed to master them. However, please do not assume it's the only thing you need. Many magic skills cannot be brute-forced with high mental energy. In fact, high-level magic skills require both sophisticated mana control and high enough mental energy; some even require high control of said mental energy."
"I understand."
"Good. Now that you've reached this state, you can start training [Projection Casting]."
Zane's eyes lit up, and he swiftly nodded.