"What?" Icariel asked
Aelar's voice was calm, but the weight behind it was unmistakable.
"Like I said…" he repeated, now standing just a few steps from Icariel. "How are you able to cast spells, use something like Spirit Zone, and contain that much mana inside your body... without a mana core or magic circles?"
Icariel's eyes widened. His chest tightened as his thoughts scrambled. "What… what do you mean?" he asked carefully.
Aelar's voice shifted into teaching mode, as though hoping logic could explain the impossible.
"Every creature is born with a mana core. It stores your mana. It's located at the center of the stomach. That's how humans are able to use and store mana in the first place."
He held up a hand.
"Now, mages—when they gather more mana and evolve—they begin forming magic circles. These circles replace the core over time, storing and shaping far greater power. With each stage, the mage grows. Their spells grow. Everything advances."
Aelar's gaze darkened slightly.
"I could understand if you lacked a mana core but had magic circles. That would make sense despite your young age. But you… you don't have either."
His emerald eyes shimmered faintly, his elven vision activating.
"And yet…" Aelar muttered, almost to himself. "Your body…"
He looked deeper.
Icariel's entire body glowed.
His stomach radiated with pure light-blue mana—but so did his chest, his arms, his shoulders, even his eyes. It wasn't just located in one place. His body was saturated with mana—head to toe.
"I can't teach you properly," Aelar finally said, voice polite but heavy. "Not if I don't understand what I'm teaching."
Icariel froze.
The voice came, uninvited, into his mind like the shift of wind through branches.
"Icariel."
He didn't move, only listened.
"You were born with a mana core like everyone else, and you know that since you refined it as much as you could. But when you started training with me and pushed your body to absorb more mana than it should… the core couldn't handle it. Neither could magic circles. Because mana core and magic circles are meant to have a fixed amount of mana stored inside them. They're containers. You're not meant to be contained."
"You breathe mana in with every breath. It seeps into your skin, your muscles, your thoughts—in simple words, everywhere inside your body. That's the effect of the White Sense. If I had let your body form a magic circle or keep the core intact, it would've been possible, but that would mean you'd never become a Superhuman or Swordmaster. That's why your mana spreads across your whole body. And that's for the better."
Icariel exhaled silently, still hearing the weight in Aelar's voice.
"Now," the voice added, "I know what you're thinking. 'What do I say to him?' You don't need to lie. Just tell him the truth."
"Say this: 'I didn't know about any of this until now, when you mentioned it.' Because… it's the truth."
A faint smile twitched at Icariel's lips. He responded silently: "You really are the best, aren't you?"
The voice didn't answer.
Icariel turned his eyes upward, meeting Aelar's again—green meeting black, storm meeting stillness.
"To be honest," Icariel said, voice calm, "I didn't know anything about this until you just mentioned it to me right now."
Aelar watched him like a hawk. But his senses—trained to detect falsehood—found nothing. No lies. Nothing hidden.
And that made it even stranger.
"But I don't have any trouble casting spells," Icariel continued, his tone steady. "In fact, I cast faster than other mages. Your daughter Elif told me so after seeing me use my spells. If you still want to teach me, I don't think I have a problem using magic like mages… I'm ready to learn."
Aelar stood silent for a long moment. The forest whispered faintly around them.
Then he finally smiled.
"Fine. Who am I to judge? If you can learn what I'm about to teach and use it without a problem… then who cares how you're doing it? It just bothered me a little."
He shook his head with a small laugh. "Sorry for troubling your mind."
Icariel nodded once.
"Then, to change to the main topic—what has Elif told you about healing magic?" Aelar asked, his arms folded as he paced in front of Icariel.
Icariel answered without hesitation, "She said I need to be calm… to have a strong desire to heal, and to let mana sacrifice itself in response to that desire."
Aelar nodded. "Exactly. That's what she was taught. And she's right—for regular healing."
