I took a slow breath.
Then I began.
I didn't immediately force my mana production upward.
Instead, I observed my current state.
How much mana was available?
How quickly was my body producing it?
How smoothly was it circulating?
Was the flow stable?
Was there any unusual pressure?
Those questions mattered.
When someone trained their mana, they were essentially putting controlled stress on the system that produced and handled it.
The purpose wasn't to destroy that system.
The purpose was to make it adapt.
If I trained properly, my body would gradually become better at producing mana. My production would become more efficient, my reserves would increase, and my ability to control the mana inside me would improve.
It was essentially conditioning.
The same way muscles became stronger when exposed to appropriate stress, the body's ability to produce and handle mana could improve through proper training.
But the improvement didn't happen instantly.
That was where impatience became dangerous.
And, unfortunately, Nature Force wasn't exactly helping me in that regard.
There was a certain temptation that came with knowing I could simply heal the damage.
If I pushed too hard and broke my mana pathways, so what?
They would heal.
If I damaged myself again?
They would heal again.
It was very easy to start thinking that way.
And Nature Force only made that temptation slightly stronger.
Still, I couldn't allow myself to become dependent on it.
I needed control.
If I kept intentionally destroying my mana pathways every single time I trained, then I wasn't really improving my control.
I was just using regeneration as a shortcut.
That might allow me to increase my mana production faster, but it wouldn't necessarily make me better at controlling it.
And control was what I needed.
I slowly increased the activity of my mana.
At first, the change was barely noticeable.
Then I felt it.
A slight increase in pressure.
I kept it there.
I didn't immediately push harder.
That was another common mistake.
People thought that if a certain level of pressure made them stronger, doubling it would make them twice as strong.
It didn't work that way.
The body needed time to adapt.
If I suddenly forced a massive increase in mana production, the amount of mana inside my body could rise faster than my pathways and control could handle.
And that was when things could go wrong.
The first problem was instability.
Mana wasn't supposed to move violently through the body.
It needed to circulate smoothly.
If I forced too much mana through a pathway too quickly, the pressure could become excessive. Instead of flowing naturally, the mana could become turbulent.
And that turbulence wasn't harmless.
It could cause pain.
It could disrupt my concentration.
It could interfere with my ability to control mana.
And if I continued despite those warning signs, the consequences could become much worse.
The pathways themselves could be damaged.
In an ordinary person, that could mean weeks, months, or even years of recovery.
Some might never fully recover.
Others could permanently lose part of their ability to produce or control mana.
There were stories of people who had pushed themselves too far during training and ended up unable to circulate mana properly.
All because they wanted to become stronger a little faster.
I understood the temptation.
Everyone wanted power.
Especially someone who knew how dangerous this world could be.
But power gained recklessly wasn't necessarily power.
Sometimes, it was simply a delayed injury.
I can handle damage so I will use that fact but also focus on control.
I maintained the pressure.
My breathing remained slow.
My concentration remained steady.
The mana continued circulating.
I could feel my body working.
There were no explosions of light.
No overwhelming surge of power.
No dramatic transformation.
Just a slow, controlled process happening inside me.
That was what real mana training looked like.
It was boring.
Painfully boring sometimes.
But boring was good.
Boring meant I wasn't doing something stupid.
I gradually increased the demand placed on my body.
Just enough.
Then I held it there.
My body responded by increasing mana production.
I could feel the difference.
It wasn't enormous.
It didn't need to be.
The goal wasn't to reach my absolute limit every time I trained.
The goal was to teach my body that this level of mana production was something it needed to handle.
Then, after enough repetition, I could increase it again.
Little by little.
Again and again.
Until something that once felt difficult became normal.
That was how strength was built.
I continued circulating my mana.
Then I made another adjustment.
Instead of focusing purely on production, I focused on efficiency.
This was something many people overlooked.
Two people could possess the same amount of mana and still have completely different levels of strength.
Why?
Because having mana and using mana were two different things.
If I wasted a large amount of mana every time I used a spell, having a massive reserve wouldn't completely solve the problem.
Efficiency mattered.
Control mattered.
Precision mattered.
If I could achieve the same result while using less mana, I would effectively have more mana available to me.
That was why simply increasing my reserves wasn't enough.
I needed my body to produce mana efficiently.
I needed my pathways to handle it efficiently.
And I needed to control it efficiently.
Every part of the process mattered.
I slowly increased the flow again.
This time, I pushed slightly harder.
The pressure increased.
Then it happened.
A sharp pain ran through my mana pathways.
I immediately recognized it.
I had pushed too far.
Normally, that would have been the point where a person should stop.
I didn't.
Instead, I carefully maintained the pressure for a moment longer.
Pain intensified.
My mana pathways were beginning to strain.
The Devourer's Gift handled it.
