Michael continued pushing more and more mana into Ryan's body, who quickly placed it into the space between the domains. Though, there was a limit; at some point, it just wouldn't accept any more mana. From what Ryan could tell, it was about a similar amount to his own personal mana limit.

  "Are you okay? That was a lot of mana..." Michael took a step back, carefully pulling his spellcasting conduit off his arm. The chain had left a bit of an imprint in his skin, as if he had tied it on extremely tightly.

  "Yeah, it's fine. I was able to use one of my skills to store it away for now. I should be able to syphon a bit of it into me to do this on my own time," Ryan explained as he stood up and put his shirt back on. Though, he noticed that Michael was looking at him a little awkwardly, "Everything alright?"

  "H-huh? Yeah, I'm fine! Just... what now?"

  "Well," Ryan thought about it for a moment. He was thankful for the help, so he really wanted to do something in return. Especially because he had already promised to help Michael out a bit, though because of the business of last week, that hadn't happened yet. But there was something that he felt like could be useful for Michael, "If you want to leave, you can, obviously, but I do have a better idea. If you want, I'd like to help you with your Spirituality practice."

  Startled and surprised, Michael's eyes widened, "Wait, what? Are you sure?"

  "Yeah, of course! If this really works, you've helped me out a ton, so I want to return the favour," Ryan quickly walked over to his bag, grabbing the 'Horn of Shapeless Water' from it. The way that it worked was pretty straightforward. You poured your mana inside, and then tried to form the shape of a weapon or tool with it. Your mental made things way, way easier, but in the end, it was still the user actually changing it. It wouldn't be good practice for Ryan, probably, but it might work pretty well for someone like Michael, whose Spirituality stat was absolutely abysmal.

  "What's that?"

  "Just watch," with a smile, Ryan quickly tried to use the horn to form a few different shapes. First a shovel, then a baseball bat, then a sword, a spear, and even a bow, in quick succession, "It's a magic item. Super simple, really. Just pour in your mana, try to shape it somewhat right into the item you want it to be, and then the horn will do the rest. Just... see it as a safe way to practice mana-manipulation. I can't, like, give it to you, but as long as you're here with me, you can practice as much as you want."

  Curiously, Michael reached out his hand toward the horn that Ryan was holding out to him, "Wow, where did you get all these magic items from?"

  "A friend. Anyway, go on, give it a shot. I don't think you really can mess it up all too much," Ryan pointed out, curiously looking at the young mage in front of him. Michael was clearly worried about messing this up, but because of the active encouragement he was given, he decided to go ahead and at least give it a shot. Ryan wasn't wrong about anything until now, at least.

  He held the horn tightly, and Ryan stood a safe distance away. Not because he didn't believe what he said himself, of course, but because he didn't know what Michael might try making. He didn't want to get accidentally stabbed or pummelled by his own magic item. From where he was standing, he could see the water inside of the horn start to bubble up, like when mana was first poured into it.

  The bubbles started growing larger and climbing on top of each other, bulging out of the horn. They grew into a pillar of water; a straight, round bar that soon froze over. Michael seemed immediately excited, but Ryan was a little confused. An object like this should be pretty straightforward, but what Michael made was bumpy and crooked, and even had some dangerously jagged lines and even some spikes on its side. Maybe your magic control did influence the quality of the final item to some degree.

  Ryan looked at it a bit more closely, and then glanced back at Michael, "First of all, good job. But look at this, is this what you were trying to make?"

  "Uh..." Michael glanced at it, and then slowly shook his head, "No... I just wanted to make a normal straight bar... did I do it wrong?"

  "Well, not 'wrong', really. But it's obviously not what you had in mind, right? How about you try getting rid of all these bumps and smoothing it out?"

  The young hydromancer nodded, taking a deep breath. The ice on the bar melted, slowly but surely smoothing out while flowing back over the surface of the bar. But then, once Michael relaxed and the water froze again, the bumps just returned, maybe even worse than before. Ryan raised a brow and looked at Michael. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but he wanted to make sure.

  "Are you just 'letting go' once you shape the water?"

  "Huh? Should I not?"

  "No, of course not. You can't ever let go of your mana until it's set in place," Ryan pointed out. That was the bare minimum of mana manipulation that even Ryan knew. Mana was so volatile that you couldn't just leave it be. When it was within one's body, there was a sort of basic biological rhythm that was keeping the flow regular and in tune with everything else in your body. But once outside of it, mana had to be constantly controlled, otherwise, it would dissipate almost immediately.

  Even when Ryan pulled the spirits into or out of their domains manually, he only 'let go' of their mana once their bodies were fully formed. Though, in that case, it would probably just lead to the summoning being interrupted, since they were directly linked to Ryan already. But with something like the 'horn of shapeless water', that lack of active control was clearly leading to issues.

  It was a bit weird that Michael didn't know this, though. Apparently, together with the ability to actively manipulate mana, the 'Spirituality' stat also increased one's understanding of how to manipulate it. Like how you didn't have to manually breathe or blink, but your body just did that on its own. But with how low Michael's stat was, even such a basic fact wasn't really that obvious.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "... This is a bit of a bigger hurdle than I thought."

  "Twenty... three... twenty... four..." Modak groaned loudly, trying to keep his breathing as steady as he possibly could. He lowered his body, trying to hold the position for a few moments, before straightening his legs again, finishing this set of squats. Triumphantly, the orc grinned, feeling the tension in his thighs, "Oh, gods..."

  Yanna looked over at him with a laugh, laying on her bed, "What, that's already breaking you?"

  With a slight grumble, Modak glanced at his girlfriend, "Stop making fun of me, it's the first time I really try to work out consistently..."

  "Yeah, and you can tell," Yanna pulled her legs over the edge of the bed. She walked over toward Modak, placed her palm onto the ground, and went into a one-handed handstand with absolute ease.