"But," he added, stepping closer, his tone sharpening, "if you want to cast healing spells in mid-battle, without stopping, without restraint… then that changes."
Icariel's black eyes narrowed slightly, listening intently.
"First," Aelar said, "you can't be calm. You need to panic. You need to believe—no, you need to feel—that every cut, every blow, might be fatal. You have to imagine death hovering over your shoulder. That's the mindset."
Icariel blinked, unsure if he heard correctly. "I need to… panic?"
"Yes," Aelar said firmly. "The second step is the desire. It has to match that panic. Your will to survive must respond to the belief that you're moments from death."
He raised two fingers. "And third… the sacrifice. Just like before, but sharper. More precise. Either external mana must respond to you—or your own internal mana must obey. Occasionally, at an incredibly rare rate…"
He hesitated.
"A human emotion is taken. Pain. Joy. Grief or others. But that's almost a myth. Almost zero chance of happening. Exaggerated by old elves with too much wine."
Icariel clenched his jaw, his brows furrowed. "So if I understand it right… I can't be calm when casting it mid-battle. I have to feel like every strike might kill me. But—doesn't that make me vulnerable? Won't it slow me down against a real monster or an enemy?"
"Yes," Aelar said. "It will. At first."
He smiled, a wild flicker in his eyes. "But that's why I'm here. I'll train you until that weakness becomes your strength. Like I did with myself."
Icariel looked down at his hands, the memory of healing himself still fresh.
"To be honest…" he said, "just mastering a healing spell was enough for me. But the idea that I could use it while fighting—that I can add that to my arsenal…" He smiled faintly. "Why not? I'll take it. I'm grateful."
Aelar laughed. "Good. But I won't lie. It will be hard. Really hard. Even among this tribe of elves, only a few—barely a handful—have ever mastered it."
His voice softened.
"But you… a human kid casting healing spells already? I believe you can learn it too."
"And if you don't," he added, "don't worry. I'll teach you something else. I owe you my daughter's life. I'll repay that debt—no matter how."
Icariel looked up at him and nodded. "As you say."
Aelar's smile shifted to something sharper.
"Then let's begin. To learn this ability…" he said, stepping back, "you're going to spar with me." Aelar grinned.
"Sparring?" Icariel repeated, taking a step back. "But… I don't even know how to fight. What kind of sparring are we talking about?"
His thoughts raced. "The voice only trained me like a mage… how to use spells, how to manipulate mana, how to protect myself. Not how to actually fight."
"You mean to tell me," Aelar asked, arching a brow, "you don't know any combat style?"
Icariel shook his head. "No. That's what I've been trying to say. I only know how to hunt animals since I lived in the mountains. That's it. I learned spells to survive and protect myself, not fists or blades."
Aelar stared at him for a moment—and then chuckled under his breath.
"You really aren't lying," he muttered, eyes glinting with curiosity. "What an interesting kid…"
He turned fully toward Icariel, his expression changing into something sharper—wilder.
"No problem then," Aelar said. "It just means you'll get wounded more. You're going to need that movable healing spell badly since I won't give you a single moment to stop and use a healing spell on yourself."
He grinned. Not kindly. Not cruelly. But like someone who had lived through fire and wanted to see if the boy before him could do the same.
"Either adapt… or suffer," Aelar said, "and earn it the hardest way possible."
Without warning, he bent down and snapped a long, straight tree branch from the ground—roughly the size and shape of a sword. He twirled it once in his hand, testing the weight.
Then—ffft.
A blur.
A shallow line appeared on Icariel's cheek. Blood beaded.
Icariel's eyes widened. He hadn't even seen the move.
Aelar pointed the branch at him like a sword.
"Training starts now."
His voice was calm—but the challenge in it was unmistakable.
"The longer it takes for you to learn… the more you'll suffer."
Icariel wiped the blood from his cheek, eyes locked onto Aelar's.
He didn't reply.
But something in him clicked.