Chương 15: Internal Mana Techniques

Jonny was extremely excited for Igrette to have joined the orphanage's staff, and when they returned inside for magic lessons, he practically sprinted so he could be in place for whatever she was going to teach. Then, he was met with immense disappointment as he learned that she would not be teaching yet, as she needed to be trained on her other duties.

He quite literally fell to his knees when he heard this, and remained in a funk for an entire week until finally, she appeared in the classroom in the morning with Helen to introduce her. She looked a bit more comfortable in her robes now, though she was still wearing her mask, and didn't look particularly pleased to be the center of attention.

"Children, do you all remember my friend Igrette?" asked Helen. The old woman chuckled at the chorus of yes's mixed with a few no's.

"Well, from now on, she'll be joining us during morning lessons. Igrette is a specialist in internal mana techniques. That means using mana to strengthen your body, instead of using it to cast spells outside your body. And she's prepared a little lesson for you all to teach you a bit more about it! So gather round and find a seat, and give her a quick round of applause." Helen slid away from Igrette while the children all scrambled to find a spot on the ground, forming a haphazard semicircle around the warrior nun.

Some of the kids looked a little apprehensive, but most were excited to hear from the interesting newcomer, and were curious about internal mana techniques. A few were excited enough that they couldn't stop talking, forcing Helen and the others to quiet them down so that Igrette could start talking.

"Well…" she said.

"I've never really taught a class like this, so don't expect anything special. But yes, I'm Igrette. I fought with Helen in the most recent Demon War and I was an expert in…" She trailed off as the attention of almost all the children snapped over to Helen.

"Miss Helen, you fought in a war?!" exclaimed one of them.

"Well, I wouldn't say 'fought'," said Helen with a chuckle.

"I was just a healer."

"Woahhhh!"

"But we can talk about that later. For now, let's give our full attention to Igrette, so she can give her lesson. Alright?"

"Awww…" The children reluctantly turned back to Igrette, with a few gazes, Jonny's included, lingering on Helen. He had never pegged her for a veteran. She certainly didn't act like one. It would explain how she knew someone like Igrette, though. The term "Demon War" also sounded vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure he had heard some of the other nuns reading a storybook about that or something. He wasn't paying attention, though.

"Yes, thank you, Helen," said Igrette.

"As I was saying, I fought in the war, and I was an expert in body enhancement and melee combat. After the war, I worked as a ranger to clean up stray demon infestations, and continued to hone my skills. Not too long ago, I was considered one of the kingdom's top hundred internal mana masters." She paused as the children did a small amount of oohing and ahing. Jonny smiled, glad that his intuition had been accurate about her skills.

"Internal mana techniques are very useful, and not just for fighting. Many laborers, such as farmers, construction workers, porters, carpenters, and masons also use them. If you want to lift heavy things, internal mana techniques are almost always more efficient than external mana, because they are building on a pre-existing framework, instead of creating one from scratch. The types used by common laborers are also much simpler and easier to learn than most spells.

"How many of you have noticed that you feel stronger when you have more mana inside you?" Most of the children raised their hands.

"That's because the simple act of having mana in your body is actually an internal mana technique on its own. Most of your mana cycles through you, then passes back out to the atmosphere, but some of it ends up going to your muscles and bones, making you stronger. And over time, this can make you permanently stronger as the mana saturates your body. If you actively use internal mana techniques, you can multiply this effect. For example…" She reached into the pocket of her robe and produced an ordinary rock.

She handed it to one of the children in the front row so they could examine it, and they pronounced with certainty that it was a rock. She then raised it up, taking a moment to show it to everyone before closing her fist around it. It barely looked like she was applying any force, but when she opened her hand again, the rock had been crushed to fragments and powder. And when she picked up a piece between two fingers and pinched, that too broke. Holy shit, thought Jonny.

"I hardly used any mana when I did that," Igrette said.

"That was just purely the strength of my body. I actually used to be stronger, but I've gotten old, and have lost some of my former strength. I am an extreme case, because I spent my entire life training my body with internal mana, but you too can increase your natural strength if you work at it.

