Now... that was interesting.
But there was no point listening to the conversation any longer, so I started walking toward my dorm again. The problem was that to get there, I would have to pass directly by where they were standing.
Normally, this road had a decent amount of traffic. Students were constantly moving between their dormitories, classrooms, training grounds, and the academy gates. But right now, things were completely different.
Most of the students had yet to return to the academy.
Those who had already arrived were mostly wandering around and enjoying themselves. The Third Year Event wasn't limited to the academy either. Academy City itself was overflowing with activities that normally wouldn't happen, so there was plenty for students to see and enjoy.
Then there were the students who had never left in the first place.
The volunteers.
They had been working throughout the preparations for the event, handling whatever jobs needed to be done. Those who weren't busy were either resting or taking advantage of the rare free time to enjoy the atmosphere.
Basically, this particular road was almost completely empty.
So I simply walked toward them at my usual pace.
The first person whose perception I entered was Valen.
That was completely normal.
He was a powerhouse, after all. Someone like him naturally had an enormous perception range, so there was no reason to be surprised that he noticed me long before I reached them.
Valen turned his head in my direction.
His eyes briefly examined me.
Then he found nothing problematic and looked at me normally.
Soon after, the Empress noticed where Valen was looking and turned her head as well.
Her gaze landed on me.
For a moment, she simply looked at me casually.
There was no particular interest in her eyes. She was merely looking at someone who had entered her field of vision.
That made sense.
After all, as far as she knew, I was Elric.
And Elric had never met her.
Now, you might think I should avoid looking at them.
After all, wouldn't staring at an Empress be considered strange?
Actually, the opposite was true.
Not looking would be strange.
The Empress was a beautiful woman dressed in clothing befitting her status. She wasn't exactly someone a person could casually ignore when walking past her.
And beside her was Rhiannon.
The imperial princess.
She was fairly famous throughout the academy as well, not only because of her identity but because she was beautiful and had ranked second in her year.
So, really...
Who in their right mind wouldn't look at them?
I certainly wasn't going to pretend I was blind just to appear polite or to hide my real appearance.
So I looked at them too.
Just naturally.
Nothing excessive.
Nothing suspicious.
Just the same kind of glance anyone would give when walking past two incredibly noticeable people.
Our gazes didn't linger.
I simply passed them and continued toward my dorm.
Once I entered my room, I closed the door behind me and immediately headed toward the bed.
By now, I assumed whatever problem the main cast had encountered had already been solved. They were probably enjoying themselves somewhere, especially considering how much was happening throughout Academy City.
I'd meet them tomorrow if I felt like it.
For now, I wanted to rest.
Riding was exhausting.
At least, that's what I had learned from experience.
It didn't matter whether I was riding a Wyvern or a Sky Dog. Sitting on something while it moved at high speed for hours sounded easy until you actually did it.
The constant movement, maintaining balance, adjusting your body, dealing with wind...
Yeah.
It was tiring.
Thinking that, I jumped onto the bed.
Literally.
My body bounced slightly against the mattress before I settled down and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, the Third Year Event would finally begin.
The first part would be the Battle Royale.
And that made sense.
There were almost a thousand Third Year students participating. Making them fight individually from the beginning would take an absurd amount of time.
And this wasn't some small academy tournament.
Important figures from all over the world would be gathering here to watch the event.
Some of them were already present.
The Empress herself was one of them.
So the academy couldn't exactly afford to drag the event out forever.
A Battle Royale was the perfect way to reduce the number of participants quickly.
After that, the remaining students would fight one-on-one until only a single person remained.
Of course, the students themselves didn't know any of this.
The format changed every year.
The academy deliberately kept the event's details hidden until it began, which meant the Third Years had no idea what kind of challenges they were going to face.
I was different.
I already knew.
I'd read the novel.
I knew exactly what was coming.
The problem was that knowing something and actually seeing it were two completely different things.
I stared at the ceiling for a while.
I wasn't physically exhausted.
My body felt perfectly fine.
As expected of The Devourer, physical exhaustion wasn't exactly something I needed to worry about anymore.
My exhaustion was mental.
And unfortunately, lying on a bed didn't do much for that.
If anything, it gave my mind even more freedom to wander.
Maybe I should train.
With that thought, I sat up.
Then I climbed off the bed and sat down on the floor.
I crossed my legs, straightened my back, and closed my eyes.
Mana training.
Everyone who lived in this world knew what mana was.
Children learned about it before they even learned how to properly hold a sword, while nobles often had tutors explain its importance to them before they were old enough to understand why it mattered.
But knowing what mana was and knowing how to train it were two completely different things.
I had learned that the hard way.
Well...
Technically, I had learned it because I once lost a quiz.
There had been some unofficial quiz held by fans with prize money attached to it, and I'd lost because I hadn't paid enough attention to the this.
It wasn't embarrassing. But losing prize still felt bad.
Especially because I technically had access to information that should have made answering those questions easy.
Anyway, back to the point.
Mana wasn't something I could simply find floating around me and pull into my body.
It wasn't some invisible substance waiting in the air for me to collect.
My body produced mana on its own.
That was how mana worked in this world.
I mean, I could probably try absorbing mana from the environment if I really wanted to.
But that would be sucide. So let's leave Nature Mana for Nature Force.
The mana inside my body belonged to me because my body had created it.
That was the first thing anyone needed to understand about mana training.
I focused my attention inward.
My eyes remained closed as I concentrated on the mana inside my body.
I could feel it.
Mana wasn't exactly like blood.
It had its own flow, its own pressure, and its own rhythm.
It moved through pathways within my body, circulating through me before returning to the system that produced and maintained it.
At least, that was the simplest way to describe it.
The actual process was far more complicated.
Mana training wasn't about creating as much mana as possible in the shortest amount of time.
That was one of the biggest mistakes beginners could make.
More mana sounded better.
More mana meant more power.
More power meant a stronger mage.
Simple, right?
Wrong.
The body had limits. And power wasn't about amount but density.
Since mana was produced by the body itself, increasing mana production placed additional stress on that system.
If I forced my body to produce mana faster than it could safely handle, I wasn't necessarily becoming stronger.
I was simply overworking the system responsible for producing and managing it.
It was similar to physical training.
If I wanted stronger muscles, I couldn't spend twenty-four hours lifting the heaviest weight I could find. Eventually, my muscles would give out, and I could injure myself badly enough that I'd become weaker rather than stronger.
Mana training worked on a similar principle.
The difference was that physical damage was easy to recognize.
If I lifted something too heavy, my arm would shake.
If I ran too far, my legs would become tired.
If I pushed my body beyond what it could handle, I would know.
Mana wasn't nearly as convenient.
Damage could happen somewhere deep inside my body without leaving an obvious external sign.
A person could continue training while unknowingly damaging their own mana pathways.
And by the time they realized something was wrong, it might already be too late.
That was why control mattered just as much as quantity.
At least, that was how it worked for ordinary people.
In my case...
I could afford a little more recklessness.
The Devourer's Gift made sure of that.
Any damage I caused to my body could eventually be healed.
That included damage to my mana pathways.
So technically, I could push myself much harder than a normal person.
If I broke something, Nature Force could help repair it.
If I damaged myself, I could recover.
If I went too far, I could simply heal and try again.
But that didn't mean I should be careless.
Healing damage didn't automatically mean I had learned how to avoid causing it.
And if I wanted to become better at using spells, I needed control.
There was no point possessing an enormous amount of mana if I couldn't manipulate it properly.
So even though I could afford the damage, I still wanted to train correctly too.