It hadn’t even been half a month since Lara had been transmigrated, and she knew absolutely nothing about magic — getting stuck at mana perception was perfectly normal.
But in the eyes of Eilan, who wasn’t privy to the details, it looked rather unexpected.
This kind of unreasonable situation was something he had never run into before.
He hadn’t expected that Lara, of all people, would be stuck at mana perception.
In theory, those born with strong mana would naturally come to perceive its existence as they grew up — usually around the age of five or six.
And a person’s own experiences could even determine which kinds of magic they could pick up spontaneously.
Take himself, for example.
As a child, he had liked to spend time alone up on the city walls, especially fond of the sound of the sea breeze sweeping past, the rustling of leaves, and the crying of seagulls.
Experiences like that were what had let him master sound-controlling magic with no one there to guide him.
Lara’s initial mana, on the other hand, was already on par with a genius novice mage who had trained for three months — and yet her perception hadn’t opened.
There was no past case of such a phenomenon, and Eilan had no way to pin down the exact reason.
All he could do was try the usual methods.
“Hold your hands up first.” Following Eilan’s instructions, Lara raised both hands, palms up.
Eilan took Lara’s hands in his own, gathering a small amount of mana at his fingertips and controlling it to guide a change in the flow of Lara’s mana.
“Can you feel anything out of the ordinary?” Eilan asked her.
Usually, those without talent got filtered out at this step — he’d use three rounds of question and answer to judge whether the subject was misperceiving, lying, or anything along those lines.
Under Eilan’s guidance, Lara did indeed feel something slowly being drawn out of her body, and she answered Eilan honestly.
Then Eilan asked twice more — but stopped guiding her mana this time — and Lara was still able to accurately answer based on what was actually happening.
Lara could perceive mana normally.
After this simple test, Eilan reached that conclusion.
But she still said she couldn’t see the flow of mana.
Being able to feel it but unable to see it was not exactly good news.
Eilan told Lara it might be a congenital defect, and that the specific cause wasn’t something they’d be able to sort out in a short while.
Lara also quietly asked 0083 inside her mind.
‘Is there something wrong with this body?’ ‘Examination complete.
No abnormalities, Master.’ 0083 stuck to its denial, indicating that Lara could use magic normally and that no physiological defect existed.
Just those two simple conclusions were enough to drop Lara into a slump.
Could the problem be with her after all?
It was like with math problems — some people could solve them, and some people simply couldn’t.
‘Sigh.’ Lara sighed inwardly.
Just as Lara was wallowing in self-pity, Eilan, off to the side, seemed to have figured something out.
He stopped fixating on the matter of Lara not being able to see mana, and decided to let her try casting magic first.
“You can perceive mana normally.
Even though you can’t see it, that doesn’t get in the way of you casting magic.” As he spoke, Eilan stretched out both hands and stood sideways in front of the archery range where the mercenaries usually practiced, then had Lara rest her hands on top of his.
“Next, I’m going to guide your mana, so you can experience casting magic for yourself.
Close your eyes and memorize the sensation.” Doing as Eilan instructed, Lara closed her eyes and felt the power gathering in from every limb and every bone — clear and distinct, converging to a single point, compressing, firing.
With a ‘bang.’ Lara reflexively opened her eyes, and saw the training dummy in the distance rocking back and forth without pause.
In an instant, a wave of joy filled Lara from head to toe.
‘What a saikō moment.’ No need to say anything more — Teacher Eilan, I think I’ll remember you for the rest of my life.
Such was the little drama playing out inside Lara’s head.
Eilan let go of Lara’s hands and pulled out a vial of potion from beneath his cloak, setting it down on the floor beside them.
The green liquid gave off a faint shimmer.
“This is a supplement that speeds up mana recovery.
While it restores your mana, it can also effectively keep you from damaging your body — there’s just one small price to pay.” “From here on out, your task is to keep feeling this spell over and over, until you’ve learned it.” With that, Eilan took Lara’s hands again to guide her through casting, and Lara closed her eyes once more.
