For the first time in his new life, Lucius had drawn the genuine ire of his parents. He had spent years carefully avoiding that outcome, leaning on the experience he carried from his previous life.

  But a perfect record only made the eventual downfall harsher. When Iris and Lucius returned from their little excursion, Lucius, true to his word, took full responsibility.

  To Iris, it looked like honesty and chivalry. To Lucius, it was just the logical move.

  His parents would never punish a guest, especially not the child of their only ally. The marriage was a political gift, one they wouldn’t jeopardize over a scolding.

  So both children walked away believing they had got the better end of the deal. Except Lucius soon found out that he had miscalculated.

  An ass beating, house arrest, and worst of all, his library privileges had been revoked for the remainder of the month.

  Being trapped inside the estate was irritating, but losing access to the library was akin to torture for him.

  With no way to productively kill time except for accumulating mana, Lucius spent his days lounging in silent annoyance. Iris, however, refused to waste the month sulking while her siblings advanced ahead of her.

  Armed with a plan and a boy who had nothing left to lose, she made an offer.

  “You seemed pretty knowledgeable about mana yesterday,” she said flatteringly. “Since you have nothing else to do… could you teach me?”

  Lucius raised an eyebrow. Even at the same age, the gap between them was obvious. Her mana perception was clumsy, her control sloppy. His wasn’t perfect, but it was leagues ahead of hers.

  He shrugged. “What’s in it for me?”

  She had expected that response and answered without hesitation.

  “One book per week.”

  Lucius blinked.

  “…what?”

  “For every week you teach me, I’ll give you one book of your choosing.”

  “So what? if my mother catches me reading it, I’m dead.” Lucius slouched further into his chair.

  “If it’s from the Ironside library, yes. But a gift from me?”

  She smirked.

  “Even your parents wouldn’t dare take it from you.”

  Lucius went quiet, thinking, calculating. When his eyes lit with unmistakable greed, Iris knew she had him.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he declared. “Payment upfro—”

  “Not a chance.” She cut him off. “Prove you’re worth the price, then we’ll talk payment.”

  Lucius closed his fist, jaw tightening. “…Fine. I’ll humor you just this once. What do you want to know?”

  Iris straightened her posture and dropped the playful tone.

  “Teach me everything you know about mana. I want…” She paused.

  “No, I need to become stronger.”

  Lucius studied her, not impressed, yet acknowledging her seriousness.

  “As agreed, I’ll teach you,” he answered.

  “But I won’t coddle you. If you can’t overcome obstacles on your own, you’ll never amount to anything anyway.”

  Their relationship was purely transactional. He didn’t dislike her, but he didn’t care for her either.

  Iris nodded solemnly. Lucius’s tone softened only slightly.

  “Good. Then let’s begin.”

  Lucius adopted a more mature posture.

  “Firstly, your mana perception is terrible,”

  He stated bluntly. The words struck her pride, but she didn’t argue.

  “I don’t know how you were trained before, but we will start over again from the beginning.”

  Lucius raised his finger.

  “To perceive mana, you must silence everything else. Wind, light, voices, your senses drown out the subtle signs mana gives off.”

  “Start by calming your mind. Then shut down your senses one by one: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. Once you dull the natural five, the sixth becomes easier to perceive."

  Lucius began guiding her through his meditation technique.

  “Posture isn’t important. Use whatever position helps clear your thoughts.”

  Iris crossed her legs, shut her eyes, and began following step by step.

  “Focus on the sounds all around you. Once you have gathered them all in your mind, release them.”

  “Control your breathing, feeling the rhythm. Then release the feeling, and release the thought.”

  She followed diligently, until the world slipped away completely, and her consciousness along with it. A sharp smack snapped her awake.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  Lucius glared.

  “I said to silence your senses, not your brain. Again!”

  She tried again. And again. And again.

  By the end of the week, the only thing she had improved was her mana detection. But there was no doubt the training had paid off.

  Mana shimmered. It warmed. And if she focused long enough… it even seemed to give off sound.

  Lucius remained impassive, neither impressed nor disappointed. A good sign, as far as Iris was concerned.

