"What?" Icariel asked.
Aelar's voice was calm, but the weight behind it pressed like stone.
"Like I said..." he repeated, now standing just a few steps away. "How are you able to cast spells, use something like Spirit Zone, and contain that much mana inside your body... without a mana core or magic circles?"
Icariel's eyes widened. His chest tightened like a snare around his lungs. His thoughts scattered like birds fleeing a silent predator. "What… what do you mean?" he asked carefully.
Aelar's voice shifted into the slow, deliberate cadence of a teacher unravelling madness with method.
"Every creature is born with a mana core. It stores your mana. It's located at the center of the stomach. That's how humans are able to use and store mana in the first place."
He raised a hand, fingers curled like he was holding something invisible.
"Now, mages—when they gather more mana and evolve—they begin forming magic circles. These circles replace the core over time, storing and shaping far greater power. With each stage, the mage grows. Their spells grow. Everything advances."
Aelar's gaze darkened like clouds thickening behind his emerald eyes.
"I could understand if you lacked a mana core but had magic circles. That would make sense, even at your age. But you… you don't have either."
His gaze locked onto Icariel's.
"Look at me," Aelar said quietly. "Use your Spirit Zone. See what I mean."
Icariel nodded and pretended to focus, narrowing his eyes as if searching for something foreign. In truth, he had seen Aelar's mana the moment they met. The magic circle pulsing in Aelar's chest—coiled tight like a serpent around a sun—had been as visible as a heartbeat under skin.
Ever since he awakened White Sense, he hadn't seen people the same way. Faces blurred beneath currents of mana. Veins glowed like roots in frost. He saw everything: organs, bloodstreams, intent.
Aelar's eyes shimmered faintly as his elven sight activated again.
He looked deeper.
"And yet..." Aelar muttered, almost to himself. "Your body…"
The words hung like frost in silence.
He looked deeper still.
Icariel's entire form was glowing. His stomach pulsed with soft, light-blue mana—but so did his chest, his arms, his shoulders, his eyes. There was no anchor. No center. No container. Mana flowed through him completely—flooding him from scalp to bone.
"I can't teach you properly," Aelar said at last, his voice polite but burdened with gravity. "Not if I don't understand what I'm teaching."
Icariel froze.
And then—the voice came. Uninvited. Inevitable. Like wind threading through a dead forest.
"Icariel."
He didn't move. He only listened.
"You had a mana core, just like everyone else—and you know it since you refined it as far as you could. But when you started learning with me, you pushed your body to absorb more mana than it was ever meant to hold. You didn't even realize it… and your core shattered under the strain of mana coming in with each breath. Yet, with White Sense, mana had become second nature to you—so you never noticed the loss."
"That's why I never taught you magic circles. Mana cores and circles are meant to contain a fixed amount of mana. They are jars. You… are not meant to be contained."
"You breathe mana with every inhale. It soaks into your skin. It curls inside your muscles. It floods your thoughts. It becomes you. That's the effect of White Sense. If I had let your body form a circle or keep the core intact… trying to become a Superhuman or a Swordmaster wouldn't have worked. Your current state isn't a flaw—it's your freedom."
Icariel exhaled, the sound shallow, barely more than wind scraping through teeth.
"Now," the voice added, "I know what you're thinking. 'What do I say to him?' You don't need to lie. Just tell him the truth."
"Say this: 'I didn't know about any of this until now, when you mentioned it.' Because… it's the truth."
A faint smile twitched at Icariel's lips. He responded silently, "You really are the best, aren't you?"
The voice didn't answer.
Icariel lifted his eyes, meeting Aelar's—green crashing into black like spring meeting a storm.
"To be honest," Icariel said, voice calm, "I didn't know anything about this until you just mentioned it to me right now."
Aelar watched him like prey watches the wind. His senses—trained to taste lies—found none.
And that made it stranger.
"But I don't have any trouble casting spells," Icariel said, tone steady as stone. "In fact, I cast faster than most mages. Elif—your daughter—told me that herself after watching me. So if you still want to teach me, then I'm ready. I may not be like other mages, but I can use magic. And I'm ready to learn."
Aelar stood still. The forest whispered behind him like ghosts at a funeral.
Then he smiled.
