Episode 260 Mana (3)
The sound made by the waterfall rang in the ears.
The clothes were soaked as if they had fallen into water.
Aira, who was wet from her ears down to her hair, said with an unwilling expression.
“…It’s too harsh to push with my hands like yesterday. Please go in yourself.”
I beg you to die yourself.
Ray held his chest with his trembling hands and took a deep breath.
“Haa… whoa…”
I don’t want to throw myself into the valley anymore.
However, if he stopped here, he would have to live without being able to handle mana for the rest of his life.
Besides, the current training was prepared by thinking of herself.
It was unreasonable to refuse.
Having made up his mind, he threw himself into the water without hesitation.
As you pull the vine with all your might, the rock is dragged along and adds weight.
with a splash-!
He began to sink to the bottom with a huge splash.
Unlike yesterday, when he almost drowned without any resolution, he now submerged himself in the water of his own will.
So, I had time to look around.
Looking at the cliff, he shook his head.
‘The walls are sharp. If I put all my weight on it, it will break like yesterday.’
There is no single proper support.
It is the size that can be said to be good if you put three fingers on it.
Even so, he rode the cliff ignorantly like yesterday.
Whimpering, he carries a rock on his back and steps on the wall.
I would rather have been tied to my waist, but thanks to the rocks tied to my ankles, it was even more difficult to climb.
how many minutes has passed
I’m slowly getting short of breath.
The body screamed as it was not properly supplied with oxygen.
‘Ugh!’
I grit my teeth and climb the cliff.
His palms were torn off like rags by the sharp rock wall.
He didn’t stop, even as the blood flowed around him and obstructed his vision.
In my head, the need to breathe ran incessantly.
That moment.
The very thought of desire felt like a weak mana.
It seems that the strong will is reconciled with mana and gives strength to the body.
But if you try to catch it, it will disappear like a haze.
‘Hold on. Think.’
He presses himself and drives himself to the point of death, but the more conscious he is, the more vague the traces are.
In the end, I lost my way and stumbled.
Pulseok—
the wall breaks and sinks down again.
As the painful sensation dominates the whole body, the eyes close involuntarily.
Whoops—!
As the rock hit the floor, consciousness drifted away with it.
* * *
“Second.”
I opened my eyes with Aira’s voice.
As always, a sweet fruity scent emanates from her.
She opened her mouth, unable to even meet her eyes with guilt.
“Did you feel Mana…?”
While waiting impatiently for an answer, Ray nodded.
“…I definitely felt it…but I forgot.”
“Right.”
“sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize. It is quite difficult for a living person to think of anything else in the face of death. It took me a month to leave the valley too.”
it’s a month
It came out in a much shorter time than expected.
It must have been that her willpower was as high as she had lived for a long time.
“Be impatient. The more you struggle to live and think more, the more your mind grows. Then, you won’t have to try to catch it, but someday you’ll find it in your hands.”
A strong will was felt in the blue eyes.
I believe in myself this far, but I can’t give up.
Still, the pressure of not being able to breathe freely and the fear of death on the verge of death lingered throughout his body.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to quit at all.
Ray grinned as the fear of death weighed down his body.
“Take a favor tomorrow too.”
“Whoop whoop. I will.”
* * *
Splash—!
I don’t know how many days have passed since I came here.
Now, Ray can throw herself into the valley without Aira telling her to do so.
After going down to the bottom, they ignorantly climb up the cliff as soon as they are caught.
Unlike the first day when I couldn’t pass one meter, now I struggle to climb three meters.
However, it seems that this is the limit, and it loses its strength and sinks again.
The shape of Mana was still not properly captured.
However, one thing is clear: the thought that comes to mind strongly transforms into mana and gives strength to the body.
I only felt it twice, but that was enough for me to achieve results.
* * *
I must have died dozens of times at the bottom of the valley.
When today passes and tomorrow comes, you will die again.
As I rushed to die with impatience, things I hadn’t seen before were gradually becoming visible.
A faint reverberation when the wind blows.
The great power of simple thoughts.
When I thought it was cold, even the sunlight, which should have been warm, felt chilly.
Unlike the first time, my head, which contained countless thoughts, was emptied and filled with a single thought.
I want to go out.
Only that simple thought penetrates the brain so strongly that it cannot be compared to before.
Of course, it was too weak for the criminal to feel it as mana, but it was a shock enough for him who had longed for the beginning of mana.
Kooung—
the cliff broke and sank to the bottom.
