B4 - Chapter 7 - Guidance

Lily finished up her demonstration, and, as before, Arakil pointed out any errors or room for improvement. Everything except Lunar Radiance and Lunar Eclipse was pretty much on the verge of perfection, but those two spells still had quite a lot of wiggle room for improvement as far as he was concerned.

Then there was her Nebula Veil, which had actually gone beyond what Arakil could teach her, something she was extremely proud of. She'd already gone beyond the scope of the spell, so in terms of mistakes, there were none left to be identified, leaving only room for further expansion. Arakil was willing to throw out ideas if Lily asked, but for the most part, he now left that spell entirely within her hands.

Once the spells were out of the way, they went through to glyphs, something Lily usually would have jumped on. Arakil even teased her that she'd already forgotten her goal to move beyond the wand, causing her to have a little bit of a panic as she profusely denied it.

Of course, once she got started drawing glyphs using her thoughts, it quickly became her focus, and any earlier whining about moving on to the constellations was squashed. Lily's momentary excitement over something new couldn't stand tall against this feeling of exerting your willpower and manifesting glyphs with thought alone. In fact, Lily became so focused on it that Arakil had to bring her back to reality by gently nudging her a few times, when she finally stopped what she was doing and took note of her surroundings.

"Sorry… I got lost there for a moment."

"No need to apologize, especially not for putting in so much effort," Arakil quickly consoled her. "Normally, I would have left you until we ran out of time, but I do want to put at least some initial effort into constellations."

Lily nodded and then was about to place the wand on the table in front of her when she suddenly found it missing from her hand. She blinked rapidly as she clenched and unclenched her hand as if trying to feel where it had gone.

"What happened to my wand?"

"You mean that silly stick? I took it away while you were focused."

Lily felt considerably confused by both of the things Arakil had said. "I know you don't like wands, but calling it silly is a bit…"

Arakil shook his head. "You misunderstand. Your wand is useful, but what you were holding was just a stick."

Lily felt her mouth hanging as she looked at her empty hand again. "Just a stick… But…?"

"How were you drawing your glyphs? On your own, of course," Arakil said proudly.

"That can't be right… Isn't it much too soon?"

"Maybe a little, but what would be the point of being able to manifest glyphs with your mind if you still need the wand to regulate your Mana? Ever since you first arrived here, I've been periodically replacing the wand with just a stick that looks like it while you were in the process of drawing."

Lily was flabbergasted and struggled to believe what Arakil was telling her. He had no reason to lie to her, and even if he had grown warmer to throwing out little jokes on the rare occasion, he would never do so about something as important as this.

"I'm sorry for the deception, but it had to be done; otherwise, it wouldn't have achieved the intended result," Arakil started to explain. "You've been using the wand for quite some time now, so you've unconsciously been growing used to the change in your Mana. But even so, you need it as a sort of physical stimulus or reassurance, which is why I started replacing it without you knowing.

"You might have wondered why, on some occasions, your glyphs suddenly got trickier to manifest, and chalked it up to a learning difficulty, when in fact it was you being forced to compensate for the loss of its aid. Of course, I couldn't secretly replace your wand in the real world, so it could only be done here. Today, since you were so focused, I tried removing the wand entirely, and while you had a small hiccup, you seemed not to even realize your hand was empty."

Again, Lily found herself clenching her hand repeatedly as what Arakil said settled in her mind. As far as deceit went, this was purely beneficial for her, and she had no idea something like this was going on, which was exactly the point. Who else but Arakil could think of such an ingenious way to trick their student into unconsciously bettering themselves?

"Does that mean I don't need the wand anymore?"

Arakil gave a gentle smile before shaking his head. "You're not that far along yet. I'd be lying if I said this environment isn't helping you achieve it. Before trying to draw anything in the real world with your fingers, I'd recommend getting used to experiencing changing the state of your Mana in your body. Here, let me help you…"

Arakil sat next to her and gently held her hand, while he placed his other on her back. Suddenly, she felt the Mana in her body being stimulated in a way she had never experienced before, as if drawn out by Arakil's palm on her back and guided toward the hand he held.

"Close your eyes and focus on the flow. Feel the change happening as it drifts from your Mana Core towards your hand."

Lily obeyed and relaxed her breath, almost feeling like she was on the verge of entering a meditative trance. While in this state, her inner world seemed to come to life, and she once again saw her Mana Core represented by the glorious silver moon, flowing continuously towards her hand. She'd examined the wand and how it changed her imbued Mana countless times, but having it occur inside of her was a different experience entirely and painted a much clearer picture.

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"Alright, open your eyes. I think that's enough for now," Arakil said after an unknown amount of time had passed.

Lily gently opened her eyes and saw that her hand was still radiating that same flow of Mana. Unless she recalled it back to her Mana Core, it was ready to be expended as she wished. Arakil seemed to give her the go-ahead as he released her hand and gestured with his hands as if to say "go ahead," which she did.

Rather than accurate penmanship, Lily moved like she was fingerpainting, yet despite such a crude method, it seemed to not interfere with her glyph in even the slightest. Perfect lines were drawn one after the other as Lily produced glyph after glyph until the refined Mana was depleted.

"Can we do that again?" Lily asked, unable to hide the passion in her eyes.

"Next time you are here. It isn't good to have someone else refine your Mana. If we weren't inside this world and bonded twofold, I would never have attempted such an action."