  "Wow. You really have to brag like that, huh?" Modak smiled lightly, leaning forward. He squatted down and gave Yanna a kiss, and the minotaur grinned broadly in response.

  "Oh, let me be. I've got to catch up a little, don't I? Mister youngest-ever-and-first-ever-non-mage-wizard-candidate," Yanna carefully let herself back down onto the ground, "I can help you train more, if you want. You don't have to do it all on your own."

  Modak was still breathing somewhat heavily, shaking his head, "I don't know if that's a great idea. I'm not an Awakened. The ways that an Awakened and a non-Awakened train are completely different, right?"

  "I mean, sure, but that's just in training volume, frequency, and how we do progressive overload and shit, but not the form or techniques. I can show you and teach you everything you need to know. Well... there'll be some difference with leg exercises, obviously," Yanna explained, glancing down at her legs. A minotaur's legs were, simply put, in a slightly different shape.

  Hominid species like humans, elves, and orcs were plantigrades, meaning that their feet were flat on the ground; the front most parts of their feet, their toes, as well as their heels were both on the ground when they stood. Meanwhile, bovid species like minotaurs were unguligrades, meaning they mostly walked on the front of their feet, the equivalent of their toes that usually presented in the form of hooves.

  Though it wasn't the most massive difference in the world, it did change certain parts of how they had to train quite a bit. And considering that Modak's ribs and arm were still not in a state to do anything else but leg-based workouts, that could cause a small issue. Though, in the first place, "It might be better to wait until you've healed a bit more. I mean, just wait a week or two and you'll be good to go."

  "... Yanna. Without assistance of magic, it takes a broken arm around 7 or 8 weeks to heal, and a broken rib around 6 weeks for the average orc," Modak explained, and Yanna looked at him a bit taken aback.

  "Wait, seriously?"

  "Yes, seriously," a bit dejected, Modak sat down on the bed, "Obviously, with healing salves and potions or whatever, things like a broken rib in particular can be easily taken care of, but it doesn't work on me... I even tried one of those pills that Ryan had someone make from those blood roses Gaia is growing, but it just ended up in me coughing out a ton of mana and almost hurting myself even more."

  Yanna sat down next to Modak, rubbing his back, "I'm sorry... I didn't really think about that. But even so, it's just 8 weeks at most, then, right? Can't you wait until then? I know some physical therapy exercises that we could go through around that time to slowly help you into it. There's no need to rush."

  She wasn't wrong, obviously. Modak knew that he didn't have to rush. He wasn't a fighter, he didn't need to be in the frontlines of anything. But the idea of just being protected, of just sitting back and playing around with plastic bricks just made Modak feel even weaker than he already did, surrounded by all these powerhouses.

  "Well... actually, I'm... trying to awaken my aura," he explained, and Yanna raised her brow.

  "You're trying to awaken? You know you can't force that kind of thing."

  "No, that's not what I-" Modak tried to explain, but just let out a slight sigh as he tried to figure out how to best explain it, "So... it's not really as common with Aura, but you know there are people that can use spells and stuff without being an Awakened, right? The same thing is technically possible with Aura. Aura boosts the user's physical ability as well as well as their biological function as they grow more potent in using it."

  Yanna slowly nodded, understanding what Modak meant, "Right, I'm also training to manipulate my aura on my own outside of skills, but that's already really hard for me. Do you think you can do that?"

  "Well, yeah, actually? So, apparently, because of my complete rejection of mana, my body is a lot more attuned to aura. I told you about that aura researcher at the magic tower, right?"

  "The one that helped you figure out something for your project? How to properly fine-tune the mana frequency?"

  "Exactly, that one. In exchange for his help, I let him research my aura compatibility. So I know that it's a thing, I just need to... well, sense my aura and start training it a bit. And then, maybe I can get a bit stronger. Healthier."

  Yanna was silent for a while. She understood what Modak was saying, and what his plans were. But there was clearly something else on her mind that she was hesitant to say. So, the two just sat there for a few moments, until Yanna managed to get her question out, "But... why? Why do you need aura all of a sudden? Is something happening? Do you not feel safe anymore after what happened at the expo?"

  "No, that's not-" Modak started, but he could feel his heart skip a beat just before he finished the sentence. Maybe that wasn't totally wrong either. He did feel scared. Modak felt weak. Like he couldn't do a real difference. Frankly... he didn't even properly block anything there. He jumped into the way of one of the spirits, but was just swatted away. The only thing that Modak was good for was distracting the spirit long enough for some mages to step in and take the spirits down.

  And then, he was carried off by his girlfriend, the newest member of the awakened league and one of the strongest league prospects in their generation. In the hospital, he was visited by his best friends, one of which had just gotten back from meeting the Great Spirit of Water, while the other was continuing to talk about all the great new progress she was making in her already famous art.

  Of course, Modak wasn't doing bad in comparison either, but his project felt like... a lucky break. Something that he just so happened to have figured out at the right time. He didn't feel like he could really compare to the others. Modak just felt like, "I'm falling behind everyone. I just don't want to watch all the shit that's going on right now and just sit back and do nothing. I have to do something."

  Yanna held her boyfriend's hand, squeezing it softly, "I... I can tell that there's something going on that you can't tell me, and I'm not going to ask what it is because I trust you, okay? And just saying, you're doing great," she said, slowly standing up from the edge of the bed, "But if you say that you want to try awakening your aura, then I'll help you. Modak, I have really strong aura as well, it's kind of one of the things that made me stand out the most amongst other league candidates."

  The minotaur knelt in front of Modak, still holding his hand. He could feel her palm heating up quite a bit, unnaturally so, "And if you need help with something aura-related, obviously, I can help with that."

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