  She paid her debt with the promised book, and Lucius accepted it with a thinly veiled satisfaction. Sensing his good mood, she felt it was a good time to bring up something that had been bothering her.

  “Lucius… when I meditate, sometimes I can almost hear mana. It’s faint, like my sound returning even though my senses are still blocked. I thought I was imagining it. Has anything like that ever happened to you?”

  Lucius snapped the book shut. A slow grin spread across his face.

  “…So you noticed.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He glanced around to ensure no one was listening, then leaned closer.

  “If you can hear mana already, your perception is beyond anything Mages or Swordsmen are willing to admit publicly. I doubt I’m the first to discover it, but every official record only mentions two ways to detect mana, by feel and by sight.”

  He paused, allowing her to realise the implications.

  “You’re not hallucinating, Iris. The ‘sixth sense’ isn’t a sense at all.”

  She blinked. “Then what is it?”

  Lucius stood and began walking away.

  “That’s your next lesson: figure it out.”

  She puffed her cheeks in irritation—but before she could stomp off, Lucius placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “One more thing.”

  His voice dropped to a near whisper.

  “Don’t talk about hearing mana. If it’s really a secret someone wants hidden, there's no telling what they’ll do to keep it as such.”

  Lucius waved lazily and left.

  “Good luck.”

  Half a week passed, Iris having made little progress deciphering the meaning of the question. She continued to practice meditating, Lucius having longed stopped answering her questions.

  When Iris had finally stopped trying to worm the answer out of him, and finally began to look for it herself, Lucius smiled.

  Another day passed without questions, Iris as diligent as ever. Convinced by her determination, Lucius stood up to offer some advice.

  “Can you hear it now?”

  He paused, allowing her to snap out of meditation.

  “Everyone can see it, but can you hear the music? The sound that permeates the world around you.”

  Lucius continued.

  “Yes, it’s loud and clear now, but I still don’t get it. How could the sixth sense not be considered a sense? I can feel it, see it, and hear it, so what else could it be?“

  Iris asked, frustrated by his seemingly whimsical bout of charity.

  “You're missing the point. You claim to have learned how to feel, see, and hear, yet could you not have done those things since you were born?”

  Lucius paused.

  “If we can both see the world around us, and see the mana that permeates it, are these not just two sides of the same coin?”

  Lucius asked, allowing her to finish the deduction.

  “So what you’re saying is that mana detection isn’t a sixth sense. It’s just learning to use the 5 senses in a new way?”

  Lucius nodded, confirming her suspicions.

  “If the answer was so dumb, why didn’t you just tell me that from the start?”

  Iris asked.

  “Because if I answer every question you ask, you’ll never learn to think for yourself. Do you expect me to always be around, doing all the thinking for every question you have?”

  It was a rhetorical question, yet Iris didn’t respond anyway.

  “Do you know what separates great Mages and Swordsmen from the average rank and file?”

  Lucius asked another question, this time leaving room for a response.

  “A mana core with several layers and exceptional mana control.”

  Iris responded naively.

  “No, it’s the ability to think for themselves.”

  “Had we not met, you may have lived your whole life only able to see and feel mana.”

  “You may have never mastered perception, crippling your control unknowingly.”

  “With weak control, you would eventually struggle to add more layers to your core, and become a shadow of your true potential.”

  “If you spend your life imitating the strong, you will never find your own strength. If that is the only thing you learn from me, I will have succeeded in teaching you.”

  Iris froze at the words, embarrassed by her naive inquiries. She had asked so many pointless questions, filled with laziness.

  She had taken up a rude tone as if Lucius had owed her his knowledge. Feeling ashamed by her actions, she couldn’t speak.

  “You still have room for improvement, and a further 2 senses to train, but you will have to do so on your own time.”

  Lucius's words snapped Iris out of her remorseful state.

  “We’re running low on time, and there’s still one more thing you must learn.”

  He held out a small set of 3 metal balls, sending them floating with only his mana.

  “If you can manage to hold 3 in the air with your mana for 1 minute, you will have passed my final test.”

  The small metal spheres whizzed through the air and flew into her hands, which sunk down in surprise.

  They were heavy. Being made of metal, Iris expected as much, but even still they seemed to be solid.

