Terra Nova Online : Rise Of The Strongest Player - Chapter 111

Chapter 111: Learning To Vanish
Once his mastery over mana threads reached an acceptable degree, Ben introduced Leo to the next phase of his training which was learning to use mana to interact with his surroundings, starting with the skill ‘Vanish’.

This skill was a practical application of mana, requiring the practitioner to extend their control beyond themselves and manipulating the ambient mana in the environment.

The transition from manipulating mana within a contained object to influencing the invisible forces around him was akin to the transition from being a human from Earth, to becoming a being of the cosmos as once Leo understood this principle, he could grasp a new dimension that was impossible for humans from Earth.

Just like when manipulating the mana threads, initially, his attempts to extend his control outward were met with frustration.

The mana slipped through his mental grasp like water, unwilling to be shaped by his unpracticed will. The threads of mana, which he had begun to understand within the mana ball, now seemed like child’s play as compared to shaping the ambient mana of the world, as shaping the threads seemed a thousand times easier.

Leo’s struggles were not for lack of trying, but more because he lacked a very basic understanding of manipulating mana and learning how to do so was learning a new language from scratch.

Right now, he had just learnt the alphabets of the language, however, he was still far from stringing sentences together.

Although he had figured out how to guide the threads inside the ball, when he tried to use the same principle to guide the mana around him, he felt like the mana of the world did not bend to his will, not moving as he wanted it to.

Ben, observing Leo’s efforts, offered insights to guide him. “You’re thinking too rigidly,” he advised. “Mana in its free state is fluid, not bound like in the threads.

It’s like a stream of water, you cannot forcefully shape it, what you need to do is guide it.

Brute forcing your control over the environment will never work”

Ben explained how mana in its natural state flowed freely through the world, much like air and water, moving in subtle currents that were invisible to the naked eye.

He further emphasized that individuals possessed mana both within and around them, and it was the skillful manipulation of these two aspects of mana that enabled the casting of spells.

At its core, casting a spell involved two critical steps:

Firstly, there was the internal manipulation of mana. This step involved the spellcaster channeling mana through their own mana veins in a precise sequence. This internal process allowed the caster’s mind to influence and direct the external mana in their surroundings, setting the stage for the spell’s effects to manifest.

Secondly, came the external expression of the spell. In this phase, the spellcaster extended their will outward, shaping the surrounding mana into specific patterns and infusing it with the desired properties to create the spell’s effect.

Whether the goal was to control elements like fire, water, light, or air, the fundamental technique remained the same, which was to bend the external world to the caster’s will through the manipulation of mana.

Ben stressed that understanding these foundational concepts was essential for Leo to progress in his training, especially as he prepared to learn how to give shape and elemental affinity to the mana around him, to help him camouflage better in darkness.

Initially, Ben had not expected Leo to be so weak when it came to understanding mana as his complete lack of even foundational knowledge baffled him. However, his rate of growth more than made up for it as Ben felt that as long as he guided Leo properly, he grasped the concepts he did not know very fast.

“Come here, take a look at this-” Ben said, as he drew the human body on the ground below using a dagger and then proceeded to create various lines inside it, drawing a general diagram of a human’s mana circuit.

From a first glance, it seemed like a diagram of all the major veins inside the body, however, it wasn’t really so.

” The mana inside your body. Should be concentrated the most around your belly. Near your navel.

Although it exists in small amounts throughout, it’s mainly stored near that spot.

From there you have to imagine drawing the mana outwards and for ‘vanish’ specifically, you need to guide it upwards towards your heart, then towards your neck, going to your brain to your left eye, then to your right eye, bringing it down, down towards your right arm, all the way to the tip of your largest middle finger.

Roughly when you follow this path, your body will create an internal resonance which when coupled with the desire to reshape the air molecules around you, shall create the effect of them clustering around you in a way that reflects light backwards, giving an illusion of your body merging into darkness.

While moving the mana inside your body is easy, once you do it and start guiding the external mana is when the process gets harder as shaping light with your will needs patience and practise to understand it’s nature….

I really wish I could explain this concept any better than this to you, but it is one of those things that you have to experience for yourself boy and cannot be taught by me.” Ben said as he gave explaining the concept of how to cast a spell his best shot, hoping that his insights into understanding it would help Leo find his rhythm.

For Ben, manipulating mana was as easy as breathing.

If asked how to teach someone how to breathe, Ben could explain the general theory of breathing, but actually learning how to control the diaphragm and the lung muscles was something that one needed to do themselves and cannot really be taught.

Learning how to shape mana was sort of same, as it could not be explained but only experienced and learnt with patience.

Nonetheless, his explanation gave a lot of clarity to Leo, who persistently practised for days, slowly gaining new insights into how to manipulate mana.

Moving mana inside his body was a complex process that initially felt unnatural to Leo.

He had to focus deeply, envisioning the mana flowing from his navel up through his body, following a specific path to his heart, brain, and finally to his fingertips.

Just like how he guided the mana strings inside the ball, he guided the mana inside his body through the intricate mana pathway inside his body, however, remembering the exact path was not easy at all.

Every few centimetres it felt like there were countless junctions in his body and taking a single wrong step led to his mana reaching the wrong part instead of the path it was supposed to take.

However, gradually, through persistent practice, he began to memorize the exact path he needed to take, as the mistakes reduced and he felt the movement process to be smoother and easier.

Another remarkable change that he noticed was that once he was able to successfully cycle the mana inside his body in the path that Ben wanted him to move it in, he began feeling a connection with the light particles in his surroundings as he could sense their flow, realising how it hit his body and how it’s flow needed to be changed for him to be able to camouflage into darkness.

Just like Ben said, it was a sensation, something that could not be taught but only experienced as only through repeated practise and relentless reflection did Leo slowly learn how to shape the external mana flowing around him to his will as he targetted the light element and guided it to evade his position and bend around him, allowing him to merge with the darkness, attaining the desired effect of the skill ‘Vanish’.

Unlike Ben who had mastered the skill, Leo could only divert about 30-40% of the light particles falling on him, which was why he could only obtain complete camouflage in absolute darkness, while his form was slightly visible in less dark shadows to hide in.

However, the road between 30% and 100% could only be traversed through practising and now that he understood the basic premise, Leo felt confident to shorten that gap fast!

Approximately two weeks into his training with the skill ‘Vanish’, his proficiency of diverting light around him finally reached the 50% mark, as it was at that time that he was finally rewarded with the system notification that acknowledged his mastery over the skill.

[ System Notification – Congratulations player ‘TheBoss’, you have attained ( Basic ) mastery over the skill ‘Vanish’ through natural understanding!

Since the skill has been naturally obtained it’s effects have been enhanced by 20% upon use. ]