"The most basic internal mana techniques simply concentrate mana in different parts of your body. The concentration of mana naturally strengthens it, making your body stronger while the mana is there. To get more advanced, though, and to truly master internal mana, there's one more thing you need that most people don't even consider. Can anyone guess what it is?" The children contemplated for a few seconds before a boy in the front row tentatively raised his hand.

It was Carl, one of the oldest children there at age 9.

"Yes, you," said Igrette.

"What's your name?"

"Carl."

"And what do you think the answer is?"

"Exercise?"

"Good guess," said Igrette.

"But not quite. You do need to exercise, but that's not the key to advanced internal mana control. Anyone else? Yes, you. What's your name?"

"Ellie!" said a redhead with pigtails on the right side.

"I heard you need special potions to get strong!"

"There are potions that can help, but still no. I'll give you all a hint. It's not a physical thing. It's knowledge. You need to know something to be able to control your internal mana better. Can anyone guess what that is?"

"Is it how to control your internal mana?" asked a boy on the left with a smirk. A few of the other boys around him laughed, and he looked quite pleased with himself.

"Anyone else?" asked Igrette, ignoring him.

"How about you?" She pointed, and for a moment, Jonny thought she might have been pointing at him until Tommy started speaking. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Is it, like, your body?" he asked.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, 'cause you have bones and muscles, right? Maybe if you know them gooder, you can strengthen them gooder."

"Precisely. The word for that is anatomy. If you understand how your body works, and all the bones, muscles, tendons, blood vessels, nerves, and other stuff inside it, you'll be able to strengthen it much better. Different body parts have different load capacities. Pound for pound, your skin can take more mana than anything else, and your blood vessels the least. Your bones can handle slightly more than your muscles, but not as much as your tendons and ligaments.

If you just flood your body with mana, you'll be able to strengthen it, but you'll overload your muscles before your skin reaches its full capacity. But if you control the mana more precisely, targeting each body part on its own, you'll get much stronger, and you'll also be much more efficient with your mana." Igrette smiled, but her smile slowly faded as she saw that most of the children were confused.

She had used too many words they didn't know, and when Jonny looked around, he saw even Tommy had his brows furrowed trying to understand her words. She looked around until she saw a box full of wooden blocks and then went over to grab them. A minute passed in silence as all the children watched her build with bated breath. It was a very simple construct with four pillars of differing thickness and a simple flat top.

"Okay, imagine this is your body," she said.

"This fat pillar right here is your skin. This skinny one is your muscles, this slightly skinny one is your bones, and this medium one is your tendons and ligaments. Your tendons and ligaments are the parts that connect your bones together, and your muscles to your bones.

"Now, imagine that this is your mana," she said, holding up another block a few feet above the building.

"Filling your body with mana is like doing this." She dropped the block, making the block building shake.

"If it's only a little mana, it's fine. Your body can handle it just fine. But if it's a lot of mana…" She grabbed a dozen or so block and dropped them all, one after another. The building shook violently, then collapsed on the seventh block as the narrowest tower gave out. She stopped as soon as it did, leaving the building partly collapsed as she stood back up.

"As you can see, the skinniest piller, the muscle pillar, broke first, but the fat pillar, the one representing skin, is still just fine. That's the same thing that will happen to your body if you're not careful. Too much mana will make your weaker body parts break, even if the rest was strong enough to take more." The kids looked a bit more understanding, but some of them were still clearly quite confused, making Igrette sigh.

"I'm sorry, I was never good at teaching. If you're still confused, you can ask me more in a little bit. For now, though, I'll just continue.

"Internal mana techniques are very useful to learn, even if you don't want to use them very much. Strengthening your body is useful a lot, even in everyday life. Especially when you get older. Just look at Helen. She hobbles around like an old lady while I'm still as healthy as ever." Helen smiled and nodded at that, and the kids laughed.

"However," continued Igrette.

"Internal mana can also be dangerous. Just like I showed you a moment ago, if you use too much mana, you can damage your body. And if you lose control while lifting something heavy, you can get hurt. So, if any of you want to learn it from me, you'll have to get direct permission from Abbess Helen. You copy?"

"C– copy?"

"Understand. Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

"There are a few who I have already given express permission to," said Helen, standing up from her seat on the side.

"Carl, William, Allie, Henrietta, Sam, Tommy, and Jonny. You can start learning internal mana today if you wish. The rest of you will need to demonstrate a certain level of mana control before you'll be allowed to learn."

