Frostina raised her hand, conjuring a shimmering spear of ice with barely a thought. With a sharp gesture, she sent it flying straight through the chest of a goat-like monster. The beast collapsed with a brittle crackle, its body freezing solid.

  Behind her, Yuki exhaled softly, eyes wide with quiet awe.

  “I’m still amazed you can kill those things so effortlessly, Miss Frostina.”

  Frostina sighed, half-exasperated.

  “Please, drop the ‘Miss’ already. Why does everyone in the Order treat me like I’m nobility?”

  Yuki offered a small smile, walking a few steps closer.

  “Because you’re Lady Cryssa’s friend.”

  As a commoner, Yuki was well-versed in the unspoken social codes that came with noble circles. Simply being close to someone of Cryssa’s standing was enough to earn Frostina an elevated form of address. “Miss” might not have carried the weight of a formal title like “Lady,” but it still marked her as someone to be respected.

  Frostina hadn’t asked for it. In fact, last week she’d specifically told Glacia to drop “Lady” and just call her by name, and in return, Frostina agreed to stop calling Glacia “Teacher.”

  It should’ve been a mutual step down in formality.

  Instead, Glacia compromised.

  She dropped the “Lady”... and replaced it with “Miss.”

  Then, as if it were a silent order, the rest of the Starlace Order followed suit.

  Frostina sighed every time she heard it. She felt tricked by them.

  “Anyway,” she said, brushing it off with a wave of her hand, “I’ve told you before. You could do what I’m doing too. It’s all about the fundamentals.”

  Yuki blinked.

  “You mean… mana control, mana absorption, and imagination?”

  She said the words like she still wasn’t sure if they were real or something out of a bad light novel.

  Frostina nodded.

  “Yep. That’s what Glacia taught me in another timeline. And apparently, it used to be standard curriculum in the magic academies, before the world went to hell.”

  It was true. The reason Frostina could outperform other players wasn’t because she had some hidden stat boost or broken build. In fact, her level and stats were lower than everyone else’s, since she was only able to play for less than three hours on weekdays.

  Frostina was able to reach the top rank because she understood the basics, the kind of foundational theory native to this world’s magic system. Native people could study it in formal institutions like the academy. Players, on the other hand, had to turn on Advanced Mode, which they ignored or dismissed as useless because they couldn't even get it to work.

  The game was just the system to guide the players to keep growing faster than the native, thanks to the experience they gain to level up and resurrection on death. But, it also limits their skills output based on the native’s standard. If they remove its limitation, they can perform beyond what the native could do, as long as they understood the fundamentals.

  Cryssa floated beside them in her translucent form, one leg crossed lazily over the other as she scrolled through forum posts mid-air.

  (“I didn’t study magic back at the academy. My family was all swords. I never attend the swordsmanship class though.”)

  In the human realm, magical education was a privilege reserved for nobles and royals. Commoners who wanted to learn magic had to scrape together what they could from low-level spellbooks sold in magic shops, if they were lucky enough to find one.

  Frostina smiled, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Yeah, I figured. You don’t exactly look like ‘magic scholar.’”

  Cryssa grinned.

  (“I’ll take that as a compliment.”)

  Cryssa really had no interest in learning magic, even with access to Frostina’s knowledge. Well, Frostina herself didn’t have any interest in wielding a sword either. And without prior knowledge about catastrophe, Cryssa might never try to wield a sword too.

  Yuki’s brow furrowed.

  “Glacia said she kinda gets it now… the theory, at least. But it’s still fuzzy to her.”

  Frostina knelt to absorb the frozen remains of the monster into her inventory, then stood again. Her tone was thoughtful.

  “Well, I don’t know how long she had to figure it out in that other timeline. But the fact that she grasped it at all without a formal academy is honestly impressive.”

  In Frostina’s experience, Glacia was amazing. She’d managed to piece together the fundamentals of mana control, absorption, and imagination entirely on her own, back when the world offered her no guidance. And if Frostina’s theory was correct, other Legendary-ranked mage wanderers like Yuki had probably learned the same techniques by trial and error in that alternate future.

  “The books Stelluna salvaged before the disaster don’t cover this stuff,” she added. “So I’m teaching what I remember. If you get the theory into your head now, it’ll go faster than it did in the other timeline.”

