“11:56 pm. I have started this alone and I must finish it, alone. There’s no longer a choice. I know that I must use myself, as the subject of the experiment”

“Don’t overdramatize this, Vic”

“No there is no choice~
I must put aside the fears I feel inside~
There's no place to hide~

So it comes to this.
One last final chance for me to take~
Now everything I've fought for is at stake.

Like a warning light, glimmeri~ng in red
Like crimson bloodshed, shimmeri~g in red
Beautiful and strange, see the colors change before my~ ey~es
See how they dance and they sparkle, like diamonds at night
Leading out of the darkness, and into the light”

“Now this is strange. Maybe you shouldn’t-”

“Now the die is cast!
Nothing left to do...
Time alone can prove my theories true...
Show the world—

My God!

Something is happening! I can’t explain!

Suddenly
Uncontrolled
Something is
Taking hold!

Suddenly
Agony!
Filling me!
Killing me?

Suddenly
Out of breath!
What is this?
Is this death?!”

“It’s just a soup, Victor!”

…

As you can see, my first experiment at making soup with the tools so generously provided by Grand Mage Lurus wasn’t as successful as I had hoped it to be.

Well, it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t give me poison resistance at least.

Still, it’s quite boring out here. To the point where I have to sing old Broadway musicals I remember. Sigh.

I have spent another three days at my current base. No progress on, well, anything.

I am still diligently following the instructions provided by Ralph in order to acquire the skills necessary to cast magic, I am still diligently mulling over every sentence and bug Ralph to repeat the advice he had given in order to see anything in case Ralph has worded his sentences in a way that isn’t particularly false, but still requires some thinking in order to truly understand.

It’s Ralph after all.

Well, he’s not that bad. Just bored maybe.

Anyway, it’s boring and magic practice is greatly unrewarding.

Well, you wouldn’t expect the abilities to change the landscape at will with enough power to be easily acquired but still, it’s very unrewarding.

I have added morning jogs into my routine as well as some other physical exercises in order to regain my not-so-impressive shape before I had the fever.

Other than this, nothing has changed. Well, I might be slightly going insane. Haha. Hahaha. AHAHAHAHA- *cough* *cough*.

…

Another two weeks. I no longer care about the passage of time and rely on Ralph to count the days for me.

I asked Ralph to use our mind link to bring me some sort of entertainment from back on Earth but Ralph refused.

What a demon.

Anyway, I feel like today might be the day. I might actually make some sort of progress with this. Let’s forget that I have had this feeling for the whole of the past week. It’s always better to look at the bright side of life.

Ralph refuses to give me any updates on my progress, by the way.

Likely not because it’s useful but because he finds it funny to see me try so desperately hard.

…

“Eh? WHAT?!”

I couldn’t help but exclaim with a very rough raspy voice. I FELT something different today! I can’t really explain it but it was there. I’ll try again…

“Hm…”

It’s there! I can’t quite put my finger on it and whenever I concentrate too hard it feels like there’re ants crawling all over my brain. Not physically, it’s the type of feeling when you encounter a problem you can understand in general but when you dig deeper it begins to make no sense. A paper-thin barrier, an itch inside your mind a thin fog in your vision, that kind of feeling.

I need to think about what I’m feeling.

…

“…Aether, or mana, is an immaterial, incorporeal, immutable, absolute and most metaphysically fundamental existence that reflects the true nature of that which we call reality. And what you and the system call mana, therefore, is the approximate numerical measure of your ability to utilize the only possible way for a living being to interact with the material world - through the Astral Mind, at the given moment”

That’s what Ralph had said when I just got here.

That is what I have come across as I was searching through my mind to understand the feeling I couldn’t describe.

I feel I’m on to something.

An immaterial, incorporeal, immutable, absolute and most metaphysically fundamental existence that reflects the true nature of that which we call reality

If it’s immaterial and incorporeal, then how do the magicians outside the system interact with it?

The only possible way for a living being to interact with the material world - through the Astral Mind

In other words, they use the immaterial in their possession to interact with immaterial mana, is that right?

No, that’s total bull. After all

Immutable, absolute and most metaphysically fundamental existence

Those three adjectives deny my initial theory. In fact, they imply that mana is fundamentally impossible to interact with.

How is it used, then?

…

Absolute

True nature of that which we call reality

The material world

Interact with the material world

True nature… Reality… The material world

…I feel so close, so infinitely close.

…Just a bit closer.

…

…

… I see.

So that’s how it works.

Parmenides argued that reality is static and that change is but an illusion, as there is, and can only be one thing. The thing is “being”. Since change implies that something comes to be what it was not—It changes from not being to being, meaning that nothing can change. To describe it roughly.