  She placed them on the ground, but before she could make her first attempt, Lucius stopped her.

  “Start with one first, once you’re comfortable, you can move on to multiple.” Lucius offered the tip to her in the interest of time.

  She set 2 of the 3 aside and focused as hard as she could. She drew mana out from her core, projecting it over the metal sphere, but it refused to budge.

  Moreover, it seemed to absorb her mana. Noticing her furrowed brow Lucius answered the silent question.

  “They're made of iron. Although its conductivity is low, it’s still capable of absorbing mana.” He explained.

  She increased her mana flow, drawing out more in an effort to counteract the absorption. But unable to control it, the excess mana diffused.

  “This is the first hurdle. It makes no difference how much mana you project if you can’t control it. Examine the mana closely, consider how you guide it, how you push and pull.” Lucius offered more advice.

  She continued to struggle until she had depleted her mana, and was forced to take a break. She repeated the same scene, again and again with only marginal gains in mana control.

  It was like guiding a torrent of water with a flimsy hose. Without a delicate touch, the hose would snap and the mana would pour out wastefully.

  Moving the metal sphere was even harder. It absorbed mana on contact, forcing her to use even more to compensate. Like lifting a towel with water, the task seemed futile.

  The sphere’s round nature also posed a unique challenge. Without edges or flat surfaces, lifting it with mana became a delicate exercise in precision.

  Too much force in any one direction, and the sphere would slip out of her mana’s grasp.

  And so the remaining weeks passed as she trained. With some pointers from Lucius, her control steadily increased.

  The volume of mana that she could wield increased with it and so too did the number of spheres she could control.

  From none to 1 to 2 to 3. Over the course of the remaining weeks, she had finally been able to balance all 3, even trying her luck at 4 with the extra time.

  But in short time, the month had come to an end. And the day she was set to return to the Astoll Viscounty had arrived.

  Baroness Elena Ironside had thought the month had gone terribly. After sneaking out of the estate and endangering his future fiancée, her son had holed himself up in his room for the remainder of the month.

  It seemed as if the Astoll girl had failed to rehabilitate her son, and perhaps Lucius had even jeopardized the marriage.

  In contrast to her assumptions, the young Astoll girl seemed pretty sad now that she was leaving.

  “If there’s anything you need for the road, please let me know.”

  “Our chefs can prepare you some lunch to go if you’d like?”

  Elena offered, politely. Hoping to salvage what was left of the connection.

  “Thank you but we’re fine, really.” Iris bowed politely.

  Elena had resigned to her fate, hoping for a miracle.

  Then, as if god sent, Iris approached the ever aloof Lucius and pulled out a small box. Inside was a pair of small silver rings, one of which she offered to him.

  “Here. To remember me by.” She handed the ring to Lucius.

  Elena began to believe in miracles again as the romantic gesture warmed her heart. Lucius's eyes opened in surprise as well.

  However, it wasn’t because he was moved by the facade. But rather, the ring itself piqued his interest. It was a communication ring. Common as far as artifacts go, but expensive nevertheless.

  Lucius plastered a fake smile as he accepted her gift. To refuse it would have been rude and in front of his parents no less so.

  ‘Damn it, I can’t believe she pulled one over on me again. Now she can nag me from anywhere in the continent.’ Lucius thought to himself, cursing her shrewdness.

  Communication rings were a common artifact favored amongst military and noble society. They could be crafted in pairs or groups and would transmit audio to all other rings they had been attuned to. The higher end ones could even transmit visuals, but they were far more expensive.

  The rings were crucial for any modern organization. From coordination to synchronization, they had become an integral part of any serious force on the continent.

  Despite their heavy use in matters of state, their personal usage was typically among family. Granting him the ring in front of his parents was no accident.

  Lucius knew that his parents would never let him take the damn ring off. Now the only thing between him and Iris’s never ending onslaught of questions was his own spite.

  ‘Damn brat, I’d sooner cut my finger off then give in to her tricks.’ Lucius ground his teeth together in silent frustration.

  With a smile and a wave, Iris took off with her entourage and Lucius stormed off to the library. 'At least she should be out of my hair for a while.'