  Cryssa floated closer, stretching out like she was lounging in an invisible recliner.

  (“You’re like a sensei from some isekai now.”)

  Frostina chuckled softly, her eyes scanning the treeline for their next target.

  “Anyway, you’re already able to cast spells by channeling mana, right?”

  Yuki gave a small nod.

  “Yes. But only in the basic way.”

  Frostina tilted her head, smirking.

  “Then all you need is to train that control. Once you can do that, you can change everything.”

  She raised her staff and pointed toward a nearby boar-like monster grazing in the underbrush.

  “Here, watch this. This is a normal Ice Spear.”

  A pale-blue shard of ice the size of her arm shimmered into being and shot forward with a sharp hum. It slammed into the boar’s side. The monster staggered, shook its head, then turned toward them with a grunt, still very much alive.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Now, same spell, but with three times the mana.”

  Another spear formed in the air, identical in size, but pulsing faintly with extra glow. The moment the boar charged, the spear launched and struck its skull with a heavier thud. The monster reeled back, blood trailing from the wound, but it didn’t fall.

  Frostina’s voice dropped slightly as her third Ice Spear began to form.

  “And this… is ten times the mana.”

  She flicked her wrist. The spell launched like a bolt from a ballista. The spear pierced clean through the boar’s head and kept going, embedding itself in a distant tree.

  The monster dropped without a sound.

  Frostina turned back to Yuki.

  “It’s not just power, either. With better mana control, you can shape your spells.”

  Yuki’s eyes widened. The air shimmered, and a human-sized spear of jagged ice floated beside Frostina, its surface patterned like crystal veins.

  Frostina raised her staff again.

  “And once you’re good enough, you can multitask.”

  Another boar burst from the thicket, snarling.

  Without so much as blinking, Frostina conjured three smaller Ice Spears in a triangle formation. At the same time, a wall of ice erupted between them and the monster. The boar collided with it, stunned—just in time for the three spears to plunge through the wall like guided knives.

  It collapsed, breathless and still.

  Yuki stood frozen in place, blinking at the pile of frost and fur.

  “...Amazing.”

  The thing was, native mages in this world already understood mana. They might not be using it creatively, but the concept wasn’t foreign to them. If someone just pointed them in the right direction, they could absolutely reach that level of finesse.

  But for players?

  That was another story.

  The reason no one else could pull this off was because the system spoon-fed players too much.

  When a player uses a spell, the system just grabs the bare minimum mana point (MP) from the mana core inside the player’s body.

  For example, the mana cost of Ice Spear was five MP. But if a player goes into Advanced Mode and they control it manually, they can pour in fifty MP.

  “The more mana you invest, the more firepower you get. And it’s not just brute strength, you can reshape the spell’s form, density, even how it behaves after impact.”

  She tapped her chest lightly.

  “It all comes down to this, your mana core. That’s your internal reservoir.”

  The mana core is like an MP bar, the upper limit of how much mana the body can contain. People can’t pour fifty MP into a spell if their mana core’s limit is only ten.

  But mana core also acts as a Magic Damage stat. The damage output of an Ice Spear from a player level five would be smaller compared to level ten’s, even when both were used the same amount of MP.

  “For players, mana core expands with level. For natives like you, it grows through actual use. Your body adapts through repeated expenditure and absorption of mana.”

  Yuki asked.

  "But the downside is that controlling mana like that uses up a lot more, right?”

  “Exactly. Which is where mana absorption comes in.”

  Cryssa floated a little closer, flipping through imaginary air as if her forum page was a real book.

  (“That part still messes with my brain. You said mana’s like air?”)

  Frostina nodded.

  “More like invisible energy. It’s everywhere, people just can’t see it. Most players and natives passively absorb a bit by default. Like, 0.01 MP per second, just by breathing.”

  In this world, mana is like oxygen, present everywhere but invisible to the eye.

  Some equipment and weapons help absorb surrounding mana into the body, a mechanic known to players as the MP recovery stat.

  Frostina looked over her shoulder.

  “If you can learn to absorb it actively, then you don’t have to rely on your MP recovery stat or potions. You refill on the fly.”

  Yuki’s eyes widened again.

  “That’s what you meant by mana absorption…”

  “Yup. It’s slow at first. And exhausting. But once you get the hang of it, it changes everything.”