After two or three rounds, as the training dummy kept swaying, Lara felt a deficit of strength, very similar to the feeling of having burned through her stamina.
“Teacher, I’m feeling really tired now.” “That’s a normal phenomenon.
Because you started late, you’ll have to put in several times more effort than the average person.
From here on, it’s like working out your body — you have to keep driving your mana to the edge of depletion, then recover, and repeat the cycle.” As he spoke, he picked up the vial from the floor and placed it in Lara’s hand.
Looking at the slick-green potion, she couldn’t help but wonder, deep down.
‘Is this really safe to drink?’ She glanced up at the solemn-faced Eilan, then back down at the potion in her hand.
Lara swallowed.
Ah, whatever!
A little dirt never hurt anyone.
An unimaginable bitterness, laced with a sticky, clinging texture — the traditional Chinese medicine she’d choked down in her past life wasn’t even one-tenth as bad as this.
After a short rest, while still fighting back the urge to retch, Lara began the next cycle.
This time, with the potion’s lingering effect, the cycle stretched out much longer — until her mana once again hit rock bottom.
Yet another vial was pulled out from beneath Eilan’s cloak and dropped into Lara’s palm.
Looking at the potion in her hand, there was a little Frieren tumbling around inside Lara’s heart, over and over.
‘Yadamo, yada, oysters.’ A few more cycles in, all Lara could feel was terror — a demonic four-dimensional cloak-man was standing right in front of her.
It wasn’t until Eilan judged that she’d had about enough that he let her go and told her to try casting the spell on her own.
The spell was a basic one similar to Frieren’s stare-down kill — Magic Missile.
The difference was that the stare-down had no startup tell and was impossible to detect, whereas Magic Missile’s speed would fluctuate somewhat depending on the caster’s level of proficiency.
Lara took out the staff Eilan had given her from her bag, gripped it in her hand, and closed her eyes, feeling the flow of mana inside her body.
With the staff lending its support, the flow of mana became much smoother, gathering at the tip of the staff, compressing — firing!
Opening her eyes and seeing the swaying dummy, Lara knew: the door to magic had been opened for her.
‘A success on her very first try — what an extraordinary talent.’ Gather mana, then compress, then fire.
Such simple steps were nonetheless brimming with difficulty for a beginner.
Mastering a spell in such a short span proved that Lara’s control over mana was already beyond novice level.
Eilan would need to readjust her training plan to make sure he could keep up with the pace of her progress.
Eilan raised a hand to stop Lara, who was getting ready to try a few more shots, and said in an earnest tone: “Let’s call it a day.
You can go home and rest up.
Your situation is rather unique — I need to adjust your training plan.” “Casting magic for the first time is certainly something to be happy about, but I have a piece of bad news for you.
Not being able to see the flow of mana directly is far more serious than you might imagine.
For a beginner, mana perception comes primarily through sight, and being unable to see it will greatly increase the difficulty of your learning.” “It’ll also cause you to misjudge an enemy’s strength in combat.
Even when something’s happening right in front of you, any spellcasting beyond the range of your mana detection will appear to you as casting with no startup tell whatsoever — that’s extremely dangerous.” With that, he tidied up the vials and jars on the floor and gestured for Lara to leave with him.
After leaving the Mercenary Guild, Lara made her way back to the open ground beside the inn and, with unshakable regularity, began her sword practice.
Magic was important, but the body mattered too.
The next day.
The fatigue from the day before still lingered in Lara’s body.
She hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet when 83 told her that her mana had risen by two points.
‘Panel.’ Name: Lara Age: 18 Race: Human Physical Condition: Healthy Grip Strength: 251 kg Mana: 18 Special Abilities: Metamorphosis, Holy Light Blessing Yesterday’s training — today, the results were already showing.
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