62nd of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd imperial era

Newt sent a pulse of mana into the earth and lost control over it right away.

"Why'd you start with two feet right away?" Lady Alabaster yelled before reining in her voice. "Go slower, an inch at first, no more. You took the scribes' guild's test, right? Use it as a guideline, send a thin thread first, explore slowly, and remember earth isn't electrum. Too far, too quick, and your thread will snap."

Newt drew a deep breath and did as instructed. A sliver of his mana left his body, a mere fiber as thin as the thinnest of roots. The tendril went out of his hand, burrowed through the ground, feeling the density of the earth's energy. The ambient mana stuck to the tendril, drawn into Newt's body.

Can this be used to hasten my realm's growth? He wondered for a second. His attention slipped, and the tendril vanished.

"You got distracted again. Focus on the task at hand. Any questions can be left for later, when you're done with what you're doing."

I'll forget.

"Master, I will forget the questions. May I ask now?"

Lady Alabaster snorted in exasperation. "Very well, ask."

"The energy of the earth sticks to my mana and follows it into my body. Could I use that energy to improve my realm?"

"No. Tell me why not." Lady Alabaster's tone was stern. It seemed like Newt had said something stupid, but he did not know what.

"I don't know, Master, my focus is split at the moment."

"That's why I told you to do things one at a time. Fine, this one time I will explain, but in the future seek out your answers to unrelated questions in the library; we have better ways to use my time." Lady Alabaster paused, and Newt heard the rustle of her robe as she folded her arms.

"The first reason is that the concentration of ambient mana is the same all around us, and our bodies make a balance with the environment. Your dualcore is already drawing as much as it can passively, so the mana you force inside your body this way will prevent other energy from flowing in, resulting in an identical concentration of energy.

"You could offset that by drawing more ambient mana into your realm from your body, such as actively meditating to expand your realm. But if you're meditating, you can't control the tendrils to gather energy." Newt just got his hopes up, thinking he could abuse his unique realm, when his master stomped the idea without mercy. "But even if you could somehow absorb the extra energy, after a while, the surrounding energy will change in density, and you will be back to your original rate of active absorption."

An earthen spike rose from the ground and poked at Newt's shoulder. "Now, go back to your training. Put in more effort and no more distractions."

Newt formed another tendril and poked at the ground, ignoring the motes of energy slowly entering his body through it. He moved the tendril left and right, observing the world with this new sense. The ground was spongy; that was the best way he could describe it.

It had tiny pockets of denser earth energy trapped in a network of lighter energy that felt somewhat smeared. Then there were bubbles of air, water, and even fire floating around with no apparent pattern.

Fascinatingly, not all motes of energy stuck to Newt's tendrils. He originally believed he could just siphon it all out of the ground, but apparently the vast majority of the energy was perfectly happy as it was, and did not feel like entering his realm.

For a moment, Newt wanted to ask why that was, but he was afraid Lady Alabaster would stomp him into the ground.

Instead of getting stomped, he shifted the tendril from his palm down to his index finger, the loose end drifting like a strand of spiderweb in the wind. Then he felt something weird, a void in the energy he could not interact with. His tendril could touch it, but could not enter the unknown obstacle.

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Newt frowned and started poking at it. His thread of energy moved like the tongue in the mouth, obsessively feeling a newly chipped tooth, trying to figure out what the anomaly was.

It was a very long, very slim cylinder. Newt extended his tendril to two inches, slowly wrapping it around the object. Then, as he was starting to form a rudimentary mental image of the thing, it disappeared. Newt's tendril felt around, touching blindly, but he could no longer find the mysterious cylinder.

"It was an earthworm. You may ask your questions." Lady Alabaster must have noticed Newt's twitches and decided to show mercy.

Newt drew back the tendril and let its energy flow back into his heartcore. "Why couldn't my mana enter the earthworm? It seems to pass through solid objects without problems."

"All living creatures, plants included, subconsciously resist mana probing and violations, regardless of whether they have their realms or not. You can overcome such primitive defenses in several ways. With sheer power, with finesse, and with the help of external aids, such as drugs."

Newt considered the answer for a moment and nodded when he found it satisfactory.

"Other than the earthworm, everything else was blurry and indistinct. Like overlapping colors, but for the sense of touch. Why is that happening?"

"Lack of proficiency. It's very common for those taking their first wobbly steps with their mana sense."

"How does this relate to the mindcore?" Newt asked, believing that what he was doing currently was an inferior version of what his mindcore granted him.

"Irrelevant. Check at the library later." Lady Alabaster's voice grew cold when she said that. "Any other relevant questions?"

"Most of the energy I touched didn't move—"

"Library."

"Some things felt spongy, some hard, but I wasn't touching anything, not really—"

"Synesthesia, library."

Newt was getting annoyed with his master cutting him off and pointing him to the library without hearing the whole question. And what was synesthesia?

Library.

Newt almost barked a laugh at that thought.

"How long should I grow the tendril to advance this technique?"

"That is a good question, but I won't answer." The approval in Lady Alabaster's voice was palpable, tinged with annoyance; apparently, that was the question she had been waiting for. "How you form your mana sense is up to you. Think about what you want and how you want to achieve it. Most take years to form a proper mana sense, and it's fairly useless at the third realm even if you form a perfect one for you, since its range is a mere handful of feet, and the best it can do is monitor your blind spots. Which naturally isn't a negligible benefit, it just isn't worth the effort."

Newt considered the words and immediately noticed the plural. I should have multiple tendrils, probably hundreds or thousands if I want to discern everything around me. But how can I control that many at the same time?

"I see you have realized something. It's time to go back to training."

Newt reluctantly did. He wanted all the answers, and he wanted them now. Why was there a need for him to reinvent already existing techniques? It was an utter waste of time. If his clan had a collection of techniques and skills, surely—

Newt stopped at that thought. Lady Alabaster said nothing, even though Newt had yet to release the strand of energy to explore the soil.

My ancestors and I got everything handed to us. There was no need to improve anything. You did what your ancestors taught you without questioning it, and instead of improving techniques, you dumb them down so your children, who are lesser than you, can understand them. Degrading everything more and more with each passing generation.

"Master." Newt swallowed a lump, his voice serious.

"Yes, Newstar?"

"You will let me create this technique for myself from scratch, only making sure I don't injure myself, and only once I complete it will you let me check the final version in the library. Is that correct?"

"You are an intelligent student, Newstar." Approval was not quite the emotion Newt heard in his master's voice. It was acknowledgement. She acknowledged his talent and mind, but didn't approve for some reason.

"I believe I now understand how techniques are improved," he said. "You let those you deem competent enough to learn from scratch, under a tutor, while you leave the rest with written instructions and just let them copy the existing technique, while hoping some of the former ones can improve what already exists once they compare notes with their ancestors."

Newt paused, a lump stuck in his throat, and Lady Alabaster let the silence hang. She wanted to know what else the youth had on his mind.

"Master, you believe my time so far has been wasted."

Finally, the woman spoke, shaking her head.

"I wouldn't say wasted. You're the youngest disciple we have at your realm. There are centuries upon centuries ahead of you. In what, seventeen years, you have reached your realm, joined a guild, came here of your own merit…" She considered her words carefully before speaking them. "I think your honored ancestor would have preferred to have had you as a son or grandson, rather than a distant descendant born ages after he had passed away. He would have been proud, and I will do what I can in his stead to make sure you grow up well.

"And we will start doing that by training now."

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