Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"What?"

"I lied about the number of categories, there is one more actually, any idea?" Milo raised an eyebrow, his face scrunching up as he thought deeply.

"Did you forget about it?"

Helena coughed and averted her gaze.

"Certainly not, just a little trick to get your brain working a bit…" she waved it off rapidly and instead questioned him again.

"I honestly have no idea, heat of mana?" he tried something random.

"Range, it is range! Find exclusive stories on mvl

Everyone got a different range within which they can interact with mana, but there are no orbs to test that aspect, if someone has a wide range, then they can counteract having low resistance by keeping some control over their spells, which, by the way, is easier than it sounds, since spells made from one’s own inner mana are easier to manipulate from a distance, so you don’t have to be great at outer manipulation for it to be possible" she drowned him in a deluge of information without mercy as she reached for an obscenely large book behind her.

"Now, we’ll go over the system, how do you view the system?" she swiftly moved on to another subject, one that was an even bigger can of worms than magic.

"Well, I see one red bar and a bunch of abstract symbols, no clue what each of those are about though, I never bothered to find out either" the system was something everyone and everything possessed, it was a constant, a rule which had yet to find its exception.

Everyone technically was equal in front of the system, it was simultaneously incredibly consistent and overwhelmingly chaotic at times, in most cases however, one could trust in its consistency.

Everyone interacted with the system differently however, Milo only had a very basic one, it was of the visual kind and wasn’t very user-friendly at all, in the amount of information it displayed, it was rather generous however.

Helena handed him a knife, which she pulled out from one of her pockets.

"Try cutting your finger a bit, keep an eye on your system" she instructed, he found it a bit difficult to willfully cut himself but he eventually managed, seeing the red bar decrease by a slight bit.

"This means that the red bar represents your ’HP’" she made quotation marks in the air.

"How many of those weird symbols do you have exactly?" having knowledge of ’HP’ was rather basic.

"Sixteen" he responded after carefully counting them, having had to take care of crops and selling them sometimes, he at least knew how to count and basic mathematics.

"Ah, it must be the stats then, is there really nothing else?" she seemed quite impressed with what he said.

There was nothing else his system seemed willing to divulge.

Helena began explaining a bunch of things in length, cramming Milo’s mental space relentlessly, he did his best not to space out but it was honestly horrific just how many things she was explaining about, all the while saying things like:

"That isn’t certain though"

"There was two sides to this, the debate is rather heated I have been told"

"No one agrees on the actual number"

"This is just speculation"

"It can vary from person to person"

On and on, etcetera and etcetera.

Without Milo noticing, the day went by with Helena still explaining things just as energetically as she had been at the start.

’No way she actually finds this enjoyable’ Milo could hardly think straight any longer, his thoughts muddled by everything he had been told today.

"We will be continuing with all the theoretical stuff, writing, reading and such for a few more weeks, then we’ll begin with live magic practice" she hammered the last nail in the coffin ruthlessly.

His face fell forward on the desk he was sitting on, crumpling the papers he had taken notes upon.

Helena tapped him on the back gently.

"Don’t be disheartened, the pain is mandatory" her encouragement didn’t help, but looking up at her rough, but cute face, he felt like he at least had to do it for one reason.

’Yes, it’s absolutely worth it’ his gaze went down from her face, Helena didn’t seem to mind.

The next few weeks went by in a flash, Milo did his best to learn everything as quickly as possible, Helena kept on happily teaching him the most obscure and nonsensically difficult things known to man, she even began speaking of history at one point.

Apparently, she wasn’t satisfied with the abject theories of magic and system, she had even begun dabbling into the specific theories for other energies despite not using them and began reading on subjects that would definitely not be of much use to her.

Milo couldn’t wrap his head around why she would willingly subject herself to all of this, but it certainly revealed something, there had been no pain for her in the learning of all of this, it was her element.

Today was the day he would attempt to manipulate mana, not make any spells or anything, he would just try to manipulate his inner mana for the next few days until his control was sufficient enough for Helena to allow him to try a spell.

"Alright, relax, breathe in and out and focus, as long as you manage to get a hold of your inner mana once, you should be able to do it much more easily after" Helena put up her palm against his chest.

"I’ll begin by manipulating your mana for you, focus on the how it feels" she instructed as she did exactly that, Milo almost yelped out loud as he felt it, it was incredibly bizarre, it was like some sort of frozen snake thing was crawling amidst and through his guts, the feeling slowly made its way throughout his whole body, down into his legs down to his toes, into his arms and all the way to his fingertips, even into his brain and eyes.

It was disorienting, but it was nothing more than a feeling and he managed to stand still without making a fool out of himself, he realised that mana truly traversed his entire body, it was everywhere all at once.

"Mana can come from anywhere in the body, but most people make it circulate starting from their hearts as the starting point, they sort of force their mana to take the same pathways as their blood, it makes the whole process much easier, but you could make it start from wherever, don’t tie yourself down with just one way of doing things, resting on the first manner you learned is a mark of sloth and mediocrity" she removed her hand and the feeling stopped instantly.

"Now try for yourself"