Felix sat on his bed with his legs crossed and focused. It was surprisingly easy to feel the life mana inside him. He’d already felt it in other things while walking the garden, so he knew what to look for. Finding the mana inside him was far easier.

  His body was suffused in a cloud of mana, not a still or peaceful cloud. The mana swirled and drifted. Great rivers of life mana rushed through his body with rivulets constantly branching, merging, and crashing into other streams.

  Mana was constantly disappearing. Some left his body and quickly dissipated. Most simply vanished while inside him, leaving spots with less-dense mana that would be filled the next moment. The feeling he got from the mana wasn’t one of desperation to keep up with the constant demand. It was exuberant, a constant desire to move, to drive forward. To live.

  With every breath he took, the air would enter his lungs, and as he exhaled, it was like little flakes of ecstatic life mana broke free of the air and zipped off into his body to join the chaotic parade. From his stomach, a constant stream of life mana rushed into the rest of the body, fuelling the racing fog.

  Felix was entranced by the sight. He’d felt the life mana in the garden, but he’d never seen anything with this clarity. The mana inside him was an open book. He understood nothing, but just watching was mesmerising.

  The longer he watched, the more he noticed something else. It wasn’t just life mana that flowed through him. In his head, life mana was constantly blossoming into mind mana in fantastic fractal patterns. The life mana supported the blooming mind mana, and the mind mana gave structure to the life mana.

  The chaotic rivers of life all flowed through a wonderful labyrinth of mind mana, bending and twisting before rushing out to other areas in the body.

  Just witnessing the sight was enough for Felix to feel his path shift again. He could instinctively feel that this revelation was far greater than the last. He was absolutely certain that the next time he stepped into the Ways, the challenge gate would be much further from the entrance.

  As Felix felt his path shift, he watched the mana within him change. It was a change that was hard to put into words. The mana looked the same and behaved no differently, yet somehow it felt more like him. He felt closer to the mana, like his connection with it had deepened by an infinitesimal amount.

  After completely losing track of time, observing the amazing tapestry of life unfolding within him, his focus eventually turned to a part of his mind mana. The pattern somehow caught his attention, constantly blooming and collapsing in on itself while drawing on the life around it to sustain its cycle.

  As Felix focused on it, he was jolted out of his introspection by the sudden memory that he was supposed to try to cast his spell. As soon as he realised what had happened, he sat in utter stupefaction. Did he really just watch himself remember what he was supposed to do?

  Just trying to wrap his head around the thought sent him into a spiral. Right now, in his head, was there another fractal trying to grasp what the previous fractal meant? Is there another fractal trying to understand if there’s a fractal wrapping around the first fractal? Now that he’d had that thought, was there–

  “Ugh.”

  A splitting headache stopped his thoughts from spiralling any further than that. For a while, he just lay on his bed trying to clear his thoughts without it sparking another thought about what was happening inside his head when he tried to clear his thoughts.

  He hadn’t expected to encounter an existential crisis on the first step of trying to cast his spell.

  For the first time, Felix was starting to realise what it meant to be literally made of mana. It wasn’t as superficial as his body being made of mana. His entire sense of self was a construction of mana.

  Even as he lay there trying to clear his mind, he could still feel the mana inside him. No, that wasn’t right, it wasn’t inside him, it was him. Now that he knew it was there, it became much easier to notice. With a groan, Felix picked up his token. Hopefully, the second part of the spell would help distract him.

  Form an image of sleep in your mind, try to imagine the best sleep you’ve ever had, and focus on that image until you feel like you’re living in that moment. Your mind knows how to make your body sleep. You don’t need to worry about the details. Just focus on the sensation of sleep and form as clear an image of it as you can in your mind.

  “That’s simple enough. What’s next?”

  Finally, it’s time to cast the spell. If you successfully cast it, your body will rapidly begin the sleep process. If your mind starts to feel drowsy, don’t fight it. It’s a natural part of the spell. Your mind needs sleep just as much as the rest of your body.

  If your life mana doesn't respond, you’ve failed to cast the spell. This means either your image of sleep was insufficient, your will wasn’t strong enough to communicate your request, or your connection to your mana was too shallow for the request to be understood. Since this spell targets your own life mana, the requirements on will and understanding are low. Normally, failure to cast means that your image of sleep wasn’t clear enough.

  Now, try to cast the spell, focus on the image in your mind, connect with your mana, and convey your intent.

  “Ok, I guess I’ll just give it a go.”

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  Felix lay back down, snuggled into his blankets, and tried to think of sleep. He imagined he was back home, in his own bed, after a long day of playing with James and Lara.

  He’d had a long, warm shower. Grandma had made him and Lara a cup of warm milk with a spoon of wildflower honey and a touch of vanilla.

  He’d just finished a good book that would fuel his dreams. It was just cold enough that when he snuggled into his blankets, it’d be the perfect temperature. The sounds of gentle rain pattering against his window lulled him to sleep.

  When Felix woke the next morning, he felt completely refreshed. Giving a long languid stretch, he was in no hurry to leave the shelter his blankets provided. Only when his hand brushed against his identity token, still on the bed next to him, did you come to his senses.