"But Jonny can't control his mana!" whined one girl.

"Jonny is a special case," said Helen.

"Now, everyone, thank Igrette for the lesson. Go on."

"Thank you, Igrette," the children intoned.

"And for the six whose names I called, if you want to learn more about internal mana, you can follow Igrette to the small classroom. Everyone else, you can go back to your normal activities." Jonny immediately leapt to his feet, and was the first in line to leave the room with Igrette. Finally, after years of being stuck as just a powerless, almost mundane child, he was getting his opportunity to learn internal mana techniques. He couldn't wait.

In fact, he was in so much of a hurry that he almost forgot it had been nearly a week since his last mana infusion, and that he was almost out. He had to turn around at the door to the small classroom to go back to Helen.

"Where are you going?" asked Igrette, standing at the doorway.

"Don't you want to learn internal mana?"

"Yes, but I need mana first, so I need to go ask Helen!"

"What?" asked Igrette, looking confused.

"I have Null Syndrome, so I need Helen to give me mana."

"You… have Null Syndrome?"

"Yeah. I'll be right back."

"…Alright. Don't take too long."

"I won't!" Grinning, Jonny turned to run back to the main classroom. Internal mana techniques here I come!

"For a first lesson, that actually wasn't–""He has Null Syndrome?!" demanded Igrette.

"Did I not tell you that before?" asked Helen, pouring a cup of tea.

"No! No, you didn't!"

"Well, I'm sorry. Maybe if you hadn't stormed out, I could have gotten to that on the day I tried to recruit you."

"Helen, do you even understand what this means?"

"Yes, that's why I called you. He can't cast spells, so his only option is internal mana."

"Yes, but even that isn't really an option."

"Well, perhaps if he wants to work alone, but as long as he has a team–""No, that's not what I mean. Helen, look at me." Helen took her time filling up the teacups, sliding Igrette's across the table before looking her old friend in the eye.

"Helen, when you add a layer to your core, what do you need to do?"

"Well, you need to cycle and absorb and compress mana from–" She froze.

"Oh."

"Do you see the problem now?"

"…Yes. Yes, I see the problem… Darn it!" Igrette leaned forward putting her face in her hands.

"I can't believe I never thought of that," muttered Helen.

"I am– Igrette, I am so sorry. I am so foolish. I am the worst. If I had realized, I would never have–""It's not me you should be apologizing to," said Igrette, sitting back up.

"I'm here now. I intend to stay here, Jonny or not. You were right back then. Wandering wasn't good for me. But that's not important, because I don't really matter in this scenario. It's Jonny you need to be apologizing to."

"You're absolutely right," said Helen, pounding her fist on the table, causing tea to splash out of her cup.

"I can't believe I was so stupid. How did I never even consider that?"

"It's not entirely your fault."

"Oh, 'not entirely,'" said Helen sarcastically.

"How comforting. That still means it's mostly my fault."

"Null Syndrome is incredibly rare. Many people don't know it exists."

"Yes, but I know it exists."

"But you've never worked with it before."

"Yes, but that's no excuse for missing something so simple."

"Maybe…"

"Is there really no way for him to grow his core?"

"Well… There might be."

"Really?"" Might. I am not sure. I only heard rumors. I'd have to reach out to some old friends to confirm."

"Well, then we'll wait until you do that to tell him."

"What?"

"Well, what if we crush his dreams, only to find out it wasn't impossible after all?"

"And what if we string him along for a year, only to find out it was never a possibility in the first place?"

"…Fair point. Still, we should wait a month or so. Just in case."

"You just don't want to be the bearer of bad news."

"You're right. But we should still wait. No harm in it. Whether it's now or in a month, it won't make much of a difference."

"I suppose…"

"Anyway, back to business. For a first lesson, that actually wasn't too bad. There are a few ways that you could have done better, though…" In the bedroom, Jonny couldn't sleep. He finally had a way to learn internal mana techniques, and it sounded like everything he ever wanted. Now, all that was left to do was master them. And add layers to his core. He had learned recently that that was a thing for increasing power. He knew it would be a little tricky for him, due to his condition, but it still seemed doable.

Tommy says he's gonna do it in a month. I bet I can beat him, but I'll need to work extra hard...