"You're kidding, right? You don't know who the Five Lances are?"

"Am I supposed to?"

"They are literally the most powerful knights in the Kingdom! They're incredible!"

"Oh, I see. I assume you guys are fans?"

"Everyone who loves this Kingdom is a fan! They've saved us from attacks many times before, and they will continue to do so in the future!"

Delta nodded, rather impressed, then continued on his way to the Academy.

After reaching the gates of the Academy, Delta showed them the ID that had been attached to his Timetable upon leaving, then was permitted entry.

He got lost a few times before finally finding his way to the correct classroom, taking a seat near the back of the class by the window before sitting down and placing his feet on the chair beside him.

Although he had ensured his popularity, it was simply so that he couldn't be hunted down quietly. He wasn't looking to make friends with 12-year-old kids.

The class he was in was called "The Basics of Mana", and overall Delta was pretty eager to see what the magic class would have in store for him.

A few minutes later, the bell rang to signify the start of class, and the familiar face of Angus Goldriver entered the room.

"Good afternoon class! I hope you enjoyed your first lunch break here at the academy. For those of you who stayed in school, be sure to head down to the Plaza when school is over."

The now seated students began mumbling between each other, excited about the foods they had tried and items they had seen. Many were already making plans to get jobs and save for some of the things they wanted.

Angus clapped twice, being sure to make as much sound as possible to attract the attention of the young students.

"In today's lesson, you will learn about how to call upon and manipulate your mana."

This caused a lot of excited glances between the students, however, they didn't continue to mutter between them out of pure excitement.

"There are 3 steps to manifesting your mana. The first is to find it."

He placed a hand to his chest, indicating towards his sternum.

"This is your core. This is where your magic is held, and the place you must focus on to begin manifesting your mana. To find it, place your hand over your sternum and try to focus on what is behind it."

He pressed a button on his desk, and a holographic screen appeared behind him, showing a diagram of a blue line being moved around the body through certain paths.

"Once you have found your core, start circulating it according to this. That way, your whole body will come into contact with your magic, and your body will begin absorbing it. I will ensure nothing goes wrong in the process"

The students did as he said, each placing a hand to their sternum and focusing.

"Don't expect to find it straight away. A talented mage can find theirs in about an hour, however, the greatest prodigies in history have found it in about 20 minutes.

Delta, however, had already found his core within minutes. It was a spherical globe-like crystal with the mini galaxies he had seen before floating aimlessly inside it.

Even though he had found it so quickly, Delta realised it might not be worth drawing too much attention to himself whilst he was still weak, as it would most likely get him killed.

With that in mind, Delta sat patiently whilst memorising the pathway on the screen. After about half an hour, Delta shouted "Found it!", enjoying the shocked face from Angus.

He looked at Delta in disbelief. He himself had taken 45 minutes to locate his own core, and he had been the third-fastest person in the school history, with the two before him going on to be imperial mages and the likes.

Angus had expected Delta to be fast, especially since he had already manifested a pseudo mana fist previously using the body's already existing energy, however 30 minutes was an outrageous time, even for someone of Delta's calibre.

He coughed awkwardly, before pointing at the diagram and saying, "Move on to the next task then."

Delta nodded, then began to try and do as the diagram suggested. The process was actually a lot harder than Delta had expected, since the user would be required to control the amount of mana being removed, whilst balancing it the whole way around.

If Delta would be able to do it in small parts, it would be fine, however the diagram clearly signified that a stable stream must be used, or else the results will be flawed and pointless.

It was as if he had to write with his left hand whilst juggling with his right, except he was now blindfolded and upside down at the same time, due to his unfamiliarity with handing mana.

Breathing deeply, Delta sat in a position the Old Man from the orphanage had made him sit in whenever he got upset. He had always felt that it helped him calm his emotions and clear his mind.

Crossing his legs and placing each of his feet over the opposing thigh, He began breathing in a pattern that went along with this position, maximising the oxygen intake, and in this world, the magic intake too. (ED: Lotus position, in case you didn't understand)

Angus was watching him with a peculiar gaze in his eyes.

The position Delta was in was similar to the ones he had seen martial arts masters sit in at tournaments when they were absorbing as much energy as possible, and yet Delta seemed to sit in a strangely similar form to this position, despite not being a professional martial artist or knowing anyone from that world. (ED: The world of Martial Arts a.k.a. Murim, Jianghu, whatever you'd call it.)

He continued to breathe deeply, falling into a trance that martial artists trained to achieve. In this trance, Delta had completely shut out the outside world, closing off the sounds of other's breathing and fidgeting, the draft from the window and the light footsteps of Angus.

It was now that Delta did something that confused Angus completely. The pathway taught in the academy was to take it round to your left arm, head, right arm, torso and then legs.

This was the simplest pathway of mana absorption, however, there had yet to be a more effective method of doing so.

Delta began pulling mana from his core, splitting it into 24 separate pathways and moving around his ribcage. From here, half of the streams flowed into his spinal cord and the other half into his heart.

At first, Angus was planning to diffuse his mana to stop him from making any errors, however, Delta's next action stopped him dead in his tracks.

The streams in his spinal cord began to spread up and down, saturating his nerves and bones with mana until they had an aura of blue around them.

His heart, however, began mixing the mana into the blood it was pumping, meaning his blood would take the mana to every single cell in his body far more efficiently than the mana slowly working through each part of the body.

Once the mana reached Delta's lungs, it mixed in with the very oxygen he was breathing, meaning the mana was being transmitted throughout his body many times faster and much more evenly than everyone else using the standard method.

This method was something Angus had never seen before, partially due to the creativity of the idea, however mostly due to the incredible difficulty that would stem from having to control mana throughout the entire body at the same time.

All types of magic required that the user circulated the relevant energy throughout their body, to ensure that all the cells in the body carried that energy. mana users would have to saturate their bodies with mana, qi users would do the same with qi, vis users the same with vis and so on and so forth. However, the risks in doing so were immense.

If a mana user were to charge too much mana into a single part of their body, the unprepared cells would explode from the pressure, causing immense damage and sometimes even the loss of limbs and death. Too little, however, and the body wouldn't be prepared for magic usage later.

This was why Angus and the other instructors were on standby to diffuse the mana the second it got too dangerous, as the body was yet to build a natural defence to magic, and thus could be manipulated by others.

Delta's method was incredibly dangerous as a massive amount of mana would be circulating through his heart, and even the smallest slip up would cause his heart to be torn to shreds, killing him instantly.

'Just what is that boy thinking?' Angus thought to himself.