The damage started healing almost immediately.
The pain faded.
I exhaled.
That was one of the advantages I had.
I could deliberately push past a limit that other people couldn't.
But I wasn't doing this simply because I enjoyed hurting myself.
There was a reason.
I wanted to understand exactly where my limit was.
More importantly, I wanted to make that limit move.
Still, I couldn't rely on this method all the time.
Breaking my pathways wasn't the same thing as training them properly.
If I destroyed them every day, I would only be wasting time.
What I wanted was adaptation.
The damage was merely something I could afford to use as an additional push.
A shortcut.
Nothing more.
I continued training.
Again and again, I increased the pressure slightly.
Whenever I reached a point where my control began to slip, I focused on stabilizing the flow instead of simply forcing more mana through it.
That was the part I cared about most.
Control.
I wanted to be able to take a large amount of mana and move it exactly where I wanted.
Not approximately.
Not eventually.
Exactly.
That mattered for spells.
It mattered even more during sword fighting.
Mana wasn't only something I could use to cast spells.
I could reinforce my body with it , though it was as aura.
Strengthen my movements.
Increase the power behind a strike.
Improve my speed.
Support my reactions.
All of that required control.
If my mana suddenly surged at the wrong moment while I was fighting, it could ruin my movement.
If too much mana entered a limb, my movement could become inefficient.
If I failed to reinforce my body properly, I could waste mana without gaining anything useful.
And if I tried to use a spell while my mana was unstable...
That could become a serious problem.
So I kept practicing.
Production.
Circulation.
Control.
Efficiency.
Capacity.
Every part had to improve together.
If one became significantly stronger while another remained weak, the imbalance could become dangerous.
It was like building a road.
There was no point increasing the number of vehicles if the road couldn't handle the traffic.
Eventually, something would break.
Mana was no different.
My body was the source.
My pathways were the routes.
My control was what kept everything moving properly when I cast spells or used mana for sword fighting.
If I neglected any one of those things, sooner or later, I would pay for it.
I pushed a little harder one final time.
Pain appeared again.
I allowed myself to endure it for a moment before reducing the pressure.
The damaged pathways immediately began repairing themselves.
I didn't increase the pressure again.
That was enough.
There was no reason to keep going simply because I could.
I opened my eyes.
My breathing was slightly heavier than before, but it wasn't because I was physically exhausted.
The breathing was mostly a response to the pain.
I'd broken my mana pathways several times during the training, and even though Nature Force healed them, the process still hurt.
Healing didn't make pain disappear.
It only made the consequences temporary.
I could still feel mana circulating smoothly inside me.
That was enough.
I didn't need to completely drain my mana every day.
In fact, doing so constantly wasn't necessarily a good idea.
The body needed time to recover and adapt.
Training created stress.
Without enough recovery, stress could simply accumulate.
That was true for muscles.
It was true for the mind.
And it was true for mana.
Though, in my case, I was only concerned about mental exhaustion.
There were too many powerful individuals gathering in Academy City right now.
The Empress was here.
Valen was here.
Other important figures from around the world would soon arrive as well.
I could afford some physical damage which heals.
I couldn't afford to have my mind become dull because I had exhausted myself before the event even began.
A tired body could be healed.
A distracted mind could get me in problems.
I slowly released the remaining tension in my body.
The mana settled into its normal rhythm.
I could feel the difference between forcing something and controlling it.
Forcing mana was easy.
Control was difficult.
Anyone could push harder when they didn't care about the consequences.
The difficult part was knowing exactly how far to go.
And more importantly, learning how to control what came after that point.
That was what I was trying to learn.
I wasn't training my mana simply to have a larger reserve.
I was training my entire body to become better at handling mana.
Production.
Circulation.
Control.
Efficiency.
Capacity.
Every part mattered.
I couldn't afford to neglect any of them.
I stood up slowly.
There was still a faint heaviness inside my mind, the kind that came after concentrating for a long time.
It wasn't exactly exhaustion.
It was something subtler.
The feeling that I had pushed myself enough to improve without unnecessarily damaging myself.
That was exactly what I wanted.
Of course, I could always use Nature Force to increase the speed of my growth.
A little damage here.
A little healing there.
If I used that properly, I could push my body beyond what ordinary people could safely endure.
And that was one of the ways I could keep up with the protagonist.
I wasn't going to pretend that I could simply train normally and expect the same results as someone who had been at the center of this world's story.
If I wanted to stand beside him, I needed every advantage I had.
But I also needed control.
Because eventually, raw power wouldn't be enough.
Tomorrow, I would train again.
And the day after that.
Then the day after that.
One small improvement at a time.
The Third Year Event was about to begin.
And while everyone else was preparing to show the world what they had achieved over the years...
I was preparing myself to survive whatever came next.