His answers were getting shorter, and he was fairly sure Edith noticed. She didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she folded her hands behind her back.
"I didn’t have a family name that opened doors for me," she said. "No inherited techniques, no military tradition, and nobody who had fought at a Breach and could tell me what to expect. I grew up in an orphanage. When I turned eighteen, I went to my Awakening with everyone else my age, the same as you."
She said it plainly, like she was reading from a report.
"A sword chose me. House Ferrers offered me a place because I had awakened the class they specialize in, and I took it. That didn’t make me anything, though. I started as a recruit, trained under Ferrers instructors, went on monster operations, stood on Breach defenses and earned command one responsibility at a time."
She looked at him steadily. "Awakening decides whether the door opens. Everything after that depends on what you do once you walk through it."
That was more interesting than the questions had been. Owen had heard the story before, but hearing it from her made it sound less like something the soldiers repeated over drinks and more like an actual career.
Even so, part of him was still waiting for the real lesson to start. His eyes drifted to the cushions along the wall, and Edith followed his glance.
"You’re wondering when we get to the part you came here for."
There was no point denying it. "A little."
"I start here on purpose," she said. "Some cultivators get so fixated on rank that they forget what the power is for. Cultivation developed because awakened fighters needed stronger bodies, deeper reserves and better control to survive what comes through the Breaches. Remember that, and you’ll make fewer stupid decisions later."
Owen nodded. He understood the point, even if he still wanted to move on.
"There are seven major ranks," Edith said. "Kindled, Tempered, Resonant, Ascendant, Dominion, Sovereign and Origin. You don’t need to worry about what the higher ones can do yet."
She held up three fingers. "Every major rank has three substages: Trace, Brand and Crest. A newly awakened cultivator starts at Kindled Trace. You work your way through Brand and Crest, and once your core is ready, you break through to Tempered Trace. Then the same three stages start over again."
Owen already knew all of that. He had grown up around cultivators and had heard the ranks mentioned for years. What caught his attention was Edith’s next question.
"Do you know how anyone actually takes the first step?"
Owen opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again.
"No," he admitted. "I’ve watched people cultivate and read the basic material, and I know mana is involved. But my core was dormant until yesterday. None of the descriptions ever told me what it actually feels like."
"Good answer," Edith said. "Knowing the words and knowing the sensation aren’t the same thing. People who think they are usually waste a lot of time."
She nodded toward the cushions. "Your first lesson isn’t about breaking through. It isn’t about strengthening your sword or getting more out of that fire, either. It’s about Mana Sense."
"Mana is already everywhere around you," she continued. "An awakened core can interact with it. But before you can draw it in or move it through your body, you need to be able to tell it apart from your own energy and from everything else your body is feeling. If you can’t sense it, you can’t do anything with it."
That made sense. Owen couldn’t pull on something if he didn’t know where it was.
"How long does it usually take?" he asked.
"That depends on the person. Don’t worry about it."
She had him sit on one of the cushions. Owen crossed his legs, straightened his back and rested his hands on his knees. Edith stepped behind him and pressed two fingers between his shoulder blades until he eased back slightly, then walked away again.
"Don’t reach for your core," she said. "That’s the easiest mistake to make. Your own energy is a lot louder than the mana around you, so the moment you close your eyes, you’ll want to look inward. Don’t. Slow your breathing, stop searching for anything dramatic, and let your awareness spread out into the room."
Owen closed his eyes.
At first, all he noticed were ordinary things. A faint breeze came through the open window and brushed across his skin, and the cushion pressed against his legs. Edith was breathing quietly a few steps to his left, and outside, muffled by the walls, boots were hitting the training grounds while steel rang against steel.
His shoulders still ached, and his forearm still had that faint tenderness from yesterday. He noticed all of it and left it alone.
Nothing else happened for a while. After a minute or two, his attention started drifting toward the warmth in his chest without him really meaning it to.
"Outward," Edith said quietly.
Owen realized his breathing had changed. He let it slow down again and stopped thinking about his core.
He also stopped trying to guess what mana was supposed to feel like. He had no idea, and if he started imagining something, he would probably just end up finding whatever he had imagined.
Several breaths went by with nothing new. Then, slowly, Owen began to notice that the room didn’t feel empty.
It was faint enough that he almost ignored it. There was something there besides the breeze and the warmth of the sunlight on his face. It didn’t come from any particular direction, and instead seemed to fill the space around him.
When he tried to focus on it, it slipped away. When he relaxed and let himself notice it, it became a little clearer.
Owen didn’t trust it right away. Edith had told him to expect something, and it would be easy to convince himself he was feeling it just because he wanted to.
So he tested it. He turned his attention toward the open window, and the same faint presence was there too, in the air outside. Then he focused on the floor near his knees and found it there as well.
It wasn’t coming from him. It was in the room, and it had probably been there the whole time he had been sitting on the cushion waiting for something to happen.
The boredom from earlier was gone now. The mana was subtle, but after noticing it once, he couldn’t stop noticing it. It filled the room around both him and Edith.
Edith didn’t say anything, and he didn’t hear her move.
Owen kept his eyes closed and held on to the feeling, careful not to reach for it. She had only told him to sense it, and he wasn’t going to try anything else on his own.
Then a familiar sound rang in his head.
Ding!
A single notification appeared behind his closed eyes.
[You have sensed mana.]