  Up ahead, a pack of twin-headed horned rabbits emerged from the grass, their red eyes gleaming as they twitched toward the scent of magic.

  Without breaking stride, Frostina raised her staff.

  An enormous Ice Spear, long as a supply cart, formed in mid-air and launched with a crack of frost, impaling one rabbit clean through. Before its twin heads even hit the dirt, another spear formed and fired. Then another. And another.

  By the time the last body hit the ground, the Ice Spears dissipated.

  Yuki just stared.

  “...There’s no upper limit?”

  Frostina flicked her fingers, casually dissipating the remaining traces of cold magic in the air.

  “Exactly. Although tiring your body, you can absorb as fast as you can control the mana around you. But most people never train that control. They don’t even realize it’s an option.”

  The natives who learned it properly had died from the catastrophe. And players didn’t even know if the mana truly exists in this world rather than just another stat of the game.

  Some players tried to turn on the Advanced Mode setting, but they couldn’t activate their spells at all. Even professional players couldn’t feel the surrounding mana.

  So the Advanced Mode setting was considered useless, no one used it except Frostina, and the books explaining it were dismissed as just useless lore by players.

  Most players dismissed these mechanics as just numbers, MP, cooldowns, nothing more. The system makes it too convenient.

  “And lastly, imagination.”

  Cryssa glanced up from her floating forum window, spinning lazily in the air.

  (“That’s the part that lets you cast without chanting, right?”)

  Frostina nodded as she knelt to stash the fresh monster carcasses into her inventory.

  “Yes. The chant is really just a mental guide. It helps your brain visualize the spell you're trying to cast. But if you can picture it clearly enough in your head... you don’t need to say a single word.”

  She stood and brushed the dirt from her gloves.

  “Most people rely on short incantations like shouting the spell name for basic spells, or full chants for advanced ones. That’s how magic’s always been taught. But if you skip the chant entirely and shape the image in your mind alone, that’s chantless casting.”

  Chantless casting was considered an advanced technique mastered only by a handful, like Royal Mages. Glacia in another timeline mentioned it was the hardest thing she learned by herself.

  But for people from Earth who grew up reading novels, imagining battle scenes or favorite characters came as second nature. Imagination wasn’t a gift, it was a trained reflex, from years of daydreams, novels, manga and anime. Though, sometimes, Frostina needs to chant in a real, fast-paced battle. After all, the human brain has a limit. Cast a spell, move the body, and think of a strategy in real-time at the same time were not an easy task to do.

  Cryssa hovered nearby, idly flipping through her floating forum window again.

  (“Oh! There’s already a thread comparing magic stats by race.”)

  She tapped to expand the post.

  (“Let’s see…”)

  She scrolled through the thread while reading aloud, her voice light with curiosity.

  (“Humans, vampires, dwarves, and the winged races all have similar damage output and MP costs, so they’re used as the baseline standard.”)

  (“Elves and dark elves deal double the firepower at half the MP cost… but they can’t use sword skills.”)

  (“Foxkin also have half the MP cost, but damage output for their sword skill also halved.”)

  She kept reading.

  (“Atlanteans don’t use MP at all. They get double spell power as long as they’re in water, but they’re locked to only water and ice elements.”)

  (“And... demonkin can’t use light-element spells. Seraphims can’t use dark.”)

  (“Catkin, wolfkin, juggernauts, and dreadknights can’t use magic at all, but apparently they have their own combat specialties.”)

  Frostina let out a quiet chuckle as she listened to Cryssa's commentary, her boots crunching softly against the frost-dusted path.

  “If my guess is right, Atlanteans draw mana directly from the surrounding water. So the system sets their spell cost to zero while they’re submerged.”

  She paused, thoughtful.

  “I still don’t know what makes water-based mana different from atmospheric mana. But it must be more stable, or denser.”

  A breeze whispered through the trees. Frostina slowed, then came to a full stop, turning to face the others.

  “If I remember correctly... not long after players started comparing magic and sword mechanics between races in the forum, the game dropped its first global event.”

  As soon as she said that, a soft chime echoed through the air.

  Ting!

  A system window blinked into existence, floating just above their heads in shimmering golden text.

  ? World Announcement! ?

  ? The first world event will begin in 72 hours. ?

  ? Further details can be found on the event page. ?