Lily sighed with expected disappointment but was ultimately forced to accept it. She also had to silence her question on whether Arakil could do that for her in the real world if she placed the grimoire on her back, which was a very bitter pill to swallow.

"If you focus on that feeling, you should be able to do it eventually without the need for tricks. In the meantime, I'll continue replacing your wand when you least suspect it."

"I'm kind of surprised you admitted it," Lily chuckled. "Wouldn't it have been better to keep me in the dark for a bit longer?"

Arakil sighed and nodded. "Yes, but I needed to prove that you were capable of doing it for our next task."

"Constellations?"

"Yes, and unfortunately, I have a bit of bad news on that front."

Lily gulped but pressed Arakil to continue explaining.

"To guide the stars, you need Astral Mana, and that is something I cannot assist you with," Arakil said, already showing a look of apology. "Just like how I showed you the process of refining your Mana for imbuing, you need to do the same, except for Astral. This is something that can only be done thanks to your aligned Mana Core, hence why I can only offer verbal and moral support on the matter. At the end of the day, it's up to you to transform your Mana."

"So no tricking me into making Astral Mana like you did for imbuing?"

"I'm afraid not. Although that door is still open for when we approach, making it magnetic for self-gathering glyphs."

Lily paused and then sighed. "I completely forgot about those. So I've got to learn how to change my Mana in three different ways?"

"Three so far," Arakil said with a cheeky wink. "Although there's certainly no rush for that last one, with how dire the Mana in the world is. Of course, once you learn how to properly purify the dungeon's Mana, then those will be quite beneficial. But, at the moment, I'm afraid you'll need to pay the cost for all your glyphs yourself."

That was another whole other rabbit hole that Lily did not want to jump down just yet, even if it would be tremendously beneficial. She still felt like she'd just barely touched on inscriptions, so purifying the dungeon Mana with a complex formation was out of the question. Of course, if she ever reached that point, then theoretically she'd be like royalty in the dungeon, with vast amounts of Mana at her disposal.

Lily shook away the daydreams of the future and returned to the present, where she had more than enough problems that needed solving. To her relief, despite Arakil saying that he couldn't help her, it wasn't as bleak as she had initially thought. Yes, he couldn't use his own experience on the matter, nor could he manipulate her Mana for her, but he'd gathered plenty of research and texts from Astral throughout history.

Not only had he collected everything on the matter, but he cross-referenced them to identify key similarities in an effort to theorize the most optimal solution. What clearly frustrated him, however, was that, despite all of this, he could not confirm it himself, and thus it was now in Lily's hands to turn his research into reality.

"Since meditation has proven to work for you in the past, I thought we'd start here," Arakil said, handing over a compiled booklet of information.

Lily opened it and saw that it contained various texts on mantras covering anything and everything Astral, as well as accompanying illustrations for visualizations. As expected, most of them were celestial bodies, but rather than focusing on an individual, it seemed to group them together as a whole. This didn't just incorporate constellations; you had to include everything: the asteroids, the nebula, the moons, and even the terrifying black holes.

Lily only had a very rudimentary understanding of space, almost all of it coming from what Arakil had told her, so seeing all of this came as quite a surprise, and she quickly realized that there was far more than just stars and moons up there. What was also unfortunate was that the texts also spoke of experiencing it in person, and that was when Arakil brought out the star charts and began pointing out some of the local constellations.

"I think I heard some stories about these…" Lily murmured, feeling like something was on the tip of her tongue.

"Most get woven into fables or fairytales, so I imagine you must have heard the latter during your upbringing. As for what you need to do, hopefully, it isn't too difficult to go outside and observe them."

Lily nodded, thinking back to when she had to sneak out and perform each stage of the ritual that attuned her Mana Core. That was back in the orphanage, but now she would need to sneak out of a castle, or maybe the better way was to seek out permission.

If I say I need to watch the stars for my bloodline, will that be enough?

That was the easiest assumption to make, and in her case, it was very reasonable. Of course, whether it would actually help or not, she wasn't sure, as maybe these new constellations didn't have the same power as the ones of old. Regardless, she immersed herself in reading the information, occasionally asking Arakil a question or two for clarification.

After finishing her initial reading, she made sure she was comfortable before attempting to meditate. While Lily could quite easily calm herself thanks to lots of practice, this time there was no such occurrence, and she was left scratching her head, wondering what she had done wrong.

"It might be that since this place has no connection to the stars, you can't experience it," Arakil speculated.

That was a big downside for Lily as this was her personal learning kingdom, thanks to the extra time, available resources, and Arakil's direct support. She hoped that if that were the case, once she learned to manipulate her Mana correctly, she wouldn't need the presence of real stars to feel it out.

Since it looked like there was no further progress that could be made in manipulating her Mana right now, Arakil moved on to briefly discuss the next stage. Once Lily had the right Mana, she would be able to align the stars by connecting them to form constellations, and this was where her Nebula Veil would have its chance to shine.

"Usually it is done on the actual stars themselves for the greatest effect, like tracing against the night's sky, but obviously that would leave Astral mages vulnerable during the day, or even some clouds. Thus, they sought a solution, and that was projecting the constellations onto their cloaks."

Lily nodded, and after making her Nebula Veil appear, did exactly what Arakil spoke of. Stars brightened on the cloak, and with some manipulation, she even arranged them like one of the illustrations in the star chart. Unfortunately, there was no reaction, and the meditation still offered no results. It seemed that the very first step mandated it be the real thing.