“So, to summarize, when a living being dies their Mana is released and you can absorb it to strengthen or recover your own. The phenomenon of Mana Stones spawning is similar to this and the resulting object has similar applications, but can also be used as a forging material.”

“That is just it. Your ability to succinctly explain the most important aspects of your lessons is truly unmatched. Thank you, Kal.”

“It is merely my job. But, how long does it take for a person to become proficient in this?”

“Well, that depends on your talent, as do most things. All of you can probably begin absorbing starting from your first kill thanks to your wonderful senses for Mana. From there it will probably be several years before you can fully absorb a being’s Mana. I also do recommend using Mana Stones as tools to train this process in the beginning and to jump-start your growth.”

“That were my thoughts as well, thank you for confirming, Goddess. Also, I do believe it would be prudent to refine them into Mana Potions once we reach a certain point of Internal Mana.”

Everyone present nodded at this. It was, after all, the most logical decision. Even without being told, they knew that refining a Mana Stone is vastly more efficient than just carrying it around to use like a potion in its raw form. After all, as the Goddess said, even for the most talented Stars like them, they need years of training to fully absorb the Mana from a living being’s death.

Absorbing from a Mana Stone is actually even more difficult as the Mana does not flow, so sensing every last speck of it is the added difficulty.

“Actually, that makes me curious. Whenever we talk about Ray you address him as ‘The Brightest Star’ or something similar. Basically, it’s obvious you think he has the greatest talent of us all. How long do you think he would need?”

The Goddess fell into thought for a moment as she considered stories from previous Heroes. All the tales she had heard and read in preparation of needing to raise a Hero herself sprang into mind and she arranged an answer for the twelve currently looking at her.

“Once again, personal talent plays a role, but there has never been a Hero that needed longer than a single year to master this ability. The most talented among them have been recorded to gain full mastery over Mana within a few months, the specific fastest was two months and 3 weeks. Of course, do keep in mind that this was all done in Worlds abundant in Mana and creatures to slay.”

“Then what about Ray?”

“I cannot say for certain as I have not seen him. Thus, this is only a guess which you can wholeheartedly ignore.”

Of course, none of the twelve had any thoughts of doing that. Within the two weeks that they had been training under her and her Apostles, they had gained much skill and in general even had an enjoyable time doing so, with both the Goddess and her Apostles being unbelievably kind and friendly.

Listening to even her guesses seriously was the least they could do to begin repaying her grace.

“Based on what you have shown me, and knowing that he is even more talented than all of you…”

She paused. Another quality that made their time with her quite enjoyable: She was knowledgeable in aspects of storytelling and was quite skilled in creating tension, even with things as simple as dramatic pauses where she slowly locks eyes with each member of her audience in turn before continuing.

“… I do believe we might see that record broken.”

***

As the last Goblin fell its energy almost immediately began moving, although not in preparation to return to the larger Flow of Mana, but all of it began moving in the direction of a single man’s chest. It was quickly absorbed and filled him with a refreshing feeling, healing and empowering him.

On this day, not a single drop of Mana returned to the larger Flow.

The man stood still for a moment, looking around him to imprint the scene of carnage he had left in his mind. Trees were broken, the ground was shattered and blood was haphazardly splattered around the area in large volumes.

It was the battlefield where he had just finished facing a group of five Goblins.

The blood had two different colours, a large volume of it was black, but not black due to its age. It was still fresh. It heavily out-scaled the amount of red blood, but even that was abundant. It was a truly gruelling life-and-death battle.

As he finished appraising the scene he had left and comparing it to the last battle he had to gauge his growth he began to return to the edge of the forest. On the way he came across three other clearings, all of which carried similar traces of battle.

Or rather, they only became clearings due to those very battles.

He used the traces of this destruction to quickly navigate his way. As he started going down this path regularly he became more and more adept at following it and returned within less than ten minutes.

Of course, the use of Mana to speed himself up helped as well.

Now that his Mana pool has already become vastly more abundant compared to his first forays, he has become a bit more generous with using it. Even at just a casual comparison he guessed that he had grown by at least a factor of ten, maybe even approaching twenty.

Considering he had yet to meet an opponent that required his full might he wasn’t terribly rushed to make that casual comparison a proper investigation.

His feet finally found the soft grass that he knew signalled the end of the forest. He entered the plain and quickly returned to conscious thought. The journey back through the forest had become an event worthy of autopilot already.

As he stepped further and further away from the edge of the forest he felt a slightly sticky feeling for a moment, as if stepping through a membrane, before it quickly disappeared and so did even the faint traces of Mana he had been feeling.

He turned around and looked at the forest and he saw only an idyllic and silent forest. His eyes then found the spot where he had crossed the boundary of the forest, leaning on the first tree he had broken, back when he found the first Imp he slew.

The tree was standing fully upright, not a single sign of the rubble he had left on his first chase.

He simply began walking away even further, on his way back to his home to inspect the Mana Stones he gathered that day, intent to find a way to use them for further development now that he was somewhat happy with his Mana Pool.

In his mind were only calculations about his spoils.

8 Mana Stones, 5 from Goblins, 3 from Imps. Not a bad haul. Definitely better than the days I found nothing.

Plus there is the fact that I can use all of them for research now. Using everything of a corpse is the duty of a Hunter and I can now fulfil it.

But… hmm… Am I fast or slow getting used to this?

I don’t really have a metric, huh?

Well, let’s stroke my ego and say I’m quick.

He sighed at this, thinking about how he was getting used to slaughtering living beings with his own hands. He had already lost all guilt a week ago, but some melancholy still remained as his conscious mind reminded him how unusual his situation is.

But then again, he was also happy as such quick adaption would one day save his live. In fact, it might already have.

He could do nothing but sigh again while letting those thoughts go while muttering a final comment.

“… Just two weeks ago I was still a normal college student…”