  “Oh for the love of stars.”

  With a groan, he sat up.

  “How did I fall asleep just forming the image? I didn’t even have a chance to try and cast it!”

  Heading downstairs, he met with Agrona.

  “Oh, this is quite early even for you. Good morning.”

  Slumping down in one of the chairs, Felix let out a sigh.

  “Don’t mention it, I fell asleep trying to cast my spell. Good morning, Agrona.”

  “Wasn’t your spell meant to make you sleep better? Isn’t it a good thing if you fell asleep casting it?”

  Felix shook his head.

  “I fell asleep visualising sleep, I never actually got to try casting it.”

  Agrona stared at him blankly for a second before she quickly tried to hide her laughter.

  “Sorry, child, I don’t mean to make fun of you. At least you must have managed a pretty convincing image of sleep if it worked that well.”

  Felix sighed, “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

  After a quick breakfast that once again made Felix question his life before the Crossroad, he set off to the gym. He didn’t want to keep working on his spell when he was already fully rested. Instead, it was about time he started his training.

  His trip to the gym went a lot like the first time he’d been there. Henry was working on dodging the floating balls again, still looking just as uncoordinated. Felix didn’t so much as manage a greeting before the instructor nearly gave him a heart attack by sneaking up on him again. Considering Felix kept an eye out this time, he was starting to get the impression that Grendel might be doing it on purpose.

  “Good morning, little cub. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. So, are you ready to start your training?”

  Felix tried reading his facial expression to see if it really was an accident, but with Instructor Grendel’s beastkin lineage leaning so heavily towards beast, he might as well have been trying to pick up social cues from a bear. He decided to let it go for now. His time would be better spent focusing on his training.

  “Sure, what are we doing today?”

  “Hmm, your first gate might be a race, but there’s little point in training your running given the environment. I think it’s best if we take a more general approach. Given the poor shape you’re in, you should see rapid improvement across the board.”

  Felix looked at him in shock.

  “What do you mean by my poor shape? I’ve always been top of my class in PE.”

  “Hahaha, that was before you ‘awakened’, cub. Your limits are nowhere near where they were before. Trust me, once I’m done with you, you won’t recognise yourself. Ah, speaking of, did you manage to learn your spell?”

  Felix struggled to make eye contact.

  “I uh, fell asleep while casting it.”

  “Good! Good! That will be very helpful for our training!”

  “No uh, you don’t understand. I tried casting it, but when I tried visualising sleep, I accidentally fell asleep.”

  The instructor stared at Felix.

  Felix stared at everything except the instructor.

  “Hahahaha, you’ll make an excellent mage, cub. Don’t you doubt it! Alright, I doubt you’ll fail again tonight, so we’re going all out!”

  When Felix wobbled out of the gym, the flat ground felt like a boat during a storm. The rest of the Crossroads was starting to wake up.

  Felix hoped his training would involve some of the fantastic magical equipment. He never got anywhere near it. Instead, after spending an inordinate amount of time warming up, Felix was put through a gauntlet. Using mostly his own bodyweight and a couple of dumbbells, the instructor seemed to find ways to work every fibre of muscle on his little frame until it begged for mercy.

  When Felix finally thought the torment was over, he was thrust into an endless string of exercises to build endurance. Swimming, running, climbing, and an obstacle course, it was unrelenting.

  Knowing he wouldn’t even have the strength to make it back to the dorms, let alone trying to take on his challenge again, Felix just limped his way to the nearby garden and looked for a quiet spot to recover.

  Finding a cozy spot under a tree where Felix could watch the Crossroad, he settled in to relax. His relaxation didn’t last very long. Being surrounded by so much life mana, and still not used to his rapidly developing sense for it, his thoughts soon wandered to the world around him.

  The garden felt far more alive than it had the last time he’d strolled through it. Instead of just feeling the life mana in the plants, he could now feel the garden as a whole. Life mana flowed through the garden as if it were one giant creature. The plants drained life from the soil, the insects drained life from the plants and returned it to the soil. It was a complex cycle of life, death, and life again.

  He could see the pattern far more clearly now. When he first saw the garden, he felt like he was walking through tamed chaos, having seen his own life mana, he was sure of it. The entire garden was a chaotic, energetic rush of life. But there was a method to the madness. He could almost see the mind that guided its growth, the same way his mind guided the life mana inside him.

  Realising this made him turn his thoughts inward. He lost himself in the process of comparing the way the mana flowed through him and the way it flowed through the garden.

  While fascinating, his attention was quickly drawn further inward as he noticed the change in flow inside him was far more vigorous than the previous day. Mana was vanishing from his body at a far greater rate while his lungs and stomach kept drawing in mana at a staggering rate.

  Before he could think more about the topic, his musings were interrupted by a familiar, annoying voice.

  “See, I told you it was him, who else would waste their time idling about instead of training. It just goes to show how blind that girl was.”

  Felix opened his eyes at the sound of Irene’s voice, seeing her clinging to Eugene’s arm.

  ‘Sigh, this is what I get for breaking my routine. Of course I'd have to run into them.’