Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Alright then, I know all of you already learnt this, but not that I mean to insult your teachers and instructors, it is simply rather common for egregious shortcuts and simplifications to be made when they shouldn't, thankfully, as shown during the earlier test of your general competences, all of your have a good grasp of mana weaving" Milo and Helena were sitting side by side, she was expertly attentive as usual, he was also paying attention, feeling quite relaxed after all.

The entrance ceremony hadn't been too bad, and contrary to what he had used to hear about nobles and people of higher bloodlines, no one was an overly annoying prick, Toordefer Academy wasn't a place for one to mess around in, it was considered the finest academy for magic and energy teachings.

And since Tamaris was a nation that preferred to remain neutral at all times, there were even foreigners roaming the halls, everybody here felt like it was an honour to be here, honestly, Milo had no idea how in all of creation he had ended up here with Helena.

Thankfully, it seemed like it wouldn't be as difficult as he pictured, the lady teaching them was simply going to go over the criteria to gauge one's mana, something he had learned well.

The woman teaching them was clearly a mage by profession, dressed up in dark red robes, she was still moving around unhindered in the least, her hair were similarly a bright red colour, not orange, actual red.

Milo had never seen this before, even her eyes seemed to be ignited with fire, she had presented herself as Rosemary and judging by the gasping that had occurred, she was rather famous, though, if they knew her already, how could they have not recognised her on the spot?

Milo shook his head, he needed to focus even if he supposedly knew the lesson already.

"Each one of us have simplicities and difficulties due to the various aspects of our mana, it goes without saying, but there are various methods to improve each of those aspects, be it by simply practising more, using the system or specific items, do not forget that the differences in your mana will most certainly always remain, the people with greater mana than you will always be better at the same level, keep that in mind as a rule of thumb" she crossed her arms, many had the bad reflex of focusing on the mass that had been elevated by such an action.

Milo kept it straight, he had other mounds to worry about, Rosemary continued her lesson unbothered.

"Alright, then the basics of the basics, inner manipulation, this is where the magic happens, literally, you circulate and form spells inside of your body before manifesting outside, generally by retaining physical touch with the spell, which, while having technically brought the spell out, allows you to retain control over it with inner control"

She turned to an open window, raised her right hand and manifested a flame from the top of her index finger as demonstration.

"A nice trick, however, if you were to fight anyone, this means that you have to blatantly signal that you are casting a spell, and in this manner, the direction you are aiming in is also beyond obvious, this can be solved with outer manipulation or by simply being faster in your casting" she explained, also taking some time to ask around if people around were still using gestures and spoken words to cast basic spells, the high amount made her sigh deeply.

"So, outer manipulation… In practice, you will feel that is like inner manipulation but just awfully more difficult, depends on whether you project some of your mana outside of your body or take over some ambient mana, but both ways have their share of problems, most people barely bother with this in the end, they only learn it in very close proximity to themselves at most" she then effortlessly conjured up a round ball of fire all the way at the back of the class, maintaining it whilst simultaneously talking and moving around, not even keeping her eyes on it.

Right after saying how difficult it was, she was definitely flexing her otherworldly mana control on them, and it was working wonders, everyone was agape.

Rosemary didn't feel the need to bask in the admiration of students that couldn't even qualify as third-rate mages yet, she clapped her hands, causing the orb of flames to disappear.

"Now, limit, do you all remember what that means?" now that she had gone over the most obvious of all, she decided it was time to see if they had properly learned before showing up here.

Many hands raised at the same time, the striking silence of the class only interrupted by the shifting air caused by their arms standing straight.

In true teacher fashion, Rosemary looked at the people that clearly knew the answer, her gaze then landing on a mousy girl at the front, who was definitely not asking to answer the question.

"So, what is limit all about?" the poor girl swallowed her saliva, took a deep breath and gave her answer slowly.

"Limit refers to the maximum amount of mana one can force into a spell on top of the necessary amount, it… It also sometimes refers to the opposite, how much someone can remove mana from a spell and still make it work out as intended…" the girl was looking down.

"Perfect! Indeed, that is what limit is all about, and unlike what some may say, it goes both ways" their red teacher praised the timid girl and moved on to the next point.

"Efficiency is related to limit in some capacity, having higher efficiency means that you will consume much less mana than average, with bad efficiency comes awful mana usage, if you are weak in that department, do not worry, it is one of the more easily solved by simply training" she reassured.

"I don't need to explain capacity, it is just your total amount of mana, always useful to have more than everyone else, but having an enormous amount makes it harder to conceal and you may have the bad habit of pouring more mana than necessary" she explained a few things anyways, apparently, there were downsides to have lots of mana.

The lesson about the basics of mana was getting quite lengthy, the more it went on however, the less they would be speaking of more advanced stuff, Milo was liking this prospect.