Will I die today?
Or should I just live a life where I have to die like this?
‘I don’t want to die.’
Opposite feelings crept up in my heart.
There was a strong power that had never been in the palm of the skin that had been peeled off.
He climbs the cliff like before.
Even with the rock on his back, his speed was incomparable to before.
It is as if the rock tied to my ankle has become lighter.
He looked at the surface of the water before two minutes had passed, and after three minutes he poked his head out of the water.
A place you never dreamed of before.
From one side of the valley, Aira’s thrilled appearance comes into view at a glance.
A majestic waterfall and a cool breeze passed by my face.
This is the scenery I have longed for.
He passed out, unable to even breathe.
It was the twenty-seventh day since I came here.
* * *
Succeeded in feeling mana from thought, will, and desire.
If you made up your mind to do something, mana was already moving.
However, that does not mean that the amount has increased.
I could only feel the flow, but it was still unreasonable to use magic with this.
Even so, Aira had a very happy expression on her face.
“Whoop whoop. That’s great. If you feel mana, it’s easy to move it. All that remains is to develop willpower.”
develop willpower
How do you grow it?
She gave Ray’s question a solution.
“Basically, as you live through the years, your willpower gets stronger. It’s because I put a lot of thought into it.”
“Willpower is thought. Repeat the thought and make it more intense. The power to change the world is latent in a single word imbued with the spirit of the word.”
“…Sit still and think?”
“If you don’t like that, you’ll just have to go over the edge of death again.”
If not, you must die.
Given the circumstances, there was no way I could refuse.
Ray’s expression changed instantly.
“I also like sitting down.”
The day I felt mana in my will.
The second practice to grow flowers has begun.
* * *
It sits quietly on a shady rock and spends three days.
While feeling the weak mana created through thought, he grasps the string of thought.
After continuing this series of processes for three days, the feeling of mana increased little by little.
It is probably the result of concentrating on willpower and trying to move it.
It was not that easy to get lost in thoughts while focusing on mana.
After four full hours of concentration, I felt sick to my stomach.
I endured the fact that I almost vomited at the strange sensation that my eyes seemed to be playing separately.
Then the moment I hit my limit and thought I wanted to rest.
Mana flowed from the new thought.
“ah.”
A voice mixed with elasticity comes out of nowhere.
As Aira said, the moment I thought about it more intensely, my mana increased at a faster rate than before.
‘that’s interesting.’
Another mana called ’emotion’ that rises from the heart came out again.
Now that I can feel my will as mana, training was quite fun.
Before he knew it, he was engrossed in the growth of his willpower, unaware of the passing of time.
Ten days have passed since I sat on a rock and stayed up all day.
Now, there was no such thing as increasing mana like the first time.
Above a certain level, mana seemed to have no momentum to increase as if it had been frozen.
Since then, I have constantly thought about various things, but all to no avail.
It’s still too little mana to use.
When can we grow these?
While he was immersed in another thought, Aira approached him.
“You seem to be working hard. This… should be given a prize?”
“award?”
“Originally, he said that he shouldn’t teach me because he has to learn by living through the years… but at least one thing would be fine. Let me give you a little hint about the wall.”
Who said that you can’t give it away?
Leaving the doubt behind, Ray wagged his tail like a well-tamed puppy.
At his enthusiastic response, Aira smiled and raised her index finger and spoke.
“Yo is the unity of mind, body, and mana.”
“…one body?”
“okay. For example, if an ordinary human passing by the street tells the other person to die, and the will is weak, the spirit of the word will never be manifested. On the other hand, even if you have enough will but don’t know about the manifestation of the spirit, the result will be the same.”
“Simply put, the commandment cannot be achieved if there is only will. Only when the mana that exists in the image is read and the mind, body, and mana become one and stabilized, it becomes a spirit of speech.”
She reached a nearby tree and placed her hand on a small branch.
“Thank you for the fruit.”
With a sweet voice, small fruits hanging from the trees fall in great numbers.
It was just one word, but the effect was enormous.
Ira picked up a fallen fruit and continued.
“The will to pick fruit is ‘spirit’. The act of holding on to the branch is the ‘body’. Eating the heart and wanting to do something called ‘mana’. Only when these three things become one can it be called the Unsyeong from then on.”
As I stared at the tree without answering, she smiled and turned her back.
“One thing to note is that these three things have to be balanced. If anything is lacking or exceeding, the commandment will not be expressed in the same way. When you achieve this, your willpower will grow on its own.”