"Fine. Who am I to judge? If you can learn what I'm about to teach and use it without issue, then it doesn't matter how you're doing it. I guess… it just threw me off."
He shook his head with a low chuckle. "Sorry for troubling your mind."
Icariel nodded once.
"Then, to change the topic—what has Elif told you about healing magic?" Aelar asked, folding his arms as he began pacing.
Icariel answered instantly, "She said I need to be calm… to have a strong desire to heal, and to let mana sacrifice itself in response to that desire."
Aelar nodded. "Exactly. That's what she was taught. And she's right—for regular healing."
"But," he added, stepping closer, tone sharpening to a scalpel, "if you want to cast healing spells in battle, without stopping, without restraint… then that changes."
Icariel's eyes narrowed.
"First," Aelar said, "you can't be calm. You need to panic. You need to believe—no, feel—that every wound, every cut, might be fatal. You have to invite death into your lungs. That's the mindset."
Icariel blinked. "I need to… panic?"
"Yes," Aelar said firmly. "The second step is desire. It has to match that panic. Your will to survive must answer the shadow breathing down your neck."
He raised two fingers. "And third… the sacrifice. Like before—but sharper. More precise. Either external mana must obey you… or your own must burn itself clean."
He hesitated.
"Rarely… very rarely… a human emotion is taken instead. Pain. Joy. Regret. But that's old elf wine-talk. Don't bet your life on fairy tales."
Icariel clenched his jaw. "So… if I understand it right, I can't be calm when casting it mid-battle. I have to feel like every attack might kill me. But—doesn't that make me more vulnerable?"
"Yes," Aelar said. "It will. At first."
He smiled. It wasn't kind. But it wasn't cruel, either.
"But that's why I'm here. I'll train you until that weakness becomes your weapon. Just like I did for myself."
Icariel looked down at his hands, the memory of healing himself flickering like blood in fire.
"To be honest…" he said, "just learning a healing spell was enough for me. But to think I could use it while fighting—that I can carry it into battle…"
A faint grin touched his lips. "Why not? I'll take it. I'm grateful."
Aelar laughed. "Good. But I won't lie. It will be hard. Really hard. Even among elves, only a few ever master it."
His voice softened.
"But you… a human kid, casting healing already? I believe you can learn it too."
"And if you don't," he added, "I'll teach you something else. I owe you my daughter's life. I'll repay that debt—no matter how."
Icariel nodded. "As you say."
Aelar's smile twisted into something wilder.
"Then let's begin. To learn this ability…" he said, stepping back, "you're going to spar with me."
"Sparring?" Icariel echoed, stepping back. "But… I don't even know how to fight. What kind of sparring are we talking about?"
His thoughts scrambled. "The voice only trained me as a mage… spells, survival—not combat."
"You mean to tell me," Aelar asked, raising a brow, "you don't know any combat style?"
Icariel shook his head. "No. I lived in the mountains. I learned spells to survive. To hunt. To hide. Not to fight people. Not with fists. Not with weapons."
Aelar stared for a beat—and then chuckled low.
"You really aren't lying," he muttered. His eyes glinted like blades. "What an interesting kid…"
He turned fully, expression shifting—no longer a teacher, but something more primal.
"No problem," he said. His voice dropped. "It just means you'll get hurt more."
"You'll need that healing spell on the move, because I won't give you even a breath to stop and cast it the old way."
He grinned. Not out of cruelty. But like someone who had lived in fire, and wanted to see if the boy before him could walk through flame without screaming.
"Either adapt… or suffer," Aelar said. "And earn it the hardest way possible."
Without warning, he bent down and snapped a long, straight tree branch—roughly the size and weight of a sword. He twirled it once, testing the air.
Then—ffft.
A blur.
A shallow line opened on Icariel's cheek. Blood welled.
Icariel's eyes widened.
He hadn't even seen the strike.
Aelar pointed the branch like a blade.
"Training starts now."
His voice was calm.
But the challenge beneath it was a blade pressed to bone.
"The longer it takes for you to learn… the more you'll suffer."
Icariel wiped the blood from his cheek, black eyes fixed on emerald flame.
He didn't answer.
But inside—
something clicked.
[End of Chapter 32]