Plato believed in “forms”. The special entities called ‘Forms’ that exist outside of space and time and that are both the objects of knowledge and somehow the cause of whatever transpires in the physical world

Using these two ideas, we can derive that what magicians truly interact with is the material world. Not mana. Mana is the only possible constant that can exist and what they use to aid their craft. A compass to navigate in the endless sea of the possibilities of forms of being. A perfect constant.

That reflects the true nature of that which we call reality

Most metaphysically fundamental existence

Logic itself may change, but existence shall still be. Being shall still be. It will be wherever and whenever, if such words would be applicable in an instant of a version of the material world.

An omnipresent, perfectly elastic medium having zero density. Aether.

Most metaphysically fundamental existence

That is mana.

What I see therefore is

What you and the system call mana, therefore, is the approximate numerical measure of your ability to utilize the only possible way for a living being to interact with the material world - through the Astral Mind, at the given moment

The power of my spirit. What I can use to interact with Mana.

That’s why it’s so hard to observe.

That’s why I can’t observe it properly.

I see.

…

What do I do then?

…

I talked to Ralph, explained my ideas which he has neither denied nor affirmed. He gave me pointers though.

“Think about it, if what you had seen there was the power of your spirit, what of natural sources of mana, like mana-stones? What about dungeons?”

“…They must also have something that allows them to inter- No, not interact, to possess properties defying the natural state of this instance of existence!”

“Aaaand?”

“…Um, I don’t know”

…

Hm, if I generalize…

Yes, that’s it!

I was too focused on the words Astral Mind to see it.

How dumb of me.

I shall postulate this:

Mana that I am observing is a spiritual substance of sorts which, under the influence of the system in this world, can interact with true Mana under certain conditions!

So, since mana is spiritual in nature, trying to observe it with the same way I have been observing it before, through visualization, is futile for it has no physical form to visualize and any properties I will try to subconsciously assign to it will ruin my observations.

That is the source of this uncomfortable feeling.

Like a paper-thin barrier. Like a piece of a missing puzzle. Like a picture that has been hung wrong.

I need to ‘see’ it in a different way.

…

You have acquired the skill: [Mana Insight (unique, lvl 1)]

You have acquired the skill: [Mana Manipulation (rare, lvl 1)]

You have acquired the skill: [Mana Perception (rare, lvl 6)]

I did it!

Well, instead of Mana Perception I have acquired Mana Insight though.

Ralph said that it’s because the system would assist with the visualization and it just needed to calibrate it for me.

Well, all is well that ends well.

Mana Insight is a rather rare skill among mages below level 300. All the classes below 300 hundred are mostly combat-oriented and don’t require a deep understanding of mana and magic too much. Kinda hard to think about life when you fight monsters every other day. And probably drink a lot in between. I mean, they have to cope with the stress somehow, not everybody has the "luxury" to have their mind defiled in various ways before even being born, resulting in Mental Fortitude.

Classes at 300 hundred such as Sorcerer, Warlock and Mentalist have their own special requirements though.

Also, I was able to make such rapid progress with Mana Insight in only several weeks because of my affinities and talent which are incredibly rare.

Mana Insight is a unique grade skill because everybody forms their own comprehension of the true nature of reality.

That's why books on philosophy and metaphysics are quite popular among mages that try to break through the level 300 barrier, if only for inspiration.

After all, it would be hard for me to form my own understanding, as shallow as it is at level 1 of Mana Insight, without the help of Plato and Parmenides.

Still, Mana Insight is amazing!

I need a special way of observing mana for it. It’s impossible to describe as humans don’t possess this kind of sense, but it allows me to see beyond the simple and rather primitive way Mana Perception visualizes mana. It's so much more. It's like gazing into the night sky and seeing the Galaxies beyond your own. It grants me an understanding of the of mana, the way it acts, the way it exists.

I feel this skill will be incredibly useful for creating spells.

But the headaches I get when I use it fucking kill me.

It feels like my frontal lobe is being violated by a soccer team all at the same time whenever I use it, so I don’t use it much in order to save my sanity, or what is left of it anyway.

For now, it won’t be very useful.

It’s like giving people from the times when Newton was still alive and kicking advanced tech to observe electrons and other elementary particles. Kinda not very needed.

But it raised my Mana Perception directly to level 6! And had knocked me out for a whole day afterwards.

I still need to get used to the skill though. It’s level 6 and I have barely used it.

Mana Manipulation? It’s not very easy. It’s like using a new pair of arms that are atrophied beyond belief if I had to describe the feeling.

Still, it has various uses. Like making my Self-Regeneration more efficient

[Self-Regeneration] has reached level 3!

I feel I am close to raiding the dungeon!

…

Or so I believed back then. What a fool.